Citizen Soldier: From the Land of Lincoln to Iraq and Back

By Robert Elliott

Imagine going to war for a year with no assurance that you would ever return.

In Dr. Robert Elliott's Citizen Soldier: From the Land of Lincoln to Iraq and Back, readers learn what it is like to say goodbye to a wife and three children and then travel across Iraq by convoy and helicopters. You'll learn about the stres

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Jan 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798885044776

Book preview

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Citizen Soldier

Citizen Soldier

From the Land of Lincoln to Iraq and Back

DR. ROBERT L. ELLIOTT, DPA

MAJOR, US ARMY RETIRED

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2023 DR. ROBERT L. ELLIOTT, DPA MAJOR, US ARMY RETIRED

All rights reserved.

Citizen Soldier

From the Land of Lincoln to Iraq and Back

ISBN

979-8-88504-453-0 Paperback

979-8-88504-477-6 Ebook

I dedicate this to my wife, Michelle, who supported me during months of writing and years of military service. She would have earned a Military Spouse Support Medal years ago if the army had such an award.

DISCLAIMER

My wartime experience provides the basis for the content of this book. I include the full names of public officials and military generals. To protect individual privacy, I use pseudonyms for all other individuals except in cases of cited published accounts.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the United States Government.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1.

Preparing for War

Chapter 2.

Preparing for War at Ft. Bliss

Chapter 3.

Preparing for War in Kuwait

Chapter 4.

Military and Tribal Culture Barriers

Chapter 5.

Good Morning Balad

Chapter 6.

Home in Babylon

Chapter 7.

Twelve Days in Iraq—First US Death

Chapter 8.

Five Hundred Pound Bombs Will Rattle Windows

Chapter 9.

Abu Ghraib Prison

Chapter 10.

Casualties in the Area of Operations

Chapter 11.

Wounded Arrive and Who’s Who in Combat

Chapter 12.

Russian Helicopters and Ukrainian Soldiers

Chapter 13.

Leave Approved, Now What?

Chapter 14.

Home for the Holidays

Chapter 15.

Iraq Election Integrity and Security

Chapter 16.

Risks are Taken but Wasted in Arming Iraqi Police

Chapter 17.

False Alarm but Stressful Moments

Chapter 18.

Another Day, Another Convoy Mission to Baghdad

Chapter 19.

A Four-Day Pass and the Smell of Fresh Grass

Chapter 20.

The Final Month

Chapter 21.

The Journey Home

Chapter 22.

Afterward

Acknowledgments

APPENDIX

INTRODUCTION

Before you delve into the words I’ve written below, consider stepping back in time. I include nearly ten minutes of personal video footage from Iraq. The intent is to provide you with a means to see and hear the conditions. You will join me in convoys and helicopter flights through several brief video clips. The final video offers more insight from a video I made for my family three months after my arrival in Iraq. Use your cell phone to scan each QR code and access the videos.

Robert and Michelle Elliott

Coalition helicopter flight:13.

Coalition helicopter flight:15.

Coalition convoy:17.

Coalition convoy:19.

Major Elliott and Iraqi tanks:33.

Coalition convoy:44.

Coalition convoy:45.

Coalition convoy 1:42.

Coalition helicopter flight 1:41.

Major Elliott’s message to family 3:04.

*****

Suicide is preventable. Help increase awareness of the three-digit Veterans Crisis Line 988. The resource provides 24/7, confidential crisis support.

Dial 988, press 1, Text 838255, or chat online at

Veterans­CrisisLine.net.

*****

Imagine leaving your family for a year without assurance you would ever return. Imagine documenting that journey, the thoughts, emotions, regrets, and guilt along the way. After a friend, a Korean War veteran and former prisoner of war, told me his war experience story from seventy years ago, I dusted off my journal and letters eighteen years after my war experience and authored this book.

*****

The date was December 13, 1636. The place? Massachusetts Bay Colony. The event? Colonists joined together, establishing the nation’s first organized fighting force known today as the US National Guard (National Guard 2022). During the American Revolution, the colonist referred to the volunteer soldiers as the minutemen and later citizen soldiers. Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, five hundred thousand soldiers have stepped up to serve full-time (Lineberry and O’Connor 2012). Every citizen soldier has a family, a civilian job, and a community they step away from when called. All soldiers have common experiences regardless of when and where they serve. Some aspects of each soldier’s experience are uniquely their own and unlike anyone else’s.

*****

Our chronological journey starts with a reflection on my childhood view of military service. We explore the family dynamics in my decision to go to war, the challenges faced in Iraq, the challenge of reintegration from a soldier six thousand miles away, and ultimately to a husband and dad back at home every day.

