Note from the desk of the opinion editors:
It is easy for us to forget the sacrifices American soldiers serving abroad make to represent our country. In a charged partisan climate in which the actions of civilian commanders are scrutinized and used as fodder in mudslinging campaigns, we can overlook the thousands of ordinary Americans making us proud in extraordinary conditions.
This is the 11th part of a series that will appear Mondays where we will publish the journal of Liz O'Herrin, a UW student who kept record of her experiences in Iraq and has decided to share them with the readers of The Badger Herald. We present this journal in hopes that you can gain insight to a small piece of the Iraq experience for American servicemen and women.
JUNE 21
Today was a big, big, big day. I found out I am leaving a day earlier than I thought — today is my last day that I have to come in to work. I am thoroughly unnerved by this. I am not ready to say goodbye. I am not ready to adjust that fast, I want my extra day. I don't feel mentally prepared.
At the last minute at work today, an EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) trip comes up. I got to go — it was awesome. We tested out different ways of blowing up mortars that the insurgents make IEDs out of. The coolest part was the gun vault that they let us mess around in. I don't even like guns, I can even say that I hate them, but this vault was pretty insane. The walls are lined with AK-47s, various Russian- and Chinese-made weapons. All confiscated by U.S. special forces. Republican guard pistols, inlaid with gold and inscribed with Arabic. Then we played with sweet $150,000 robots that they use to disable IEDs. Heard stories about donkeys and dogs getting stuffed with explosives. EOD teams go outside the wire every day to disarm stuff. These guys disarm live bombs every single day, yet they are so laidback and chilled out. I can't reconcile this.
I rush back to the shop and get to say goodbyes to almost everyone. There were a few I didn't get to say goodbye to, which sucked.
My chin is bruised up and split open, it looks like a huge mutant zit. I have it because we had an incoming at 11:30 pm last night, when we were sound asleep. I can't believe my instincts — I was on the ground before the giant voice spoke the dreaded words: "INCOMING. INCOMING. INCOMING." I was pretty proud of myself, I just flew right out of bed onto the ground before I even woke up, I think. The boom shook our whole room. It was close.
I shivered on the ground, wearing only my underwear and Kevlar, for a minute or two. Screw it. I took off my gear and climbed back into bed under the covers.
