Stryker Brigade News

Oreskovic is a born-to-fight soldier impatient with whiners - himself or others. So when he says he wants his arm back, what he means is he wants to be able to return to battle alongside his comrades.

"If they'd let me back in the infantry, I'd go to Iraq for a year," he said Wednesday from the Veterans Administration Center in Eugene. "I went over there for the person next to me, and I'd burn a whole country down to get them all back if I had to."

Oreskovic's devotion to his fellow soldiers has only heightened since Tuesday's news of an explosion at a military base mess tent near Mosul. Soldiers were killed or injured as they sat down for lunch in the deadliest single attack against Americans since the start of the war.

"I ate in that chow hall," Oreskovic said. "Half the people I went through basic training with are still over there."

Oreskovic was with the Army's 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, based at Fort Lewis, Wash. The division rotated out of Iraq in October and a new Stryker Brigade - named for the armored vehicle the units use - rotated in. Members of that new unit, the 1st Brigade, 25th Division, may be among the dead and injured in Tuesday's attack.

"But it doesn't matter if I know them personally," Oreskovic said. "I just know that some of those guys aren't coming home for Christmas for the rest of their lives."

Oreskovic has been offered a medical discharge, or the opportunity to go to college on a VA-backed scholarship. He's also been told he can pursue a career in military intelligence or some other noncombat assignment.

But if that's the only option, "I probably won't stay in because it's not the same thing," he said.

The prospect of civilian life doesn't sit well with Oreskovic, whose biggest plan for Christmas break is to head up to Fort Lewis next week to visit some of his buddies.

Oreskovic - who attended Gilham Elementary, Cal Young Middle and Sheldon High schools - said he's the kid who only watched war movies and always wrote book reports on military history. He packed about $350 worth of books - all on military history - in his duffel bag before shipping out to Iraq.

On Oct. 11, he and his colleagues had secured a Mosul neighborhood and were preparing to return to base. But first they had to form a convoy along a traffic circle known as a favorite target of insurgents. Oreskovic and a buddy argued good-naturedly over whose turn it was to ride the Stryker's turret and whose turn to ride inside the hole.

Oreskovic took the turret. He held a grenade launcher in his left hand, while the turret's hatch lid protected his right side. He had on headphones, listening to Metallica's heavy metal. Intelligence reports said to be on the lookout for a brown Ford Focus that could be a car bomb.

Oreskovic never saw a Ford Focus. Nor did he see the bomb-wired vegetable truck that ambled out of an alley. But he heard the explosion and saw the fireball that raced toward him, and felt the first shrapnel strike his left cheek just below his goggles.

Then he saw his arm, or what was left of it. He slipped down into the vehicle's hole, never losing consciousness, as comrades rushed to apply a tourniquet below his shoulder.

His thoughts at the time?

"I remember I was really thirsty," he said. "And I was pissed off because my arm hurt and I couldn't return fire. It sucks when you get hit, because you can't hit back."

The turret's hatch lid, he said, saved his life by cushioning part of the blow. The squad leader in the next Stryker wasn't so lucky; he was killed instantly by the direct impact.

The friend who wangled out of turret duty later expressed deep remorse, telling Oreskovic that he was the one who should have taken the hit. But Oreskovic, who is single, told him he shouldn't feel that way.

"He's married and I'm not," said Oreskovic, who once gave up a home-leave pass to another buddy whose wife had just had a baby. "He's got more in his life than I do."

Oreskovic said he still feels phantom pains where his fingers, wrist, arm and elbow used to be. He battles nightmares, and it's hard to watch the TV news "because I can feel the explosion all over again."

The worst part of losing an arm?

"Everything," he said. "I hate not being able to tie my shoes as easily as before. I hate not going to the gym and working out. I can't play video games or go target shooting."

Oreskovic said he's skeptical about the chances of democratic reform in Iraq, but contends that the United States was right to remove Saddam Hussein, a man "who was committing genocide against his own people."

He also defends Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's assertion that soldiers have to do their best with whatever equipment and support the military can muster.

"I wish I had Star Trek technology with force field protection, but that's not the way it is," he said. "You can't make everything into a tank."

Oreskovic concedes that his view of the Iraqi people has soured, with most now seemingly intent on protecting or supporting insurgents. He said he and other U.S. soldiers spent a lot of time at first befriending Iraqi children, many of whom now throw rocks or grenades at them.

"At first people like you but when they don't get what they want, they hate you," he said.

But Oreskovic said his war experiences also have softened him. One example: a much deeper appreciation for his parents and the childhood they gave him in Eugene.

"Now when I tell them `Drive careful' or `Be careful,' I really mean it," he said. "I tell my dad `I love you' every night now.

"It's like you don't know what you have until you lose it."

HOW TO HELP

Two funds help Michael Oreskovic and family with medical, related costs