| In war, the Guard offers no safe haven July 3, 2005 NATALIA MUNOZ He knows that scorpions can fly in the Iraqi desert. That spiders as big as his hand crawl on whatever and whoever they please. That killing is one point of war and that war is, in his own words, "a horrible act, an immoral act." But Jaime Perez accepts that war is also a recourse. Two years ago he saw desperation in Iraq. Families too poor to clothe their young children, houses made of mud - it wouldn't be like this much longer. He hoped. "We know we went there to bring progress to those people," said Perez. He is 43 but looks like a low-key 30-year-old with a little gray in his close-cropped hair. He's soft-spoken but not shy. He is friendly, generous and empathetic. He has a wife and two kids. Perez works at the Springfield Vet Center, counseling soldiers who have known the terror of war up close. He is also a captain with the Massachusetts National Guard. He is a loyal soldier in these times when serving in Iraq or Afghanistan can feel like adeath sentence approaching with lightning speed. He joined the Guard in 1995. Even though signing up for the Guard can surely place you in a war zone, back then activation meant helping a region recover after a hurricane or some other natural disaster swept through it. But manmade disasters such as war can trigger reactivation at any time. His call came in 2003. Perez was sent to Iraq with the Combat Stress Control Unit. A social worker, his job was to help distressed soldiers return to the line of fire within 72 hours. With the re-entry clock ticking, he comforted soldiers racked by unimaginable grief over having to look a man in the eye and then shoot him dead. The most bitter guilt surfaced after being forced to run over children so as not to break up the military convoy and expose fellow soldiers to enemy fire. "You did what you had to do," he told them. "It was either you, or he would have killed you." A common and almost crippling fear among soldiers, he said, is that they will be killed. For many of us, death is somewhere down the road. For soldiers, it's on their doorstep. There are many ways to die in a war zone. A cigarette lighter is actually a weapon and explodes. A suicide bomber blows himself up within the shadow of dozens gathered for lunch. Children used as decoys. Bombs buried just out of sight. Bullets zinging from behind there and near here. It's a minefield. "It's hard having to see the suffering of others, having to see women, children and the elderly die," he said. It's harder to shoot to kill, even in self-defense. "Nobody wants to say, 'I killed somebody,' " he said. "It's better to remain silent." Perez and his group of counselors help soldiers deal with the killing they did, the scorpions they saw flying in the desert wind, and the immense fear that dried their mouths more easily than the fierce desert heat. He too has felt the spike of fear prick his skin all over. Once his convoy was stopped from entering a fortified camp in Iraq. The convoy lacked the papers that would have allowed entry. Because anyone can pose as an American soldier, no one is allowed to breeze into a compound. As the sun set, the desert retreated into darkness. The convoy circled the wagons for protection. The soldiers even managed a joke or two about Army bureaucracy. But as the night wore on, it took on a crushing weight that made sleep impossible. "You are alone in the world," he said. The other day, Perez recalled the acceptance speech President Jimmy Carter offered when he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2002. "We will not learn how to live together in peace," said Carter, "by killing each other's children." Perez has 10 years to go before retiring from the Guard. As long as the wars continue, he could be reactivated. "It's not if," he said, "it's when." Natalia Munoz can be reached at [email protected] |