The Soldiers' Stories: Behind is hard part, but ahead isn't easy

Sgt. Evan Melendez hugs his children as his wife, Patricia, weeps with happiness in Johnstown on June 24, when he returned from Iraq.

The men and women of the Pennsylvania National Guard 2nd Brigade Combat Team's 28th MP Company returned to America at the end of June, landing at Camp Shelby, Miss. When they left Camp Shelby a year earlier, bound for Iraq's dangerous Sunni Triangle, the governor was there to send them and 2,100 other Pennsylvania Guardsmen on their way.

"Pennsylvanians," Gov. Ed Rendell said then, "will be holding their collective breath," hoping for the best, but fearing the worst.

By the end of October 2005, the MP company's Sgt. Danny Lightner, 28, of Hollidaysburg, Blair County, was dead, killed when his Humvee was destroyed by a roadside bomb. Two months later, Sgt. Keith A. Bennett, 32, of Holtwood, Lancaster County, a man who loved loud music and fast motorcycles, was gone as well, the victim of a car bomber.

On June 24, a muggy Saturday, 18 of the 21 MPs in the dead soldiers' platoon flew into Pittsburgh before moving on to a National Guard armory in Johnstown. Families cried and hugged, nibbled on sandwiches, and took lots of pictures.

What lay behind them was awful. For many soldiers, what lay ahead was almost as bad, in a very different way.


HURT AND ANGRY
Staff Sgt. Bruce Morrow, 38, known to his fellow soldiers as "Old Blue," didn't attend the Johnstown homecoming. He had been home in Beechview for four months, his knees and back injured in October, in the same explosion that killed his roommate and friend Sgt. Lightner.

It was Sgt. Morrow's first day driving, and it would be his last, the stuff of nightmares and lifelong regrets. Part of a convoy moving slowly southwest on a road into Ramadi, he steered his armored Humvee through the dark and the dust.

Riding with him were Lt. Robert Meussner, a platoon leader; Spc. Timothy Collins, the gunner; and Sgt. Lightner, the dismount.

The convoy neared its Ramadi base. "The only thing I remember is passing M&Ms to Danny Lightner," Sgt. Morrow said later. An explosion rattled the desert night, heaving the 3-ton vehicle from the road and dumping the wreckage on its right side.

"It was like time froze," he said. "Next thing, I woke up, my leg was on fire, my back was killing me." Shrapnel embedded in his left leg. A bone in his mid-spine, the T-7, was cracked. His head was ringing. Disembodied voices, coming from outside the Humvee, were shouting:

Hey, Blue, you gotta get out.

He did, but Sgt. Lightner didn't. His legs were detached from his torso, and he'd soon be dead.

That was Oct. 27, 2005. Sgt. Morrow was loaded onto a stretcher, flown to another military outpost in Iraq, then to a hospital in Germany. Four days later, he was flown to Andrews Air Force Base, then to the Fort Gordon, Ga., where he stayed until February 2006. He says he wasn't treated for injuries at Fort Gordon -- instead, he participated in formation exercises in the morning, then "did nothing" for the rest of the day.

"They kicked me out," he said. "They do not take my injuries seriously, because, one, I'm not on active duty, and two, I'm not missing any limbs."

Sgt. Morrow, barrel-chested with salt-and-pepper hair, says he still gets headaches. He says his eyesight has been diminished by the explosion. He has lingering back problems, and says that his doctors told him that "my injuries are degenerative. Because of my age. Which is crazy."

His stint in Iraq ended a year ago, yet his battles continue. After several months at home, he's bitter about the way he was treated in hospitals and in the military's Community Based Health Care Organization, which allows injured soldiers to receive outpatient medical treatment close to home. He's been in the Guard for 20 years and has a Purple Heart to his name, but he feels chewed up and spit out.

Like many Humvee drivers who return from Iraq, he has found that driving is difficult at times, an impossible chore at others.

