01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, May 25, 2003

BY MICHAEL CORKERY
Journal Staff Writer

HINESVILLE, Ga. -- In a box, with her husband's favorite pillow and his shirt she will never wash, Birgit Smith keeps a handwritten letter, dated April 5.

She wrote the letter to her husband, Paul Smith, a combat engineer, serving with the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq.

Journal photo / Bob Thayer

Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith died in Baghdad fighting to save the lives of others, Smith, his family says, was born for the military.

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More reports from Journal staff writer Michael Corkery

The letter probably would have been old news by the time it made its way to Baghdad from their home in coastal Georgia. But Birgit Smith decided to write anyway.

Hi Babe, first I want to say that I love you so very much.

I hope you are doing fine.

It must be very hard for you over there. . . . I can't even put into words to let you know how much I miss you . . .

Birgit told him about life there in Hinesville -- about David, their 9-year-old son, and Harley, their rottweiler. Birgit said she was trying to get out of the house more and not watch so much television news about the war.

I always say to myself no news from you is good news.

I hope I am right . . . I know you will take good care of yourself.

I just miss you so very much.

You are my only one.

I will never give up our love.

You complete my life.

So hurry home.

Birgit put a stamp on the envelope and planned to mail it the next day. That night, she was half asleep when the doorbell rang. It was after 11 p.m.

Birgit walked to the door and looked through the peephole. Two soldiers from nearby Fort Stewart stood on the front stoop.

They wore dress green uniforms.

Her heart pounded. She didn't want to open the door.

One of the men said they had to speak with her.

"No, you don't," Birgit said.

She told the soldiers -- a sergeant and an Army chaplain -- that they had made a mistake. "There are so many Smiths out there. It's such a common name."

They told her that Sgt. 1st Class Paul Smith, of Bravo Company of the 11th Engineer Battalion, had been killed by a single bullet in the head. They had no other details.

The chaplain asked Birgit if she wanted to pray.

"My husband loved the military. He was born for the military," she said. "But right now I hate both of you, and I want you to leave my house."

Birgit Smith did not know that night that her husband died fighting to save the lives of many other soldiers.

She did not know that he was being called a hero, that his comrades and his commanders believed his bravery was worthy of the Congressional Medal of Honor -- the nation's highest military award for valor.

Paul Smith, 33, died on the morning of April 4, shortly after his platoon had arrived at Saddam International Airport.

The 28 men in the platoon had driven all night. Their eyes were bleary from the lack of sleep. They were jumpy from the constant ambushes along the highway leading to Baghdad.

Their primary objective was the eastern edge of the airport, a stronghold of the Special Republican Guard.

That morning, all was quiet on their front. The access roads were empty. Quiet hovered over the cinder-block terminals and through the maze of walled military barracks.

It was as if the Iraqis had run and decided not to fight. Or maybe they were still asleep.

As the early sky turned from black to gray, the Bravo Company of the 11th Engineers parked its track vehicles, bulldozers and Humvees along a sandy wall lined with dusty, green palm trees.

Bravo, which was traveling with the 2-7 Infantry, was looking for a holding area for enemy prisoners of war. Smith ordered a bulldozer to knock a hole in the 8-foot wall so he could see what was on the other side.

The engineers found a courtyard with a 15-foot guard tower in the corner that could be used to monitor prisoners. The area was shaded by palm trees.

We've got the perfect spot, Smith reported over the company radio.

Sporadic fire started coming from the other side of the wall: rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.

An M113, a lightly armored personnel carrier, moved to the opposite end of the courtyard and, with the help of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, knocked open a metal gate.

The Bradley sped through the opening, and went out of sight.

Then a mortar shell landed on top of the M113, spraying shrapnel inside the open hatch.

Rocket-propelled grenades sizzled through the palm trees. Gunfire crackled from the tower. Iraqi soldiers poured through the broken-down gate.

We are in heavy contact, an engineer yelled over the battalion radio.

He shouted grid coordinates.

Smith ran across the courtyard -- about 100 yards -- to the M113 that had been hit by the mortar round.

MORE THAN 285 miles north of Hinesville, in a two-story house in suburban Atlanta, there are pictures of Paul Smith everywhere.

They hang on Lisa DeVane's refrigerator and above her kitchen counter. His picture adorns a pin that her son Greyson, 4, wears, with the words: "My uncle is my hero."

Lisa DeVane is Paul Smith's 36-year-old sister. She has pictures of her brother when they were kids that make her chuckle, like the one of him wearing a goofy mesh baseball cap, holding a boom box.

That was Paul -- scrawny, not one of the cool kids. He never played sports. He didn't excel at academics. He liked to build forts and ignite cherry bombs.

