01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, May 29, 2005

JOEL P. RAWSON
Executive Editor

On this Memorial Day weekend, the soldiers of the 173rd Long Range Surveillance Detachment of the Rhode Island National Guard are deployed in Baiji, Iraq, in the latest of America's wars.

It is a war of roadside bombs, and suicide bombers driving cars, and never knowing when either will strike. Some of them have fought in other wars and other places -- Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Afghanistan and Kosovo. They are not typical of the military: National Guard soldiers tend to be older, more mature and in some ways, more thoughtful.

They belong to an elite unit. The LRS soldiers are the descendants of the LRRPs -- the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols of Vietnam renown -- who go out in front of the Army to seek out and report on the enemy. They are all paratroopers. Nine are Rangers. They are proud of their independence and toughness.

'I don't let my men complain.'

Sgt. Joseph Voccio, 30, of Cranston, is the assistant team leader of Team 5. He served in Haiti with the 25th Infantry. In Haiti, he saw more poverty and depression. "Iraqis have more, but in Haiti they wanted us there. It was more peace keeping. I try to take what I learned in Haiti and apply it here."

Asked why he's still in the Guard, he says, "I can't give it up. I keep saying I'm getting out. Ask Captain Manning. Then the day before, I say, 'Give me those reenlistment papers.' "

He likes being out on surveillance in the heat and weather. He says he likes being miserable, and if it was up to him he'd stay out all the time. "I don't complain," he says. "I don't let my men complain."

Voccio's grandfathers fought in World War II. Frank Voccio was an Army infantryman in Europe. He was wounded in the right leg and it pained him for years. "He never complained," Voccio says.

His grandfather on his mother's side, Carlo Tirrochi, was a Marine in the Pacific, where he got dengue fever, which may have led to heart problems later in life.

Voccio talks about the fall, more than a year from now, when he will be back in Rhode Island and deer hunting again.

'I felt like I was sitting on the sidelines.'

Sgt. Chet Crowell, 35, of Cranston, is a turret gunner in Team 3. He was in the Army from 1988 to 1991 in the 82nd Airborne and was in the inviasion of Panama in '89.

He was out of the Army in 2001 when the jets hit The World Trade Center on 9/11. He was living in Arizona and he remembers driving down a road with his wife, Lisa, and feeling so much anger.

"I felt like I was sitting on the sidelines." He'd felt like that before when he saw the bodies of Americans being dragged through the streets of Somalia. "You either sat on the sidelines or you got back in."

By the spring of 2002 he and Lisa had moved to Rhode Island and Crowell joined the Army National Guard. He is a paratrooper and when he heard about the 173rd he wanted to join but there was no opening.

He told Sgt. 1st Class John Nolan, "I'll call you every week until you put me in your unit." He called Nolan for seven months before he was accepted.

He is in the 173rd with his best buddy from the 82nd Airborne, Specialist Kevin Small. Crowell remembers saying goodbye to each other the night they went into Panama on Dec. 20, 1989. He remembers it was different then. "We were kids, 18 years old. You didn't have a wife. You didn't have a house. Now you're thinking about those things."

Small is a policeman in Philadelphia. He commutes to Rhode Island to be with his friend in a unit they consider special.

Lisa Crowell is from Warwick. Crowell says they met in St. Augustine, Fla., at a motorcycle shop. She liked Harley-Davidsons. He likes high-performance Japanese bikes. They argued about the relative merits of the two very different types of motorcycles. They went out that night.

Crowell says, "My wife has supported me, for me to be here right now."

His stepfather, Carl Watters, was in the Navy during Vietnam. Crowell remembers that, years later, he still hated to wait in lines. Watters died two years ago.

Chet's brother, Steve Crowell, was with the Marines in Lebanon in the 2nd Recon. He tried to get back in during Desert Storm but his eardrums had been injured in SCUBA school. Crowell says Steve told him he was real proud of him.

For Crowell and his friend Small, Crowell says of this tour in Iraq, "This is our last deal, this is it from here."

'I want them to appreciate their freedoms.'

