A green light to go to Iraq

The green glow was just the beginning.

We knew it was coming. The president told us, told them, that the green glow was on its way. And it appeared for the first time a year ago.

That's how most of us viewed the war in Iraq. Through night-vision cameras, narrated by Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings. A flash of green light on the television screen. A thunderous explosion through the speakers. A worldwide chemical reaction.

Dark smoke and relentless power spilled and burned through Baghdad, and the glow's residue seeped into the psyche of this nation, reaching even into the hills, homes and hearts of Southeast Missouri.

In Kuwait, adrenaline must have pumped through the veins of Cape Girardeau Marine Zach Roberts, who armed fighter jets with missiles, or Jackson's Ben Weaver, who was days away from following the glow into Baghdad.

Trepidation trickled along the neck hairs of Weaver's parents, Al and Terrie, who didn't know if their then-23-year-old son -- a member of the 104th military intelligence, fourth infantry -- was anywhere near the explosions that lit up the television.

That evening of March 19 last year, all throughout Southeast Missouri, members of the 1221st Transportation Company in Dexter were making plans for a deployment ceremony the next day. That night, Alec and Ashleigh Robinson said goodbye to their mother, then-33-year-old Staff Sgt.Julie Curtis of Cape Girardeau.

The next morning, less than 12 hours after the first green flash and the same day U.S. and British troops seized the Iraqi port city of Umm Qasr, families couldn't stop the tears in the Dexter armory, where wives like Becky Brown and children like Bethany and Aaron said goodbye to beloved guardsmen like Sgt. Christopher Brown of Marble Hill.

In coffee shops all over Southeast Missouri, patriotic hoorahs rose like the Folger's aroma as the flashes took out more military targets, as troops tracked Saddam Hussein. The war would be over soon, a few coffee-sipping men in mesh ball caps said at the Frontier Food and Kitchen in Fruitland. We would shock them. Awe them. Scare them to surrender.

Prepare for the call

Rodney Sebaugh of Jackson saw the green blazes on the television screen and began to prepare. He knew he may be called up soon. He and his wife, Lindsay, had just purchased a 100-year-old house, and Rodney would need to get some things fixed up, get his finances in order so Lindsay and 2-year-old Grace would be settled if and when he got the call.

Days passed and the night-vision lenses continued to bring the war to our television screens, but the enemy ruined the shutout. American deaths, inevitable in war, were being reported.

With each Christiane Amanpour update that U.S. soldiers had been killed, Joy Welch worried about her son, Stephen Presley II, a 2001 Woodland High School graduate. She pretended in her mind that her boy was on a Boy Scout mission. That made coping easier.

More days and weeks passed, and the bombs and missiles continued their green menace on Baghdad. All the while troops like Presley busted down doors in the middle of the night, looking for Saddam's allies. Presley would tell his mother in letters that he knew two men who were killed, one who was shot in the stomach and the other in the head, execution style.

Pockets of protesters grew louder each day. The anti-war groups toted signs and held rallies questioning the president's motives, his insistence on fighting without support from the United Nations. They said the president offered no evidence that war was necessary.

On the same day Gen. Tommy Franks pointed to the allies' control of Iraq's oil fields as evidence that the war was on schedule, protesters from Southeast Missouri held a ceremony in Capaha Park in Cape Girardeau. Among the war protesters was Jackson resident Susan Bundy, whose son, Patrick, is in the military. She and other protesters said they were against the war, against the president, but not against the troops.

The next day, Pfc. Jessica Lynch was rescued from her Iraqi captors and the troops inched closer and closer to Baghdad. Three days later, the United States secured Baghdad's airport. The Iraqi army weakened by the minute, and in Shawnee Hills Baptist Church in Jackson, about 40 church members rehearsed for a "God Bless the USA" service for the Fourth of July.

Saddam falls down

On April 9, which was 21 days after the first green glow, the Saddam statue tumbled in Baghdad. Looters destroyed buildings and created havoc in the cities, and the fighting continued. An Associated Press photo of Jackson's Joshua Butler appeared in the Southeast Missourian that day. Butler's mother, Kathy James, was thrilled to see her son sitting near a blown-out window, securing a presidential palace in Baghdad.

On April 15, the city of Tikrit -- a city where Jackson's Ben Weaver had been -- fell to the United States military, and the Pentagon declared an end to major fighting. There was much more work ahead, however. More fighting and a lot of rebuilding.

That's where men like John Plaskie and 26 others from Cape Girardeau's 389th Engineering Battalion stepped in. Heavy equipment operators, the men began rebuilding once the fighting was done. They worked in 130-degree desert conditions, fighting the sand fleas and sand storms. And some of their wives met on Sundays to share the latest information.

Cape Girardeau funny-guy Paul Mingus didn't seem down in the dumps when he made a conference call to his Lions Club buddies one afternoon in July. Mingus cracked some jokes and said he saw from afar the fight that took out Saddam's two sons, Odai and Qusai.

It was somewhere in that time frame that Katherine Emily Sebaugh was conceived. Rodney and Lindsay, the couple who bought the old house, had other plans to account for now, in case Rodney was called up. They had been through this before, when Lindsay gave birth to Grace while Rodney provided National Guard security during the Olympics in Utah.

Meanwhile, Saddam loyalists, or al Qaida thugs perhaps, began finding new ways to kill troops, civilian troops. They'd drop bombs off bridges or use long-range sniper rifles. Men like Cape Girardeau plumber Jeff Heise worked nervously to repair buildings and provide security as the bad guys took "pot shots" at them.

Life back home

Families at home tried to cope. Heise's oldest daughter, Angela, went to school and work, trying not to watch too much news. Julie Curtis' daughter, Ashleigh, went to her first dance. Her son played baseball and football.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, around the time Saddam Hussein was pulled out of a hole in the ground, the 1140th Engineer Battalion was notified it would be leaving soon. The news Rodney Sebaugh had half-expected it.

A few days later, residents in the Cape Girardeau area came to the rescue and donated -- in 24 hours -- $9,000 for the postage expenses so 1,200 Christmas shoeboxes could be sent to Iraq. One day earlier, the Southeast Missourian reported that $1,500 was needed. The extra money went toward 9,000 pounds of popcorn, magazines, candy, clothing, sunscreen and other donated items. A few happy tears were dropped into the boxes too.

Sebaugh and the others from the 1140th soon took off for training in Kansas. They headed for Kuwait, then Iraq. Sebaugh wasn't overseas two weeks before he came back. The Red Cross helped arrange for him to take his two-week leave early. The guy with the old house was going to have a new daughter.

On March 8, Katherine Emily Sebaugh was born weighing 6 pounds, 15 ounces. Rodney Sebaugh is enjoying his time with his daughters. In four days, he'll have to leave Kate, Grace and Lindsay again, this time for the whole year.

Baby Kate, 2 weeks old, won't see her father again until she's already walking.

Baby Kate, already affected by the green glow that flashed for the first time a year ago.

bmiller@semissourian.com

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