APR. 1 – Yesterday was a bad day. We were patrolling in a neighborhood and we were just leaving a house when all of a sudden shots rang out. My partner and I took cover in the courtyard of the house. I couldn’t believe it! I was pinned down by bullets that were passing over my head! It’s true when they say that in those moments you think about what’s more important to you. I was thinking about my wife and kids. I could feel my body press up against the wall as more bullets passed overhead. Some Iraqi soldiers came through the gate into the courtyard where we were seeking the same protection. I looked at their faces and some of them seemed to not be bothered by it. I guess when you live in a place like this it is a daily occurrence around here. It was then I heard a loud repetitive sound of our 50 cal machine being fired by my teammate from a truck that was nearby. I then heard one of our other machine guns firing rounds as well. For some strange reason, this gave me comfort. I knew that the insurgents couldn’t stand up to that kind of firepower. As I sat there crouching against the wall I remember wanting this moment to be over. There was suddenly a break in the gunfire. All of the Iraqi soldiers were preparing to leave the courtyard. My partner was getting up to leave as well. My heart was racing because that meant it was time for me to go as well. I got up and followed everyone out of the courtyard. For the first time in my military career, my rifle was raised and my thumb was on the selector switch to flip the switch from ‘safe’ to ‘semi-automatic’.

APR. 2 – Today was a more peaceful day. If Iraq wasn’t in a state of war I would love to come here for a visit. Just about every street is lined with palm trees. Orange trees can be found in some of the people’s yards. I like the basic setup of an Iraqi house. Just about every house has a fenced-off courtyard. I like the idea of that because the owner can lock that front gate for the evening. When you open the gate and go inside the yard you will find in most cases a nicely landscaped yard with some grass and shrubbery. There is nice lawn furniture and the driveway for the car is also within the courtyard as well. I was surprised to find out that the city of Baghdad is still not hooked up to city electricity. Some of the houses that I went into the stove are powered by butane tanks. It’s the same type of butane that we would use for our gas grills. For electricity, most of the houses are powered by a small little 10k generator. There was water situation isn’t much better. The people have managed to obtain a bottle of water from a company that delivers it. Before I came here I had the same impression that most of you have about this place. That is was a dark, cold, and ugly place. As my team and I travel throughout the city I see one thing that is universal. That is people wanting to take care of their families. I see children playing just like our children. The language is the only barrier that prevents me from getting to know them and them getting to know me. When I enter some of the houses and they look at me I wonder what the thoughts are running through their heads when they see me. Do they see the guy you guys know as Sgt. Roy who is a nice and friendly guy from Charlotte, NC or do they see a horrible person? When I am out on a mission I have to shake those thoughts out of my mind because the reality is that I am in an environment that is dangerous. Killing and death are things that people are used to on a daily basis. To kill me is to kill what I stand for.

APR. 4 – We were traveling to our police station to work with our group today when a call came over the radio about a US vehicle getting hit by an IED. When this kind of thing happens all of the units that are in the area hear the call and if they can be the first responders on the scene. Well, of course, it was our day. We heard the call and our chief decided to turn around because we were in the vicinity of the vehicle. I can’t reveal the names and details of the situation but thank God that everyone in the vehicle survived the blast. The medic was in that vehicle that got hit so our medic had to render care to everyone in the vehicle. The rest of us had to remain in our vehicles to pull security around the down vehicle. I heard there was one kid that had a mangled leg. Man! This is a dirty business! Long story, short resources were brought in the vehicle was towed away and the injured personnel was evacuated to the nearest medical facility. After everything was cleared strangely enough we and everyone involved went back to the business of war!

APR. 6 – Like I stated before my job on this team is logistics. That means that I am responsible for handling the ‘beans, bullets, and fuel’ for the team. The responsibilities run into other areas but that also it covers the Iraqis as well. I work with the logistical officer for the Iraqis. One of the things in Iraqi culture is the delegation of power. My officer and I spent the day explaining to the Iraqi officer why he should delegate some of the work to the sergeants in his company. He sat there for a moment behind his desk and then he said: “I don’t teach another man my job.” This is an officer we would soon learn that handled not only logistics, but also payroll, fuel, and ammunition. Iraqi men are very protective of their job responsibilities. To teach another man your job is almost like giving it away. My officer and I couldn’t understand why a person would thrust so many responsibilities upon himself. We learn through our interpreters that the more than a man did the more valuable he was to his company. It made perfect sense to me.