Sgt. Christopher Sheehan, of Providence, is called "sergeant major" by the other soldiers, the highest enlisted rank in the Army, despite the fact that he is a buck sergeant. That's largely because Sheehan is the oldest man in the 173rd. Last Sunday, he turned 49.

Sheehan was in the 82nd Airborne back in '79-'82. After he got out, he took a long break from the military, but he was reading in the news about Desert Storm, Bosnia and Kosovo. He saw the Cold War ending and new history being made as the world changed, and he wished he'd stayed in.

First, he joined an infantry outfit in Connecticut. Then he heard of the 173rd, and joined up in 1994.

He finds this war "kind of frustrating. We have a good unit. You don't want to be abusive, but you don't want to fight with one hand tied behind your back. Sometimes it seems like they just want to keep the MSRs open and turn the war over to the Iraqis."

The MSRs are the Main Supply Routes. Keeping them open is one of the Army's top priorities.

"The Iraqis are dying," Sheehan says. "They must be saying, 'Why should we take a risk if you're not willing to take a risk.' "

"Sometimes I get cynical. If casualties are only two a week, that's okay."

If casualties were two a day, he thinks the public attitude would change.

He says he knows a lot of people back home who think the war is wrong. "People say, 'Thank you for being here.' I don't want thank you. I want them to appreciate what they have, their freedoms."

He says the 173rd is a young person's unit, but he can keep up on the runs and mountain climbs. "I'd rather be struggling here than be someplace else."

He used to be on a surveillance team, but now he works in the communications section manning the radios. The 173rd places a high importance on its communications with its teams in the field. The unit uses several specialized radios, including high frequency and satellite radios.

Sheehan's father was Superior Court Judge John F. Sheehan, who served in the 11th Airborne Division during the occupation of Japan after World War II. Judge Sheehan died in 2002.

Sheehan's uncle, Bill Sheehan, joined the Army Air Forces in 1943 and flew as a bombardier in Europe.

His grandfather on his mother's side (she's Maureen Sheehan and works at Nathan Bishop School), served in the Navy during World War I.

Sheehan works in special education in the Providence School Department. After his tour in Iraq, he thinks he will take a couple of months to transition and maybe go back to work in the fall.

He also thinks he would like to go to the Army's language school. The Army needs interpreters who speak Arabic.

'I saw the first RPG. Heard the second.'

Staff Sgt. Stephen Lafond 36, of Chicopee, Mass., is the non- commissioned officer in charge of the 173rd's communication section.

This is his second trip to Iraq. Earlier, he and his good friend, Staff Sgt. James Leonard, of Waldwick, N.J., volunteered to come here with 118th Military Police Company of the Rhode Island National Guard.

Lafond was a gunner on a Humvee doing a night patrol on Route 10 outside Fallujah when he was hit by the second of two rocket-propelled grenades.

"I saw the first RPG. Heard the second."

He looked down at his left hand and thought, "Where's my fingers?"

He was evacuated to a hospital in Germany.

His wife, Donna, was at work at a pharmaceutical company when she got a phone call. The caller was a woman from the Army. Her husband had been hit by an RPG and injured in the foot, the hands and the face.

Lafond says the caller told her, "He's in critical condition but we think he's going to be okay."

"The first thing she asks is, 'What's an RPG?' "

The caller told Donna.

"Then she asks, "Where is he?' "

The caller didn't know.

Lafond says Donna told her not to call back until she knew where he was.

Donna called Lafond's parents to let them know.

She had just returned home when the phone rang. It was Jimmy Leonard, calling from Iraq to tell her what had really happened and to let her know that Lafond was going to be all right. He'd been sent to Germany.

After Lafond was returned to the States, Donna drove to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. On the drive back to Massachusetts, he kept patting his leg, looking for the 9-millimeter pistol he wore in Iraq.

"Where's my nine?" he asked. "Where's my nine?"

He has stainless-steel rods in the fingers of his left hand and he can't bend them.

He was in the paratroopers when he was on active duty from '86-'88. After he got out, he went to college and joined a regular infantry outfit. When he heard about the 173rd, he joined them because he liked it.

The Long Range Surveillance soldiers are very physical.

