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Army Staff Sgt. David Larson gave his mother the best present she could ever have this year, himself in one piece.
The twenty-five-old recently returned from a 15-month tour of duty in Iraq, including three months in Baqubah as part of the U.S. troop surge.
"Where haven't I been in Iraq?" Larson said, recalling his two tours with the Army's 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry regiment.
He spent his first tour mostly in Mosul as part of the first Stryker brigade in Iraq. Most of this second tour was spent in Baghdad, until the surge into Baqubah where he lost two close friends.
"I've had more close calls outside Baghdad than in," he said. "Baghdad was bad. You never know where they're going to hit."
"That last three months were the hardest," mother Shay Larson said. "He was right in the middle of that surge."
Shay used the Internet to keep up with events in Baqubah, but the strain of worrying about David was hard on her. She said she worked two jobs just to keep her mind off her son.
"I think I'm probably the most excited person in the world," Shay said Saturday at a reception for David at the Lakeview Park clubhouse. "The weirdest thing is, I can pick up the phone now and call him any time I want. I feel normal."[...]