Video Interview: Amber marie DeLuca

Roaring Fork Veterans History Project

3-17-07

 US Marine Corpsman Amber De Luca

interviewed by: Corby Anderson

At GrassRoots Community TV, Aspen, Colorado

Hello, this is Corby Anderson and today we’re in the studio of Grassroots Community Television in Aspen, Colorado.  We’re here for the Aspen Veterans History Project and today’s guest is Amber De Luca, Amber Marie De Luca, who was born on May 20, 1982 and served as a corpsman in Operation Freedom in Iraq, I believe.  Welcome to the program.

Thanks.

Thanks for being here. So, let’s start with your childhood.  You were born where?

Actually born in Dallas, Texas.  I moved here when I was three years old, I grew up here.  I went to Aspen School District, graduated from Aspen High School.  I graduated early and joined the Navy at seventeen, went to boot camp.

Is it true that you went to school in this very building that is now an art center?

Yes.  The Red Brick Building.  I was in elementary school here.

That’s great.  What was that like?

It was great; I mean growing up in this valley was great.  It’s small and you know everyone and coming back makes it that even more important ‘cause it’s still the same people that are here and you still see all your parents’ friends and your friends, so I like it.

Who are your parents?

Frank De Luca and Nancy Howe.  My Mom moved up to Idaho, Sun Valley, and she got married when I graduated high school.

And what do they do?

My Dad does stocks and my Mom works with accounting and secretary type duties.

Do you have any brothers or sisters?

I have an older brother and older sister.  Christopher De Luca is in Boulder going to school.  He’s going for a double PhD in math and mechanical engineering, I know.  And my sister, Elizabeth De Luca, she just moved back here.  She got her Master’s in architecture and she’s working with Bill Poss, or Poss Architecture and Planning.

Do you have any military background in your family?

Not really, I’ve got a couple of uncles that went to Nam and whatnot but they were drafted and were for two years or whichever they enlisted for a little bit but there’s not really anything in my immediate family that I’ve ever been around.

Did that experience have weight in your life, talking with your uncles?

No, not at all.  I didn’t even know about it until a couple years in, probably.

Really?  So, let’s talk a little bit about your high school years.  You went to Aspen High School?

Correct.

And what year did you graduate?

2000.

What were some of the activities that you pursued in high school?

I snowboarded and played volleyball for a little while.

Did you see yourself gravitating towards the military during high school?

One day I decided to join and fourteen days later I was in boot camp, so, it wasn’t anything planned.

Wow.  How did you decide to join?

I graduated early just cause I didn’t like being in school anymore and I didn’t really want to go to school, so I moved away for a couple of months I went to Florida with my boyfriend and came back and decided that I don’t want to stay here cause I just need to get out of Aspen for awhile and I didn’t want to go to school.  I talked to a recruiter and he said, “Go.”  So I was in boot camp before my grade graduated and before prom and all that stuff.

At age seventeen?

At seventeen.

And that was within the realm of the military?

I had to get my parents to sign waivers to go in.  My dad was not pleased.

Did you discuss this with your dad beforehand?

Very briefly.  We actually had to corner him in the grocery store and get him to sign it.

Really?  And how did that, describe that to us.

Well, my mom was really excited about it.  She wanted me to get out of Aspen and couldn’t move out of here, but my dad didn’t and we’re so close and that last year right when my mom moved away we got even closer, so it was hard.  Just sad to let me go because I was the youngest and both his other kids were already gone.

Did you know the climate of the military at the time?  I mean, this was in 2000 is that right?

Not at all.

You didn’t do any research into what the world status of our military was?

No.

At that time we were at peacetime.

Right.  Correct.

Did you see yourself going into a particular branch right away, or how did you decide to be a..

It’s actually interesting, people wonder how I was in the Navy from Aspen, ‘cause it just doesn’t make much sense, but one day a recruiter came to our school and so I just remembered I called him up and he was Navy.  It didn’t matter at that point.  I didn’t know what I was doing.  I didn’t understand any of it.

What was the single most excite, was there an excitement about it? And if so, was there one particular thing about the Navy that set it off from everything else?

No.  When I went to Meps(sp) in Denver, I didn’t know what I wanted to do.  My boyfriend at the time was going through flight school just as a civilian getting his pilot’s license.  So, I though, “Oh, I’ll do something aviation related.”  I was almost in aviation ordinance and I didn’t know what that was and they were like, “Well, you carry bombs around.”  And I was like, “Oh, okay, that sounds fun.”  And then they just happened to offer me a corpsman, so, which is, my recruiter said, “Take that.”  I didn’t know what was and so I became a corpsman, which is like medic.

A medic.  And so that means you had to qualify fairly high on your tests or something for aptitude?

It’s not too high, but yeah. Above some.

To be a doctor there is not the easiest thing in the world, I’m guessing.

No.

How much, from the fourteen days that you decided until you were in boot camp, let’s get there.  How did you enter boot camp? Did you show up on a bus or a train?

Well, we went to Denver on, I think he drove us, or my recruiter drove me to Denver and then we got.  There was a bunch of people went through Meps(sp) and then they put you on a plane.

Meps(sp) is for the layman?  What is Meps(sp)?

I don’t even know what it stands for.  Anybody?

Is it training?

No.  It’s just an entry program, so it’s getting you like all your paperwork, your physical, all that kind of stuff.  Then it gets you in, they fly you from there and then we flew into Chicago and then we, well, at the airport and everyone kind of got together, you get on a bus and they bus you in and your life changes.

Do you remember your first experience at boot camp? Or the first person you met?

I don’t remember the first person I met.  I remember going in and getting off the bus and kind of in a line and all of a sudden someone starts yelling at you and you couldn’t figure out really what was going on at this point it was kind of shocking, but it was good.  I obviously tried to be different and get away with more than I should have.  I remember walking out the first day we walked out onto the grinder and I had my recruit hat, I put it on backwards and they didn’t like that.

Not a good idea?

No. I kind of learned real quick just to shut up.

What did they do to you?

They just yell at you, and at that point they couldn’t really make you do anything yet ‘cause legally you weren’t fit for full duty, you hadn’t had your shots and it’s this whole process.

They didn’t quite own you yet.

Exactly.

Was there any comments about where’re you’re from?

Yes.

What was that like?

Actually, what’s funny is at first they asked is if anyone Texas and I had said, “Yes.” And then of course they were like, “Oh, poor you guys” and this whole thing so I remembered never to say that again.  But then saying from Aspen, they were like “What are you doing in the military?

Right.  They considered you some kind of privileged person or something?

No, not at all.

They didn’t give you that business?

No, but they just couldn’t figure out why I joined or what was going on or, “People live in Aspen?” you know, that kind of deal that we all get.

Right, I can imagine that in the military, that would be used against you in some cases.

Right, but…

So, in boot camp, did you meet friends that became compadres throughout your experience?

Yes.

And who are some of those people?

I’ve got one of my best friends, Amy Graham, she was Amy Martin before and we were in boot camp and then in corps school together.  I went to Spain, I’m gonna kind of jump a little ahead.

That’s all right, go ahead.

I went to Spain and she stayed in the States and then I came back and she went to Spain the same duty station I was at.  I was totally bummed out.  That’s where she is.  She’s re-enlisted and she’s still in.

Anybody else that you remember specifically?

Not from boot camp that I’ve stayed really close with and there’s a lot of people that I’ve met along the way that I still talk to.  Especially people from my experience in Iraq and stuff because those people you get so close with.