War evokes emotions of fear, conflict, self-worth, and society’s judgment. In the 1970s, other young boys and I imitated war scenes when we played—an old-fashioned approach in light of current-day high-definition video gaming simulation popular even with adults. Regardless of the era, children playing war pose a minimal physical or emotional risk. As adults, perceived noble actions like military service can boost a sense of self-worth and lead to unintended consequences. What if a child overcomes challenges but chooses to leave his family as an adult for a year with the possibility he may never return? Does that act lead to similar uncertainty and fear for his children that he experienced decades earlier? If his reasons are noble, should that mitigate any emotional discomfort?

Understanding where and how my outlook on family, friends, and war took root is instructive. In 1975, the two neighbor boys advanced through a field and wooded area behind their city homes, acting out their imaginations. Morning moisture coated every twig and leaf, and zigzag movements disturbed the tall summer grass. Across railroad tracks, down a steep slope, and through the creek into a drainage tunnel, the young boys ran. The water trickled under their wet feet. Their shoes were soaked, and their clothes damp from brushing through the wet foliage. A tunnel, about twenty yards long and fifteen feet tall, was massive in contrast to the ten-year-old boys. The railroad tracks lay above, and the sounds of trains echoed through the woods daily. To them, the experience was an adventurous place while playing army. The imaginary enemy forces dispersed among the dew-coated flora less than a block from our homes. Scenes acted out were consistent with war movies watched, and books read. The wooded area was a canvas to create their own war experience. Unlike Private Fleming in The Red Badge of Courage, the boys pledged never to turn and run from any enemy. They would always prevail with images of the American flag raised at the battle of Iwo Jima.

I spent twelve years of my childhood in a fatherless home. I felt sad my kids would experience the same even for one year. I knew the awkwardness of the situation as a kid and hated the possibility my kids would know it. In Iraq, a Kevlar helmet, body armor, and armored Humvee would shield me from explosions, but the emotional tug of leaving my children to serve weighed heavily on me in the 120-degree summer heat.

*****

As the movie started, the sound of helicopters just above a jungle canopy revealed the place and time in history. The army helicopter pilots maneuvered to evade gunfire while their door gunners strafed targets below to suppress enemy fire. We heard the sounds and sights of war while we ate popcorn. Michelle graduated from high school a few months earlier. I soon realized Platoon would never be a favorite movie of hers. I saw the film differently. It took me back to a place and time when as a young child, my friend and I dodged through the jungle wet with sweat, scraped knees, and breathing heavily in the safety of the stone drainage tunnel. More than ten years had passed since the playing war days. I had just finished my first semester of the ROTC program at Western Illinois University a couple of months later. It made perfect sense; I learned to become a real soldier, and the army paid for my tuition. I wore the uniform and no longer just watched movies about soldiers.

Despite the poor movie selection, Michelle agreed to more dates, and we were married just two years later. She wore a traditional wedding dress, and I wore the US Army dress uniform. She had married a real soldier, although I may have been more impressed than she was. Our family grew: Robert II, then Kari, and then our youngest, Brian, was born in 1992.

*****

A weekend warrior for sixteen years, my early army training about threats to the US in 1986 focused on the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, new threats emerged. The 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center and 9/11 cemented what would be a decades-long war on terrorism. Would my decision about Iraq reflect an opportunity to serve, or was it an excuse to be a real soldier? Images of soldiers in combat often reflect young riflemen taking a hill or on patrol in a congested urban area. In truth, the image often falls short of reality for most soldiers.

My family faced a critical decision, one that affected everyone. Michelle and the kids supported my weekends away for training and annual training every summer for two weeks. But this would be a different experience. Furthermore, uncertainty remained with all family members; how would every day feel? Daily life with Dad gone meant other routines and more reliance on Mom. Would it all stop and return to normal the instant the family reunited? This story reveals the answers to these questions, intertwined from the perspectives of Michelle and me: our lived experience. Unexpected twists and turns emerged after the family voted on whether Dad should volunteer for war.

On a cold, snowy day in January of 2004, our family decided with implications for all. Michelle and our three young children sat at the kitchen table, confused. Dad’s Illinois National Guard unit was not going to Iraq, but somehow, he might go did not make sense to them. They needed to know more.

I explained the State of Illinois partnered with the Polish military through a longstanding Partnership for Peace with the Illinois National Guard (ILNG). Since the Polish Army had a significant presence in Iraq in 2003, Illinois sent a team of guard soldiers to support them. That team’s mission would end in 2004 when another group would replace them.

The ILNG Joint Force Headquarters (JFHQ) sent a notice asking interested officers to apply to serve on the next team. Before I decided whether to apply, I wanted to discuss it with my family. I did not expect everyone would support me going and thought a family vote would allow for input. The vote results were three to two in support of applying to be on the next ILNG team to Iraq.

