CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait -- Sgt. 1st Class Dean Lawrence's lanky frame
stretched from one end of a cot to the other, his head leaning against a
Harry Potter pillow.
Above his head, Lawrence's desert uniforms hung from the tent, along
with a stuffed doll of Saddam Hussein, whose neck hung from a noose.
On a laptop computer, next to his bed, Lawrence scrolled through digital
pictures from his nearly five months in Iraq.
There are images of soldiers in camouflage, clutching M16s and raiding
the home of an Iraqi arms dealer.
There's the battalion commander's Humvee, pierced by a rocket-propelled
grenade. Another Humvee had its windshield shattered by an improvised
explosive device.
A picture shows bullet holes in a cooler.
There are also pictures of Iraqi children posing with Rhode Islanders.
And a picture of Dusty, a stray dog that the 1st Platoon of the 115th
Military Police Company adopted and liked to wrestle.
There's a picture of a guardsman goofing in a clown mask on the Fourth
of July in Fallujah. He's now recovering from a shrapnel wound in the
head at Walter Reed, the Army hospital in Washington.
By far, Lawrence's duty in Iraq was the most harrowing of his entire
career with the National Guard.
Lawrence, 37, received his retirement notice on Sept. 19, after 20 years
in the National Guard. A New Bedford police officer, Lawrence joined the
Guard when he was 17. 'I'm ready to retire and get out," he said.
A police officer, who had never fired his weapon on duty in New Bedford,
Lawrence suddenly found himself banging down doors and charging into
buildings.
The 115h's Iraqi mission defied most everyone's expectations. In May,
the unit went to Fallujah, a Baath Party and Fedayeen stronghold west of
Baghdad. They were supposed to stay about 12 days. They stayed for 81
days, conducting raids and ducking mortar fire.
Later, outside Baghdad, two members were killed by an explosive device
planted along a supply route. A third member died in a Humvee accident.
Iraq terrified many in this group of largely part-time soldiers. In the
civilian world, they are police officers, machine operators, group-home
counselors, nurses and parents.
AS THE UNIT rolled across the Iraq-Kuwait border last week, having been
rotated out of Baghdad, the 115th MPs shed their flak jackets and
helmets. Some even hugged as they entered Kuwaiti territory, relieved to
be alive and out of Iraq.
Other Guard members, particularly the young members, described another
feeling as they left Iraq: pride. The 115th had gained respect, even
among the active duty units like the 3rd Infantry Division and the 3rd
Armed Cavalry Regiment.
"They looked past the weekend warrior and saw you as a brother in
battle," said Specialist Scott McCain, 30, of Cranston.
Around the pool and dusty football fields at Camp Arifjan, a military
supply depot, many units knew them by name and what they had done. The
115th heard it had been featured in a 30-second segment on the Armed
Services Network.
An MP walked around the camp yesterday wearing an army green T-shirt
that read: 'Operation Iraqi Freedom. Who's your Baghdaddy.'
McCain leaned back against a white plastic bench, smoking a cigarette.
His friend Mike Martinez of Pawtucket walked over to the bench in his
bare feet.
McCain said he cried when he left Iraq. He wondered if he had made any
impact for its people. His team leader told him he can only help those
who want to be helped. 'I'm going to miss Iraq," McCain said yesterday.
Specialist Debbie Clamor, a platoon medic, sat with a group of Guard
members in the shade of a green supply tent yesterday afternoon.
The supply officer walked by, telling the group to turn over any of
their high explosive rounds and smoke grenades. The unit doesn't need
them anymore.
A mother of two and a radiology technician, Clamor doubted that the MPs
would fight in the thick of the postwar battle for Iraq. She sort of
shrugged off their training doing house-to-house searches at Fort Drum
before the unit deployed to the region in the spring.
"I said 'we won't do this,' " said Clamor, of Cranston. "We will be in
the rear and then we ended up in the middle of it."
Like most Guard members, Clamor wants desperately to go home. But the
unit had its mission extended through April 2004 -- a sore subject among
many members and their families.
They said it seems unfair that the active units, such as the 3rd
Infantry and the 3rd Armored Cavalry -- have already returned home,
while the Guard and reserve units must stay for 14 months.
Lt. Col. James Keighley, the commander of the 118th MP Battalion, which
controlled the 115th when it was in Iraq, figured that if he couldn't
get the unit home, then he could at least get it moved to Kuwait.
"After the first guys got killed, I said the unit has seen enough,"
Keighley said. He talked to the brigade commander about moving them back
to Kuwait.
Staff Sgt. Joseph Camara and Sgt. Charles Todd Caldwell died Sept. 1
when an improvised explosive device, or IED, hit their vehicle. It was
the first combat death in the Rhode Island Army National Guard since
World War II.
Lawrence had served with Camara in the Guard for two decades. The two
had become close friends. They shared canned octopus and sardines sent
in care packages. Camara was a connoisseur of mess-hall cuisine. They
both worked on the New Bedford police force.
Lawrence gives a different account of the fatal attack than the one
first described by Guard officials in Rhode Island.
There were five people riding in the Humvee that day, not three as was
originally reported. Specialist Dameon Harrington was driving;
Specialist Kyla Cannon, the platoon medic, sat behind him.
Specialist Edmund Aponte was the gunner in the turret. Caldwell sat in
the passenger seat with Camara behind him.
The explosives were packed inside a howitzer shell that was detonated
remotely.
It happened on the supply route between Ballad and Scania -- just
southeast of Baghdad. The 115th regularly escorted convoys along this
route and scanned intently for the IEDs -- one of the Iraqis' most
deadly weapons against Americans.
The MPs had found IEDs placed in bags and cement blocks, rigged with
wires and detonated by car batteries and even clickers for car alarms.
This particular device was hidden from view and detonated at the moment
the Humvee passed. They never saw the culprit.
The passenger side took the brunt of the blast. Camara and Caldwell were
killed instantly.
Cannon, the medic, and Harrington worked to free Aponte, who had taken
shrapnel in the side of the head. Aponte didn't want to let go of the
gun because he thought he the Humvee was under fire, Lawrence said.
"They epitomize what a soldier is," he said.
Lawrence said the attack still haunts him. He went home for both
funerals and then returned to Iraq. "I am still trying to think if it's
all worth it," he said.
As for Harrington, his ears were ringing for days after the attack, but
he has recovered. He has a new duty in Kuwait.
Harrington's job now is to make sure the Kuwaiti drivers hired by the
Army actually pick up their passengers. The drivers, he said, have been
known to drive off without any riders, leaving the soldiers looking for
a ride to the Internet cafe or to the outdoor pool at Camp Arifjan.
But many of the Rhode Island Guardsmen had no big plans for this sleepy
Saturday on an Army base in Kuwait.
Lawrence considered hitting the gym or maybe the pool. Or, as the desert
air soared past 100 degrees, he considered staying in the
air-conditioned comfort of his new tent.
Nearby, another reserve company of MPs from West Virginia were lining up
in their Humvees. Flak jackets hang over doors for extra protection.
They leave for Baghdad today.
DIGITAL EXTRA: Browse more reports from the war's local and distant
fronts, post messages to the troops, and find out more about Iraq at:
http://projo.com/extra/2003/iraq/