He collected American flags and eagles. He liked to take things apart and put them back together. He was prone to melodrama.

"He would cut his finger and you think he had chopped his whole hand off," said DeVane. "As a kid, you would never have thought he would grow up to be a hero."

Smith came from a family of four children. Their father was an Army officer, who moved his family from Texas to Germany and then disappeared, DeVane said.

After the divorce, their mother, Janice, moved them to Tampa, Fla., to be near her sister. She went from living comfortably on an officer's salary to working in a clothing factory and waiting tables at night.

Things got better when Janice married Donald Pvirre, an Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam.

Lisa DeVane liked to look after her two younger siblings, her sister, Christina, and brother, Paul. She used to fret about Paul's fondness for explosives.

"What if the gas tank explodes," she asked him, as he rolled a cherry bomb under a car. Don't worry, he reassured her, we'll use a fire extinguisher.

Smith didn't tell anyone he was joining the Army until the day before he left for boot camp.

Two days after graduating from Tampa Vo-Tech in 1989, he reported for duty at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri -- training ground of the Army's combat engineers.

These soldiers are trained in high explosives to take down buildings and destroy arms caches. They use bulldozers to knock through walls, and mobile bridges to span tank ditches and canals.

He seemed a perfect fit for the engineers, DeVane said. "Paul liked to blow up stuff."

In most battles, the combat engineers travel with the lead infantry companies, helping to remove obstacles and to cross rivers.

Engineers have to be tough. They are trained, like the infantry, for the close fight with the enemy.

Smith was trained more than most. Toward the end of boot camp, he was sidelined with appendicitis. He had to go through basic training all over again, DeVane said.

After Fort Leonard Wood, Smith was assigned to the 82nd Engineer Battalion in Bamberg, Germany.

That's where he met Birgit.

BRAVO COMPANY 1st Sgt. Timothy Campbell was several hundred yards south of the courtyard. He could hear the snap of bullets and the constant zip of rocket-propelled grenades, which were landing about every 30 seconds.

"We've got to do something. This is getting worse and worse," Campbell told his Humvee driver. They moved on foot toward the courtyard and the fighting.

The scene in the courtyard was bad.

Paul Smith and a medic were helping the wounded.

Staff Sgt. Kevin Yetter had shrapnel lodged in his face.

Sgt. Louis Berwald had broken his arm in two, possibly three, places. The arm, from

shoulder to fingertips, was covered in blood.

Pvt. Jimmy Hill had shrapnel in his neck.

Campbell ran toward the wounded, who were lying on the ground. Two of them could walk. Yetter needed to be carried out on a litter.

To Campbell, a 17-year Army veteran, the fight had the look of a coordinated and determined counterattack by the Special Republican Guard.

Campbell estimated that the attacking Iraqis numbered at least 100.

The 2-7 Infantry's tanks and Bradleys were hundreds of yards away. Some were now engaged with other Iraqis around the airport.

Bravo Company's other M113, parked outside the courtyard, had been disabled.

Campbell was convinced that the 2-7 command -- the Tactical Operations Center -- was in peril. If the Iraqis fought past the engineers at the courtyard, they would advance quickly on the TOC.

The best hope to stop the enemy was inside the courtyard. The engineers' deadliest weapon was the .50-caliber machine gun mounted on the M113.

"We've got to get fire on that tower," Campbell told Smith.

While Campbell led out the wounded, Smith jumped into the M113 and backed it to the other side of the courtyard.

From that vantage point, Smith could train the .50-caliber gun on three enemy positions:

The gate from where dozens of Iraqi soldiers were charging.

A section of the wall, where the Iraqis were scaling palm trees and jumping into the courtyard.

The guard tower, from where Iraqi commanders appeared to be controlling the assault.

Campbell had known Smith for two years. He was one of his best soldiers. At times, he drove Campbell crazy. Smith was meticulous, almost obsessive about following protocol. But Campbell knew that if anyone could handle this fight, it was Smith.

"He had muddy boots," Campbell said. In other words, Smith knew his way around a battlefield.

Smith ran from the courtyard and retrieved a driver and an assistant gunner. As he returned, he threw a grenade over the wall, into a pocket of Iraqis.

Smith got back in the M113, stood on the seat and took control of the .50-caliber. Exposed from the waist up to Iraqi fire, he engaged all three targets, one at a time.

He shot at the gate, then the wall and then the guard tower and then back at the gate. He burned through 400 rounds.

The .50-caliber jammed.

Smith stuck a spoon into the machine gun to keep the ammunition rolling.

BIRGIT SMITH, 36, came from a large German family. She met Paul Smith at a bar in Bamberg, not far from where her parents lived.

After the bar let out one night, Paul Smith and his friend followed Birgit and her friends to a park and then to a hotel, where outside her window he got down on his knees and sang: "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling."

