From Deseret News archives:
Marine says his goodbye to war
During an eight-month tour in Iraq, the 24-year-old Salt Lake City native was one of 54 men in a Marine military police unit assigned the dangerous task of protecting convoys traveling in and out of a central Iraq military camp.
Some days he traveled from the camp near Ar Ramadi to Baghdad, Tikrit and most of the other Iraqi towns commonly recognized now from news headlines. Some treks were short, such as the 25 miles between Ar Ramadi and Fallujah. His longest was a seven-day sleepless tour to the Syrian border.
It is one of the military's most treacherous jobs, because convoys are big, slow-moving targets for insurgents.
Imagine protecting a parade. Van Wagoner says that's what it was like securing the lumbering military convoys day after day. The shortest convoys were 10 to 15 vehicles slow, heavy trucks carrying food, supplies and troops over rough, dirty roads. The longest stretched for a mile and a half and was nearly 30 vehicles long.
And 100-meter intervals between trucks is safest, he added. "So if one gets hit by an IAD, then it takes out that one truck and no one else."
Van Wagoner is soft-spoken, and he talks easily of bombs and bullets that fell and flew around him every day, of frequent ambushes, of the ways he and others went about "assaulting the attack" against insurgents who fired upon the convoys.
After eight months in the far-away country, war-front jargon still slips easily into his speech. The "impact area." The "kill zone."
Incidents from early in his tour are indelibly cut in his memory. "Like the mortar that hits right next to you when you are sleeping, and the roof starts caving in around you," he says. "You never forget those things."
So no way will he go back. Despite lucrative offers, he will not return to Iraq.
A private security firm offered him $12,000 a month to work in Iraq, and the Marine dangled a $20,000 offer to sign on for another four years.
But in March, Van Wagoner walked away from it all.
He says he was never so happy as the day he was discharged from the Marines. It's just a "crappy situation" in Iraq right now, he says, and he has spent enough time in the U.S. Marine Corps.
"It was a good experience, but it's just not for me any more," Van Wagoner said.
Comments
- Salvation Army kettle stolen 9:05 a.m.
- Charges filed in ATM theft 9:05 a.m.
- Army teams nurture mental health 9:04 a.m.
- Man suspected of killing family 9:04 a.m.
- Black-white turnout key in Atlanta 9:02 a.m.
- Attorney: Demjanjuk treated harshly 9:02 a.m.
- 3 Spanish aid workers kidnapped 8:56 a.m.
- Russian train crash toll hits 26 8:55 a.m.
- Stock market looks to consumers 8:52 a.m.
- Big Bang machine beats record 7:58 a.m.
- Hall mouths off about hate of Utah
- Y. student vanished in China
- BYU is champion of the state
- Max Hall issues apology
- Hall's pain reflects self-betrayal
- Cougars beat Utes in overtime
- Boy shot following traffic stop
- Cougs begin bowl preparations
- Marriage definitions vary widely
- Field goals, penalties doomed Utes
- Hall mouths off about hate of Utah
872 - Cougars beat Utes in overtime
477 - Max Hall issues apology
217 - BYU is champion of the state
138 - Man trapped in Nutty Putty cave dies
119 - Cave to be sealed with body inside
116 - Hall's pain reflects self-betrayal
109 - Rivalry Week is highly profane
90 - Hall's legacy measured today
79 - Utes fall to Seattle U. at home
65
I wanted to tell them not to go. I dropped subtle hints. "My money is on...
When I was a kid, I worshipped my grandpa. He was undoubtedly my hero....
Re-posting Hall's comments just serves to further stir up fury instead of...
I only waited five minutes at the Orem In-n-Out. That was on the way to the...
For all you that are saying that RES doesn't have good security they do, YOU...
Europeans won't let that happen. i promise
The Utes get last year. Yep, Kruger is still open, open enough to get a...
The kid had a gun a shot was fired, the officer shot him. enough said . Now...
Utah fans- You need to thank Max for giving you something to focus on after...
against all odds, the deseret news is SPOT ON
No response = good, calming response = better. Max was incredibly foolish...
Nice viewpoint Amy. Well thought out and substantiated by the quotes you...




You can be the first to comment on this story.