To young females out there, what is boot camp like.  What should they expect?

Well, you still have in the Navy at least, you’re still mixed and how we did it was we had two units, it was like sister divisions they were upstairs in the barracks and then downstairs was the male divisions so, during the day we kind of switched like their unit would kind of go together and then ours would go together. So that’s how it would be but then you would sleep in your own areas and they were in different sections, but it’s the same treatment.  I mean you’re together all day long, it’s the same activities and I know that’s different for different services but for the Navy…

How physical was the experience? Like the workouts and the training?

I talked off a lot and I was always, I mean doing push-ups, I was always on the ground and I was bad and I enjoyed it and they would always be like, “Are you guys here to learn with your minds or your bodies?”  and I didn’t know what the military was…”Well, my body” that’s why I’m here, I thought it was just an experience, I was young and I just thought “Hey, this will be good for me.  Get me out of town.”

Did you enjoy the shape that you got into or did everyone seem to transform as time went on?

I did.  It’s interesting, some people got a lot skinnier, you know, lost a lot of weight in boot camp, a lot of people gained a lot weight, just muscle mass and stuff but, it wasn’t too intense.  We had, I mean every day it was obviously doing a lot of push-ups and whatnot, they got tired of it and just said, “You owe me hundreds.”, you know here and there and I’m like “No, no I don’t want to owe you any more.” ‘cause at the end they just add it all up.

What was your first experience training?  Did you train in the medical department at all during boot camp or was that separate?

No.

Let’s get from boot camp to the next step.

Well, I thought that I wanted possibly to be a dive med-tech.  Which in order to do that in boot camp you can start training, but you had to be a higher rank to get into dive med school.  But I started training with the Seals while I was in boot camp for a little bit cause the Seals and EOD(sp)  and everybody they all train together.  I stopped that after about four weeks because it’s already that I don’t get enough sleep and then I gotta get up at 4:30 versus 6 and go to dive training.

Are you a morning person?

No.

Was this difficult for you in general?

Definitely not a morning person.  And it’s interesting now cause people say, “Well, why can’t you get up.  You were in the military.”  And I’m like, “Well it’s tough every day there too.”

No doubt.  Okay, so, let’s get you to your medical training.  Where was that?

It was also in Great Lakes, Illinois.  I went from boot camp, actually across the street to the other part of the training camp and we went, that was another fourteen weeks, I think was corps school and just through a series of tests and just do that.

So you didn’t even really know what the, when they said that you could be a corpsman or that you could sign up for that, you didn’t know what that was.  As you went through boot camp you probably started to gain more knowledge about what you’re gonna get in to?

Yeah, but not really cause boot camp they did just basic military training.  You didn’t really do anything and I think they might have done first aid or whatnot but it was just completely basic training so I still didn’t really know what a corpsman was, I mean they explained it and you got to read about it and you had to know these things, but  I didn’t really know and so I ended up just going to school and they would go through, I mean physiology, anatomy, medical terminology a lot of nursing procedures and stuff like that so you just go through classes and kind of like compress college.

How long was the college course or the training?

I mean, we did Monday through Friday, 8 to 4:30 or so.  It was just class after class.

For like a year?

No, it was only fourteen weeks.

Wow.

I know.  Yeah, so they just pound it into you real quick.

So in four months or less you became basically a doctor or how does that work?

No.   Kind of like am EMT more.  You can do a lot of nursing type things but more just like.

First responder.

Yeah, a lot of stuff like that but they kind of get a lot further into, you know the college courses from the physiology and anatomy and things like that, that they’re trying to push you know get you into them and then later I went into more field med school which is learning the field side of it for the Marines.

Was there a gross-out factor at all ever?  I’m guessing you had to work with blood and see pictures and was there any of that for you?

I’ve never really had a problem with that.  So I think it was kinda lucky for me that they offered me this ‘cause I enjoyed it and I love it.  And my mom can’t handle some of the things and I mean just from simple stuff.  She fainted when she got her ears pierced, and she hates needles and things like that. I love it. And they give you so much leeway in the military. I mean I used to cut like (mumbled) out of people and sew them up, and now I can’t do anything in that realm because of the legal aspect. And that’s hard.

Wow. Did you meet anyone in this medical training who became really tight with your unit, or did you form a unit at that time, or how did that work?

In training you’ve got your class, and some people, you know, had to get sent back, or got kicked out if they didn’t pass. But then after that is when you go out to your unit, so it’s just a training atmosphere.

How did you perform in your training? Particularly with the tests and stuff.

Testing, I’m not very strong with. Um. I passed them all. I definitely could have done more, but I tried very hard on the testing, so that was very difficult for me. Practical stuff I was very good with.

And what was graduating from this course like?

It was good.  It felt really good. It wasn’t anything like graduating from boot camp, that feeling.

Did you go out and celebrate?

No. I was 18, so there wasn’t a whole lot to do. I mean we did go out, and there was a little party type thing, but it wasn’t anything. It was kind of at a good moment of my life.

Make some calls, and kind of get ready for the next thing.

Yep.

And what was the next thing?

Um. I went to Rhoda, Spain. So I was really lucky. It’s one of the duty stations in the Navy that people like to go to retire to, and I was 18. I was the youngest person on the base. I loved it, it was beautiful. I was in a hospital there. I started my first, my first job was in pediatrics and internal medicine. I was in the family practice, but I was on that hall, and it was just me and my nurse and a couple doctors, so. It was just amazing.

I guess that I should step back just a little bit. Did you take a boat across? A ship?

No. They flew.

So you still to this point had been in the Navy, but had you been in a ship at all?

I never, once was on a ship in the Navy! You have a choice to go on a ship, or go with the Marine Corps, and I chose the Marines. Some people still never end up on a boat.

That’s fairly interesting!

Yeah.

OK, so Rhoda, Spain. And what was it like?

It was amazing. I lived out in town, with a girl that I was in Corp school with. We had to convince them to let us move out, because we were both E-1’s, and that was hard for them, we were both so young, and our finances and what not, but I kind of pushed it by saying that I got a dog, which I did. So they let us move out. It was great. We had a three-bedroom house, just the two of us. It was just incredible, and they, you know pay for that.

A little bit of freedom, almost?

Yeah, it was great. I mean, we worked. I went to school while I was there ‘cause they have the University of Maryland-Europe, and they have bases everywhere, campuses. I went to school while I was there also, and then, go home, and party a lot in Spain. It was great.

This was on the coast I am guessing?

Yes. Southern Spain, lower than Seville and Cady. So it was just great.

Was the experience lighthearted, or was it serious? What was your life like?

I mean almost like just a regular job. I mean this is one of the best places to go in the military, that’s not almost like the military. We didn’t raise the flag on base. Which is hard, because it’s a Spanish base, but we weren’t allowed to. And then 9-11 happened.

Where were you on 9-11?

I was working. It was about 8:30 in the morning there. 4:30 in the afternoon, it was 8:30, here. It was about 4:30, I think in the afternoon, and our day was winding down. I had a couple patients left. We had a few TV’s on in the hospital, so we were all watching that. And it was really hard on a lot of the families. I know I had a friend that his mother worked in the Pentagon. And it was just. They weren’t sure if they were going to go to Threat-con Delta, which would be completely locked down, everybody had to move back onto the base. And they would have sent all our spouses home, and what not. We got to Charlie, they didn’t get us to Delta. We did get to go on the base and stay with friends in case they locked the base down.

