May 17, 2008
3 soldiers take look back
Former Army Spc. Joseph Merchant, shown here with his wife, Joy, and son, Valin, now serves in the Maryland National Guard. On the anniversary of the war in Iraq, Merchant says he's not the same person who left Carroll County in 2004 to serve overseas. (Sun photo by Kenneth K. Lam / March 19, 2008)
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Army Spc. Joseph Merchant missed the birth of his first child. He nursed his dying best friend after an explosion. He survived an ambush in which fellow soldiers were killed and others abducted.
Yesterday, on the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Merchant said he was not the same person as the 20-year-old from Carroll County who left for the war in 2004.
"It would be impossible to say it hasn't changed me," Merchant, who works for a Carroll County food distribution company, said yesterday from his new home in Hanover, Pa. "It changed your priorities. And now I'm a lot more mature, in a very short amount of time."
Nearly 23,000 Marylanders have been deployed since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in what the Pentagon calls the "war on terror." They missed the births of children and wedding anniversaries while serving in a foreign country thousands of miles away. Ninety-two have been killed in Iraq and 404 have been wounded, according to the Department of Defense.
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Yesterday, three Maryland soldiers reflected on the war's toll. They think about the horror of seeing fellow soldiers die, and of the time they missed with their families. One survived a deployment only to lose his wife shortly after his return. Though they have different views on the conflict, all feel a sense of accomplishment from their service.
Army Maj. Shane Dentinger, who grew up in Cumberland, was in Kuwait during the Iraq invasion in March 2003, dubbed "Shock and Awe" by military commanders. He remembers the confidence of his soldiers and his country as he sat outside a tent at night, hearing missiles in the distance and seeing shadows of the air assault.
"My initial thoughts [were] that it would kind of mimic the first Gulf War - didn't think we'd be gone for more than six months," said Dentinger, 36. "Never did I think that we'd be here five years later."
As commander of Charlie Company of the 3rd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, he was in charge of 131 soldiers. He took part in the 2003 mission that led to the deaths of Saddam Hussein's two sons.
While Dentinger was in Iraq, his wife gave birth to their son, Jack, and their daughter grew a year older.
"I left and I only had two people in my family, and when I come back I have a 10-month-old son," said Dentinger, who returned home in 2004 after a year in Iraq.
Dentinger now lives in Fredericksburg, Va., and works for the U.S. Army Human Resources Command in Alexandria, Va.
He said he sometimes feels guilty working behind a desk, knowing that others are still in combat, and hopes to rejoin an infantry unit by late next year.
Dentinger has questioned whether the war was worth the sacrifices of his family and the deaths of nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers.
But he said he supports the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
"We still have to be there," Dentinger said. "It would be a lost cause if we pulled out now."
Army Spc. Ricardo Colin-Berrocal, a 23-year-old from Bowie, wonders whether the war was worth the time he lost with his wife, Teresa.
He met her at Bowie Town Center in July 2005, while on leave during his first tour.
They hit it off instantly and were engaged the next June.
A few months later, he left for his second Iraq tour. When the yearlong deployment was extended by three months, the couple abandoned their dreams of a big wedding and got married in a civil service at the Prince George's County Courthouse in Upper Marlboro.
When Colin-Berrocal left the Army in November, he and his wife spent their days in constant celebration. But the war left him feeling paranoid in public.
Copyright © 2008, The Baltimore Sun
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