Gallatin graduate offers personal insights about serving in Iraq

He entered the army five days after graduating from Gallatin R-5 in 2005. He was in Iraq from Oct. 2, 2006, to November 21, 2007.
Zac was based in Alaska with the 725th Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborn), 25th Infantry Division. He was trained as a parachute rigger with Fort Richardson’s newly formed airborne unit.
Leaving Alaska, Zac was stationed at the Forward Operating Base (FOB) Kalsu, Iraq, near the Baghdad area of operations. The base is wind-swept, dusty and noisy, but the housing has heat and air conditioning and there are portable buildings for showers.
The base now supports about 350 soldiers; however, when Zac’s unit arrived, they were the only unit there.
FOB Kalsu operates continuous combat patrols. Zac was with the Quick Reaction Force (QRF), which did mounted and dismounted patrols. He also manned the Observation Post (OP).
Zac watched the front gate at the base and checked vehicles coming in and out. As many as 40-50 vehicles would come through daily, amounting to about 200 people. He would check for bomb making material and scan people’s hands for gun powder residue.
A lot of the people who came through the gate were Iraqi citizens with business on the base.
“They’ll bring in stuff to sell to us out of a little shop, like knick knacks and DVDs,” Zac said, referring to a flea-market like bazaar set up in a tent on the base and run by Iraqis. “Some of them did a lot of contract work for us building the base.”
And then there were some who used their jobs only as a cover to infiltrate the base and gather information. They would take pictures with their cell phone cameras, Zac explained, to use as intelligence against the Americans.
At the gate, Zac was constantly reminded of FOB Kalsu’s role of providing emergency response to convoys under attack.
“A lot of guys from the army infantry came in with missing limbs, all tore up from fighting.”
Zac carried a 249 Squad Automatic Weapon. (SAW). He said personal equipment, as far as body armor, was more than adequate.
“We did have good equipment,” he said. “I was signed for 2½ million dollars worth of equipment. That’s just one soldier. I can’t imagine how much it was all together.”
He said the humvees had all the equipment they could need. But they could still be penetrated by the insurgents’ constantly upgraded Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).
A young man that Zac considered a buddy, Spc. Coty J. Phelps, 20, from Kingman, Arizona, was one of three soldiers killed on May 17, 2007, when a roadside bomb detonated near their vehicle in Iskandariya, Iraq.
“He was in our company,” said Zac. “There are only about 40 people in our company and we all know everybody.”
FOB Kalsu came under frequent attack by enemy rocket-propelled grenades, small arms, mortar, and rocket fire
“In the 15 months I was there we lost 53 people,” Zac said. “At least that many or more were injured.”
IEDs require no vehicle to launch. Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED) are the ones where the vehicle itself is the bomb.
“For a while we were getting hit every night,” Zac said. “We’d be laying in our bunks waiting for it to happen, because we knew it was going to happen.”
Those earth rattling, ear- splitting rockets and mortars were launched randomly, maybe one at a time and maybe 30 at a time, and from different sites. He said they were hit 26 times in an 11 month period. He knows of one base that was hit by 67 rockets at once.
“We just never knew,” he said.
The only defense for the soldiers on the base was to “hit the deck”inside a concrete bunker.
CNN film experience
Zac was on base on Aug. 17, 2007, when CNN filmed a piece called “In the Field: Targeting Insurgents” by Dan Rivers, CNN International Correspondent.
“In that instance we had just left the FOB on patrol when army intelligence found rockets pointed at us. We had to return to the base and get in the bunker.”
The two minute clip follows Mr. Rivers as he joins troops on a mission to catch those firing missiles at their base.
“The film shows the results of DeFac [dining facility or mess hall] after it got blown up with one of the rockets,” said Zac. The CNN clip reports that 31 soldiers had been hurt, two seriously.
“Helicopters and F16 jets were scrambled to investigate,” he said. “They weren’t able to knock the rockets down.”
That episode may have been caught by CNN, but Zac said it happened more than once.
Once the attack starts, soldiers do what they are trained to do.

“We’d get to a bunker. Some don’t get there quick enough. If you don’t hear it coming in, and you get hit with the first one coming in, that’s it.”
But there was one time when Zac didn’t do what he was trained to do. Instead, he put his own well-being in jeopardy.
“One night I had a really, really close call,” he said. “Two Iraqi police officers in front of me got hit with shrapnel. I had to stay and treat their wounds.”
For his actions, Zac received the Combat Action Badge.
He also received the Army Accommodation Medal. “For doing my job and doing it right.”
Zac said things “cooled down” the last two months he was at FOB Kalsu. He thought one reason was because another unit arrived at the base. But he doesn’t know how long the relative calm will last.
“The insurgents usually wait until they figure out what we’re there for and how we operate,” he said. “Then they’ll start attacking again.”
Zac’s unit got to visit the surrounding area and tour the historic sights.
“We’d go into town, to see what the people had to say, what they thought of us,” he said. “A lot of them came to us with their problems. A lot of them are accepting of why we’re there. Some are nice, some are not so nice. Most of them are grateful we’re there. They know that without us it would be utter chaos.”
Zac said Iraq was not what he expected.
“I thought it was going to be something totally different,” he said. What he discovered was: “For the worse. People living in mud huts. It’s hard to describe in a few words.”
Another deployment
Zac returned home last year the day before Thanksgiving. He has one year and five months remaining on active duty. His unit is based at Fort Richardson in Alaska and is scheduled to deploy again in June or July of 2009.
He said he couldn’t speak for all that is going on in Iraq. He thinks things will get better. “I’d say things are better off with us there.”
The American troop buildup is working. “But the military needs more time.”
His advice to those considering enlisting: “If you’re patriotic and that’s what you want to do, go for it.”
After 15 months in Iraq, Zac has seen enough of war.
“For my part, I wouldn’t want to go back,” he said. “But I wouldn’t take it back. I’m glad I got to go and serve my county.”