CHRIS RICE INTERVIEWS SPECIALIST WES STRACHAM, U.S. Army Soldier returning from Iraq During the most intense days of the War in Iraq, an article in the WASHINGTON POST peeks into Wes’s quarters, and explains a little of what a soldier’s day is like: “Specialist Wes Stracham’s cot contains densely scripted notes mostly in black script in English, others looping right to left in unsteady Arabic. Stracham has been consulting the pad in spare moments practicing pronunciations, puzzling out key Arabic words by sight, quizzing himself on meaning…” I met Specialist Wesley W. Stracham (pronounced "strah'-ham") during a music awards show in Nashville last year. (He was visiting his aunt who works for the production company that was producing the show.) Wes had tapped me on the shoulder in the middle of the show to introduce me to his cousin. A few moments later, backstage, I found out Wes was a soldier in the United States Army who had just returned from Iraq two weeks earlier. Wes became an instant hero to me. After the show, I ran into Wes again, along with his cousins and friends out on the sidewalk, so I joined them and blew off the usual post-award-show record label parties. We loaded up on burritos at the Taco Bell drive-thru and took the food to a picnic table next to the Parthenon in Centennial Park on West End Boulevard. I had a lot to ask Wes. He had only been back two weeks, so I wanted to be sensitive and careful, not to step over any boundaries or ask any questions that were too personal. But I asked a lot anyway. The next few hours passed quickly. I went home that night inspired, and had a hard time sleeping because of the questions and the gratitude filling my head. Wes called the next day and asked me to meet his mom and cousins at the Wildhorse Saloon downtown on 2nd Avenue. So I dropped everything and went down to meet them. We spent a few more hours before Wes left the next day to return to Ft. Bragg to finish out his Army career. We kept in touch and became great friends in the weeks and months that followed. Well, now a year has passed, and I’ve had opportunities to hang out, play golf, and even go to the beach, and started bringing along my mini-disc recorder to interview Wes in several settings, including restaurants, and at my house in Tennessee. Here’s some of his story: *********** I’m sitting in my loft in Franklin TN, holding in my hands the Purple Heart that Wes received from President Bush for his sacrifices in Iraq. The accompanying certificate reads: “This is to certify that the President of the United States of America has awarded the Purple Heart, established by Gen. George Washington at Newburg, New York, August 7, 1782, to Specialist Wesley W. Stracham of the United States Army for wounds received in action given under my hand in the city of Washington on this 13th day of April, 2004.” CR: George Washington started the Purple Heart? WES: Yeah, when it first started the Purple Heart was the highest medal you could get, then it disappeared then it came back, and then it was given for being wounded in action. CR: That’s amazing. I remember the day you got this. You told me about it. I talked to you on the phone that day. WES: There she be… CR: That’s unbelievable! I'm holding an actual Purple Heart. WES: It’s one of the greatest honors the Army has to give. CR: Congratulations, I guess that’s what you say, I don’t know if it’s the right thing to say, ‘cause you had to be injured to get it. WES: I know what you mean. CR: I’ll bet your parents are proud of you. WES: What did you think of my Mom? CR: She's awesome. Honestly I think Mom’s go through more than anybody when their sons and daughters are away at war. WES: Yeah I think so too. ****** The Army is a very organized body that works extremely efficiently. Here’s how Wes fits in. He is an Engineering Specialist in the 82nd Airborne Division, 618th Engineers, part of the 307th Engineering Battalion. ********* One day Wes and I were walking through an airport, surrounded by civilians. WES: See those 5 guys over there? CR: Yeah. WES: You wouldn’t know it, but I guarantee you they’re in the Army. Probably just got out of basic training. CR: How do you know? They look completely normal to me. WES: See how they’re all walking in step with each other? That’s because in training we have to walk in step so much that it becomes automatic. I keep finding myself walking in step with you. CR: You’re keeping step with me? WES: I can’t help it, it just becomes natural. CR: I’m amazed at how well trained you guys are! ********* We spent more time eating large amounts of food in restaurants and hanging out at my house in Tennessee, going through pictures and videos of Wes's experiences in Iraq. ********** CR: Here’s a picture of you the day you left to go over to Iraq for the first time. What did that feel like, what were you thinking right there? WES: Nervous…didn’t know what to expect…fear of the unknown. CR: Were there scary things that happened right away? WES: Every time they would launch a SCUD at us we had to put a mask on and pile into this bunker, with our weapons and IBA (Individual Body Armor) and Kevlar, till they give you the “all clear." CR: How long would you have to wait for the "all clear?" WES: Sometimes it would be like an hour or two. CR: How many people in a bunker? WES: About 40. WES: The third night I was there a mortar came in and blew up about 50 feet away. CR: What went through your head? WES: Am I gonna make it through tonight? I want to see my parents again. I prayed to God silently. I didn’t sleep