It was straight out of Top Gun, his favorite movie. Paul made Birgit laugh.

They saw eachother a few more times before Paul went to Spain for three weeks of training. When he returned, Paul told Birgit he was falling in love with her.

It was summer of 1990. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait. President George Bush vowed the invasion would not stand.

After spending the summer together, Smith deployed to Saudi Arabia with the 82nd Engineers. His unit was attached to the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which saw fierce fighting in southern Iraq in 1991.

Something during the first war in Iraq changed Smith profoundly.

When he returned, he broke things off with Birgit. "He said he didn't want a relationship," she said. "He said the Army was tough, that there was a risk you might have to leave someone behind. The only thing he said was that he saw too many of his friends dying. That's all he said."

His sister Lisa DeVane also noticed the change.

"When I last saw him, he was this goofy kid; when I next saw him, he was this man," she said. "He recognized that life can change in a moment. He seemed so serious."

Things eventually did change for Paul. He came back to Birgit. They were married in January 1992, in Sonderborg, Denmark, where there was less paperwork to fill out than in Germany.

The couple stayed in Germany and then moved to Fort Riley, Kansas, then to Fort Benning, Georgia, where their son, David, was born and Paul adopted Birgit's daughter, Jessica, who is now 16.

Over the next nine years, Smith deployed to Saudi Arabia, Bosnia and Kosovo and finally Kuwait.

During their marriage, Birgit said, Paul spent as much time away from his family as he did at home.

THIS WINTER, while waiting in Kuwait for the war, Paul Smith wrote to Birgit. She received the e-mail shortly after Valentine's Day.

Dear Birgit,

By the time you get this, the war will probably be started, if it's going to. So I just wanted to say a few things.

First, I love you and the kids with all my heart.

You will be in my thoughts and heart every day.

You are what I see in the brightest star I see in the evening as I look at the stars. I miss you all very much . . .

When this happens, I will not be able to call or write.

Just remember that not hearing from me means that I am fine and don't be worried.

Me and the boys are ready.

And will do just fine.

I won't lie, we are going to be with the guys that will be the first in if we go.

But we have been training a lot and are ready to mix it up.

For some reason, I can't think of what to say to the kids so tell them I miss them and am looking forward to spending time with them again.

I have a hard time picturing them and I look at the old pictures in my wallet, but they are so different than the pictures I have.

Well Birgit, I love ya and don't want ya to go crazy wondering about me.

We will be just fine.

See ya soon.

Paul

P.S. You're still the one.

WITH THE wounded evacuated from the courtyard, Campbell turned his attention to the guard tower.

He was convinced that the enemy soldiers in the tower were controlling the Iraqi assault on the engineers.

Smith kept pounding at the three Iraqi positions with the .50-caliber.

Campbell went up to the side of the M113 and shouted; Smith lifted his headset slightly above his ear to hear Campbell.

"We need to kill that tower," said Campbell.

Campbell took two men and led the assault on the tower. They were armed with an M-16 mounted with a grenade launcher, a light machine gun and a pistol. They were depending on Smith to distract the tower with his .50-caliber.

They had to stop moving whenever Smith stopped firing to reload.

When he resumed shooting, they set fire to some tall grass. Under the cover of smoke, Campbell and the others emptied their weapons into the exposed side of the tower. They poured in more than 200 rounds, riddling the two Iraqis, wearing green army shirts, with bullets.

"You could see them flop around or whatever," Campbell said.

The fighting stopped. The Iraqi assault receded. Smith's weapon had fallen silent. Campbell walked back to the courtyard.

PAUL SMITH wrote to his mother and stepfather before the war. He required all his men to write to their loved ones, Birgit Smith said.

He told the soldiers to carry their letters into combat. Smith stored his on his laptop.

Dear Mom and Dad,

This is the letter no parent wants to hear. So I will start by saying this. If it is my time to go, I want you to know this.

Parents sacrifice so much to make the lives of their kids better than the one they had and kids often never realize it until they are adults.

I think that is why I still haven't thanked you for all you have done.

As I sit here getting ready to head into war once again

I realize that I have left some things unsaid.

I LOVE YOU and don't want you to worry.

Even though I know you will until the day I am home again.

There are two ways to come home, stepping off the plane and being carried off the plane.

It doesn't matter how I come home because I am prepared to give all that I am to ensure that all my boys make it home.

It is my privilege to be given twenty-five of the finest Americans we call soldiers to lead into war.

Many are young and don't understand what they are about to face, just that they are away from the ones they love.

CAMPBELL FOUND Smith inside the M113. He had been shot once in the throat. He had a pulse, but Campbell knew he was gone.

