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Words From War -- 'Life here isn't too bad'

Jan-26-2005 » Filed Under: TF Olympia

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BY JERRY DAVICH

While his teenage friends play shoot 'em up video games in their bedrooms, Michael Brunsman dodges insurgent gunfire in Iraq.

The 2004 Portage High School graduate left his family late last year to serve Uncle Sam in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

At 19, Brunsman is the youngest soldier in his squad with the 113th Engineer Battalion of the Indiana Army National Guard, now based in Mosul.

"I could throw a rock and it would hit a house in Mosul. That's how close we are," wrote Brunsman via e-mail from his forward operating base.

With a population of 2 million, Mosul is Iraq's third-largest city and also its most troubled region leading up to the country's elections Sunday.

"We're the ones guarding the elections so it's going to be very interesting on (Sunday)," wrote Brunsman, who enlisted in the Army at age 17.

Brunsman transferred to the 113th in mid-October from the 376th Engineer Company in Hammond. The transfer came three days after graduating from Army basic training. He's been on the go ever since.

"This all goes by so fast," he wrote, quickly noting that it's also "pretty cool."


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