U.S. soldier shares story
After returning a year and a half ago from service in Iraq, Sgt. Kevin Turnblom is home visiting Utah to tell his side of the Iraq war story.
The 25-year-old Weber State University student has been back home in Ogden on assignment for the last couple of weeks speaking primarily to Weber State students about his experience in Iraq. Plans to for Turnblom to speak to ROTC students at Utah State University fell through, but Turnblom spoke to the Utah Statesman Thursday.
“What I would want people to know about the war is that it’s really not the way the media represents it,” he said. “Everywhere I went, mostly in southern Iraq, many of the Iraqis I met were ecstatic to see us there.”
“Under Saddam Hussein, over 5,000 people a month were starving to death in Iraq, which is something that has been glossed over lately. I just think people need to take a bigger look at what we’re doing positive in Iraq.”
Turnblom was part of a defense unit that provided air defense coverage for the 1st Marine Expeditionary force during the first attacks made in Iraq. The Roy High School graduate said he hopes his visits help people to better understand the situation in Iraq, especially because he says the media has perpetrated so many misperceptions.
Turnblom said reports the military went into Iraq unprepared are false, and said he was especially frustrated when 10 days into the war, the media was saying the military was already behind.
“We were at a place they didn’t expect us to be until day 35,” he said. Troops were actually ahead of schedule but temporarily stopped because of a sandstorm, Turnblom said, and ever since the media has portrayed the idea the troops are failing.
“Historically, the media goes after bad news. It’s more dramatic,” he said. “If people in the U.S. think things are going bad, then the media is going to feed them what they want to hear.”
The Iraqi people are also better off because of the presence of U.S. troops, Turnblom said.
“The people who lived easy under Saddam are having a rough time because they aren’t being cuddled they aren’t being taken care of the way he did on the backs of others,” he said. “But for the rank-and-file Iraqi who can go to school now, who has healthcare, who isn’t starving to death anymore and who actually have the ability to vote next month, I think their lives are much better.”
Seeing the lifestyle of the Iraqi people firsthand was an altering experience, Turnblom said.
“I’ll still never forget coming into Saffron, one of the poorest villages in southern Iraq. People were living in mud houses and the children were literally in rags,” he said. “When you compare that to here where people are considered living in poverty when they make $40,000 a year and have a house with only 2,000 square feet, you can see a really big difference.”
Entering Iraq in February 2003, a lot of cultural and physical adjustments were required of the troops, especially as the weather became increasingly hot.
“Initially it was all the different ethnicities and the fact there were camels were everywhere,” he said. “Once the heat came in, it was the biggest shock – it was all about the heat and the sandstorms. The highest I saw the thermometer reach was 117.5 degrees but I heard rumors of 130.”
Sandstorms would be so bad visibility would reach only 1 or 2 inches, he said.
Still, Turnblom said morale was generally high, but depended more on living conditions then the status of the war, although he said from other soldiers he’s kept in contact with, the capture of Saddam did a lot to boost morale.
“Some of the army units I saw had lower morale because they hadn’t had a real bath in a month and a half,” he said.
Although Turnblom’s living conditions were considerably better on an airbase, the rushed time period in which Turnblom was deployed to Iraq made life difficult at first.
Turnblom entered the military in May 2002, completed eight months of basic training and was then almost immediately deployed.
“I was at my welcome launch when they told we were getting deployed,” he said.
Allowed two weeks of leave over Christmas break, during which he married his fiancee, Turnblom left for combat training in Texas.
“I was only married for a week and a half when I was told I was going,” he said. “She was definitely, definitely not happy.
“The hardest was the first month of conflict. It wasn’t necessarily the hottest – we were wearing chemical gear [about 40 pounds] so anything is really hot,” he said. “You’re constantly working at a frantic pace, and then as soon as you’d lay down to go to sleep the air raid sirens would go off and you’d have to throw on your mask and crawl into a bunker for awhile. It was pretty hectic during that time.
“At first when I went over there, I was pretty bummed out, but once I started getting into the work there, I started really getting into the mission and before I knew it they were telling us we were going home,” he said.
Returning home in June 2003, Turnblom actually volunteered to return, but his request was denied.
Turnblom said he believes it will be 12 to 18 more months before the majority of troops leave Iraq, but a military presence will need to remain in Iraq as it has in Germany and Japan for the last 60 years.
“You can’t have a quick exit out of a military action like that,” he said. “We need to see this mission through and make sure things are stable.”
Turnblom said he plans to pursue a career in the military and hopes to one day be stationed in Germany, Alaska or Washington.
“I am definitely a better person after being in the military. My Weber State GPA before was 1.34 and last semester I got a 3.79 through my Internet classes [from Texas],” he said.
“My goal is to do the best job I can,” he said.
-bnelson@cc.usu.edu
He left for Iraq in February 2003 as part of the Patriot Missile Brigrade and returned in June 2003. (Photo by John Zsiray)
Sgt. Kevin Turnblom is shown holding a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) inside the shelter of a humvee while serving as a soldier in southern Iraq. Turnblom was deployed to Iraq only weeks after he completed his basic military training. (Photo by John Zsiray)