To get in you have to be airborne-qualified, a paratrooper, and you must have a high score on your physical training test. Once a year the unit climbs Mount Moosilauke in New Hampshire. The soldiers carry rucksacks and gear weighing from 50 to 100 pounds.

"You either deal with it or not," Lafond says. "Pass the suck test. How much can you take? If this old man can make it up, there's no way one of my kids isn't going to make it up. I'll drag him up.

"It's an alpha-male unit."

Lafond works in corrections in Connecticut.

"I grew up lucky with a mom and dad who have been together for 35 years," Lafond says. "My hero's always been my dad. God blessed me twice with Donna and my parents."

His father was in the Marine Corps Reserve. Donna's father, Irving Meyer, was in the Navy during the '40s. Her brother, Staff Sgt. Brian Meyer, is an active-duty Marine.

Lafond plans to make his father a display from an American flag and his decorations.

As he was getting ready to return to Iraq for a second time, Lafond says, "I could see my dad age, and I knew I did it to him."

'Nothing brings men together like war.'

Specialist Nathaniel Deitch of North Kingstown is the second radioman in Team 4 and a gunner on the Humvee. At 19, he is the youngest soldier in the 173rd.

Deitch was thinking of going into the Army.

"I was a high school graduate with no job," he says. "All I did was surf, go out with friends and spend money I made as a waiter."

He worked at the Newport Creamery in North Kingstown.

He was thinking about joining the Army. His stepfather, Eric Hempel, who was a 20-year member of the Rhode Island National Guard, said he should try the Guard to see if he liked it.

"Since I joined, I've only had a week off active duty," Deitch says. "I love it, the best thing I've ever done."

He was told that if he did really well in basic training he might win a spot in airborne school. Motivated, he became the leader of his class and went to parachute school.

He was reporting to another outfit in the Rhode Island National Guard when Voccio spotted his airborne badge and got him to talk to the 173rd's commander, Capt. Michael Manning of North Kingstown.

Deitch saw all the ranger and airborne tabs worn by the 173rd's soldiers. He was impressed.

"The next time I saw Captain Manning, he said the unit was deploying," Deitch said. "And was I ready to make that commitment as an 18-year-old getting ready to go to college?"

He went to sniper school, and by the time he was done he felt he was one of the guys.

Of Iraq he says, "I don't want to leave here until I've made a difference and I think I have."

He tells of an incident when he saw insurgents shoot at an Iraqi policeman. He and the men with him opened fire on the insurgents. Deitch believes they saved the policeman's life.

"When we showed up here and started patrolling, the IEDs stopped." IEDs are improvised explosive devices -- the roadside bombs.

"I'd like to think they're afraid of us. If they're not, they should be."

He met his girl, Andrea Porter, at the old Riverside Amusement Park when he was 12 and she was 13. Then, in freshmen year of high school, "I showed up for algebra class and there she was, sitting right next to me."

What does she think of his serving in Iraq?

"I don't think she likes it. It's not because she isn't proud of me. She loves the guys. It's because Iraq is a place where somebody is actively trying to kill you."

The war?

"Well, I love it," Deitch says. "I love the idea of camaraderie. Nothing brings men together like war. I love the situation I'm in with these guys. I love suffering with them and riding in helicopters but I think the war is bull. . . ."

"There are officers who are willing to let us have our brains blown out by IEDs. We've had so many chances to go to where the insurgents sleep. The officers are afraid to make decisions because they will be judged by them."

"Every time we'll be out and drive by things that could be IEDs, mounds of dirt, piles of trash, in your mind you think, 'Is that thing going to blow up?' You'll go around it and the second vehicle will blow up and you know there's somebody out there watching."

"When I grow up, I'm going to be a combat veteran, if not a sergeant major, a general, and I'm going to change this army. I'm going to visit every unit and every officer must demonstrate the will, the tenacity, to engage the enemy."

"I feel like a . . . piece of meat."

He is thinking about applying for the Special Forces. He is also thinking of going to college and going to the FBI or DEA. If he stays in the military, he would like to stay in the Guard.

'Guys want to be in this unit.'

