The San Antonio Express-News August 9, 2004
Gung-ho from the get-go
By Sig Christenson
Express-News Military Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Call them crazy, but Chris Lawrence, Joey Bell and Thomas Pena really, really wanted to go to Iraq.
So much so that when the Texas Army National Guard refused to send them, the three San Antonio buddies got on the Internet and found a unit that would - in Arkansas.
"A lot of people don't understand it," said Lawrence, a 1995 graduate of Lee High School. "I don't ask them to. I don't expect them to. Sometimes, I don't understand myself why I'm so drawn to it."
After four months here, they admit the reality of their adventures has left them a tad less gung-ho and a little more skeptical about the size of the task before them and 150,000 U.S. troops.
"I'm here because I want to be here," Lawrence said. "I'm glad I'm here. I chose to be here. I just wish our hands weren't so tied. I want to fight."
While the Army isn't sure how widespread the practice of enthusiastic soldiers playing the system is, its Pentagon personnel office acknowledges the constant need for a few good men to "plus-up" badly needed infantry and military police units in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When asked to comment on the Texas trio's actions, the Army's top public affairs official said he was surprised.
"I've never heard of that specific situation," Col. Joe Curtin said. "But the system is flexible enough to allow soldiers to volunteer and through legitimate means go to those units."
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark pointed out some young men always have gone out of their way to fight in our nation's wars.
"There are many reasons and many motivations people go to war, and there have always been some that have been anxious to go for reasons of patriotism, service and personal challenge," said Clark, a 38-year Army veteran. "It was probably that way at Bunker Hill and it remains so today."
Wanting to serve
Lawrence and Bell had a common interest in gun collecting and used to meet at a range near SeaWorld San Antonio to shoot targets. Along with Pena, they became friends while serving in the same Texas Guard infantry unit. They drilled at Camp Bullis and spent a summer at Fort Hood for annual training.
What they really wanted to do was to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Pena and Lawrence had pulled peacekeeping duty in the Balkans but wanted more. Bell had never been overseas.
But when the Pentagon had called up thousands of weekend warriors and civilians in the Individual Ready Reserve, Lawrence, Bell and Pena couldn't persuade anyone in the Texas Guard to let them join the fight.
So they got creative. Lawrence logged onto a private Web site, globalsecurity.org, which lists all active-duty, guard and reserve units in U.S. Central Command's area of responsibility, as well as those rotating into and out of Afghanistan and Iraq.
It didn't take long for him to learn the Arkansas Guard was sending its soldiers to Iraq, including some in their specialty, the Quick Reaction Force, a light infantry unit that provides security in hot zones.
Lawrence figured he'd run into more brick walls using the normal channels to get out of the Texas Guard, which didn't want to lose personnel it might need later. So he said the three claimed an address in Benton, Ark., used by one of Pena's relatives.
The Arkansas Guard signed them up, called commanders at Camp Mabry in Austin, and the deal was done.
"There's not a whole lot to say when you've moved," explained Lawrence, who can't even recall the Arkansas address. "There's nothing to stop that."
Thinking about it, he breaks into a contented smile.
"I'll be honest with you. I'm very pleased with myself," he added.
The story surprised his platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Hollis Douglas, who knew nothing of it until told by a reporter.
"I didn't know they pulled a con job," Hollis said. "A lot of people get tired of sitting on the bench in the Guard and they do what they have to do to get into the ballgame."
"We have talked for years about the patriotism of the members of the Texas National Guard," said Maj. Wayne D. Marty, who heads the Austin-based guard as its adjutant general. "There are a lot of young men and women who want to contribute as soon as they can. They were probably needed in Arkansas, but I wish they would have stayed with Texas."
A Texas Guard spokesman said he doubted that the three could get into trouble for using a fictitious address to change units.
