Evansville veterans have unique approaches to the deployment

(Sgt. Josh Auxier, 27, and Staff Sgt. James Eckerty, 41, both of Evansville, pose in front of the ampitheater at COB Speicher, in which legend holds Sadaam executed losing players from his World Cup soccer team.)


Tikrit, Iraq- More than half of the 1st/151st Infantry Battalion out of Jasper IN, has been deployed to a combat zone before. Far from being jaded or angry about their re-deployment, veteran Hoosiers at COB Speicher are helping newer soldiers adjust to the mission while maintaining a sense of humor amongst all the sand and danger.

Sergeant James Eckerty, 41, of Evansville walked Iraqi roadways looking for IEDs and cleared houses in Kasul, Iraq in 2003, now he’s serving in the operations unit for the 1/151 convoy security mission.

“I’m one of the crazy ones,” Eckerty said. “I got out and came back in. I missed the thought of them going with out me.”

Sergeant Josh Auxier, 27, of Evansville, who was in the Kasul with Eckerty and also deployed to Bosnia said, “Back then we had no classes on IEDs. Now that’s over 90 percent of our training.”

Many things have changed, specifically the infrastructure of U.S. bases here- Speicher has its own ice making, water purification and concrete plant. They lay their own asphalt and churn their own cement.

Although many of Indiana veterans’ missions have changed from being infantry-based in 2003, to convoy security in 2008, “At least we have a mission,” Sgt. Auxier said.

Eckerty agreed. “Worse thing you can do is get a mission where you just sit around.”

For some, this mission has its drawbacks. Sergeant Dustin Sarver, 24, of Evansville who was deployed to a base near Kabul, Afghanistan on his first deployment, said, “I liked it better when we dealt with the public more. Here the only interaction is to tell them to move out of the way.”

Sgt. Sarver said in Afghanistan he could buy 200 kids ice cream for $20 dollars and recalled giving away toiletry items and toys to a local who cleaned their bathrooms. At the end of the deployment the man presented Sarver with a tailor-made suit. “It’s white and kind of tacky,” Sarver said, “but I still wear it to parties.”
(Sgt. Dustin Sarver, 24, of Evansville, in his quarters at Speicher with a picture of his girlfriend, a Jasper-area nurse, in the foreground.)

Sarver said he feels about the same sense of security in Iraq as he did in Afghanistan, but admitted it was because nothing has happened yet. He acknowledged that going outside the wire in Iraq probably carries more risk than in Afghanistan.

Sarver said he combats boredom at Camp Speicher by staying busy. “Always be doing something,” he said. Sarver’s teaching himself to play guitar. His Company just won their first softball game in the base recreation league.

There’s a sense of unity among these soldiers in Higher Headquarters Company 1/151 that one doesn’t see everywhere. “Guys in the unit I’ve know for years,” Sarver said. Friends he’s known from childhood and who he went to high school with.

Sergeants and truck commanders like Sgt. Sarver are constantly looking for ways to do more with less- less vehicles and less people- for the same quality of mission.

“It may give a guy an extra day off, or be one less person with a chance of getting hit,” he said.

He tries to get more time for the other two soldiers in his vehicle, both who have kids. As for the younger soldiers, Sarver, only 24, tries to tell them not to sweat the small stuff.

It’s going to be a more than nine-month deployment for Indiana’s soldiers, but as these combat veterans say, how fast time goes by depends on how you spend it.