APR. 6 – Happy Easter! We spent the night at the station. We had to get up at 5:30 a.m. for a mission that started early this morning. It was semi-dark outside as I stood by my truck. My thoughts, of course, pondered back to my wife and kids for the moment. This morning was calm and the moon still was shining a bit in the clouds. It just hit me that I was standing in once was Babylon once. Since I’ve been here I see from time to time the Iraqi men pray. Even though I am a Christian I admire their devotion to their religion. I have seen them in the middle of the day remove their boots grab their prayer rug and find a little corner somewhere to conduct their prayers. I have seen them do this in the parking lot, hallways, offices and anywhere they need to conduct their prayers. I won’t go into a theological discussion about Islam but I thought wow if we Christians could have that same devotion to our faith. These people are not ordered or forced to do this. They just do it! I understand that they were taught this as a part of their religion but it is impressive to see their devotion to it. In the states, in some cases, any outward display of Christian faith is met with an unresponsive attitude. I have read about the foundations of Islam and I understand the reasons behind their faith. Since I’ve been here in the Middle East there is a religious atmosphere about this place and its people. These people take their faith seriously. My only response to that is that I pray that they all come to the real truth of who God is. People have argued with me saying “How do you know that you know the truth?” All I can say to that is that I choose many different paths myself until I found ‘the truth’. That ‘truth’ is not something but someone. His name is Jesus. So standing there in there in the gray darkness of the morning I fell to my knees by my truck and gave thanks to Jesus. I didn’t care who was watching me. I wanted to prove to myself that I too am committed to my faith. I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It was Easter morning and I was on my knees on Iraq soil praising God! This is the day that we acknowledge that Jesus rose from the dead. This was the celebration in my heart.

APR. 9 – Today is always a maintenance day for us. We use this time to work on our trucks, weapons, and equipment. I started teaching a hip-hop class at the gym on Monday nights. All of you who know me know that I would have found some way to flex my aerobic muscles. I’m going to use this opportunity to keep my chops up but here in this combat zone, you can get bored very easily. You really have to make a schedule for yourself or you will go crazy! Like I’ve said before each day can almost be the same routine. I am excited because also I have completed 3 credit hours of a college course since I’ve been here. I decided to pursue my BA degree while I am here. If you talk to my wife she will tell you that I am notorious for overextending myself. I think those skills will come in handy here.

APR. 10 – We have to spend the night down at the station tonight. Our team has split into two trends of thought. There is the first group who thinks that we should practically live with the Iraqis 24/7. Of course, the group feels that we accomplish no more than what we do already in the hours that we spend with them when we visit them. Well, my opinion is of the second group. Our business with our Iraqi counterparts is wrapped up in a matter of hours when we are there. When we are done we usually sit around in their little dining area and watch television and play cards. There have been a few times when the Iraqis know that we are coming the people that we have to meet with are not there! I think they feel the pressure of having to entertain us. At the station, most of all the Iraqi personnel live there at the station. There are beds inside their offices. Once a month they go home on leave to see their families. I truly am feeling like I am going through the motions on all of this. We are attempting to have training classes for their staff but it is evident that they have these classes on our behalf. One thing is apparent, they want money and the things that we can provide for them.

APR. 11 – We were out on patrol this morning with the Iraqi National Police. We were almost done when one of the soldiers found a dead body out in an open field. Just my luck I was outside the truck on dismount with my officer. I was told to run back to the truck and retrieve a body bag that we had because the Iraqis didn’t have one. Oh boy! I wasn’t up for this! Thank God, that it was determined that this was their responsibility so the bag along with some rubber gloves was handed to them for this task. It was a greenfield that faced a row of houses. There was a six-foot wall that separated the field from the houses. Behind the wall was the body. It was reported that the body didn’t have a head. Also (sorry) but dogs were feeding off of it! I was on one knee with my weapon at the ready watching about five or six Iraqis as they went behind the wall to retrieve the body. It was about 15 minutes later when they returned carrying the body bag to a truck that was waiting nearby. For some crazy reason, I wanted to go over there and see the body. It is no doubt that this kind of thing happens on a regular basis. Who was this person? I learned also today that when a body is found according to Muslim customs the body has to be buried within a 24-hour time period. It is against their religion to do an autopsy. Their idea of an autopsy is to make sure that the person wasn’t tortured. That’s it. I am going into my fourth month here and already I feel the weight of all this.