"I can't imagine anybody would want to go to all the trouble," Lt. Col. John Stanford said, noting Texas Guard staffers have been working overtime to deploy 3,500 soldiers to Iraq by early next year and oversee another 2,500 now there.
But "they shouldn't have falsified anything," he said. "It's just kind of weird. If they had just hung around they could have gone over with some unit by now."
Self-equipped
Outside their barracks, Lawrence and Bell wait to accompany Iraqi troops. Their convoy of three armored Humvees will cross the 14th of July Bridge's Checkpoint 11, rebuilt after a massive car bomb blast May 6, then patrol a peninsula carved out of a U-shaped stretch of the winding Tigris River.
Their mission is to scour for snipers. Lawrence will look for them through a pair of expensive, blast-resistant sunglasses. They aren't Army issue.
He's spent thousands of dollars on his own equipment after checking trade magazines and the Internet for bargains.
A digital Bushnell yardage scope with laser range finder cost $250 at Wal-Mart. He can use it and a compass to fix the location of a sniper or blast.
The rubber-textured Hogue grip on his M-4 rifle came from a San Antonio gun show and, he said, is better than the original. A blinding light mounted underneath his rifle cost $30, a fraction of the $250 spent on one by Uncle Sam.
He walks a fine line. The 1st Cavalry Division has ordered soldiers to wear earplugs, as well as WileyX glasses and seat belts while on patrol.
Rule-breakers can be detained.
"It's pretty ludicrous," Lawrence said.
Soldiers complain the earplugs keep them from hearing each other in combat. The foam inside the glasses, which protect eyes from shrapnel, causes them to sweat profusely. Seat belts limit movement - when they work.
Bell is indignant.
"They're going to arrest me because I don't have proper sunglasses on or the proper hearing protection or have my seatbelt on. It's just kind of like, why would I subject myself to this much torture?"
Dissimilar qualities
Despite their mutual resolve to be in the middle of the action, the three friends have different personalities. Lawrence, the leader, is outgoing, talkative and a voracious reader. Single and 26, he has no strings except those to a marketing degree in progress at Northwest Vista College.
A corporal, Lawrence always wants to be the point man on a patrol. He has strong opinions he's unafraid to express, even regarding his friends.
He wonders why Pena remained an infantryman when his heart doesn't seem to be in it. Pena, who left the Quick Reaction Force to maintain an Army Internet cafe, is a 38-year-old Web page designer and the oldest of the three.
Pena is outwardly enthusiastic about being here but is something of a mystery even to his comrades.
He noted it's in Lawrence's and Bell's natures to be more critical of everything.
Lawrence "has a lot of expectations of what we should be doing, and I just have the one advantage that he lacks, which is the foresight to see what's going on," Pena said, explaining that his new job is a critical morale booster.
Bell, 23, an Oceanside, Calif., native who has lived in San Antonio since he was 6, is quiet, sometimes brooding. Home is on his mind. He talks with his wife, Laura, twice a day on a cell phone.
Lawrence's mom, Carol, is proud of him for finding a creative way to get into Iraq. She cheers her son from afar, as she did her husband, Gerry, when he served in Vietnam.
If all goes well, Lawrence will go back to his classes at Northwest Vista and try to catch on with a private security firm working in Iraq. A buddy is leaving his $185,000 job at DynCorp. for one with Blackwater that pays better.
Bell wants to do the same thing.
Pena, a 1984 Judson High School graduate, will remain in the Arkansas Guard and hopes to spend another year here.
"The world keeps turning back home in the States, but here we're stuck in 'Groundhog Day,'" Pena said, referring to a film in which actor Bill Murray's character keeps reliving the same day. "We continue the Army's mission. I think that's the frailty of the human spirit. We will endure suffering."
Suffering or no, they've bent rules to get there and have no regrets.
"I wish I was doing more," Bell said. "I'd rather be in Taji or Fallujah. That's where we're still fighting."
© Copyright 2004, KENS 5 and the San Antonio Express-News
