Utahn's surreal life in Iraq over

CENTERVILLE — Robert Gross has no military experience. He never served in Vietnam, never put on a uniform, never saluted an officer.

The man is a 53-year-old former banker. And yet for the past five months he has been in Iraq, wearing flak jackets, packing assault rifles and 9 mm handguns.

Gross, former head of First Interstate Bank of Utah and the state Department of Workforce Services, went to Iraq last January as a senior adviser to its minister of labor and social affairs. He was there to help alleviate the country's massive unemployment rate (as much as 50 percent) and establish employment and social programs.

He reported directly to Ambassador Paul Bremer, Iraq's top U.S. civilian official.

Upon Gross' return Saturday, part of the governing coalition's gradual exodus in preparation for the June 30 government turnover, he shed a few discreet tears.

"I am very glad to be back," he said after greeting his wife and two children. "Utah never looked so good, coming over the mountain."

Gross' experiences in Iraq were so foreign to his sedate Centerville life that they could be described as "surreal," his wife, Kristine, said.

"It's so out of our realm of everyday living. He kept telling us (in their frequent e-mails and phone calls) that we need to be thankful for what we have here," she said.

On Gross' first day in Iraq, he was riding in a car when the Army colonel next to him dropped an AK-47 in his lap. This was not a trivial or humorous gesture — Gross was expected to be ready for instant use of the weapon.

"I took it and cocked it, and I was ready to go," he said.

Other culture shocks were in store. Gross became accustomed to almost nightly rocket attacks and constant gunfire while sleeping in his trailer in Baghdad's green zone, a four-to-five-square-mile area surrounding the presidential palace serving as the headquarters of the coalition.

"If (the rockets) were not within 200, 300 meters, we would roll over and go back to sleep," he said.

When the attacks were closer, which happened frequently, Gross and other coalition members would abandon their trailers and retreat to bomb shelters under the palace.

Gun battles — small potatoes. Not even worth worrying about.