Cadets in Combat (Part 1)

Josh Bressel left the Virginia Tech ROTC as a freshman to join the infantry for a tour of duty in Iraq. This is his story.

As a member of the Junior ROTC and Civil Air Patrol in high school, Josh Bressel was groomed to be a soldier. In August of 2001, he had just completed an internship where he worked on the 78th floor of the World Trade Center. He was a freshman Cadet in Virginia Tech's ROTC program on 9-11.

"Everybody I worked with died or had friends and family who were killed. It was a violation of myself," said Bressel. "It was one thing that this happened to my nation, but it was also a personal sensation that rocked me to the core."

He left the ROTC and enlisted in the Army infantry in early 2002. While at basic training in Fort Benning, Georgia, he recalled watching the news the day US forces crossed the wall between Kuwait and Iraq known as the Berm. "The drill sergeant was watching with us," recalled Bressel. "And he said, 'Boys, you're going to war."

PFC Bressel and another soldier were assigned to ride with the equipment on the top deck of the jumbo jet for the 15 hour flight that he and 200 other members of the 3rd Brigade Stryker Combat Team, 2nd infantry division rode into Kuwait. What at first seemed like an uncomfortable and crowded detail turned out to be a rare moment of luxury in the infantry, mainly due to the fact that the top floor is actually one step above first class. While the rest of the enlisted men slept in coach, he got to sleep in a seat he described as comfortable as any bed.

400 of the Stryker vehicles (pictured above) that he had been training with at Fort Washington for the past few months after basic were making the trip to the Middle East by boat.

"When you get out of basic training, you feel like John Rambo, and you want to go kill terrorists for God, Mom, and apple pie," recalled Bressel. "When I got assigned to the Stryker division [which required more training], I felt more like a rookie proathlete who didn't get in his first game, and the relief and disappointment that comes with that."

Like the cool and clear dark night that greeted him when he stepped off the plane and on Kuwaiti soil, Bressel's introduction to the Middle East was rather uneventful. They were stationed at Camp Vdairi in Kuwait while the vehicles were outfitted, and he remembered seeing the wealth of the Kuwaiti's illustrated by the Mercedes and BMWs that he saw abandoned on some desert road, where rumor had it they ran out of gas, and their owners simply called for another car. A month later Bressel's unit crossed the Burm, the fifteen foot wall that separates Kuwait and Iraq. After an strangely quiet trip through Baghdad, their convoy reached Samarra. The enemy was initially hesitant to attack the Stryker, Bressel was told, because they thought the slat armor mounted on the vehicle was electrified, and that the remote controlled weapon on top was governed by demons.

In the early winter of 2004, Bressel's unit in the Third Stryker pulled into the Iraqi city of Tal'afar, which is in the Northwestern part of the country 30 miles west of Mosul. "At this time, IED was a term on a card," Bressel recalled. "A new and different war was beginning." It wasn't an IED, however, that took the life of Bressel's buddy Jake Herring. Bressel was on guard duty at an Entry Check Point at Rock Base when an insurgent threw an anti-tank grenade at the patrolling Stryker vehicle that Herring was riding in. Herring had been standing up on the vehicle manning one of the two rear air sentry hatches when he was hit by the blast. Body armor is not designed for the impact of an anti-tank weapon, and it tore Herring's side open from his armpit to his hip.

"We lifted him like a child and ran 100- 200 meters back to the medic station," Bressel said. "I held his hand while the medic massaged his heart through the hole in his rib." Herring was also a medic, and knew that he was hurt bad and that his lungs were filling up with fluid. Herring held Bressel's hand, in his other he held a picture of his wife and young daughter. "He died there in that shitty little aid station in that shitty little town in that shitty little country," Bressel said, wiping his eyes.

As a practicing member of the Jewish faith, Bressel was looking forward to Good Friday that year. A rabbi would be holding a service in Mosul and Bressel, and he was going. Religious faith is printed on U.S. servicemen's dog-tags so Chaplains will know which rites should be performed on the dying. Members of the Jewish faith, like Bressel, were told that they could leave their faith off of the tags due to the possibility of capture by religious fanatics. He chose to wear his faith on his tags anyway, citing the fact that U.S. servicemen don't fair well under capture regardless of their religious faith.