"You drive differently over there, you drive more aggressively. Ran over a couple of sheep, because a sheep herder pushed them into the street. I still drive the way I do over there. You're always checking the road for something, because that's where all the IEDs are," he said.

That's everyday driving. But as a firefighter with Pittsburgh's 26th Engine Co., driving is a part of the job. At least, it used to be.

But that was before he arrived back in Pittsburgh, in February. "I will not drive a fire truck, because of what happened to Danny. I don't want that responsibility. He was my roommate."

The responsibility, the pain, gnaws at him. He's using anti-depressants, anti-inflammatory drugs, sleeping pills and pain pills to get him through the day.

The anger over his injuries and treatment has bled into other areas. He feels, for example, that other members of his platoon were wrongly nominated for a Bronze Star medal for heroism. He's not thrilled with the burgeoning Mexican population in Beechview, or with the rest of the population, for that matter:

"There's a lot of things that [tick] me off about the civilian population," he says.

He said he's worried that his troubles, physical and mental, are taking a toll on his wife, Nicolette, and his 6-year-old twins, Gemini and Robert.

Then he lit another cigarette. He's up to two packs a day.

A WORLD OF MAYBES
For Spc. Brad Bennett -- no relation to the fatally wounded Sgt. Keith Bennett -- the obligatory brush with death came on Aug. 13, 2005. Spc. Bennett, 22, of Lincoln Place, was the gunner in his Humvee, which, along with other vehicles in the convoy, was returning to Ramadi from an escort mission. Explosives were planted on the right side of a three-lane highway. The bomb detonated, probably by remote control, as the sun was rising.

The Humvee, which was maybe five yards from the bomb when it blew, protected its occupants, Spc. Bennett, Sgt. Melendez and the driver.

On the same August day, Spc. Bennett's mother says she sensed trouble.

"I definitely had the feeling all day that something wasn't right," said Sandy Bennett. "I got the call from Brad. Thank God it was him."

On a summer 2006 afternoon, the Bennett household was quickly getting used to having Spc. Bennett around. His new Rottweiller, named Britta, was tugging at her leash.

"It's been a very stressful year," his mom said, crying softly, sitting on patio chair. "We did try to discourage him. It was not at all political. I guess it was selfish. ... I just didn't want him to have to go. I guess I really would like to have seen Brad just go right into colleges like his sister did, and just start his life."

Soon his sister Cara joined in, talking and crying: "It was his decision, but -- it was scary. I think the whole experience made us more patriotic, religious and appreciative in general," she said.

While his mother and sister were relieved to have him back, Sgt. Bennett seemed eager -- eager to point his life in a new direction, and see where the winds might take this strapping, aloof 22-year-old.

He spent his first days back from Iraq tooling around on his lime-green Kawasaki Ninja cycle, walking the dog, working out at the gym. In a few days, he'd be back with the West Mifflin volunteer fire department. But soon, he wants to attend community college, maybe try out for the college's baseball team. Maybe transfer to the University of Pittsburgh, maybe go to the police academy.

There are a lot of maybes.

Early in his return to America, he seemed largely unaffected by his Iraq experiences. But every once in a while, side effects appear -- the bright klieg lights at the Loews Cineplex spooked him, for some reason.

So was it worth it? Was he glad he did it?

"Aw, yeah." He'd do it all over again.

ARGUING IN CIRCLES
Sgt. Evan Melendez, 30, of Brighton Heights was on leave in October 2005, visiting his wife, when the news came that one of his fellow MPs had been killed. He and his wife spent the next few days spinning between their home in Pittsburgh, an armory in Johnstown, and Sgt. Lightner's hometown of Hollidaysburg.

Sgt. Melendez is a squad leader. "He felt bad for his troops that were there," said his wife Patricia, who is a lieutenant in the National Guard but wasn't deployed to Iraq. Soldiers who miss "catastrophic" events like these, especially officers, are often conflicted -- relieved to have escaped harm, but feeling guilty that they've done so.

