By Carolyn Cole/Staff Writer

Iraq is a long way from the Mustang field where then-lineman Brent Thurman played football with his first band of brothers.

On both fields, he forged lifelong bonds that went beyond friendship to creating a sense of family. And Thurman would do anything he could to help them.

A knee injury during a 1999 game sidelined him, while also decreasing the amount of an offered college scholarship. While healing, Thurman said he examined his life and who he wanted to become. He decided to enlist in the Army, and three months after graduation, he packed up for basic training, which confirmed to him he’d made the right move.

“I had a lot of fun; I enjoyed the structure and everything,” he said. “It was a lot of adventure.”

After basic training, Thurman attended a job school, entering military intelligence. His first assignment came spring 2001 in South Korea. He made friends with a Korean soldier raised in Texas, who introduced him to his family, his country and culture.

Then the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks happened. Thurman watched the WTC towers burn along side his fellow soldiers in silence, in shock. Then, in unison, their cell phones rang.

“We went from absolute freedom, we could do anything we want, to you have to be in your room ready for a phone call we are going to war,” he said. “Have your stuff ready. They almost went to go get ammunition, so we can start fighting. It was real intense, no room for error.”

Two days passed with Thurman’s unit still in limbo — then it was back to work, except the soldiers were confined to base. Some shipped off to Afghanistan, including one of Thurman’s friends who is an Arabic linguist.

“I haven’t caught up with him since,” he said. “I don’t know what happened, more than likely he’s still doing this thing.”

Thurman was sent to Fort Hood, Texas, where he joined a tactical team in the First Cavalry, preparing for a mission to Kosovo. That mission was called off a few months later, and the other half of Fort Hood soldiers were among the first deploymed to Iraq. Thurman’s unit got its Iraq orders in November 2003, and began preparing for deployment, practicing hand to hand combat and knife fighting, studying grenades, rifles, improvised explosive devices and mines.

In the midst of training, Thurman met a computer technician also being deployed, Neshmayda, and the two were married in February 2004, a month before leaving for Kuwait.

“It was basically we knew,” he said. “It wasn’t that quick relationship or anything. It was just ‘man, we should get married’ kind of thing, and the first year of our marriage was the toughest.”

Because they were in different units, Thurman said they couldn’t live together. So, as newlyweds, both had roommates.

“That was the hardest thing to do,” he said. “We only got to see each other once a week, which is great; it’s more than most people, and I got a lot of flak over that. Most were mad because I got to see my wife and their wives are at home. I looked at a couple of them and said, ‘Hey your wives aren’t being shot at.’ I was a pretty calm kind of guy; over there the pressure gets to you.”

The soldiers spent their first month getting acclimated to desert life before starting the 300-mile drive into Baghdad. Thurman said he expected to find fighting as soon as the crossed the Iraqi border.

“Nothing happens, and my adrenaline goes down, and I almost fall asleep at the wheel,” he said. “It was a bunch of highs and lows. You are expecting a fight and nothing happens. You get into a populated area, you expect a fight and nothing happens. They didn’t hit us at all on the way to Baghdad.”

But once in Baghdad, Thurman said soldiers quickly adapted to ignoring sounds of mortar fire. At first, new soldiers duck and cover when they hear the light thump of the shot, and jumped at the sound of explosions. But Thurman said the mission had to go on, even in the middle of fire.

“If something goes off big, don’t be there,” he said. “But if you are, God said it’s your time. That’s the way most of us got.”

But with the ear-splitting mortars, baking heat and stress, Thurman said he got to where he couldn’t relax, couldn’t sleep. He said he’d find himself back at work, slogging through received intelligence, trying to make sense of it for soldiers who were in the direct line of fire. He said it wasn’t uncommon for him to work 36 hours without rest.

“If you are like I am, and there is a problem to be solved, I can’t sleep anyway,” he said.

One of his few forms of relaxation included learning guitar from two other soldiers. The three would sit outside the Army trailers, plucking tunes as other soldiers gathered from dusk late into the night.

After a two-week leave in Germany for his honeymoon, Thurman was sent south to a Marine base for a few months. While there, a close friend was hit with a dud explosive, which dented his helmet. Thurman said he came running, in boxer shorts, boots and a helmet, to learn everything was OK.

There were other close calls, including an explosion that went off near Neshmayda, which he said she tried to hide from him so he wouldn’t worry.

Another friend was about 100 meters from base when an improvised explosive device went off. Fragments got through his body armor, and he died on his way to a Germany hospital.

“It really affected me; it affected my friend more because it was his mission and Joe took it for him,” Thurman said. “It messes with him everyday.”
Thurman’s closest call came a month before leaving Iraq. He was crossing a courtyard to go to the base store.

“I’m caught in the open, and all I hear is shhoof, shhoof, five rockets come right over my head and they weren’t very high,” he said. “It was dark so I couldn’t see them; I knew they were there. I’m running over to the PX and everyone is being calm. That is the closest they ever got to me.”

After a year in Iraq, Thurman and his wife returned to Kuwait with their units, and back to the United States a month later, May 2005. The best moment in Iraq, Thurman said, was celebrating leaving.

“The greatest feeling ever even though it turned me green to the gills was smoking victory dances with my friends — it’s a big cigar,” he said, “saying we are done.”

Upon returning to Texas, Thurman said he was sickened by media coverage of Iraq—its emphasis on violence and death while rarely mentioning the humanitarian projects soldiers are helping to complete. In intelligence, he said he didn’t have time to help with projects, but celebrated with other soldiers when they finished constructing schools, hospitals and other facilities.

“It really makes me mad,” he said. “My mom has problems today because of that — she was worrying so much. She is constantly saying I owe her a face lift. It’s not good for them, any of the parents who have somebody over there, anybody because we know what stress is like, and if you all are going through it too, it’s not a good thing. Why not show some of the good things we are doing?”

Thurman was also bothered by the protests that followed soldier protests.

“I started losing sleep over it,” he said. “Because he is not involved in politics. We are not political figures. We are there for a job, and we are going to do that job no matter what it takes.”

Of the Iraqis he met, Thurman said most were thankful for the good U.S. soldiers were doing in the country. Most Americans don’t understand Iraqi culture, he said, and the differences between Islam and Christianity.

“Our fanaticism comes nowhere close to theirs,” he said. “They can get to the point where they can kill themselves because of it.”

Thurman became friends with an ex-Iraqi soldier who served in the Persian Gulf War and his sons, who thought it was strange that he was married with no children.

“They are just great people; it’s just a different religion,” he said. “We are not over there to enforce religion … We are over there because that is our job. You have your duty to the United States to do your job.”

The Thurmans left the Army and have recently returned to the Oklahoma City area with their eight-month old son Michael, who was born just before his parents’ two-year wedding anniversary.