Soldier questions his role in Iraq

When the 1457th Engineer Battalion was activated in early February 2003, there were many unanswered questions. Among them were whether or not the United States would be going to war with Iraq and exactly what would be the role of our battalion in or out of conflict. As a soldier of that battalion, I had many other questions of a personal nature: What would happen to my wife and five children if I left for a year, and what would happen to my job and career? Since I was in the second semester of a doctorate program, what would happen to my schools? And how would I handle the stresses of combat? As a battalion of "weekend warriors" in the National Guard, our role would become defined.

The last week of April 2003, our battalion was sent to southwest Asia in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The second phase of our deployment was another layover in the nation of Kuwait as we waited to hear what unit we would be working with on a full-time basis.

Here is where additional questions started to appear. Within our first week of being "in-country" we were able to hear the president declare that combat operations were over and that the official rebuilding of Iraq had begun. One of my new questions: If combat was over, what would we, combat engineers, be doing? We were told that there were many tasks that required our expertise. After four weeks in Kuwait, our battalion was attached to the First Armored Division's Engineer Brigade and we were on our way to Baghdad, Iraq.

The third, and current, phase of our deployment has been our time here in Baghdad. After living in Iraq for 102 days and being separated from our families for 204 days, my squad has worked in our specialty for 10 percent of the time. I'm not saying the other 81 days in Baghdad have been spent lying around doing nothing, we have been busy. We have hauled gravel, excavated a bombing site, cleaned up the amusement park adjacent to the Baghdad Zoo, worked traffic control, and, on many occasions, been tasked as a security element for convoy travel and work-site protection.