Copyright (c) 2003 Greensboro News & Record

Iraq War Photos

Photograph by Yancey Christopher This is the first day that I wore my new bulletproof vest that the faculty, staff and students at Randolph Community College (Asheboro, North Carolina) bought for me. I truly was touched by how supportive everyone at RCC was. Thank you, RCC. Click on Photo to see William's Iraq Photographs

Date: November 9, 2003     Edition(s): ALL Page: D1     Section: LIFE Source: TOM STEADMAN Staff Writer He's back home in Asheboro, where the leaves are turning and the mornings are crisp with autumn and a day on active duty means a drive to the Army Reserve Center in Greensboro. Army Capt. William Thompson may have escaped the 130-degree heat of Baghdad and the ever-present threat of suicide bombers or snipers, but the images of Iraq are still as vivid to him as they were the day he left. Thompson, a photography instructor at Randolph Community College and a reservist who was mobilized in January, captured his Iraq tour in thousands of photos. One of the most gripping images shows members of his seven-man team caught in a firefight at Saddam International Airport the day they rolled into Baghdad. Thompson says he and his men were worn out and frazzled, frankly too tired to be very scared by the artillery and sniper fire. Mostly, they were irritated. "We were sitting there trying to eat and being shot at," he says. Thompson, 35, left for Kuwait in February with the Army Reserve's 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion. In August, he was sent home on indefinite emergency leave after his wife, Theresa, underwent surgery. During the months in between, Thompson sweated away 30 pounds in the desert heat, eating mostly Army-issue MREs (meals ready to eat), living in a former student dormitory and dealing with the daily headaches of trying to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure. Thompson's team was charged with oversight of Baghdad's Rusafa district, one of nine in Iraq's capital city and the one containing key government offices and one of the city's main school districts. One of his photos shows soldiers passing out medical supplies at an Iraqi clinic. Others show Iraqi citizens, hired by the Army, cleaning up Baghdad's debris-laden streets. One of them is shown turning in a pay voucher for his work. Getting basic services back into operation was a major focus for his team. Schools were a particular priority, Thompson said. At one point, his team escorted a truck carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. currency to be disbursed to Iraqi schoolmasters. Guarding the cash was a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle and Thompson's seven-man team. "It was a heck of a process, but we got it done," Thompson says. Another photo shows Thompson with a local sheik whose fundamentalist troops took over an Iraqi hospital to prevent looting and then had to be persuaded to give up control. Negotiations were handled by Thompson and his team. There are pictures of looters detained by soldiers and of other looters making off with their spoils. One photo, taken early in the war, shows an American sergeant holding a U.S. flag as troops cross the Kuwait border into Iraq. The soldier stood there with his flag much of the day, Thompson said. Some Iraqis greeted the troops warmly. One picture shows a girl decorating a Bradley vehicle with blossoms. Another shows a grinning G.I. surrounded by children on Baghdad's streets. But there were many nervous moments, such as the daily trips by Humvee through a Baghdad traffic tunnel named the "tunnel of terror" by locals because of attacks that have occurred there. Thompson's vehicles always made it through unscathed. Mainly, there were much more mundane tasks, such as borrowing city sewage trucks and heading into parts of Baghdad that had raw sewage standing in the streets and cleaning out sewers that hadn't been maintained for years. Such simple acts invariably drew an appreciative crowd, Thompson says. Make no mistake, Baghdad is still a dangerous place, maybe even more dangerous than during the so-called "shooting war," he says. But would-be bombers are decidedly in the minority. "Ninety-nine percent of the people in Iraq are very appreciative of us being there," Thompson says. Thompson's team was one of 10 teams from the 422nd working to rebuild the country's infrastructure. Maj. Brent Gerald, a captain with the Greensboro Fire Department, worked to procure new fire trucks for Baghdad. Already 150 of the trucks have been delivered; another 150 are expected in November. Other teams from the unit are working closely with the city's school systems, hospitals and other districts of the city. Thompson says he left behind some new friends in Baghdad, such as a photo shop owner who has called twice by satellite phone to check up on Thompson's wife and an Iraqi district leader who nearly came to tears when he learned that Thompson had been shipped back home. While in Iraq, Thompson and other members of his Civil Affairs team weren't totally cut off from loved ones back home. Satellite phones and the cell phones they were issued for their crucial roles in rebuilding Iraq allowed them to stay in touch with their families. "It was a privilege most of the soldiers in Iraq don't have," Thompson says. Fortunately, the cell phones had New York numbers, meaning that calls could be placed or received at a relatively inexpensive rate. Photos aside, Thompson has plenty of other daily reminders of Iraq. There is the TV news, where stories of fresh deaths or fresh bombings, such as the recent deadly blast at Baghdad's International Red Cross headquarters, bring it all back with a vengeance. "I had friends there," Thompson says. The Red Cross headquarters is in the district overseen by Thompson's unit. Another flashback comes whenever he opens his closet at home and sees his desert-camouflage armored vest, bought for him with $1,300 raised within hours in March by colleagues and students at Randolph Community College. "It was a heck of a thing to do," Thompson says. It was during a satellite phone call to his wife, on her birthday in March, that Thompson asked her to buy an armored vest and have it sent to him in Iraq. Like thousands of other U.S. troops not directly involved in combat situations, Thompson initially did not receive full body armor from the Army. He had thought about buying his own before shipping out but decided to wait. Then, moving with a lead battalion of the 3rd Infantry Division into Iraq, Thompson felt he needed the protection a vest would give him. "He said, 'Honey, I love you. Please get that bullet-proof vest. Send it now. Send it soon,' " Theresa Thompson says. Soon after, she was talking to Chuck Egerton, another photography instructor at Randolph Community College. She mentioned that her husband wanted a vest. Egerton took it from there, putting out the word via the e-mail system at RCC. Within 12 hours, hundreds of faculty, staff and students had donated a total of $1,330, enough to buy more than Thompson had asked for - a custom-made interceptor vest - and have it shipped to him at the front. "The war was on at the time," Egerton says. "We were in the throes of it; people felt it was something they could do - to give him some protection." When the vest finally got to Thompson in Iraq, he found it was somewhat unique: desert camouflage instead of the green Army-issue vests. He brought home a photo of himself showing off the vest so the folks who had bought it for him could see his appreciation. The gift of the vest was far from a token gesture, Theresa Thompson says. "For him, it was an ice-breaker on his job," she says. "It allowed him to explain that he was a teacher and that people cared for him back at home." Contact Tom Steadman at 574-5583 or tsteadman@news-record.com Memo: MORE ONLINE View more photos from Bill Thompson's tour in Iraq by visiting http://www.doghousephoto.com/ All rights reserved. No part of this story may be sold, published or included in any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher. Copyright © 2003 The Greensboro News & Record and Landmark Communications, Inc.