APR. 12 – The weather is really picking up. I think it’s about 85 – 88 degrees outside. I know next month is going to be brutal. My wife informs me that Charlotte is cold and has been getting a lot of rain. It’s April already and I have about 5 months to go until I go on leave. One of our guys is the first to go on his leave in two weeks. I’m starting to think that maybe I should have put mine in around this time because I could really use some at-home time. I could use a big fat greasy pizza from Luigi’s right now. The streets of Baghdad in some places are starting to look cleaner now. Contractors were hired to move out all of the trash that is practically piling up in front of the houses. There are some guys that are hired to sweep the roads. The neighborhoods, in my opinion, are still too segregated for me.

APR. 14 – I spent the day looking for some presents to send my wife because her birthday is coming up next week. I don’t have much to choose from. The PX (post exchange) offers some things but is limited in its choices. We have on the camp shops that we call ‘Ha gee Shops’. These are shops that are owned by local Iraqi businessmen. I buy a few things from them but they can really mark up the price on certain items. For instance, if I bought a printer for my computer it would cost me under $100 at Walmart. This man that runs this particular ‘Ha gee shop’ sells an HP printer that I know cost may be at the most $100 or at most $250! I was told that these vendors really gave us the goods on us because we are so far away from the states that if we want a certain product we will have to pay the additional costs. I found a few nice items to put into a box for her. I was surprised that it was difficult to get a ‘Happy Birthday to my Wife’ card in the PX. For obvious reasons, there are more men here than women. Nonetheless, I got her items boxed up and ready to send off to Charlotte. I hate to miss her birthday. Happy Birthday, honey!!!! She is my heart!!!! After all these years(25) she still drives me crazy!!!!

APR. 16 – We are at the station today. I sat with one of our interpreters, let’s just call him Steven. We were sitting in our sleeping area and I asked him what the future held for him in Iraq. He said “Iraq has a long way to go. It will take at least another 25 years until Iraq is changed. I hope to come to America with my family. It is not safe here.” Steven used to be an accountant. He is a 32-year-old Iraqi man who is married with two children. He travels with us as one of the four interpreters that we have on our staff. Of the four he strikes me as being very mature and professional in his work for us. His dark olive skin and well-trimmed beard mixed with his controlled and calm nature make him likable. I feel sorry for him because he does deserve to have a life for his family in a country that is safe. It is also said that he has no faith in the sovereignty of his country. I have been an American all my life. I have never had my life threatened. The closest reference is the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Wow, how these people must live! When this is all over I come back to my family, house, and job. America will still be here standing!

APR. 17 – I’m a little nervous because despite what you hear on the news it’s been relatively quiet in our sector of Baghdad. There are occasional mortars that attempt to hit our camp and an IED (improvised explosive device) here and there. Anyone who’s been here will tell you never to relax because anything can change in a split second. The first one of our teammates is going on R&R leave in a week! I’m excited because every two and a half weeks someone will go on their leave. On this eleven-man team, I will be number eleven when my turn comes. I chose to go late because when I return from my leave I will have only three months left until I finally come home. The guys that go early will have a long wait. As I travel throughout the city I get crazy thoughts about what it would be like to live here. We passed a house today in a neighborhood we were patrolling and the front yard was simply beautiful! The person had a couple of palm trees in the front yard and had planted an array of flowers. It always amazes me how these people can do so much with so little. For example, the mechanics that take care of the police vehicles had removed an entire engine from a truck with just a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench!

APR. 19 – Today is my precious wife’s birthday. I sent her a gift box with some items that I brought here. I am older by one month so she calls me ‘the old man’. I asked my children to take her out to dinner for me. My wife is very modest and I am the opposite. If I was there I would spoil her rotten for the whole day! I thank God that after all these years I am still crazy about this woman! As one of Charlotte’s finest instructors, many of you know that I am around beautiful women night and day. But when my wife comes into the room my attention quickly turns to her. She has a smile that takes my breath away. It’s the same smile that bowled me over when I met her in college. She has been the one behind the scenes that makes me ‘me’. In the moments when I don’t feel like I can go out and take on the world, she is the only one who has pushed me. She has and will never let me live below my potential as a person, husband, and father. I love her for that. There is a line from this Jim Carey movie that describes perfectly her attitude with me where he says “Behind every great man there is a woman rolling her eyes!”