Watching the images on screen, what were your feelings? Did you miss home?

At that point I don’t think that I realized that this was going to put us into a completely different state of the military, what I was doing. And, of course, called home kind of settle everybody. I mean your not in any danger at this point, at least I wasn’t, but just kind of talk and see if everyone’s OK. Hear out how everybody is felling about it.

Did you think that it was a terrorist act from the very beginning? What were your feelings about it?

I didn’t at first, but after everyone just watched it and got into right away it definitely changed out feelings, what was going on.

So, talk about the transformation of the military, in the days following. In your department, at least.

We started putting security forces together on base, which they started cracking down on us and locking us in. It kind of seemed like a threat for a week, like we were gonna be locked in but we weren’t, we still had our freedom.  But they started putting all the security forces together, they started pulling Corpsman from the hospitals, all of them that had already been with the Marines were going to these forces. And it was really just patrolling the base and making sure that everything was OK there. The Spanish Navy let us fly our flags for one week.

At half-mast?

Yes. We weren’t really allowed to fly the flag there, but they would let us personally put a flag outside of our house for a week, and that was it, then we couldn’t fly the flags again, just because it wasn’t our base. They did the security, to get off and on base, it wasn’t us.

Was there empathy from the Spanish, towards…?

Yes there was. Everyone got along really well, plus this base here was the economic base of this whole area in Spain because we just supported their economy completely.

How did you get from there to Iraq?

Well I went from Spain, I did a year in the pediatric internal medicine ward, then I started working in the ER.

This is after 9-11?

Yes. I started working in the ER.

You didn’t get immediately sent to Iraq then?

No. I went, I was in the ER for a year. Working on the ambulance there.

Still in Spain?

Still in Spain, still doing my duty there. Then it was time to rotate for me, I did two years in Spain and so I decided, it was my choice of a ship or the Marine Corp, so I decided to go with the Marine Corp, which is what I had wanted to do in the beginning, but they didn’t have any billets open, so I did that. I went to Camp Pendleton, California, where I did my field med school training.

So you went from Spain, to San Diego? This is not a bad duty status that you had!

No! I’m back in a training command, for another eight weeks, and that was a lot harder than boot camp even. But easier because you had little bit of freedom, a couple hours a night off. But it was an open bay living, barracks again, and I mean you had the girls on one side and the girls on the other, but you would mingle all day. It was defiantly a majority more of guys, at this point, as there always is, in the military.

I am guessing that there was a different edge to the training, once we had gone to war with Iraq. Were we at war at that point, with Afghanistan and Iraq?  At least with Afghanistan…

Yes. That was December, January 1^st, actually 2003, is when I started field med training.

And the Iraq war started in March of 2003. So that was the run up?

Right.  I mean we were already building into there.

What was the attitude, the mood, how did it feel to be training for this?

Everybody wanted to do it. There wasn’t nobody was angry at our President, nobody was angry about what was going on. We wanted to retaliate. We wanted to make sure that we were protecting this country again. And get in there.

Marines are pretty confident group, so I am guessing that this not a fearful situation, they were excited to go to work.

They wanted in. They definitely wanted to go. And that is what is great about training with the Marines, now you’ve got Navy Corpsman who are with the Marines, already, that are training you, and then you’ve got the Marines, so now you are not just being trained by the Navy anymore. And you’re doing field medicine as well as Marine Corp knowledge and history and your learning all of this, so your kind of transitioning there and I think that it’s great. It’s a great training. It’s a lot more intense, but…

As a medic, do you train with weapons at all?

Yes.

So you have to have the knowledge, but you don’t carry one, when you’re on duty, is that correct?

We do. When were at war, just like the Marines, but they carry their M16’s or the 240 Galls (?), and Mark 19’s. They have their machine guns and whatnot, and we carry a pistol. Because, were supposed to be, you know protecting not shooting.

It’s to protect yourself, theoretically?

Right. Right, but when we would go on convoys we would trade with them, like if they were driving I would give them my pistol and they would give me their M16, because it was easier. We would do that, time to time.

So you are in Sand Diego, Camp Pendleton, and you are training heavily at this point, and you were formed into a unit at that time?

Yes. Well, again, your back kind of in training, but that was my unit there. But then we all, went to our separate units. I mean all over, people went to Okinawa, people went to East Coast. There’s only one field med, actually there’s two field med schools, so you can do east or west coast, so you could be sent anywhere from there. You could be sent to Spain, if they had a billet open. But I went right across the street, and I stayed in Camp Pendleton, and I went with the first MEFF headquarters group, medical, so.  That was my unit. Then that is where I was for the next couple of years.

First MEFF, and this is part of the 187^th? Is that right?

No.

I’m sorry.

That’s OK.

I think that was yesterday! What was your unit called?

It was actually 1^st MEFF, which is, god! Acronyms, your forget what they mean, you just use them, but, it was MEFF headquarters group, then it was a medical, so we were with the General, which is the MEFF, is the General part, but we were just the Headquarters group of that. It’s kind of complicated.

Just for the record. If you ever had a particular squad, just throw it out there so it’s on the record. 1^st MEFF is probably what that was.

Yes it was.

All right. So, in those two months leading up to when we invaded Iraq, when America did, what were you doing and did you know that you were going to be shipped off?

Yes, we did, because there is a rotation that goes through first of all. 82^nd Airborne I think is actually who you might have been thinking of. They went in, at first, that was Army, and then the MEFF took over for them, and it depends where you were at. I mean 1-5, 3-5, they, just other Marine units they just take over for each other and rotate, and it’s usually a 14 month rotation, it gives you two months to kind of turn over. We had enough people in our unit that we did seven months and seven months, so we could split it up. There was some people who did the whole 14 month tour, but we did seven usually that was the majority of our unit. When I got out of field med school I went with them, it was right before we invaded, so when that happened, when the war started, we were all watching it and those are all of our friends out there, and there was already some of both units but it was more Army at that time and then it turned over.

Before you were shipped overseas did you go home at all?

I had gone home right before we were shipped to Spain. I went home. I came home once from Spain. And then, I came home every year for about five days or so.

Good times?

Yeah. It is good to come home, but it was really good to leave again. It’s hard to come back, you know. To where you grew up, and actually spend time, so it’s different.

Did you ever run into anybody in the military who was from the valley, or Western Colorado?

No. Never while I was in. We had a couple people, from Aspen who had gone. Adam Mooney had gone. He joined the Army, and then, there wasn’t anyone for a while, I think, until I went. There was three guys from my grade who went, after they graduated, because they graduated after me.

So there was four people from your class who went into the military? That’s pretty, for a small school that’s pretty impressive.

Three or four yeah. Very big, especially because there was there was nobody for about three or four years who went.

And technically, you graduated before 9-11, which inspired a lot of people to join. Interesting. So let’s get you to Iraq. How did that come about?

I was in Camp Pendleton actually for a whole year, with my unit. I didn’t go the first tour. They all went. I stayed at the aid station in California working and then I went. I went in February of 04, so, it had been going on for about a year. We flew into Kuwait, and it was Camp Victory I think at the time, it’s changed, it was just tent city, and a ridiculous amount of people. The chow lines, I mean two and a half, three hours just to get in. It was just huge amount of people going in and out.

And equipment too, going everywhere I guess?

Yeah, it was just amazingly ridiculous.

How did you keep track of who you were supposed to be with? You got assigned a tent and you just stayed with that?