"I had to get back there," he said, months later. "Not only to be with my soldiers, but I guess to -- payback, if you will."

On Dec. 11, 2005, another brother was lost. The MPs had spent about an hour at a Ramadi police training station, and were waiting for an Iraqi police commander to arrive. When he finally did, another car was following closely behind.

The driver detonated his payload, not only obliterating his car, but also damaging the nearby military Humvee. Sgt. Melendez rushed over and found that the driver was shaken, but had survived. The gunner was blown from the turret, but he too survived. Sgt. Melendez then checked the Humvee's passenger seat for Sgt. Keith Bennett.

He was gone. He'd exited the protective shell of his Humvee, and was on his way to inspect the trailing car when the bomb was detonated. "I turned around," said Sgt. Melendez, "and saw the remains of Sgt. Bennett." Sgt. Melendez called for a body bag, and collected what little remained of his colleague.

Eight months later, a subtle change had come to the patriotic decor at the Melendez family home in Brighton Heights. The American flag, of course, still flew above the lawn. And the colorful garland still decorated the iron railings. The balloons, though deflated and fluttering in the wind, are still hung from the porch, same as they did three days before. But the small banner that had clung to the front door -- a red border, a white field, and a single blue star at the center of it, symbolizing a loved one at war -- was gone.

Meaning Sgt. Melendez -- soldier, father and beloved husband -- was finally home.

In the nearly two years that had passed since Sgt. Melendez and his wife married on Aug. 28, 2004, they hadn't spent more than a few weeks together.

And so their honeymoon finally began, literally and figuratively, first with an August vacation to Hawaii, then with their first weeks of living in the same home -- deciding on dinner, changing diapers, acting like a real, nuclear family. It's the norm for most, but atypical for this group.

The adjustment has had its peaks and valleys. Sgt. Melendez said interacting with his baby boy -- his only biological child; daughter Miranda has a different father -- has been his own private therapy session. But other adjustments to "civilian life," as the soldiers call it, come slowly.

"They advise the families 'Don't be afraid to say, hey, let me drive,' " said Mrs. Melendez, the sergeant's wife. "Everything's gonna be real weird. They're probably going to have nightmares, not sleep real well."

Sgt. Melendez could feel the difference immediately, days after his return to Pittsburgh. Sleep was difficult, and he relied on 10-minute catnaps to stay rested. Even when he does fall asleep, "I've woken up disoriented," he said. "Last night, I woke up. My son was crying. I looked at my wife. She had to remind me that it's OK, it's her. She basically had to calm me down."

Despite the out-of-sorts sensations, Sgt. Melendez initially seemed at ease in his Pittsburgh surroundings.

But July 4 was a turning point.

"I stayed indoors. I just could not go outside. Loud noises, during the fireworks display -- fireworks explosions triggered flashbacks," he said.

By Sept. 11, he'd returned to work, patrolling Pittsburgh's public housing units, and that's another challenge. If he was suspicious of sudden movements before, now he's excessively so.

Somewhere in between the bombast of Independence Day and his symbolic 9/11 return to work, the internal interrogation began. Was it worth it? Should we stay over there? Should we have invaded in the first place? What price are we paying, and why, exactly, are we paying it?

Before leaving, he was as gung-ho as anyone, a "professional soldier," as his wife put it. And while you're over there, he said, you're so consumed with working, surviving, eating and sleeping that you don't have much time to think about this about this war's moral and political underpinnings. It's a mix of unquestioning patriotism and commitment to the job.

"We trained for war. We soldiered for war. We prepared for war," he said months ago.

The patriotism is still there, but it's no longer unquestioning. He talks about the war with his wife and his fellow MPs. They argue in circles, in person and over e-mail, and they end up right back where they started -- divided.

"We look at the news," he said last week, waiting for a defendant to appear in court. "We see what's going on. There's no real answer. It's just an ongoing 'Why?' "

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