very well. CR: Did you get used to mortar fire after a while? WES: I remember two nights before I left Iraq a mortar blew up about 50 feet away from me, and I didn’t even pray that time, so I guess I got used to it. CR: What kind of stuff did you do when you first got there? WES: Sometimes we would do search and seizure, entering buildings and looking for people and weapons. CR: You were the front guy in those raids? WES: Not always, I liked to be in the front, but I wasn’t always the front guy. CR: What are some other memories that stick out? WES: When we entered Najaf we set up camp and we were given a mission to search and seize some missiles. Our platoon went into Najaf in 5 ton dump trucks and found a missile warehouse. There were about 15 Iraqis [guarding it] with AK47’s who dropped their weapons and ran away. We proceeded to load the missiles onto a tractor trailer. The missiles weighed a thousand pounds each. Once we got them loaded we took them out in the middle of the desert and blew them up so they were no longer a threat to us. We strapped about 150 pounds of C-4 to ‘em and got like a mile away and blew ‘em up…Babbooooooom! It was the biggest explosion I’d ever seen in my life! CR: Did you have access to like bathrooms and showers? WES: I didn’t take a shower for the first 3 months I was over there. One time I wanted to shave my head, but my hair was so thick and they couldn’t get the clippers through my hair because there was so much sand in it. When we finally got to shower, our showers consisted of pouring water over our heads, or baby wipes. CR: Where did you sleep? WES: At first, we had to dig ourselves foxholes to sleep in. We slept in foxholes because Sar’nt (Sergeant) wouldn’t let us sleep in the vehicles because they were bigger targets. Foxholes weren’t comfortable, especially in sandstorms. When sandstorms would come it was hotter during the night than during the day, because the hot sand from the desert is blowing up, and it was really hot. So you’re laying in your sleeping bag, and you’re so hot you wanted to pop your head out, but you couldn’t really breathe out there because there was sand everywhere. CR: Speaking of sand, all these sand bags in the pictures, you guys filled all these sand bags? WES: Yes, we filled the sand bags. CR: So you didn’t bring sand over from the U.S.? Kidding! WES: (Laughs) You’d remind me of my sister if you ask that question. CR: After the foxholes, you got to move into barracks? WES: Yeah, we took over an Iraqi base 4 miles outside of Fallujah and stayed in their barracks. These were permanent buildings. Better than foxholes. Then we had electricity, and showers were available, we had Playstation games, and some AC units. We could enjoy a little more down time and recreation between missions. CR: Missions? WES: Everyday, we have our job for the day, or our mission to accomplish that day. CR: Like what? WES: We did a lot of clearing roadside IED’s to make it safe for other convoys. IED’s are “Improvised Explosive Devices” that the Iraqis made from scratch and set them up to explode when we drove near. They would detonate them using cell phones, or sometime they were wired to a battery and hand detonated. We often had to take down guardrails along the road, or clear off dirt piles on the road that the Iraqis put there to block us. We’d clear away anything that was in the way, or that could hide an IED. CR: What else? WES: Pulling security. Making sure other convoys got there safe. We’d go along in our HUMV’s to be security for other convoys. CR: A lot has been made of the fact that the HUMV’s were not well armored for a while. WES: Yeah. We’d go to the junkyards and get out sheets of metal to weld to our vehicle doors to put more armor on them and make them safer against enemy fire and explosions. I volunteered to weld ‘cause my Dad’s a welder. CR: Did you use to weld for your Dad? WES: No, he had a company welder. He wouldn’t let me. But I got my chance in Iraq. CR: What else did you do in Iraq? WES: We would man checkpoints at night and search Iraqis for weapons, and bomb parts. We’d take the stuff out of the custody of the Iraqis. Also, if one of our helicopters went down, we would be sent out to retrieve equipment so the Iraqis wouldn’t have access to our technology. CR: Let’s go back to your Purple Heart. Tell me why you got that. WES: I got blown up. It was December 20, 2003. I was in a convoy, and a bomb went off right next to my HUMV. The side of my face was burned pretty bad, and I have permanently lost 70% of my hearing in one of my ears. The face burn left no scars, though. CR: Were you knocked out or anything? WES: Yeah, I was stunned. I remember one of the guys in my vehicle shaking me and yelling my name. I was completely dazed and had the worst headache, and my ears were ringing. I was only out a couple of seconds, but I had to try to think clearly and quickly, because we had to chase down on foot and capture the Iraqis running away from the scene who detonated the bomb. CR: So the hearing never came back? WES: What? CR: So the hearing never came back? WES: What? CR: Never mind. (Please remember Wes and I are friends!) CR: What has changed about your view of life and death, having been in a place where your life was constantly on the line, and you saw a lot of destruction around you? WES: I had no real view of death before I went. I didn’t think about it much. I figured I’d live to be 100 or something and then die of old age. Seeing so much death, the first time I saw a body over there, I remember telling myself, ok, I’m