Returning to the frontline

Deepa Bharath

R. B. Alexander’s self-deprecating humor comes pretty close to being

deceptive.

The 55-year-old man -- who grew up smelling the Pacific Ocean,

surfing its waves and getting the sand of Newport’s beaches between

his toes -- could look you in the eye and tell you that the 36 days

he spent in the Iraqi desert with bullets and rocket-propelled

grenades sailing over his head, was really nothing.

He’d have you almost convinced that his pulling a soldier out of a

freshly blown up, blazing vehicle was not a big deal.

Alexander went to Iraq as a volunteer and a weapons expert to

support troops on combat missions.

“The U.S. Army didn’t need me,” he said with a shrug as he relaxed

on a chair in his Corona del Mar office. “They simply used me as a

way to save more lives.”

When Alexander does get wide-eyed and excited, he’s talking about

the soldiers whom he calls “the real heroes.”

These are young men and women who work tirelessly for a country

thousands of miles away, for people whose language they can’t

understand and for a cause most of the world has labeled as futile,

he said.

“I went to Iraq as an American citizen,” Alexander added. “But I

returned as a patriot.”

Memories of another war

His voyage to the Middle East also brought back memories from 35

years ago, when a series of circumstances thrust Alexander, a

20-year-old happy-go-lucky beach bum, into combat missions in the

jungles of Vietnam.

“I actually took some guy’s brilliant idea and went to Hawaii to

dodge the draft,” he said. “But that didn’t work. I got drafted.”

He became a platoon leader and was in constant combat for 10

months, until he got injured and came back home.

“I became a legend because I didn’t get killed,” he said, his lips

curled in a half smile yet again.

Alexander’s former commander, a captain in Vietnam who is now a

three-star general, called Alexander in January and asked him if he

would go to Iraq.

“I wasn’t going to get paid to get shot again,” Alexander quipped.

“So I told him I’d volunteer.”

So he took a year out of his normal life being a real estate agent

at Harbor Realty and set out to different parts of the country to

update his knowledge of the latest combat weapons. He also struck a

chord when he talked to soldiers in camps at home.

“I asked them how many of them thought they had friends in the

camp and everybody raised their hand,” Alexander said. “I asked them

how many thought they were well-trained soldiers ready for battle and

everyone raised their hand.”

Then he told them: “When you get out there, you’ll stop being

well-trained soldiers; you’ll become warriors. And these people you

call your friends will become your brothers for life.”

Every word that came out of Alexander’s mouth bore the weight of

experience.

“That April I spent in Vietnam in 1969, I thought I was going to

die,” he said. “I was only 20 and death is not something you think

about when you’re 20.”

He looked at his boot and he saw pictures he carried there of him

surfing with his buddies in Newport Beach.

“I didn’t care about getting married or having kids or making a

bunch of money,” he said. “All I could think about was hanging out at

the beach with my friends.”

But Alexander made it back, got married to his high school

sweetheart, raised his two children and surfed again with his

friends.

“I came back, and I lived my dream,” he said. “Going to Iraq was

my way of giving back.”

Into the heat and the dirt

When Alexander landed in the Iraq desert, he winced at the searing

heat that sapped his senses and the dust clouds that numbed his

brain.

“This was not a desert with sand as someone may imagine,” he said.

“It was dirt.”

Alexander downed quart after quart of water to keep his body cool

in the 120-degree heat, which he got acclimatized to in about a week.

With his prior experience, he ended up working on combat missions.

And it was in the field that Alexander says he saw the heroism of the

American soldiers. He saw them stopping missions to save the lives of

injured children. He shook his head in amazement when the soldiers

built entire schools and soccer fields for the children of Iraq. He

watched them as they painted the classrooms and desks and sandblasted

the walls.

On the day they were supposed to open one school, terrorists

bombed the building, killing two children, Alexander said. But the

school opened anyway, two days later.

The soldiers also built a sewer system for a city which had none,

Alexander said.

“During the opening they had after they built it, there were these

soldiers handing out candy to the kids,” he said. “And there were

these kids kissing the soldiers’ hands.”

Alexander managed to go about his work with his game face on, but

the tough guy in him crumbled when he saw one-third of a town welcome

the soldiers with cheers.

“I just couldn’t hold back the tears when I saw that,” he said.

On another mission, the soldiers were trying to catch a person who

was making bombs. Just as they had surrounded his home, a woman ran

out into the alley screaming that the Americans had stolen her gold,

Alexander said.

One of the sergeants stopped when he heard that, even as they were

being shot at. He told the woman, through a translator: “I’m an

American soldier. I won’t steal from you.”

The sergeant then went one step further, walked with the woman

into her home and found her two missing gold rings in the bottom of a

drawer.

Fighting a winning battle

Spending a little over a month in the field with these warriors

showed him what the media failed to capture over a year, Alexander

said.

“Before I went to Iraq, I thought we were fighting a losing

battle,” he said. “But now I know we’ve had our victories there. Our

soldiers have huge hearts. They’re true heroes and patriots. Because

of them, the children of Iraq have hope, and the old people have a

memory.”

Alexander had his moments though.

“I realized I’m not as young or as fast as I used to be,” he said.

After a couple of misses, which were closer than he’d like to

admit, he remembers shaking his head and muttering to himself: “I’m

too old for this.”

But will he do it again?

“I’d do it,” he said. “Although my wife has told me that I

shouldn’t even think about it.”

Alexander compares his experience to astronaut John Glenn’s flight

to space at age 77.

“Vietnam was a dirty war, a tough one,” he said. “But I was

surrounded by heroes then. I got that again with Iraq -- twice in one

lifetime.”

* DEEPA BHARATH is the enterprise and general assignment reporter.

She may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or by e-mail at

deepa.bharath@latimes.com.