Around midnight, as Good Friday began, Bressel finished guard duty and was undressing in the barracks of the fort in Tal'afar, thinking of rest and his morning departure for Mosul when "all hell broke loose." A satchel charge had been thrown at the entry check point, injuring one of the guards on duty. The fort was then hit with a barrage of rocket fire. To Bressel, it looked like a display of bottle rockets. He grabbed his sniper rifle and headed for the roof, because had a better vantage point that overlooked the surrounding wall.

"There were hundreds of them, and you couldn't really see them clearly. They were wearing black clothing, black hoods, and green bandanas," Bressell said of the attacking insurgent force that was later estimated as numbering 400. "It seemed like gunfire was coming from every street corner right at us. They had surrounded in the night and opened fire."

Bressel recalled approximately twentyfive minutes of a heavy exchange of fire, with the night sky full of noise and light and explosions and the sounds of the wounded and dying calling out.

"When the battle ended there was no sound," he said. "It was the creepiest silence in the world."

Approximately 100 men of the Stryker division and Bressel held their positions at Rock Base for about an hour in the dead silence, before they packed the wounded into vehicles and drove them the five miles to the Forward Operating Base (FOB) Fulda. No American GIs were killed in the battle, including the checkpoint guard who was injured in the face by the satchel charge, and all of the men with severe casualties were saved.

After a few hours of much needed rest, Bressel hitched a ride with the convoy that was heading to Mosul for the Good Friday service. It was a peaceful moment that would not last. Just hours after the massive assault of Rock Base, his Stryker passed by a parked German car called an Opel. A vehicle- bourne IED was detonated, and it looked like the whole world had exploded before his eyes. Bressel was thrown back in the vehicle and splattered with his own blood. The convoy was then hit with thrown sticks of uncut dynamite, which proved ineffective (except for the noise and flash) because they don't explode with shrapnel.

After he gathered himself, Bressel "saw a civilian guarded insurgent who was lining up a shot at us with an RPG," he said, referring to an enemy using a crowd as a shield. "I launched a grenade and I saw the whole area clear. Bodies everywhere and general chaos."

He rejoined the convoy and said he could taste his own blood. They hit the gas and headed towards FOB Murrez so Bressel could receive treatment for his wounds.Bleeding and somewhat dizzy, he was bandaged and continued on to make the service, where they sat a medic next to him to make sure he was alright. They opened care packages sent from some schoolkids back stateside. His read: "I hope you don't die, Billy".

It turned out he had received blunt trauma from the taillight of the car that had exploded. The Army sent him home and he was greeted with applause from friends and family, and a freaked-out mother when she saw his arm in a sling.

He was back in Iraq two weeks later.

The remaining time Bressel served in Iraq was not peaceful. When an insurgent threw a grenade in a shopping bag his way, he was lifted off the ground and thrown in a ditch. He was involved in another heavy firefight after he watched an insurgent shoot down a Kayoua helicopter while his unit was awaiting the Iraqi police force to search a mosque. He fought again at Tal'afar in a pitched battle for control of the town, where all the civilians were called out of the city and 3000 United States infantrymen went in and shot everyone they encountered.

But perhaps most disturbing for Bressel was when the canteen at Fa- Merez, a great chow-hall that is a rare luxury in Iraq, exploded after he had just finished eating. He was fifty meters away and thrown flat on his face by the explosion. It is reported that a sleeper agent had strapped C4 and ball bearings to his belly underneath an Iraqi police uniform and exploded himself, killing 22 US soldiers and wounding 133. Bressel returned to the canteen and tried to save as many of the guys with whom he had just enjoyed his meal.

As an almost fitting coda to his tour, one of the transport planes flying alongside Bressel's plane as he was leaving Iraq for the last time was hit with an antiaircraft missile, and his aircraft dropped its countermeasures, taking evasive action. Luckily, the missile did not explode on impact, and Bressel and the rest of the squadron landed safely in Kuwait. Josh Bressel was discharged honorably from the service in 2005 and joined the National Guard where he served in Connecticut for a few months before transferring to a unit in Pulaski, Virginia so he could finish his degree at Virginia Tech. He graduated last December with a degree in History and Political Science and recently got engaged. He is scheduled to attend Officer's Candidate School in March, although there is no word on how soon he may be headed back to Iraq.

"There's no glory, and no happiness [in war]," Bressel said. "It's all about the guys you serve with; you want to keep everybody alive."