Published: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 1:07 AM CDT

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last in a series of stories in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War.

———

Brooks Schild still remembers the mail calls.

For the Yankton native, getting a letter or package from home while he served two tours of duty overseas with Yankton’s Charlie Battery meant the world to him while he was stationed in Iraq and Kuwait.

“It’s huge to get something from home,” he said. “Getting letters in the mail meant a lot, and I would smell the envelopes and letters to have something nice to smell, since there isn’t much that smells good over there.”

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War, which sent thousands of soldiers, like Schild, to the Middle East.

After growing up in Yankton, Schild taught school in Council Bluffs, Iowa, before returning to teach in Yankton. While teaching in Iowa, Schild joined the Iowa Guard in the 1990s and served there for around a decade. After moving back to Yankton and transferring to the South Dakota National Guard, he was deployed to Baghdad in 2005 for a year tour of duty, and later deployed to Kuwait in 2009 for a nine-month tour.

Life in the far-flung lands was much different, ranging from the culture to the weather.

Schild said the first time he was deployed, he did not have a lot of free time. However, occasionally soldiers would have to go around Baghdad Airport and, while there, they would get steaks for their fellow comrades.

“They sold steaks around the Baghdad airport, and we would give soldiers who went there with around $50 to pick some up for us,” he said. “We would grill up some steaks and it would be one of the best things to happen that month.”

While in Iraq, he said a majority of a soldiers’ time was spent on missions and security.

“We would do a lot of work training the Iraqi police and working with them,” Schild said. “We would also do route security missions, which included making sure there were no IED’s (improvised explosive devices) in the area.”

He said advances in technology made keeping in touch with loved ones back home a lot easier than it was for soldiers who served in previous decades.

“When I was serving in Iraq, we would each have to pay $75 if we wanted Internet access,” Schild said. “The Internet was slow for United States’ standards, and was basically a dial-up      connection.”

Even with the slow Internet, he could still send and receive emails, and could video chat with work every once in a while.

However, Schild’s tour of duty in Kuwait featured faster, wireless Internet, which gave him a more reliable way to video chat with his family members.

Nevertheless, he said getting letters in the mail meant the most.

“Getting United States mail was really the cat’s meow for us,” Schild said. “Letters are things that we all really appreciated.”

He said the strong community support that came from Yankton for service members overseas was priceless.

“Schools and organizations in the area sent us care packages, which we’re really thankful for,” Schild said. “Having the huge amount of support from the community back home was really nice. Soldiers that came before us, like in Vietnam, did not get the amount of support, or welcome home, that we got when we came back to the area.”

He added that veterans who served in previous wars helped pave the way for soldiers today to be sure they are welcomed back home.

Schild’s many experiences in Iraq also included a terrible 2005 IED attack in Baghdad, which killed his brother, Rich, and ultimately led to four Charlie Battery soldiers losing their lives.

Brooks, who teaches life sciences at Yankton Middle School, said he has a photo of Rich on his desk at school.

“It was really bittersweet being over there,” he said. “I lost my brother there, and three other soldiers were killed, as well, who I was close with. Two other people who I served with also sustained permanent injuries, so I can’t say being there was a great experience.”

As an educator, he noted that schools in Iraq were far different than schools in the United States.

Students in Iraq had beaten-up wooden desks in classrooms that had nothing on the walls. They also had few, if any, supplies, so U.S. soldiers brought them the supplies they needed for school.

“The students there really didn’t have anything. We went in and there were schools with insurgents surrounding the area,” Schild said. “Cars would get blown up in parking lots, so we went in to try to protect the kids.”

He recalls one experience where he spoke to kids about being able to speak openly about their government.

“I remember when I was there, some kids were talking about freedom of speech. They said they didn’t like Americans being in their country,” Schild said. “They wanted their freedom. When we asked them that, if we weren’t here, would they still talk about the government and Saddam Hussein, they got scared and said they wouldn’t have been able to.”

Looking back on his military tours, Schild said those who served abroad did the duty they set out to do.

“We did our duty there, served our country and made people proud of the mission we accomplished,” he said.

He added that soldiers aren’t the ones who start wars, or send others overseas.

“We just do what people tell us to do. It was our mission to go there, train the Iraqi police and make the country more stable,” he said. “We just follow orders. We went there, did our jobs and came back. We put everything we have into the missions we are given.”

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at twitter.com/andrewatwal