"Part of me is going to stay here"- Indiana soldier reflects on his time in Iraq

(Sgt. McCue pointing to Samarra where he's been deployed with 2nd/327th Infantry for nine months.)

Samarra, Iraq-
Steven McCue, 24, of Fort Wayne, IN has been training to be a soldier since he was in grade school.

His dad died when he was young, and his mother had difficulty controlling him, so she put him in the Young Marines program.

"I threw my first grenade when I was fifteen," McCue said, and he later joined the Army explorer program. "I was a freshmen going out to the firing range.”

He decided to join the Indiana National Guard just after high school graduation. When he found out he was being deployed with 1st/151st Infantry to Afghanistan he married his high school sweetheart so she and their infant son would "be taken care of" if anything happened to him.

In Afghanistan, McCue ended up being a radio transmission officer in a unit that was training the Afghan Army. At times he felt like he was embedded with the Afghans.

After returning from Afghanistan to Indiana, he found himself missing weekend drills. His wife, Heather, 24, of Ft. Wayne finally told him he should go active duty like he was itching to.

After six years in the Guard, McCue went active with the 101st Airborne and moved his young family to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Just six months after he had his second child, a girl- Jaylin, McCue’s brigade got orders to deploy to Iraq.

Not only were they deployed to Samarra, one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq at the time, the first day they arrived a vehicle-borne IED went off just outside their compound and bullets regularly whizzed over the walls. “The first four months I can’t really remember," he said, and in December his 4-year old son- Steven contracted a bad case of pneumonia.

McCue was sent home. For weeks the doctors couldn't diagnosis whether it was viral or bacterial pneumonia, he said. After two weeks they finally gave his son an adult-sized dosage of antibiotics and the pneumonia started clearing.

“It was stressful being home knowing my squad was over here getting hit,” McCue said. “My wife has such strong shoulders I knew she could handle it.”

"Now time’s dragging, but no one wants to get shot at the whole time,” McCue said.

Very few soldiers get to see the fruits of their labors, but Charlie Company has seen the violence subside considerably. “Combat wise we’ve cleared the whole eastern side of the city and captured or killed all our high value targets,” he said. “City wise we’ve put up almost half the Hesco barriers and T-walls.

"I’d tell people back home we cleared the city enough for locals to open up shops again,” he said.

McCue speaks highly of the company’s commander, Capt. Kurtzman. “His attitude was take the fight to the insurgents and let the people know we’re here to protect the city. He realized insurgents were from outside the city.”

Still, it can be frustrating when a soldier spends all day sweating to put up and fill the Hesco barriers with sand, and then local Iraqis end up burning them because they want the Hesco wire for their gardens. “I’m like I just spent six hours putting those up,” McCue said.

“I get mixed feelings. I hate all of them, yet I feel I’d never want my family to live like this so why should I let anyone live like this?” he said.

“I see hope in the next generation of kids taking government jobs, city jobs. I don’t see it in this generation. They’re too set in their ways.”

Sgt. McCue has conflicting ideas about staying in the Army. “I want to take a break from Infantry, then again, I love it so much I don’t know if I could do anything else.”

He’ll have to check with the boss- his wife, Heather. “I try to give her a lot of say in my career. I got to give it to her, she has a strong heart dealing with kids and working.” She’s also in Family Readiness Group and volunteers to help with injured soldiers’ families at Ft. Campbell.

“I wish everyone had a chance to come over here for a six month deployment, not just for the fighting, for that sense of gratitude. Not just living your life, helping the world and not taking things for granted," he said.

"You see a kid walk halfway across a city on roads littered with IEDs just to go to school.”

“I’ve had personal hurdles I never thought I’d accomplish while being here, but it makes me realize there’s more than this. Now that I have two kids and a wife, they deserve more."

“You get stressed out, you’re human, but I’ll never forget it,” Sgt. McCue said of being a soldier in Samarra. “There isn’t much stuff I haven’t experienced. Part of me is going to stay here.”