Yes. We mustered, which is like any other formation. Four or five times a day. Getting ready, and getting all of the equipment. And finally we did a convoy up, and we had three strands of 45 vehicles going up. And it was absolutely amazing seeing this transition. You had a six lane highway and there’s three lanes of Army coming this way, you know, armored vehicles, and then us all going in, and you get a little Iraqi going down the road, and he’s trying to swerve in and out of this, going in the medium and the other side of the road, and you are just like, are you insane?

We’re all pointing mark 19’s at him and they’re like, “Oh, we’re just gonna drive through.”  It was a sight just to watch this transition and how many vehicles were actually there and this just went on for.

Do you remember the moment you actually crossed from Kuwaiti into Iraq and what did you feel like?

Ready.  Good.  I remember actually this little boy on the side of the road and blowing us kisses and he was just adorable and just seeing that made you feel really good about getting in there and you know doing this.  But there was times that they’d be flipping you off and throwing stuff at you but it depends really where you were in the country.  I mean if you were in the urban areas or in the rural areas, the side of the road everyone was pretty much great.  It was hard ‘cause I remember there was times we’d like throw candy out to the little kids, the older kids would come and beat them up and take it and so you just couldn’t give them anything.  It was hard.  You just had to, you know they’d ask for food and you just couldn’t do it.

So, let’s get you to your first base in Iraq from Camp Victory.

We did a four-day convoy from Victory into Camp Fallujah.  We got stopped a lot and couldn’t proceed because of IED’s, Improvised Explosive Devices, on the roads that they would find and then EOD would have to come in and blow them up or disarm them or whatnot and this happened a lot or somebody would get hit and then they would have to clean that up.  So, we got stuck along the way a lot of time and then we’ve got three strands of forty-five vehicles, you know, stopped for days.

For miles, right?

Right, and it just stretched out.

When you say someone would get hit does that mean someone within the convoy?

Right.  Or a different convoy.  Not, sniper, with an IED, like their convoy would get hit and so then that would cause a huge, you know, delay and just so many people trying to get in and out, different units and it wasn’t just ours, it was hundreds of units and then you’ve got all the fuel trucks that are driven by the Iraqi’s.  They drove all the fuel trucks along and you’ve got those that you’re passing down the road, all the chow trucks that everybody’s got food, I mean it’s just a huge..

Logistics…

Yeah.

What was your first base?

Camp Fallujah.  That’s where we finally got to.  My unit actually was in charge of Fallujah, so we were in charge of getting the chow trucks in and out and then to disperse them to the other bases.  So, we’d go from there, do convoys back and forth and bring more food three or four times a week.

Who was your boss in Fallujah?

My direct boss is Chief Roday(sp).  She was my first class at the time, she’s still in.  She’s still in Pendleton, but she went back with the Navy.

And who was the overall head doctor?

Dr. John Benjamin.  He was out there with us.  Amazing guy.  Wonderful to work with.  Very smart.  Good doctor.  He went on convoys with us at times and he was just incredible.

What did you know about Fallujah before you got there?  It was already a combat zone.

Right.  I mean, it didn’t really matter where we went.  There was, people went to Takathem(sp), Ramadi(sp) and really all of it was bad, but Fallujah at that point was one of the worst.  There’s the city Fallujah then there’s Camp Fallujah and that’s where we were.  Which used to be a military base for the Iraqi’s.  It was about a 10-mile radius or, whatnot.  We had, I think there was about twelve thousand people on that base.

Describe a typical day, sort of briefly, but what would happen…you would get up and how would you end your day?

Get up at about 4:30 or 5.  Depending, it was kind of ridiculous cause the females had this whole thing like you had to get up and we had to police, clean the barracks, then we had to walk around all the buildings and clean, like pick up cigarette butts and stuff that people didn’t smoke at the smoke bin, clean the smoke bin.  It was just kind of asinine to be doing that out there, but they would make us get up and we’d do it.  So I would then go for a run, which they kept telling me not to do by myself, cause we’d always get hit around 6 in the morning, like 5 to 6 is when we’d get bombed a lot.

With mortars?

Yeah, Fallujah got hit in April of ’04 alone I think 52 rounds came inside the walls, we got hit, so I used to go for a run and they’d say “no” and I’d just take my radio and if we got hit I would just check in cause no one would go with me.

Did you say no one would go with you?

Well, my boss, she wouldn’t go and really it’s just me and her that were in the female barracks the rest were Marines.  So it was just me and her and then all the guys, but they had their own agenda at that point.

Their timing didn’t work out for morning run.

I just didn’t try it.  So, I would go and then I would come back and we had a tent gym kind of thing.  It was great.  They had weights and everything so I’d go there and we’d lift a little bit.  Maybe about 6 o’clock I would shower, have to be down at the aid station, which is where we worked.  We had hard sand buildings that we slept in which was really lucky.  So, I went to work pretty much around 7.

AM?

Um, huh.

And work was like?  What was a typical day at work?

We saw patients that came in, you know just for regular visits, sick call type.  Patients that were, I guess we’d call them, I don’t know dehydrated.  Anybody that was injured, if anything happened then we would, you know deal with those injuries.

Combat injuries?

There wasn’t a lot that came to us because we had Bravo Surgical, which was a huge surgical unit there.  So a lot of them would go to that.  Like we’d get them, treat them and then send them into surgery or the surgical unit and they would do a lot of that.  But they didn’t go on the convoys or anything.  That’s where we would go and then we would treat all the injuries out there or until we could get them back to the surgery.

We’ll get back to that.  How did the day progress from there?

I mean we worked until about 4 or 5 and just depending on what the day was like I mean sometimes we’d have to go out if like the water bowl got hit.  Then we’d have to go out and fix that, and there’s always a corpsman with anybody, any Marine active duty a corpsman had to go, whether it was training or not.  And we would do that 4 o’clock, maybe we’d have unit PT, which is physical training, or I mean it was kind of like a regular workday but you can’t ever leave.  You’d and you would go to chow and then you come back.

In the evenings could you write home?

Yeah.

Search the Internet or watch movies?

You can write home.  There wasn’t a lot of Internet surfing, but you could, I guess, if you had time.

What did you do with your evenings?

Every three nights I was on duty, so we would stay at the aid station, sleep there just in case anything happened there way always two of us on duty.  We only had seven guys, so it was me and then six others and we would just rotate every three days or something.

Can you describe your first critical incident?  You would have been on a convoy?  Right away did you have any incidents or anything?

No, I mean I remember we were on convoys a lot and we started doing a lot of night ops because all the other convoys were getting hit so we said, look lets be a little smarter about this and we would take the chow trucks down, we would transfer you know the empty ones and you’ll pick up other ones from Baghdad.  We would go about 10 o’clock at night, we would all wear our night vision goggles and go.  Which made it really hard is that we didn’t give the Iraqi’s night vision goggles so now they’re driving in these convoys with us cause we hired them to drive them and they’re flashing their light on and off and that blinds you.  It kind of ruins the whole purpose of a convoy, night ops, but we would do that and go out and then come back at around 4.  Sometimes that would change, we would stay.

Why didn’t they give the Iraqi’s goggles?

It wasn’t like to be rude, I just don’t think that we had them.  I’m sure we could have gotten enough.

It wasn’t like a security issue?