Sgt. James Giorgi, 31, of North Providence, is a base radio team leader. He was on active duty for five years before getting out and going to work for Northern Telecom, pulling cable in North Carolina.

He met his wife, Julie, there. Now, she's a sixth-grade special education teacher at Ferri Middle School in Johnston.

"She misses her family," Giorgi said, "and with me gone, it's kind of difficult for her."

Giorgi was laid off from the telecom job and his uncle, Larry Giorgi, offered him work as a plumber's apprentice if he came to Rhode Island.

"I always wanted to jump out of planes," Giorgi said. The 173rd is an airborne unit and it was another reason to come to Rhode Island.

"Guys want to be in this unit," Giorgi said. "We got our stuff that goes on, but when something needs to get done we band together and do it."

"I have friends in other units that ask, "What are you doing jumping out of planes and putting on rucksacks and climbing Mount Moosilauke? Why don't you join a unit where you drive trucks and drink beer?'

"What we do, it sucks a lot of the time. When you look back on it, it makes you feel better about yourself. Anybody can do the easy thing, but this unit's not just anybody."

His stepfather, Daniel Lariviere, was in the Air Force during Vietnam. His grandfather on his mother's side, Jack Rennard, was drafted during Korea.

'She's hanging in there. It's tough on her.'

Specialist Aaron Buehler, 25, of Newport, is a senior scout in Team 1 and a Humvee driver. He and his wife Stacy are expecting their first child.

After graduating from Middletown High School, Buehler didn't know how he was going to pay for college, and he thought he needed to grow up. so he signed up for three years of active duty with the Army.

A few weeks after he left the Army and returned to Rhode Island, he got on the Internet see what Reserve or Guard units were in the state. He had heard about Long Range Surveillance in Hawaii. When he saw the 173rd, he decided to join.

He met Stacy through a friend of a friend, who said he ought to meet her niece who just graduated from the University of Massachusetts.

Today is their first anniversary. Buehler says the deployment to Iraq may have sped up the wedding but "we knew we were headed down that road.

"The one year we have been married, I've spent three quarters of the time away from her. Hell of a first year."

Just before Thanksgiving last year, while he was training at Fort Drum in New York, he and Stacy went to Montreal for a romantic four-day getaway, and now they're going to be parents.

Now, he says, he "couldn't be any more happier, prouder, scared out of my mind."

"She's hanging in there. It's tough on her."

"It's hard to be in the apartment alone, moving stuff around to get ready for the baby."

Buehler has been on the Newport Fire Department since October 2003, and he said they would help her.

"They wouldn't hesitate to send the whole department over there if they needed to."

He and Stacy communicate by e-mail.

"We just get on AOL Instant Messenger and we chat. We were chatting just about every day. She sends me packages and letters. Letter writing seems to be going the way of the dodo."

He saves the e-mails in his in-box and goes back to read them.

Of the war Bhueler says, "The jury's still out. I try to remain optimistic. Only time will tell if what we're doing over here will be beneficial to the country.

"Will my son live in a world with a constant fear of terrorism? This is a part of the world where terrorism is coming from. Whether this is the right way to change that, time will tell.

"Being over here is hard enough. I'm glad that I'm learning what the rest of the world is like. I'm glad to be an American. I'm just so grateful for our safety. Here civilians get killed by IEDs meant for Americans."

His father, Jack Buehler, was in the Navy on a ship during the first Persian Gulf War.

His grandfather, William Buehler, was on the destroyer Maddox during the Tonkin Gulf incident. It was that incident, when North Vietnamese gunboats were believed to have attacked the ship, that led to a congressional resolution and direct United States involvement in the Vietnam War.

His brother, Joe Buehler, is also in the Rhode Island National Guard.

People from Newport send packages and Buehler is grateful for the support. "In the last great war, Vietnam, you didn't see that," Buehler said. "It makes it easier."

Digital Extra: Find more reports and photos from Iraq by Journal executive editor Joel Rawson and staff photographer John Freidah, on assignment with the 173rd Long Range Surveillance Detachment of the Rhode Island National Guard, at:

http://projo.com/extra/2005/iraq/rawson/