in Iraq, I gotta get used to seeing this, just roll with it. I never said it before I went to Iraq, but I start saying all the time, “It’s a great day to die.” CR: Were you trying to make light of death, or cope with the grim reality? WES: No, I didn’t really mean anything negative by it. It was really positive for me. If you’re close to God and you know where you’re going when you die, than any day is a great day to die. I have no reason to fear death. I don’t say it to be cocky. I had the mindset that I wasn’t going to make it. So I’d prepared myself for whatever. Especially when it’s raining. I was not suicidal, though. I never hoped it would be the day. I never wanted to die. CR: So what about living. Has there been a change in how you think about life? WES: My new attitude is…Thank God for every day that you do have. Your days are numbered even though you’re back here at home. Be happy for every day you have. Live it to the fullest. CR: In a letter to home in March 2003, you wrote: “I cannot wait to come home. You can pray for me to do my devotions daily ‘cuz we don’t get much time for that.” WES: Everybody over there is on like a spiritual high. They’re staring death in the face, so they’re thinking about God all the time. CR: By ‘spiritual high’ do you mean everybody’s close to God? WES: No, they just think about things like that a lot when you’re hearing gunfire and mortars coming in all the time and your life is threatened. Nobody talked about it out loud, though. You could just feel it. CR: Were you close to God? WES: I was and I wasn’t. I was always aware that He was there. Everybody could feel something. I thanked Him for each new day, and I tried to think about Him a lot. But I stopped praying once I knew I was coming home. I didn’t really come back to God until a while after I got home. CR: I'm sure there is so much to deal with internally, and spiritually, and psychologically after experiencing everything you did over there. Stuff most of us will never know. Let’s fast-forward to you getting home. WES: When I got back I felt like the king of the world. I got a standing ovation at church. I had returned safe. I had money and everything was going right. But that didn’t last a long time. My prayers stopped once I knew I was coming home, especially once I got home. People at home really didn’t understand what I had been through over there like the other soldiers. At least around the soldiers we were all experiencing the same things, so we could talk about them, and even joke with each other. But that was all gone once I left the soldiers. At home, it was hard to relate, even though people asked a lot of questions. In a way, I understood why they were asking, and in a way I wanted to say, “Leave me alone, I don’t want to remember.” I couldn’t sleep at night because I could remember and feel myself getting blown up. I didn’t want it to keep me awake all night. I was using alcohol to forget. I talked a lot to my family, and to a pastor. I knew God was there, but I had a lot of questions too. There was a lot to deal with. CR: What brought you back to God? WES: After I got back, I went on a two month road trip with my cousin Trevor. On that trip I realized a lot of things. I remembered that I used to give thanks to God everyday when I woke up in Iraq, but then I realize, now I don’t anymore. Why not? That started me thinking. On the road trip with Trev, I started praying again, reading the Bible, and asking God to help me forget things so they wouldn’t keep me up all night. I could see myself getting blown up, I could remember it and feel it. The biggest impact came from the trip with Trevor. He’s three years younger, but I saw how he lived, I realized the music he chose made a difference. Music is a big part of my life, and it definitely influences how I think. (What goes in comes out.) I needed better messages to fill my mind. I saw Trevor have fun without drinking. He didn’t curse and could still get his point across. He was being a great example to me. And it all made sense and I came back to God. CR: I see kind of two simultaneous battlefields for you. The actual War in Iraq, and the less visible war you were having in your soul, both in Iraq and at home. What do you think people can get from hearing about your experiences? WES: I mostly want them to see how I’m changed. I give thanks to God. I recognize He’s part of my life. I want my friends to know He’s made a change, that I’m reading my Bible more, that I’m changing my music, drinking, and language habits. CR: You’re a hero, and people notice heroes. I’ve said it before so many times to you, but let me say it one more time. Thank you for serving. You have experienced a level of living that I will never experience. Putting your life on the line, not only for our country, but also on foreign soil to fight for the freedom of strangers, now THAT is what a HERO is made of! WES: I was just doing my job. The people who are home paying taxes are just as much a part of that, supplying us with weapons and armor. So I want to say thank you to them too. I was doing my part, they were doing theirs. CR: Yeah, but paying taxes doesn't put our lives at risk. So thank YOU. We are all proud of you, and I'm proud to know you. ************ Wes Stracham has completed his service in the U.S. Army and is now living in Pennsylvania where he grew up, as a civilian, as a hometown hero with a big heart and a Purple one too. Thank you Wes, and thanks to all the service men and women and their families who sacrifice to make the world a better place.