Such a decision is one families across the US have made over the history of our country. A personal decision with no media, politician, advocate, or protester to influence. It is a decision that forever alters the lives of each family member. Weeks later, the ILNG decided and selected me to join ten other National Guard soldiers on a mission to Iraq. What follows is the story of what transpired after that decision.

*****

Our decision meant I had to survive, return home, and not abandon my family. I never knew the number of times others asked my kids, Where is your dad? or, more importantly, the emotional toll those well-intended words had on them. At ages twelve, fourteen, and sixteen, they and their friends were aware of the reports on US casualties in Iraq. Whether Dad would ever come back home was not a given.

Since 2001, more than two million American children have had a parent deployed at least once (Dunham 2008). Personal memoirs remain rare for a generation of young adults who yearn to learn more about their parents’ war separation experience. In this first-hand, boots-on-the-ground account, I explore topics beyond the filtered, incomplete interpretations common in movies and news sources. Spouses and children of veterans or currently serving soldiers will relate to the shared emotions, challenges, and joyful reunification stories described.

Fear is compelling, and uncertainty is a close companion to fear. In 2004 I went to war as an Illinois Army National Guard member. My wife Michelle became a single parent for a year. As a citizen soldier, I followed in the footsteps of generations before me.

Too often, the war experience results in work and family complications. Mistaken assumptions lead to erroneous labeling and discrimination, such as stereotyping all war veterans as having post-traumatic stress disorder. On the other hand, physical and mental health conditions can worsen when undiagnosed. Researchers have found after combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, members of the National Guard have higher rates of mental health problems than those in the active component (Gorman, Blow, Ames, and Reed 2011, 28-34). As part-time soldiers returned to civilian careers, reintegration into society differed significantly by each circumstance. My story is unique to my experience yet has commonalities with others who served.

*****

My journal notations while in Iraq framed this accurate account of war experiences. My life before, during, and after service added a unique perspective. I recognize a crucial influence on my worldview was twenty years of military service. I suggest a blend of credibility resonates through overlapping public service careers as a soldier, state trooper, and college teacher. Experiencing a variety of life experiences has enabled me to be open-minded and embrace innovative ideas.

My drive to serve led to a wartime deployment’s physical, emotional, and spiritual roller coaster. I felt constant tension between the military mission and concerns about family stressors at home. Challenges afterward during reintegration from a war zone to the home-front further detail the experience. Books on war are plentiful, but first-hand accounts during the decades-long war on terrorism are not. Other books describe riveting gun battles, snipers, and almost daily acts of heroism. I see value in the action-packed authentic story thrillers, but they do not represent the typical soldier experiences I witnessed. I provide a unique perspective through the lens of a citizen soldier, an authentic behind-the-scenes account.

I bring out the sights, sounds, and emotions of a soldier leaving his family to serve. When I had heard stories of war experiences, of mortar and IED attacks, I considered them as likely the most stressful events. In truth, they occur quickly and pass in moments. Chronic stress over time is more impactful and often the most detrimental. My anxiety included concern for my family. They adapted, but my extended absence made daily routines more difficult for them. Knowing this bothered me often while in Iraq.

Considering the strong support of military service—69 percent of the public has a great deal or quite or a lot of confidence in the military (Jones 2022)—this book reveals an often-unseen personal cost of these highly respected public servants. The military’s part-time citizen soldiers, those serving in the National Guard/Army Reserves, account for 52 percent of the US Army (Cancian 2021). This book describes how citizen soldiers’ path to war differs from their active-duty counterparts and society’s commonly held beliefs. Following a year of wartime operations, no switch can take a family back to the way it was on the day of separation.

I, like others, chose to step beyond my comfort zone, serve others, and risk safety for something larger than myself. This story winds through unexpected paths, arriving back at the starting point: the Land of Lincoln but leads to an entirely different outlook on our world.

CHAPTER 1

Preparing for War

Before preparing for war, you must prepare the kids for their next activity.

A family going about daily life faces a future that is anything but routine. We planned for my departure of more than a year to a place designated as an Imminent Danger Pay area. How we navigated the stressful pre-deployment phase provided a glimpse of what lay ahead.

Let’s go, kids. Get in the van. We want to get there early.

Michelle was adept at getting all three kids moving when the family had somewhere to be.

I can’t find my singlet. Someone must have moved it, Brian shouted.

He is the youngest and not organized at that phase of life.

Let’s go! It’s in your wrestling bag next to mine in the van, his brother Bobby yelled back.

They celebrated birthdays two days apart, but Bobby was four years older than Brian.

Where’s Kari? I said as I settled in behind the driver’s seat.

I’ll go and see. She’s always the last one. Probably in the bathroom still doing her hair, Michelle responded.

A few minutes later, Michelle and Kari emerged from the house. Kari brushed her hair and sat in the back seat beside her brothers. As the middle child