It was, I mean we had at times Iraqi’s that would steer off the convoy and we’d notice we would lose a vehicle.  And it actually got really scary one time they went off and then the rest of the convoy followed and went to a road that we had actually closed off because they were getting bombed so much and we had to stop the convoy and get them to come back.  And they didn’t realize that they were following the wrong convoy anymore.  ‘Cause you have a 50 to 100 yard leeway and it’s at night and you’re watching these little red cat eyes on the vehicle in front of you.  That’s all that you see.

So a convoy was hit at some point?

I actually didn’t get hit on any of our convoys that were injured.  I mean we did get hit but there weren’t any injuries.

What was that like, even if there were no injuries? What would happen?

It was scary. Coming form Kuwait, I was the driver for that four-day convoy, and you don’t hit anything. I mean, if a paper cup flies across the highway you avoid it, because, the Iraqi’s got kind of smart on us. They would take out MRE bags, or what not and make a bomb out of it, and put it on the road. So you think it’s your own stuff, and you would just avoid everything. So getting hit was pretty intense, emotional. We would stop the convoy, and everyone would get armed, and just be read for an ambush. If not, make sure everybody’s OK, and gather everything, and we gotta keep pushing through. There were times that you didn’t stop, you just had to keep going.

Did you have to treat anyone in the field?

We invaded Fallujah, and we had to do the roadblocks, and I was out there and we  ended up taking fire, and it was an amazing sight, because, we took fire, and there was so many people out there, so many vehicles, they only knew, semi, the direction that it was coming from. So now you’ve got .50 cals, Mark 19’s, everybody shooting. It was almost a disaster; they were just shooting in different directions. They were shooting all at the right area, but I mean kind of cross shooting, nobody knew what was really going on.  We got mortared at that point. Had a couple injuries. One of my Lt’s, he got some shrapnel in his cheek, kind of went into shock. We sent him back…

Did you treat him?

I didn’t treat him. One of our other guys got his leg hit. I treated that one.

What was that like?

It was kind of like any other injury, but the setting. ‘Cause it was kind of like your treating someone behind a barricade while your still taking fire, and it’s a little different, but we just treat it like any other injury, anything else.

How do Marines respond to being injured? Typically. Is there a general response that you can expect?

No.

It’s always different?

I was on the other line on the radio when my Lieutenant got hit. My other lieutenant was talking to him, trying to figure out what was wrong with him, where’s your location? Where are you? And he started going into shock, and he’s yelling at him, like why are you not talking? I said Sir he’s going into shock, he’s obviously not with it right now. That’s one aspect of it. I’ve had other ones that got right back up, and he’s fine, other ones that cry, it’s completely different.

It sort of runs the gamut, emotionally I guess?

Yeah.

I would think that Marines in general are fairly tough and try to tough out things.

Yes. I’ve seen our toughest Marine crying, when were getting fired on, he just doesn’t know what to do, kind of locks up. That is kind of tough to watch, but, they usually are amazing, and they are trained quite well.

I’m guessing that every situation is different for every person, but in general, that’s gotta be tough. Did you have to pick up your weapon at any time? To protect yourself?

When we were taking fire at that point I started to, pulled it out of my holster, you know, locked and loaded, but then I was like, this is not going to do much. I’m looking at my 9 mil and going HMM. You’ve got about 20, 30, 50 cals, Mark 19’s, grenade launchers, and they’re shooting grenades, I’m like this is not going to help. So I pulled my MVG’s out, why don’t we watch it, making sure that everybody’s OK, doing my rounds like that, instead of firing back, because it really wouldn’t have done anything at that point.

Did you ever see an insurgent or the enemy firing at you? Could you visually see them?

At that point it was night, so you couldn’t see them. You could see their fire.

What did you call them, the enemy?

Hajjis. They told us not to do that, it’s derogatory, but even when we were talking to the ones that were working for us we just called them Hajji’s.

That was the term for enemy in the area?

That was just our Iraqi term I guess. You can call me a wop, I’m Italian…

But did that differentiate between a civilian Iraqi and a hostile?

No. They were all Hajji’s, as we discussed, we talked about it.

If there was a hostile person in the area, what would you call them? How did you communicate that? Were they enemy? You don’t have to go into derogatory terms. I think that one of the interesting things about the Iraq war is that there was really no organized army, it’s still like that here in 2007.

Right. So you’re not like, Oh the Iraqi Army is after us. Or what not.

Or even a special branch of the army, its just militias. So lets talk about the invasion of Fallujah, which we have a little bit, but sort of set it up. This is a fairly major event in the course of the war. There was some build up to this?

Our unit was just in charge of  doing all the roadblocks. At least in our area where we were at. We went out put out all the roadblocks, the hexel barriers up. And this is about a four-day event, just setting that up. We ended up moving it closer, which was interesting, moving all those hexel barriers. Tons of concrete that we just moved. We put these roadblocks up, you don’t let anybody through, and there was times that people would go through and they would just shoot at them.

I guess what I was getting at was, what was the reason for this invasion? What set this up as an important something that was necessary? Because you were already working in Fallujah, so you had to know that there were some conditions that had to be improved.

Fallujah and Camp Fallujah is different. We weren’t out and in Fallujah. We really had our own thing…and what my duty was was just day to day, to make sure that my Marines were OK. Treat them, so they’re not dehydrated.

Turned ankles and such?

Well, yeah and when they got hit, treat they’re wounds, and I mean  there was a lot of different things. Do these convoys. That was our basic deal. We would just do it when they told us to do it. OK this is our next op. We’ll go do that. Building to Fallujah that we did not invade, we just did the roadblocks and whatnot. I don’t think that I kept up as much with the whole politics of it, and what was going on. I think that I was just there, I was doing what they needed me to do.

Did you feel like you were, at that point that it was part of a major push of any kind? Did it seem different in any way?

Yes. But, it didn’t really change our lives at all. It didn’t really change what we were doing every day.

I think of the sort of films that come out about Iraq, in the future, I think that there is one with Clint Eastwood about Fallujah. Did you know about that?

No.

Does that interest you at all?

Yeah. I mean I do like watching. I’ve watched Jarhead, which I think a lot of parts are ridiculous, but others are real. It’s good to watch that, and from other peoples perspective. The series Over There, that came out about OIF 1, the Army.

That was a great series.

It was great. I thought. Apparently the guy that did it, he had never been in the military, never dealt with anybody, and he just did it with what was portrayed to the public.

So, did the military, did you guys talk about that show? Because it was going on in America, and did you guys like it? Because they cancelled it.

I think. Did they?

Apparently, after like 10 episodes.

I thought that was just because they started late in the season. So they’re not doing that anymore?

No they cancelled a few months after it started.

That’s a bummer.

Yeah. So

I liked it. It was interesting just to watch it from someone else’s view. They did really well with how the convoys were, and that was a big part of this war.

Right. Logistics. This was a logistics war. So let’s talk about a little bit more about your job, and then we’ll move on down your time line here. But what is the worst thing that you had to experience as a medic? Do you feel like talking about that?

Yeah. I wasn’t part of this particular convoy. The day before I was and my driver that day, and my um gunner the next day got hit, and they came back, and it was just so hard. One of our guys who was our toughest Marines actually lost his eyesight, another guy lost a couple of his toes. And it was all right, actually, they managed to deal with the vehicle, and they still are dealing with their injuries, and they still want to go back. Any they have been there three times and they want to go back. And they want to do this again. And it is so hard to watch your guys who have done so much to still be unsatisfied because they didn’t, you know, kill or whatnot, they didn’t get their revenge, and, but they did. And watching some of those guys get hit and when we got hit on base, on Fallujah, they hit our Motor 2 unit, and that kind of hit home to me, because those guys were with us all the time, and we went up there, and it was, some guy had shrapnel in his butt, and another guy had some in his shoulder.

