When he returned home, the tenor of training had changed. He was sent to classes in urban combat and guerrilla tactics. Some Marines took quick Arabic language courses.

He was deployed again eight months later and landed in Mohammadiyah, 10 miles south of Baghdad.

The Marines worked hard training with the Iraqi police but had frustrating setbacks. "We'd meet with them, and everything we'd given them — the weapons, equipment, everything — would have been taken away by the enemy," he said.

The guerilla insurgent fighters would never come out and battle toe to toe with the Marines, he said. "It was a hard fight to fight because there really wasn't any enemy to aim at."

Especially at night.

Back and his colleagues were headed back to camp after working on a bridge all day. It was just after midnight, the day after Easter 2004. Driving along, Back said he had a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Butterflies," he said, "like something wasn't right."

Out of the dark, Back saw a tracer fly overhead. "All of a sudden they were everywhere. Everyone was shooting." The crew was being ambushed.

A rocket-propelled grenade bounced off their rig and landed two feet away. There was chaos all around and the deafening roar of gunfire. Even the doctor on board rose with a shotgun and began blasting away.

"It's sad to say, but it does go like a war movie. Things slow down, it gets quiet and you just do your job."

Then a bomb exploded just in back of his vehicle, which threw him forward just as another bomb exploded just in front of his Humvee. He noted for a split second that he was cradled between the two explosions.

And that brings him back to wife Virginia's assertion about "angel overtime."

"Not one of our guys was hit or wounded," he said.

James Back

Rank: Sergeant

Unit: Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines, 2nd Marine Division

Tour: August 2002-May 2003; March 2004-October 2004

Residence: Mapleton

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E-mail: lucy@desnews.com