APR. 20 – I am riding as the gunner today in one of the trucks. There is one guy that drives me crazy! For the sake that he might read this, I can’t reveal his name. As the day begins the four of us prepare the truck and ourselves to move out for today’s mission. We checked all the fluids and gauges on the truck. We load up our additional equipment and pre-load our pistols, and M-16s and put on our body armor. My job today is to mount the 240B machine gun. I will be riding in the rear vehicle so that means I will be riding the whole time facing backward. My job will be covering the rear security of our convoy. Well, we are all mounted, in our seats with our headsets and Oakley sunglasses on and pulling out the front gate in the direction of downtown Baghdad. This group in this truck is a fun group of guys. As we travel down the road there is one guy who is beginning to grind on my nerves. Everyone in the truck has a sense of humor. So someone is always telling a funny story or two including yours truly. When this particular guy speaks I notice that in every sentence he uses the words ‘I’ or ‘me’. Now understand this isn’t something that I just found out about this person. All the guys agree that this person if you were to carry on a conversation with him the whole dialogue would be about him! As I listen to him in the truck if someone has done something this guy has done it better. There was one day this guy talked about how much money he was making on this deployment. All of us have to be tolerant of him but I can tell you that as the time draws near somebody is going to confront him about his piety. I don’t know if it will be me. Well to get through this day I reached down and turned off my headset so that I could enjoy the rest of my ride.

APR. 22 – Medical care here in Baghdad is pretty poor. I feel sorry for our medic. Whenever we come to the station the Iraqis will come to him with their aches and pains instead of seeking the help of their own medic. I was blown away to find out that if an Iraqi is shot he will seek medical attention from the Americans before he will go to the local hospital. I asked why and was told that the level of care in the hospital was so poor that they were afraid that they would die there. Also, their level of care depended on whether they were Shia or Sunni! Today two men were brought in injured because they were in a car accident. First of all, they were brought in the back of a truck. I was sitting on my bed at the station when one of the sergeants came in with the news. Our medic was sitting on his bunk across from me. When he heard about the incident his response was “This is something they should handle.” Since I’ve been here in Baghdad I am beginning to learn my part in this whole scenario. The is Arabic word is ‘wasta’. That means we have ‘clout’. We have the influence to get whatever they need. I don’t mind giving but as I stated before the big picture here is to make this country self-sufficient. So far it doesn’t look that good. We are still handing out to soldiers water and food when we go out on missions together. Medical care for the National Police is horrible. I have seen the Boy Scouts do a better job. The truth is this life here is based on alliances and relationships, not on the solidarity of Iraq.

APR. 24 – I check my CDs to make sure that the sequence is correct for the three classes I will teach back to back. I look through my gym bag to make sure that I have a fresh supply of bandanas to change into between classes. I go over the choreography sequences in my mind to make sure my transitions are smooth and easy to follow. I start my warm-up music, put on my microphone headset, and take the podium with the attitude ‘I’m going to kick their butts like there’s no tomorrow!’ I woke up only to find that I was lying in my bed at the base camp. Wow! I’m glad I had that dream because I was beginning to not dream in American anymore. All of my dreams were of Iraq and I was slowly losing memory of visions of people, places, and things.

APR. 26 – My attitude is changing every day about this mission. I’m told that we are to be advisors to the Iraqi National Police but instead what I see is that we are going on endless missions with these guys. It starting to look to me that we are almost like we are providing protection for them as they do their missions. There is one thing that is true some of them have to be watched because we have had problems with some of the soldiers stealing personal belongings out of the houses. Truthfully I haven’t trained any soldiers nor have I taught any classes. I’m beginning to feel like a real ‘infantry’ soldier! There are a few of the guys on this team who love the way things are going but the rest of us are really upset by this setup. One of our drivers noticed that our team has logged more miles on the road than the team we replaced in their first year of operation! We have done night missions, daily missions, double missions, and raids. I’m dusty and dirty all the time. I could use a few days at our camp to rejuvenate myself. I’m filling in for one of our gunners while he is on R&R leave. I didn’t know riding in the gunner’s hatch would be so painful. I sit on a cushioned bench swing seat. At the end of the day, I feel like my butt is going to fall off! My face is windblown and I am covered with dust. I know it seems as if I’m complaining and I might be but this is an experience I will never forget!

APR. 27 – I learned another custom today. I noticed as we travel the streets of Baghdad some of the men tend to carry these strings of beads in one of their hands as they walk. I asked our interpreter what that meant and he told me that the beads are almost the equivalent to the rosary beads that are carried by Catholics. Where the beads are tied there is a tassel. There are a certain number of beads to the left and right of the knot. My interpreter tells me that when the man is walking he recites an affirmation of his faith such as ‘Allah is great, there is no other god’ based on the number of beads from the left of the knot. When the man is done he recites something like ‘God forgive me, you are great’ many times. If no affirmations are recited then it is used as something for them to do while walking like playing with one’s car keys.