Was there any deaths to anyone that you were really close with?

Not with anyone that I was really close with. My unit lost two guys that had just turned in, maybe two weeks after they got there, so, we lost two of those guys, and it was hard for our unit, but they had just gotten there and I was just leaving, so they were also Motor 2 guys, our drivers, and our mechanics. I think that that was when it hit home the most there, is when they hit their unit, no one got killed, but there was a lot of injuries.

How did your group respond to that? What would typically happen if something really bad happened to people that you knew?

Well we took off in our ambulance. The alarms would go off, and we could see where it happened, so we go up there, treat em, bring em back, they do a debriefing and make sure that everybody is OK, and they talk to you. I mean there is a lot to deal with this war, I mean Post-Traumatic Stress. And that is with any war, it’s just that now they are really aware of it. And with us being in the medical field they make us do so many extra trainings on it, so we can help the Marines that have this. We really prepared emotionally for it, I think.

Did you ever suffer any injuries?

Not at war. During training. I hurt my ankle, and stuff like that, but I never got injured out there.

Did you, how did you feel that you were psychologically responding to the wear of day-to-day operations in a war zone? And how long were you there in Fallujah?

I was there for seven months. I remember that it was so hot. It was like 120 degrees everyday. It got up to 156 every day. And I had my  9 mil strapped to my leg, full uniform, they wouldn’t let us take our uniforms off, full blouse, and they would send you on a convoy, now you’ve got your Kevlar, your helmet, your vest, you’ve got all of that on too, so you sweat, and its uncomfortable, but you don’t care at that point.

What were some of your biggest challenges? Was it keeping dirt out of your equipment, was it just working in Iraq, which is the desert, the heat?

I mean we had a lot of problems. We had to clean our weapons because the sand would get in there. The heat was so much, I didn’t go to chow that often, because it was such a distance to walk in that, and I was like, I’m not going outside. We had, there was a lot of things that were frustrating being there. And then we worked with a lot of the Hajji’s that were on base with us, and there was times that that went really well, and there was time that that really didn’t. They would. I remember a girl on a bus was watching one of the Hajji’s that was just kind of transporting people, and he stopped and just kind of tried to get her to take her clothes off, and what not, and she did exactly what she was trained to do, she put him at gun point, took him back, and he was banned from base, never got back on. Just things like, you just gotta watch your back at all times, even though there’s people that come on and that we are trusting and they say it’s great, and we are training part of the Iraqi military, and we would go down and at least treat them in the mornings. That happened for a while. Our medics, we went down and were treating all of their injuries, which was very difficult because they didn’t speak any English, and you’ve got just lines and lines of people waiting to be treated.

How was it being an American woman in a Muslim country?

There was a point, probably around April, when they stopped letting American females off the base. Because the Iraqi’s had put out a thing saying that they were looking for an American female to behead, to make a point, so they wouldn’t let us off base. And I was not OK with that. I’m like, this is why I am here, this is my job. And these are my guys out there, and they are doing extra convoys because I can’t be in the rotation. So I went to my doctor, Dr. Benjamin, and I told him. I said I am not doing this. You have to put me back out there, he didn’t want to obviously, because, of what was said, but he went to the CO, and said, look we need her out there too. So they put me back on rotation, and I was the only female going on and off that base for maybe four months. It was just, I think that there was other people coming on that once they were in they didn’t leave.

Would you, as individual soldiers, discuss things that were happening in Fallujah? And did you hear of any certain targetings for revenge? How did that work?

No. We didn’t really get into it. Where my rank was, we would stay, and just do what they told us to do. It wasn’t like we were deploying around certain areas, or whatnot.

Was there anything that happened that made you feel like unnecessarily made your job extremely difficult, within the media, or anything like that?

I think that what made being out there really difficult, to do our job is that they still treated it like we were in training. They would do mandatory formation PT. That stopped when our CO turned over to a different CO, because we got bombed during a run of 500 people, and he was like this is ridiculous, why are we doing this? I mean, you’ve got a mass group of 500 people hanging around…and other things like getting up and cleaning, I mean we’ve got more important things to do here. There was one point were my CO didn’t like the sidewalk, so he put us out there with sledgehammers and we broke it up. I mean, you’re kidding me, what are we doing here? Let’s go clean the countryside while were at it, you know? Those things made it really frustrating to be there and doing kind of asinine jobs everyday.

On the other hand, what was it that made it extremely rewarding?

The fact that we were in charge of our own camp, and having to deal with chow and stuff like that was kind of frustrating, but it was very rewarding, we would go out and transport everything, and do a successful job, and whether we were mortared or not on a convoy, to get back into position and know that we did a great job. When we got fired on and we got back we all got combat action ribbons at that point for being out there, and maintaining barriers for blocking you from leaving Fallujah and whatnot, it was very rewarding, to just know that we accomplished each task, and each time that it was good to be there, and when you’re driving, and they are blowing you kisses and they thank you for being there, because they don’t understand what you are doing there. I think that is the hardest part. We are trying to give them something that they don’t understand. And when someone is at least thankful or appreciative, then you start to think that this is the right thing. And whether it is or it isn’t, we are still proud to be there, I think, for the majority of the people that I was there with,

Was there anything that sticks out as particularly poignant, or magical, or incredible to you? A moment where you forgot that you were at war that at any point in your life, would have stuck out?

There were definitely times that I would forget that we were at war. We would get mortared and you wouldn’t even skip a beat, you would just look around and everyone is just carrying on a conversation, and you say OK, and you just keep on moving, cause you can hear from such a distance. I don’t think that there was any specific moment that was specifically amazing.

Not one particular sunset that set off a particular vibe or anything? Was there any group activities that took you out of a war zone at all? Like music?

I would definitely go to church a lot. Toby Keith and Ted Nugent came out when I was there. It was a lot of fun. They had been to like three or four countries by the time they got there, so they were bitter by the time that they got there. It was like one in the morning, we were all waiting, they were late, helicopter something went wrong there, but they came in and it just really boosts the moral, for us. They only played a few songs and then they left. I was actually covering for them medically, so I went with them when they got off the helicopter, and then went back with them, so that was really helpful for us, and it, kind of brought a lot of people back up in spirits.

What about letter from home, or presents?

Yeah! I got boxes of movies from here from Take 2 Videos, which helped a lot, I left most of them with them, and I think that was great. I got so much stuff from here – Ute Mountaineer sent me CamelBaks, people would just send you food, and people that you didn’t know, and family friends, and there was just so much stuff that came in and out that was just great. I mean I‘ve never eaten so much beef jerky, but that was what you wanted, stuff like beef jerky that you could just keep eating, or it was really good, and to get letters from home. It definitely helped a lot. We could call home every couple of days briefly, depending on where you were, and so that was good. My mom didn’t handle it well, me being there, so that made it really hard.

I have to point out that here at the TV station we put together a box and sent it off, the whole community dropped stuff by, and it got sent back to us because there were movies in there. Documentaries that were in there.

Aw. That’s too bad…Did you guys take it out and send it back?

I can’t remember.

The boxes were like crumpled balls, when they get there, cause nobody cares.

