Images of Iraq You Don’t See on CNN
He heard the bullets whizzing overhead and thought, I’m too old for this business.
There’s no good age to be shot at, but 55 is definitely too old. Especially when you left the Army 35 years ago and built a comfortable life in San Clemente within hailing distance of the former Western White House.
But there he was in Iraq, for 37 days in September and October, once again in full combat regalia and harm’s way, feeling those old feelings of brotherhood and duty and admiration for what soldiers do. And remembering to keep his head down and his weapons fully operational.
R.B. Alexander is back in San Clemente now -- a world away from Baghdad in every conceivable way -- and eager to talk about what he saw.
He talks with the lingo of an old soldier, but he isn’t. He was 20 when he left Newport Beach for Vietnam. He came home with a raft of medals. The local newspaper wrote him up as a hometown hero. Some of his Army buddies made it a career, but Alexander “took the uniform off, folded it up and went to college.” He went back to surfing, starting a family and running Hobie Sports stores in Corona del Mar and Irvine.
Fade to black for typical middle-agers.
But not Alexander. With the Iraq war heating up, an old Army buddy called him and asked if he’d talk to some troops at Fort Hood about the whole range of small-arms weapons and munitions and, just as important, how to apply that expertise in the field. Alexander agreed and was such a hit last February that another general asked him if he’d talk to units in Iraq.
The general’s thinking was that any “techie” could discuss weapons, but only someone who’d been shot at could add the extra layer of taking that know-how into hot zones.
Alexander owed no one anything. Except, that’s not how he saw it. He remembered a long-ago night in Vietnam when he feared he wouldn’t see his 21st birthday, but survived and then had a good life. “I’d been given my dream, to walk on the beach and raise kids for 35 years,” he says. “Why couldn’t I pay back what was so wonderfully given to me? If I could do one thing to help one soldier survive, why not make a payment back to these guys?”
So he went to Iraq.
The story Alexander wants to tell is that the Iraq effort is going much better than many people think. “The media, for one reason or another, has taken the dark side of this war,” he says. He’s not speaking angrily; it sounds more like frustration.
He talks excitedly about U.S. soldiers befriending grateful Iraqis. He talks about the soldier who in the aftermath of violence in Sadr City found a woman’s jewelry and returned it. Touched, she told her neighbors to let U.S. soldiers know about a weapons cache. Alexander talks about a new library, about residents who have plumbing for the first time in their lives and about a new soccer field and the gift of 100 soccer balls to local kids.
“The story I see on CNN is not the story actually going on over there,” he says. “The successes are remarkable and I just wish -- certainly there is violence and danger -- but at least give a little credit for what they’re doing.”
Alexander says he’s not an Army or private contractor’s mouthpiece. I ask if he can see the big picture in Iraq or only the small picture that 37 days allow.
“I could only see the small picture, but I saw it so often that the big picture became evident,” he says. “We are getting it done. At a remarkable pace. It is happening every day.”
Wars have many dimensions, including the personal and the political. Alexander is convinced the cause is just and a good outcome only a matter of time.
I’m sure of this: Any 55-year-old husband and father of two who gives up the good life for a month in Iraq deserves some newspaper ink.
Dana Parsons can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana. parsons@latimes.com.
