Iraq war grinds on into its 6th year

A snapshot of the war in Iraq shows service members and their families at home share a common list of hopes and concerns as the war reaches its fifth anniversary today.

With no political milestone in the works on this anniversary, this snapshot is drawn from the daily work of one Utah Army National Guard organization, the 116th Engineer's security forces company, which has an all-volunteer group of soldiers providing security for military convoys in northern Iraq.

The group is nearing the end of a one-year deployment. None of its members has been killed, but five have received Purple Heart awards since January.

Most of the injuries behind those medals included concussions. All of the concussions were the result of the blast of an improvised explosive device, which 2nd Lt. Brent Taylor agrees is the deadliest threat soldiers face.

"The insurgents learned early on that they could not match the U.S. forces in terms of tactics or firepower, so they turned to the IEDs, which they can use without having to expose themselves to a direct engagement."

Taylor is the 116th's executive officer. At home his wife, Jennie, is the 116th's Family Readiness Group leader. She keeps track of the wives, girlfriends and sometimes the parents of the deployed soldiers, coordinating monthly activities for the families and getting the word out about military-sponsored events for the families.

Jennie Taylor has already seen first-hand some of the effects of her husband's job in a war zone. "My husband came home on leave for a week and he was going around hitting every pothole imaginable in our minivan. I thought 'He's going to ruin our rims.' In their convoy, they are trained to hit potholes with their tire rather than straddle it."

The next activity on the horizon is a reunion workshop, where the military will help the families prepare for the adjustments that will be needed when their soldiers come home in late April or early May.

"When you have a homecoming of any sort, particularly in the military, you think, 'Great, Dad's back. We'll just go back to everything the way it was.' But nothing goes back. ... It's never the same."

Something unique to this war is the immediacy of contact some service members have with their families at home.

Newlywed Whitney Rinck was describing her experience as a deployed serviceman's wife when the conversation was interrupted by a call from Iraq, from her husband, Spc. Zachary Rinck, one of the company's Purple Heart recipients.