Six-week old cookies…

Yeah. If that, you barely get stuff in months. But if you did it was great, and I remember my dad, and I asked him to send me hot tamales or something. And he sends me this little box. It takes months to get there, and he sends me this little box! Like it was gone it ten minutes…Those things really helped. We had a daily routine, at times, unless you were going on a convoy that day. And that it wasn’t that bad daily. It wasn’t like being out in the front lines like other wars, which was a completely different experience. I can’t imagine.

Lets talk a little about your experience as a woman in the military. This is a different era. We’ve been interviewing WW2 veterans for the most part, some Korean Veterans, and at that time I don’t believe that there were woman corpsman, is that how I pronounce it? So it is different for these guys to see a woman who has seen combat, or been in combat situations. Do you feel like you were treated any differently?

I mean I am definitely sure that we were. Obviously. But we did everything that they did. If they could do it then we would get up and do it. And I think that was great, and it is what kept us from being treated differently, was that we would go out there and do it.  And they took care of us so well. Just as a corpsman being with the Marine Corp, they would do anything for you. I mean the Marines are amazing, and then being a female, you definitely get a little more attention because the ratio is like 1 to 100, I mean it’s a huge difference, so you get a little more attention there.

Not much different than being in a ski town.

I guess your right. I mean you’ve got this ratio, you get a lot of attention yes. But they would do anything for any of their corpsman, I mean anybody. The Marines take care of themselves so well, they are so close, and that is the biggest thing that I love about the Marine Corp and the military is the camaraderie, how well they just took care of each other.

What kind of person does it take to be a Marine? For the 17 year old that is out there?

I think that anybody can do it. You have to be committed to doing it, and its hard at first, because someone says well, someone is always telling you what to do, and you cant make your own decisions, and for the most part yes, but you are still your own person, and that is what makes it so amazing is that people come from so many different backgrounds and places and lifestyles and the all can work in the same unit and do the same thing and have the same goals. I think that anybody can, you just have to be committed to it. If you want it go for it.

How did the men treat the women, I think that you answered that, but is there fraternization? Is there a policy against like dating?

Oh yeah. There is a policy from ranks. From rank to rank you can…We kind of go with the rule of two up two down.

Two ranks up, two ranks down?

Yes. But you can’t date anybody that is in your chain of command, anyone who is going to help your situation. You can’t date an officer who is un-enlisted, which I can understand the point of it, but if they are in a completely different unit I think it is kind of ridiculous, but that is just how it is, and that is the reason that it works so well, is that that is just how it has always been, and they don’t give in any direction. But there is a ton of fraternization. A ton! But you just hopefully don’t get in trouble, and just do your job and don’t let it affect your work, and that is when I don’t think that it should matter at all.

I assume it is human nature to be attracted to each other, so there is probably a lot of inner-military relationships that come out. Did you come out with anybody that you got together with?

Been through a couple of relationships while I was in.

You didn’t get married or anything while you were in the military?

No. Almost did. But…

And you are at this point still a young woman and that is fine…Let’s move on from that, and get to the rest of your experience in Iraq, and on home. Where did you go from Fallujah?

We went to I think to Quadim (SP?) on our way out. We would convoy a lot of the guys out when it was starting to turn over and we would do that. I actually went out in a helicopter, so they took us out. I went from there back to Kuwait, I think.

How many years were you in country?

In Iraq? I was only in there for seven months.

And then you were told that you get to go home?

Back to our units.

Was your enlistment up?

No. It was actually getting close, I still think I had nine months or so. And I did five years. It was actually an eight-year total. That is how they do it now. Four active and four inactive. But as a corpsman they make you do an extra year, because of all of the extra training and stuff that they provide you and you can go so much further, you can be an OR tech, or a radiology tech. And so they send us from Fallujah back to your unit, ‘cause my tour wasn’t up yet. There was a time when that was really hard on people, because of stop-loss and stop-move. They wouldn’t let you change duty stations, so that if you had been with the Marine Corp for a year or two years or three years and it was time to rotate you couldn’t. Or if you, if it was your time to get out you couldn’t. So they held us in for a little bit. That didn’t last for long. They held up on the stop-loss so that you couldn’t get out of the military, but they wouldn’t let us transfer for a while.

I am guessing that that was bad for morale?

It was. It was frustrating for people who had been there. I mean they were letting people move into these positions, but they wouldn’t let us out of them. So it was tough, but I think that most people weren’t at their time to turn over and whatnot so I guess it was OK.   I went back to my unit in Pendleton.

So you came back home? What was it like getting on the plane. You boarded a plane in Kuwait?

We had Continental. Flew us out. It was civilian stewardess and stuff. They had the entire airplane decorated. It was just ridiculous, with flags and thank yous. It felt really good. And we got off the plane in Maine, and there was just a ton of veterans out there from World War II and Vietnam. And they had cell phones for letting us call home. They gave us all phones and it was this whole thing. All we were doing was just turning over and fueling, but they were all there at seven A.M. when we got off that plane, and it was really welcoming.

What was it like when your foot left the plane and touched America?

It was good.  My friend actually kissed the ground, I think.  For a lot of us it was their second time, or third time, or they knew they were going to go back.  It was my first and only.

Did you know you were going back?

This was the only time.  If I would have stayed in I would have gone back, but I decided not to.

Did you know on the plane that you were coming home, and hopefully not having to go back?

No, probably thought about it but I didn’t know if I would have to go back or not yet at that point.   It felt really good to come home and just be back and know that you can go home for the day.  Because it’s different out there, well, they say you don’t have any time off… you have plenty of time off.  You can write or sleep, or whatnot, but you can’t ever do anything.  It’s different where you can’t go out in town, you can never leave the base, ever, unless you’re with a convoy.

There’s not like bars that you can go to at night…

There’s no drinking, actually, they’re a dry country.  Well, I don’t know if Kuwait’s dry, but there’s no drinking, at all.  We’ve got loaded weapons and they’ve changed this completely.

So, I’m guessing Marines like to go out and have a good time once you turn 21.  Now, you turned 21 in the Marines.  Where were you?

Well, I actually, luckily for me I was 18 in Spain and the drinking age is less, even on base it was 18, and oh, this is great.  So out there there’s no partying.  People did drink they would get the Hajji’s to bring them like Hajji whiskey we would call it or people from home would send it if they could get it through the mail.  But it was very minimal.  Couple of people got caught, my roommate got caught.  She got caught drinking and she had to drive the, shit sucker truck, I don’t know, to clean up the porta-shitter’s out.  Sorry.

That’s fine.  That’s quite all right.

So, she had to drive that for a while and that was her punishment was to clean all the porta-johns out and cause she got caught drinking and she didn’t care.  Still isn’t a big deal, but…

So, you’re still in the military, but probably a little less anxious living in Camp Pendleton.

Right.

And how much time did you spend there?

I had, I got back in September of ‘04 so I had until May of ‘05 that I was there.  And, you know our guys were back out and we rotated again and it was then just basic work.  I lived out in town there and I had, come in every day, five days a week.  It wasn’t too bad.  It was another great duty station.

Just treat Marines from the base, whatever would happen?

We would do mando-PT a couple times a week, but it was great.  It was just like a regular job, but that’s the military.

I’m guessing kinds of injuries that you would have to deal with in general would be less.  I’m sure thing can happen on base, but it’s a different sensation of urgency, possibly.

Right, I mean it’s just basic.

How did you re-adjust?

