April 13, 2006

Jansen Adkins, a 2004 graduate of YSHS, is currently serving in the Army in the Iraqi city of Najaf. He is home on a two-week leave and will return this week for six or seven more months in the war.

By Diane Chiddister

It is no exaggeration to say that each day Jansen Adkins lays his life on the line for his country. The Yellow Springs 20-year-old is an Army gunner stationed in Iraq in the city of Najaf, two hours south of Baghdad. He is the one who stands up in the Humvee with a machine gun, his upper body outside the vehicle, as the Army patrols the streets of the city, checking for roadside bombs and searching houses for terrorists. He wanted to be a gunner, Adkins said, and is proud to have been chosen for the job.

“Being the gunner is the most dangerous job,” he said in a recent interview. “The gunner is the first person everyone sees.”

Adkins, who is home in Yellow Springs for a two-week leave, cares deeply about his country. He believes his country is the best in the world and takes great pride at being American. Several years ago, as a junior at Yellow Springs High School, Adkins decided his country needed him in the Iraqi war. Several months after he graduated in 2004 he left for basic training and last fall he was sent to Iraq.

He has no illusions about the safety of what he is doing. Five men in his 20-men platoon were killed in January when a roadside bomb exploded. The bombs are everywhere, Adkins said, and there is no way to see them. Each day, when his group rolls out of “the wire,” and leaves base to go on patrol, he finds what comfort he can.

“I just pray every day,” he said, and then added, “I pray all the time.”

The deaths of his buddies hit Adkins hard, and has added to the discomfort he feels about the war effort. After four months in Iraq, Adkins sees a complexity in the war effort that he didn’t see when he arrived in Iraq four months ago.

“To say they died for their country, that’s good,” he said. “But what exactly did they die for?”

Adkins said he supports his government’s attempt to bring democracy to Iraq. But he sees every day that many Iraqis don’t want democracy, or at least don’t want it brought to them by Americans. While more than half of the people he meets — often when he’s sent with his platoon to search their homes — seem to support the American effort, a significant number is defiant. The enemy is “faceless,” Adkins said, and includes everyone from children to old men.

“I think democracy for them will take a huge step,” he said. “I don’t think it will ever happen to bring it in. If they want it they’ll get it. They have a lot of pride in their faith and their ways. They’re willing to kill for it.”

Overall, he believes, the Americans have not managed to make enough positive difference in the lives of Iraqis to make up for their loss of life and destruction of property. But even while he questions the war effort, he is steadfast in his patriotism.

“I stand by my country, my unit,” he said.

Adkins’ day begins around 7 each morning, when he wakes in the two-man trailer he shares at Camp Duke several miles outside Najaf. The camp consists mainly of trailers and tents, he said, and serves as home to about 900 soldiers. Most of the morning is spent checking and cleaning equipment, he said. In the afternoon, his platoon — about four Humvees, each equipped with five soldiers — begins its patrol.

Najaf, the country’s largest Shiite city, is in a “fairly safe” part of Iraq, he said, without the internal sectarian strife between Shiites and Sunnis that plagues Baghdad. But danger is still ever-present as the platoon rolls through Najaf streets. When the unit travels through the city, “We own the streets,” Adkins said, as the Humvees drive down the middle, so that Iraqi drivers need to pull off the road. But most Iraqis seem to know the rules, he said, and do so willingly. If they don’t, he will shoot warning shots and if they don’t respond to the warning, he must shoot at the car.

Thankfully, Adkins said, he has so far only had to shoot warning shots.

“No one wants to kill anyone,” he said.

About every other day, his platoon’s mission includes searching a house for terrorists or weapons, he said. About half of the time, the Iraqis inside cooperate willingly, with the man of the house coming outside to talk to the soldiers, then bringing the women and children outside as the house is searched.

“If they’re real calm, we know there’s no threat,” he said.

But fairly often, the home’s occupants are not cooperative, Adkins said, and at those times, the soldiers “go in like it’s our house,” he said, which includes “busting the door down, running through the house, pushing people down on the ground.” In most of those instances, he said, the unit finds weapons inside.

Recently, Adkins said, his unit has sometimes been accompanied by Iraqi forces, who are being trained to take over the security efforts. The Iraqi soldiers seem well-trained and competent, Adkins said, and give him hope that Iraq might possibly one day solve its own problems.

“It’s always a good feeling when they come with us, knowing that we can all work together,” he said.

Overall, Adkins said, the worst part of his day is “waking up every day and going on missions and trying to find a reason for the way things get done.” The best part of the day, he said, is when his unit returns to camp after its mission, “knowing you have another day under your belt. It’s a good feeling.”

For the rest of the day, he said, some soldiers, like himself, work out at the gym, while others head for the Internet cafe to write to their loved ones. Volleyball in the sand is a popular pastime, and some soldiers, working off their tension, play until late at night, he said.

Overall, the soldiers do talk about the war a lot, and mostly the talk is negative, according to Adkins.

“Nobody wants to be there,” he said.

Adkins said he spends a lot of time thinking how his life will be when his tour of duty is up in a year. At that point, he intends to attend Ohio State University to study criminal justice.

All day, every day, Adkins misses his life in Yellow Springs. He misses his friends, his family, and everyone who is close to him.

“You know who you are,” he said.

Like everyone else he knows in Iraq, Adkins loves to get mail from home. He can be reached by writing:

Specialist Adkins, Jansen

A Btry. 3\16 FA BN

Unit-43500

APO AE 09329-3500

When he returns next week to Iraq, he has six or seven more months of duty, Adkins said. Despite his doubts about the war, he is clear that he “has no regrets” about serving his country and that he is more than willing to finish the job he began.

“I’m okay about being there,” he said. “I say support the troops. I think there’s a limit to the madness that can go on there.”

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com