The engineers tried to take off his helmet. But then decided to leave it on. "The back of his head was in his helmet," Campbell recalled.

They brought Smith to the medics at the Forward Aid Station. They were working on the other wounded engineers. Campbell yelled that Smith needed the most help. He went over to his Humvee and radioed for a medevac helicopter, which he knew would take time.

More than seven medics took turns working on Smith for more than 30 minutes in the scorching heat.

A medic who was at the scene, Lt. Jesse Delgado, said Smith fought back briefly and then died.

Bravo Company honored Smith in a field memorial service at sunrise on April 7. Hours later, the engineers rolled with the 2-7 Infantry into the heart of Baghdad.

Two more of the company's engineers, Pfc. Jason Myer and Sfc. Lincoln Hollinsaid, were killed in the fighting that day.

Hollinsaid had taken over Smith's platoon.

He was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in the chest.

TIM CAMPBELL came home to Ohio earlier this month with two goals: take care of his father, who has terminal cancer, and shoot turkeys.

On his best days, he rises before dawn, sets out his decoys on his father's 121-acre farm, near Cincinnati, and lies in wait. He has bagged three birds so far.

Campbell, 35, grew up on this farm, helping his dad raise cattle, soybeans and hay. Campbell figured there was no money in farming. He joined the Army instead.

The rolling fields, the locust trees, the farm ponds brimming with blue gills, and rainy Sundays at the hunting superstore, shopping for a new turkey call and browsing around the shotguns -- this is what Campbell lives for.

Campbell says he has Smith to thank.

"If he hadn't manned that machine gun, where would I be?" asked Campbell, sitting with his wife, Tracy, in his parents' farmhouse. "If he hadn't thrown that grenade, where would I be?"

At any point during that fight, Smith could have ducked into the M113 and driven out of the courtyard, Campbell said.

Smith helped stop the Iraqis from killing his men and advancing on the 2-7's Tactical Operations Center, based under an overpass a half-mile away, Campbell said.

"If they were going to do a counterattack, that was the place to do it," he said. Compared to the 2-7's tanks and Bradleys, the engineers and medics had only lightly armored vehicles.

Lt. Col. Scott Rutter, the 2-7's commander, thinks the Iraqis had something else in mind.

He believes the Iraqis were trying to fight their way out of the airport, which was surrounded by U.S. forces. "The Iraqis felt pinched, they had to do something," Rutter said.

But Campbell wonders why, if the Iraqis were trying to escape, did they continue to advance on Smith. Why didn't the Iraqis run the other way?

"I think their whole purpose in life was to come across that courtyard and kill the [Tactical Operations Center]," which included about a dozen officers, soldiers and four journalists.

Campbell replays the battle in his mind. He wonders whether there was something he could have done differently -- to save Smith.

But then maybe, he thinks, Smith "would be alive and 100 others would be dead."

BIRGIT SMITH is proud of her husband. He has been awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. A flag was flown over the Florida State House in his honor. President Bush sent a letter of condolence. His Medal of Honor recommendation will be reviewed by the Army.

"I would give anything to get my husband back," Birgit Smith said. "They can keep the Medal of Honor and Bronze Star and all that. Just to have him back."

Birgit Smith has since apologized to the soldier and chaplain who delivered word about Paul's death. She doesn't hate them or the Army.

"Paul had two goals in life: one was to achieve in the military and the other was to have a family," she said. "He achieved both."

Birgit spent 13 years as a military wife. All of her friends are military wives. Her one job at Fort Stewart was working at the Army hospital, in the snack bar.

Birgit will be supported by Paul's life insurance policy and military benefits. The military will also pay college tuition for the children, DeVane said.

The vast majority of the 3rd Infantry Division remains in Iraq. By next month, many of the 20,000 soldiers are expected to return to Fort Stewart.

Birgit Smith won't be there to welcome them.

"Everyone would come in, but mine wouldn't. Paul would not be with them." He is one of the division's 35 soldiers lost in combat.

She's moving with Jessica and David to Florida to be close to Paul's parents. There's no reason to stay in Hinesville.

Last week, Birgit Smith packed most of her belongings, Paul's medals, his letters of commendation and his pictures from Iraq.

She got a tattoo on her arm, inscribed with the words: "You're Still the One" and she wears a locket around her neck containing some of Paul's ashes. His sister is raffling off Smith's Harley-Davidson. Birgit had to give away their rottweiler. The dog made her too sad.

But she's bringing along her special box.

That's where she keeps Paul Smith's favorite pillow, the shirt he wore before he left for Iraq, and the letter she never had a chance to send.

Staff writer Michael Corkery covered the war in Iraq for The Providence Journal. He was on assignment with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division. He was at the 2-7 command's Tactical Operations Center on the day Paul Smith was killed.