I was fine.  I was really lucky.  Everybody wasn’t fine.  We had a lot of stand-downs, like for PTSD and stuff. And a lot of discussions and like the chaplain was always available and a lot of people had some hard times adjusting and still do.  Like one of our corpsman, out of the seven of us, one of them is not doing so hot on it and he’s just, he ended up getting kicked out ‘cause he kept messing up and which bothered me a lot that they, they were actually gonna kick him out until we were like you just can’t kick him out, you have to give him the treatment he needs now.  So they did and they helped him.  They didn’t kick him out they ended up just not letting him not re-enlist.  And that was hard ‘cause he just wasn’t adjusting back to this lifestyle well at all.  And some people do that, but I was fine.  I mean I was really lucky.

Did the excitement level, the difference in sort of coming back to mellow life on the base in America, did that, did you notice a difference?

Yeah, and I mean it was different before you left.

I mean you come from a mountain town so you’ve probably had an action sports background but I’ve heard of Vets who come back and tend to drive a lot faster and drink a lot harder and sort of they need that rush.  Do you feel like you’ve sort of adjusted fairly comfortably?

Yes, I mean you definitely get that need for that rush sometimes.  I’ve had my share of DUI’s and whatnot that I’ve gotten in trouble for but for the most part I think that I did all right with that.

And then you’re time was up.  How did that go?

I wanted to re-enlist, but my mom when I first got back, like the second I got back to the States got really, really sick.  She just was so stressed out and they Medi-Vac’d her out from Sun Valley, Idaho to Boise and she just couldn’t take it anymore, so I went up and saw her and I was like, alright, I’ll get out and then I promised her I was gonna get out, which is hard ‘cause I miss it a lot.

You were doing it for your mom for her health and sanity.  She was probably really stressed.

Yeah, I mean there was a lot of me that really hated it to and wanted out, but now that I’m out I miss it more than I think that I realize when I was in.

Is there anything that would get you back there?

Probably.  My family would kill me if they knew that, but yeah.  A lot of my friends are going back in.  A lot of the corpsman I was with out there are going back in now.  Some of them are back in just as reservists some of them have re-enlisted.

And would you say that it’s true, so I guess I should ask you what is it that makes people want to re-enlist.

I honestly think the camaraderie; I mean it’s just amazing.  We had, my unit, you know you see them 24/7 for seven months in Iraq and then we come back, a lot of them went back to their units that wasn’t part of us, they got frapped(sp) into us.  Well, I think that was the hardest is you just didn’t see people that you saw everyday and that’s why people re-enlist just to keep that, but then everyone changes duty stations and but you always kind of run into people again and that’s great.  I get people calling me all the time.  Do you know so-and-so.  And I’m like yeah, I was in boot camp with them, or just really small.  As big as it is, you just run into people all the time.

Is there any other stories that come to mind that you want to add to the record?  Any particular experiences?

I loved, the training was incredible and I loved it but nothing in particular.

And so you got out of the military and now you’re back in Aspen?

I got out, I actually went to Boulder for a year and started to go to school there, which was actually a huge culture shock for me.  Going from the military to Boulder.

Which is liberal…

Yes, so that was interesting.  I dealt with it fine, but it was just kind of, it irritates me a little bit just, I don’t know.  Whatever, freedom for your own opinion.

Do you feel like some of the people you run into don’t have the information to make decisions about …

I mean, I am the same way.  I don’t watch the news and I don’t stay up-to-date with politics and I don’t, which I wish I did, but I’m not very interested in it and when I was there people can’t believe that I don’t vote.  And they think that’s insane, and their right, but that’s just my prerogative and, I think that they have their right to whatever they believe, but they sit there and tell you that you shouldn’t have done this or we shouldn’t be there and it’s like well, we’re there and that’s how.

You were doing your job.

Exactly.

I understand.  So, Boulder for college?  Medical?

Boulder, I was trying to go pre-Med, but again, the reason why I joined the military ‘cause I didn’t want to go to school.  So now I get out and I’m like, oh, I gotta go to school.  So I did that for a year in Boulder and I worked at the Urgent Care at Boulder Community Hospital, which was great.  And then I decided to come home.  So I came back here and I work with Dr. Mass.

And that is Dr.?

Dr. Ann Mass.  She’s an internist.  It works out well; I’ve been here for about seven months now.  I don’t know if I’ll stay in town or not.

What are your thoughts of Aspen?  That’s what I was going to ask earlier, is you started in the military at 17, you got out at 23, 24?

At 23.

It was a five-year?

Yeah. Actually 22 almost 23.

So, how much did you grow?  I mean you must have grown a tremendous amount.  What you knew at 17 to what you know now.

It’s different being here.  At least a couple of my friends have kids and couple more are doing the same thing, but I mean I wouldn’t say I’ve grown up a lot, I mean I definitely have a lot of experiences that are completely different, but I also am still you know, having fun.  But I love it and people are really, I mean they love talking about it and I’m not always into talking about it but they’re great.  Everybody here’s been pretty supportive.  So it’s good to come back to your hometown and see that.  It’s hard because a lot of people, you know hate out president, or they talk bad and I disagree with that but I just let it go cause it’s their position.

Yeah, Aspen is about as liberal as Boulder, which is about as liberal as Berkley probably, so I can imagine.  So, where do you want to go with your life at this point?

I definitely want to stay in the medical field.  I love it.  I was so lucky that they just offered it to me.  It was just the best thing that could have happened to me, but now I don’t know how much further I want to go.  I’m working as Dr. Mass’ nurse, but I’m an EMT, a medical assistant, I don’t know how far I want to go into school or how much I’m motivated to at this point.

Is there major goals that you have in your life that have nothing to do with medicine or military, or anything or are you still deciding as you go?

Still deciding.  Not quite sure.

Do you think you’ll go back to Iraq as a civilian some day?

I hadn’t thought of that.  I don’t know.  Maybe.

Did the country itself interest you in any was as a unique place or was it sort of the desert and hot and you were doing your job?

It was hot.  I mean there was some really amazing things out there that you could see just from sculptures and whatnot.  Their buildings and architecture it was great, but it’s not something that I’m completely interested in, I might go back.

Maybe some day?

Yeah.

Now, just for the record, were you decorated in any way?  What was your final ranking and…?

I was an HM3, which is and E4, that’s a hospital corpsman third class.  I ended getting out as that.  I got my share of ribbons from combat action, martitas unit combination, sea service, overseas, I mean I had.

You’re pretty humble about it but these are well earned, I’m sure.

Yeah, but it was good.  Glad.

Anything else you’d like to add to the record?

No.

Well, thanks for being here.  We’re really excited.

Thank you.  Appreciate it.

This has been, I’m Corby Anderson and this has been Amber Marie DeLuca.  Recording happening here at Grassroots Television in Aspen, Colorado on March 17, 2007 for the Veterans History Project and this particular recording is for the Aspen Veterans History Project.  I’d really like to thank the Thrift Shop and the Aspen Elks Club for the grants that they’ve provided to the Aspen Veteran History Project to make these recordings happen.  I think it’s an important part of the fabric in this community to honor our veterans and these recordings will be in the Library of Congress forever.  It’s really an exciting project.  I’d also like to had out a big thanks to Colonel Dick Merritt and also Howie Berg and Darrell Grob who are part of the steering committee to make these recordings happen and they’ve worked a tremendous amount to pull this together.  So, again, thanks Amber.

Thank you.

Have a great day and (salutes) Thanks.