Kiwi fighting for Uncle Sam

New Zealander Sergeant Alun Thomas is a public affairs specialist with the US 1st Cavalry Division. Photo / Supplied

Sometimes, out of the blue, I'll ask myself "How did I, a New Zealander as true as they come, end up in the United States Army?"

It's a question that is easy to dwell on, especially here in a barren outpost in Iraq, where all you have is time to think and ponder life itself.

Another question that has plagued me in recent weeks is how one of our own could kill and injure dozens at Fort Hood, Texas, in a shooting spree. I am stationed there. My family live there. I have been in the exact room where the massacre occurred.

It's all a little too close to home.

My journey into the US Army began in early 2007, when at the ripe old age of 30 I enlisted to be an army journalist.

I had been living in the US since 1998, when I left New Zealand to see what the rest of the world had to offer. Armed with my degree from Massey I had high hopes of becoming a journalist wherever I landed.

I ended up in the middle of nowhere in Illinois and somehow after two weeks in the country I was married. It also didn't take me long to discover that in the US degrees from other countries are essentially useless.

"A bachelor's degree is four years here, not three sorry," I heard often.

Mediocre job followed mediocre job and after nine years I started to think that warehouse and factory work would be the only way I'd ever be able to support my wife and two daughters. Even Palmerston North had more options than Illinois, I started to think. That's when I knew I had lost the plot.

I knew the Army had positions for journalists, but I didn't feel the military lifestyle would be a good fit for my family. But with nothing else going for me I went and talked to my local recruiter and in March 2007 I signed on the dotted line.

I knew I'd be going to war somewhere, but it was the price I had to pay for something I always wanted to do. Leaving my family behind was the hardest part. It was then and it is now.

I completed basic training in the middle of the hottest summer in South Carolina history and went on to complete my journalist training shortly after.

It was after my initial entry training I got my first dose of Army reality when I was stationed at Camp Red Cloud in South Korea, which is ominously close to North Korea. It was also an unaccompanied tour, which meant a year without my wife and daughters.

This was my first taste of what so many soldiers experience, the harsh reality of being separated from your loved ones. Halfway through my tour in South Korea I received orders for my next assignment - Fort Hood in Texas.

As soon as I read that I knew a deployment to Iraq was imminent as Fort Hood is the most forward deployed base in the US.

After just four months back in the US, I deployed with the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade to Iraq.

In those four months I was unable to be with my family, as we couldn't sell our house in Illinois, which forced me to move to Texas alone. Being deployed just months later meant another year apart from my family, the situation I currently find myself in.

I've been in Iraq for seven months, telling the stories of my unit and the soldiers within it. It is the best part of my job, being able to write about everyday soldiers and what they do.

That's the most important part of my job. But the strain of separation is ever present, not just for me, but everyone.

Many soldiers here have been deployed upwards of four times this decade. My experiences pale in comparison, but in the last 2 years I've missed my children's last three birthdays and, coming up shortly, three Christmases.

When I left for basic training my youngest daughter was 1; she's now 4. Thinking about it is maddening, so the best thing I can do for myself is stay mentally strong. If you let it consume you, then you'll break.

From what I have experienced thus far most soldiers handle the strain of repetitive deployments well. Knowing this is what you voluntarily signed up to do truly make it a selfless exercise.

Nobody here walks around feeling sorry for themselves; they do their job every day regardless of the dangers.

But knowing what occurred at Fort Hood somehow dampens things. It's impossible to speculate exactly why Nidal Hasan decided to shoot fellow soldiers, but knowing it happened on the base where my family live, the place where I am located when I'm not deployed, makes it hard to accept.

Like thousands of soldiers before me I had done my pre-deployment medical checks in the room where the slaughter occurred. The room is tiny and when filled with soldiers there is no room to move. Those caught would have been sitting ducks.

The incident is not symptomatic of Muslim's in the Army. Those I know are Americans and believe in the cause they are fighting for.

Working as a journalist I am fortunate to go places, see things and talk to people few ever will. Many of these things cannot be talked about, but every soldier I've ever interviewed is committed to this cause and what they signed up to do.

There is truly no doubt these soldiers are some of the bravest and most loyal people found anywhere.

Being so far from the situation doesn't help. But bizarrely it seems I am safer here in Iraq, which just two years ago would have been unfathomable.

Right now things are quieter here than ever and fortunately violence levels have decreased dramatically. But that doesn't stop the daily struggle to make it through each day and watch your children growing and getting used to living without you.

Despite the hardships the Army has been the most enjoyable job in my 11 years in the US.

The opportunities are numerous and after only two years I made the rank of sergeant and next year I will be attending officer candidate school. It seems a long way from my early years in Auckland playing cricket in the backyard but I'm still a Kiwi at heart.

That of course leads to questions about where I'm from and people's knowledge about our country. Some people think NZ is in Canada. Others think it's part of Australia.

Everyone knows The Lord of the Rings films were made there. That still doesn't stop people calling me "Crocodile Dundee". That's fine; I'll go along with it.

In five months I'll head back to Fort Hood with the rest of my unit and back to my family for hopefully more than just a few weeks this time.

It surely won't be my last deployment but it will be nice to be back.

One day I hope to make it back to NZ too, having never been back since I left. I might be an American citizen now and wear the US flag on my arm, but once a Kiwi, always a Kiwi.