SOLDIER HONORED FOR AID TO REFUGEES

SCOTT CITY -- The idea of kicking back, going fishing, or just hanging out with friends sounds pretty good to Randy Zimmerman.

"I'm ready for a slower pace," said the Army National Guard 2nd lieutenant who just returned from Saudi Arabia after five months of duty.

"You can look out and see green grass and trees," he said, "not just sand."

Zimmerman was part of a military police unit during the Gulf War, a unit whose main duty was to process prisoners of war.

But his unit also aided civilian refugees who were left homeless and starving as a result of the war, something that earned Zimmerman a Humanitarian Service Award and an Army commendation medal, but also left him with visions of suffering he says he'll never forget.

"It was a very humbling experience," he told a reporter Sunday during a welcome home party at his parents' home in Scott City. In all, he said, the war left hundreds of men, women and children with nowhere to go and nothing to eat.

"All they had were the clothes on their backs. They needed more than we could give them."

Zimmerman and his company encountered the civilian refugees near an air base at Rhafha in southeastern Iraq.

"Everyone was wanting to get into Saudi Arabia and out of Iraq," he said. "We gave them food and water and took their names and got them some kind of an ID card. But we had no medical support for them."

He said medical aid promised by the Saudis was slow in coming and sometimes didn't come at all.

Zimmerman spoke in a serious tone as he remembered the refugees. He said Americans don't realize how economically well-off they are.

"If somebody's got a job and a roof over their head here, they're lucky. These people didn't have anything."

Zimmerman's unit is one of the last in Missouri to be sent home. He arrived first in St. Louis on May 24 and was given a three-day leave. He reported back to Fort Leonard Wood for four days. On Friday, he returned home for good.

More than 50 friends and relatives gathered Sunday to welcome Zimmerman home. Amid the hand- shakes and pats on the back, Zimmerman paged through the four-inch thick scrapbook his parents kept for him and reflected on his experiences with war.

"It was a real textbook war," he said. "We hit them from the air first and when the ground war started, that really crippled them."

Zimmerman said the fact that American troops, both reserve and enlisted, were successful should send a message to the American public that their country is well protected.

"It proved that the National Guard is more than weekend warriors," he said. "It gave the American public a sense of security."

Although he is proud of the military effort during the war, he has learned, he said, that war is not to be taken lightly.

The day after his unit arrived in the region, a SCUD missile was intercepted right above the building they were in.

"That was our introduction to the Gulf War," he said. "It's nothing you ever expect to happen in your life."

Processing the prisoners of war was also an eye-opening experience, he said. Often, the MPs worked 12- to 15-hour shifts, something which led them to say MP stood more for "multipurpose" than military police.

In the end, his unit processed more than 30,000 prisoners in just a few weeks. The processing camp was called the "Bronx," and was situated near Sarrar in eastern Saudi Arabia.

Most prisoners were cooperative and grateful for the treatment the allied soldiers gave them, especially ones who had been wounded, some seriously, during ground combat.

"You knew you were going to see these things because it was a war," he said. "But sometimes you'd think, `How am I going to handle this.'

"If people could see what war is really like, they'd say, `Hey, let's just talk it out.'"

Zimmerman said seeing pain and suffering was harder on the troops than getting used to the desert or missing their loved ones.

And it led him to believe that Americans put a greater value on human life than do Iraqis.

"We cherish life a little bit more here than they do," he said. "I think that's one of the reasons Saddam Hussein didn't expect us to put up the fight we did."

He received more than 150 letters from friends, relatives, school children and strangers.

"Mail was mail. It didn't matter that much if it was someone you knew."

He said he tried to answer each letter from school children.

"It made me feel good that they took an interest in the war. If they take an interest, maybe they'll learn from it."

A 1990 law enforcement graduate of Southeast Missouri State University, Zimmerman was deployed to the gulf less than a month after he completed four months of military police training. Though his plans aren't finalized yet, he's thinking of returning to school soon to pursue a master's degree in police administration.

But he's staying in the National Guard, he said.

"You get in because you're looking for a challenge," he said. "When you get that challenge, you test yourself. It brings out the best in a lot of people."