Stryker Brigade News

The plane throttled back. Yellow flares spilled out and pierced the darkness. A handful normally are deployed to distract heat-seeking missiles. That night, dozens dropped.

The plane roared off, its ascent so steep soldiers had to look to the tail to find Mosul's twinkling lights.

So began a 20-year-old North Stafford soldier's long, dangerous journey home to see his mother at Thanksgiving.

Spc. David Ruhren joined the National Guard when he was 17. The sign-up required parental consent, but he did not hesitate.

His mother had been at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, leaving just 15 minutes before terrorists slammed a plane into the building. That was reason enough.

Three years later, the 2002 Gar-Field High School graduate is one of 43 members of the Fredericksburg-based 229th Engineer Battalion deployed outside Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city.

Ruhren is trained as an engineer, but outside the city of one million he is putting his infantry skills to work.

"If you can fire a weapon," he says, "that's basically all you're doing."

He has gone on raids, provided security for convoys and patrolled nearby villages. He's felt bullets whiz by his head, seen 500-pound bombs explode only a few hundred feet away, been in vehicles that have hit land mines.

The situation in Mosul, he says, is just as bad as more prominently reported fights in Baghdad and Fallujah, more than 225 miles to the south. Planes can land and depart only at night. Mortar and rocket attacks are common. One volley brought 19 mortar shells raining down on Ruhren's base.

"But Iraq is not as bad as everybody thinks," he says, "Still, it's no joke over there. It sucks."

An offensive was imminent when Ruhren left Mosul to return home on leave two weeks ago.

While he packed for home, his friends girded for battle. He turned over his gun, magazines, smoke grenades and 3,000 rounds of ammunition to a fellow soldier.

Since then, the city has erupted. U.S. and Iraqi troops launched a major offensive early last week to put down an uprising by insurgents.

By the time Ruhren arrived at a stopover in Germany, Mosul had hit the news. A bad sign.