By Brian Zanzonico
They while away precious minutes in the unlikeliest of places, using the lavatory not for its intended purpose but rather as a miniature break room. Civilian workers back home have their own places to catch their breath and collect their thoughts while on the job - a cafeteria to relax in, a truck to lean against - and members of the U.S. Army's Alpha Troop of the 114th Cavalry have theirs.
This is the way it has been much of the time for Pfc. Brian Buith, a Franklin Square resident who graduated from Valley Stream North High School in 2004, since he arrived in Iraq in June 2006: End the day, retreat to the comforting four walls of the port-a-john, be grateful you've made it through and dream about home. The plastic box offers a chance to escape the life-or-death challenges he faces every day.
Since he first entered the war more than a year ago - he came home briefly for Christmas last year - Buith has stared adversity in the face several times, and hasn't blinked. Not when he was injured twice, and not when he held off an ambush in April and saved the members of his unit.
For his actions, Buith, 20, received the Army Commendation Medal on July 1.
In a series of e-mail exchanges with the Herald last weekend, Buith recounted what happened on April 7 in Diweneyah, a Shiite town 80 miles south of Baghdad that had not seen American forces since the war began in March 2003. Four days into a mission to clear out Muqtada Al Sadr's militia, Buith's unit met resistance.
"I was on the tallest roof in the area that we were clearing, so my team and I could watch other rooftops for insurgents so guys on the ground had one less thing to worry about," Buith wrote in an e-mail. "One of my Strykers" - an eight-wheeled armored vehicle - "was about 75 meters away in a intersection, stopping any civilian and vehicle traffic from moving into the area being searched.
"As I was watching, there was all of a sudden a loud explosion next to the Stryker, followed by gunfire from a nearby building. It was an ambush, started off when the enemy threw a grenade at the Stryker, followed by small arms fire from a rooftop. The Stryker gunner returned fire to the building, where I saw which roof the insurgents were on. I started to fire at the enemy, and landed two grenades from my grenade launcher onto the roof. After the second grenade hit the roof, there was no more fire coming from the building."
No U.S. forces were injured, and the Stryker suffered the only damage.
September will mark one year since Buith was injured when a suicide car bomb slammed into a Stryker behind which he was working at a checkpoint in Al Dora. Buith suffered shrapnel wounds to his face and arms and two perforated ear drums. His right ear drum was perforated again last November, when his Stryker hit an improvised explosive device along a stretch of road. He still suffers hearing loss in his right ear, but after he was awarded a Purple Heart for his first injury, he refused to request a second one.
Buith's deepest scar of the war, however, is one he did not receive in battle. While on leave for Christmas, he got word that the 28-year-old Iraqi interpreter who had traveled with Buith's outfit for months was killed in an attack on the Stryker in which he was riding. Before Buith had left for home, the interpreter, a newlywed, had asked him to bring him something back from New York. Buith picked up a Mets cap.
"He was a good friend to all of us, and he really cared about helping the people of Iraq," Buith e-mailed. "We almost had to fight guards at the hospital in the Green Zone to let him in when he was injured in the car bomb attack that I was injured in. They wouldn't let him in because he was Iraqi and didn't have his ID on him. We never had a chance to meet or contact his family, until somehow another soldier in my platoon found out his brother was also an interpreter. I still have the Mets hat. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it."
Buith said that Franklin Square's winter care package campaign provided a boost to his morale. In February, Morton Civic Association President Kim Schutz, whose daughter went to high school with one of Buith's brothers, started an Adopt-A-Soldier campaign. Using the UPS Store in the Key Food shopping center on Dogwood Avenue in Franklin Square as the drop-off point, civic association members and other residents collected snacks, razors, deodorant, decks of cards, magazines and other items, including money paper-clipped to letters from seniors at the Franklin Square Senior Center.
"We were so happy to help, and we're just so proud of him," Schutz said.
Ten months into his tour, Buith's unit was told their time in Iraq would be extended by five months. He is to leave Iraq sometime around Sept. 11, and report to Fort Lewis in Seattle before coming back to Franklin Square sometime around Christmas. His mother, Anne, who works in the athletics office at Valley Stream Memorial Junior High school, is counting the days.
But there is still the question of whether Buith will have do a second tour in Iraq. He will get his orders in January. "Some guys have been there five times," Anne said. "We just want him to complete his first."
Buith plans to leave the Army by January 2009, and hopes to become either a police officer or a firefighter. In the meantime, for another month he will stay in contact with family and friends via e-mail and his Myspace.com page. And when he is alone with his thoughts in his unit's modified break room, he will envision the day when he is reunited with them, when he trades the faint, crackling phone calls home for long-awaited embraces.
Comments about this story? FSeditor@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 240.
