Soldier holding out hope for a holiday back home

For Robert Trahan the past few weeks have been tough. There is, of course, the increased activity of insurgents before the Iraqi elections, but back home in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year holidays came and went for his family without him.

"Getting past the holidays was important," he writes by email. "Everyone was a little depressed being away from their families, but we got through it. The mood of everyone here is good. We are now in 2005 and we should be going home this year."

His italics are emblematic of the uncertainty of this war. Trahan is a medic and platoon sergeant at Camp Victory near Baghdad's airport, and his 256 Battalion has a year-long tour of duty in Iraq. They arrived last October.

Home is never far from their thoughts, but in the weeks before he left, Trahan, 42, said he felt he wouldn't take leave after six months and go back to his wife, Doreen, and children, Dustin, 17, Brittany, 16, and Taylor, 8.

"I don't know if I want to come home and go through another set of goodbyes," he said as he prepared to leave for service. Now he has changed his mind.

"I have asked for leave at the end of May. It will be just after Taylor's birthday and Dustin's graduation from high school. The kids will all be out of school and Doreen has made reservations for us at Disneyworld in Florida.

"I get 15 days at home so we will go there for a week and have a week at home to see family and relax before coming back to Baghdad. It will be hard to say goodbye again, but it will be done with the knowledge that I should be home for good within the next five or six months."

From Camp Victory, with its occasional incoming mortar fire, to Disneyworld and back in a fortnight. It seems surreal. But the real world crowds out the contradictions.

The impending elections and bombings around Baghdad have been on everyone's mind. Security around the camp has been tightened since the suicide bombing of the US military dining facility in Mosul three days before Christmas.

Trahan's company has run exercises to ensure swift response to any mass casualties.

"I have cancelled all days off for [this] week just to make sure I have a full staff for whatever might happen," he said.

"There are televisions in the dining facility, so I catch a little news there from time to time, but most of my news comes from the internet or Stars and Stripes, a daily newspaper provided to us over here.

"We have enough access to news to know what is going on, and many of the bombings are close enough that we hear and sometimes feel the explosions.

"For example, on Christmas Eve, a fuel truck with explosives was detonated in a neighbourhood right outside the wall of this camp. The next day I read about it on Fox news' website and in Stars and Stripes."

He didn't see President George W. Bush's inauguration but notes: "I think the majority of military personnel support President Bush and were pleased with his re-election."

Trahan went "outside the wire" of Camp Victory a few times last month, once to go to a local school where they did medical screenings of the children.

"But I have not been out in January and do not plan to go out until after the elections. I am doing a lot of work to get the clinic set up the way we want. We had bare sheets of plywood for a ceiling and some of the engineers found ceiling tiles in long sheets for us. We have been putting this up for the last couple of days.

"I have paint on order so we can repaint the interior and they have contracted a local contractor to put in a floor for us. We have bare cement now. When we turn this facility over to the people who come to replace us, they will have a great place to work.

"It is my goal to make this a place that we can all be proud of. Having a project keeps me busy and helps make my days go by faster.

"This place is nothing like M*A*S*H. Our docs are not surgeons and we don't do surgery at this level of care. We basically stabilise the patient, control bleeding and airways, attempt some pain management and call in a helicopter to get them to surgery if necessary."

Trahan emails his wife daily and writes letters. They talk on the phone about once a week. There is generally a 15-minute time limit but that can be extended if no one is waiting.

"I am feeling pretty good right now. I am looking forward to seeing my family in May and hope the time will pass quickly."

In the middle of conflict mundane things such as the weather still matter.

I have told him about our lousy summer and how, just as everyone has gone back to work, it looks like barbecue season is here.

Trahan is just 15 minutes from downtown Baghdad, where it has been cold but with only one shower in the past couple of weeks. By next month the cold days will be over. "I'm sure by March or April we will be wishing it would get cold again."

And then you can almost hear him laugh in a short email a few days later.

"Hey, no fair talking about barbecues, ribs and thick steaks. That's just cruel, although the food here is immeasurably better then we had for Desert Storm. A good grilled steak would be wonderful."

Maybe in late May, at Disneyworld.

* Graham Reid's previous conversations with Robert Trahan were published in October and December last year.