March Madness

shock, no awe: National Guard medic Patrick Resta had to buy his own body armor. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

A local soldier's story sheds light on the Iraq quagmire.

by Mike Newall

Patrick Resta is a citizen soldier. In November, the 26-year-old South Philadelphia resident returned from a 10-month tour in Iraq where he served as a combat medic for the Army National Guard.

Specialist Resta had been living in South Carolina, where his wife was attending school, and joined the state's National Guard unit for the college tuition benefits, which he hoped would get him through nursing school. He was working as a dialysis technician, taking college courses and training one weekend a month when the world changed on 9/11. He lost an aunt and uncle at the World Trade Center and was called to active duty a month later.

"I did what I had to do. I signed a contract to defend the Constitution and the people of this country. But, of course," he says in a voice tinged with anger, "that's not what we're doing over there."

Resta had been opposed to the invasion of Iraq from the start. He had no grand illusions. By the time he was deployed, the administration had admitted their miscalculations about weapons of mass destruction.

"For most of us," he says, "it was more along the lines of, "This is our mission, like it or not, we're gonna do it, and we're gonna get back home alive and with all our limbs.'"

On a bleak wintry afternoon, Resta sits in the meeting room of the American Friends Service Committee in Center City where a gathering of the fledgling Philadelphia-based Iraq Veterans Against the War has just ended. He sits at a table by the window. Sunlight highlights the grave, angular contours of his face. His posture is ramrod straight. His eyes are dazed and wide, and his hands are tightly clasped on the table. He could be testifying in front of a military tribunal.

"There are certain things that stick with me always," he says in an shaky tone. "But, you know, it's not like I'm diving for cover every time a car backfires."

Due to a regular Army stretched extremely thin from troop deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and South Asia, more than 40 percent of the roughly 150,000 American servicemen and servicewomen currently serving in Iraq are, like Resta, citizen soldiers — members of the National Guard or Army Reserve. Some military experts predict that by spring, the ratio could jump to an alarming 55 percent, an unquestionable strain for National Guard and Reserve forces already struggling with dwindling recruitment numbers. There are currently 2,000 Pennsylvania guardsmen serving in Iraq, and last month, an additional 2,200 were mobilized for training. They're slated to be in Iraq by summer.

Resta, like many returning guardsmen and reservists, complains of inferior equipment, insufficient training and scant notice before being pressed into service. His first mission was Operation Noble Eagle, a security detail guarding Fort Jackson, S.C., the Army's largest training base. His unit was ordered to guard the gates against suspicious vehicles that may try to run roadblocks and detonate suicide bombs. They weren't given ammo for their weapons.

"This is South Carolina, son," said a commanding officer. "Nothing's going to happen here."

"It was a waste of time. Part of the homeland security dog-and-pony show," Resta now says.

That's a common complaint. In December, Lt. Gen. James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, complained that his troops were degenerating into a "broken force" due to over-deployment and "dysfunctional military policies" that can lead Reserve commanders to exaggerate troop numbers so they won't lose federal funding and to disguise their inability to retain troops. According to Lt. Col. Chris Cleaver, a Pennsylvania National Guard spokesman, the Pennsylvania Guard "has worked very hard to remove any ghost soldiers" from their scrolls and estimates that only about 5 percent of Pennsylvania's roughly 21,000 guardsmen exist on paper only. It has also, like most, experienced a decline in recruitment over the last four years. Fewer Army soldiers are willing to join the Reserves after their initial tour.

The final straw for Resta came when his unit was ordered to put mileage on Bradley fighting vehicles they hadn't used in a year. The men were supposed to drive the jeeps through Fort Stewart, Ga., for two hours, but a commander had trouble reading a map. The men found themselves lost in the back roads of nearby small towns for nearly six hours.

"After that happened," Resta says, "I told myself: I'm not going to Iraq to get myself killed with this kind of leadership."

Resta then transferred into the North Carolina National Guard. In his estimation, it was also undermanned.

His notice of deployment to Iraq came around Christmas 2003. He waited on a military base for six weeks, but since the majority of his unit had already shipped out before him, he received little training.

"The majority of my time was spent staring at the barracks walls, listening to music and cursing," Resta recalls.

He was a given a rifle that was not personally calibrated for him — so it probably wouldn't shoot straight — and an ill-fitting gas mask. Base commanders could not confirm that Guard and Reserve units would be supplied with personal body armor in Iraq, so Resta took out a $1,500 loan, went to the local police supply store in Columbia, S.C., and bought a ceramic-plated body vest capable of stopping an AK-47 round. He paid off the bank loan six months into his tour. It is common practice for reservists to buy their own body armor. Resta, a medic, also had to fuss to get basic medical supplies he needed for the deployment. "The day before we moved into Iraq," he remembers, "I found out that they were putting me into a vehicle with three other guys and that we would be riding scout, about 200 meters ahead of the convoy. The odds were that we would get hit first. I still had no medical supplies at this point. I'm talking basic stuff: bandages, IV fluid. I was thinking along the lines of us getting hit and us being cut off with no medical supplies, and I'm in a situation where I got guys bleeding to death and I can't do a thing about it."

Resta says he was given the supplies after announcing that he would not get in the truck without them.

The majority of vehicles in Resta's brigade, as throughout much of Iraq, were poorly armored. Most were protected by only half-inch sheets of plywood. During their initial drive into Iraq, the brigade lost its first soldier. He was riding in an unarmored Humvee and was killed by a roadside improvised explosive device (IED). From then on, Resta placed his armor vest on the seat to protect his legs and crotch.

"A lot of times, the only way you find an IED is when one explodes on you," he says. "You're driving along and without warning there is an explosion and then a deafening roar. They're very indiscriminate killers."

Once in Iraq, Resta's brigade was assigned to the Army's 1st Infantry Division and stationed in northeast Iraq. Insurgents attacked the camp with rifle and mortar fire two or three times a week. One time, an 8-year-old Iraqi girl was riding in a vehicle that bypassed an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint. An AK-47 round passed diagonally through her stomach, shredding her internal organs. She was brought into Resta's camp for treatment. He remembers her long, brown hair laying across her lifeless body.

Resta says that aside from treating these kinds of injuries, his commanders would not allow the medics to treat everyday ailments of Iraqi citizens they came across during patrols.

"We were told that the Army did not have enough money to be giving out free medicine," says Resta. "And that the Iraqis would have to get used to their own health-care system anyway."

On Tuesday, Resta began classes at Philadelphia Community College, where he's studying nursing. He says his Guard recruiter conveniently forgot to tell him that his college benefits would end when his contract expired. Though that contract expires next February, Resta has three and a half years of school left and he expects he'll have to take out even more loans to complete his degree.

"You would think there would be some provision to at least give me back the benefits for the two years I was on active duty," Resta says angrily. "But nope, there's nothing."

He could re-enlist for another four years to get full benefits, but in all likelihood, he would once again be pulled out of school and redeployed to fight a war he doesn't believe in. He plans to talk to a lawyer associated with Iraqi Veterans Against the War to pursue a possible lawsuit against the National Guard for his lost benefits, but even he admits it would be a bit of a publicity stunt. For now, he plans on pouring his energy into antiwar campaigning. He has his first public speaking engagement at the Collingswood, N.J., public library Jan. 28.

"People are always coming up and thanking me for my service," he says. "It makes me angry. We're not doing anything over there except sitting around waiting to get shot."