SPRINGDALE — Iraqi Muslims respect Catholics, who represent the only form of Christianity most have heard of.
At least that was the experience of Specialist Kurt McAfee, who returned home in November after serving a tour of duty with Battery 1/142nd Field Artillery of the Arkansas National Guard. A 2004 graduate of Springdale High School, McAfee and his family attend St. Raphael Church in Springdale.
His unit was designated as field artillery, but its members acted as military police for much of the Middle East tour — a source of frustration for some of the soldiers, McAfee said.
“We ended up being prison guards.”
It may not have been what he envisioned but the work brought McAfee into contact with an interesting spectrum of native Iraqis, from working professionals to terrorists, both the suspected and the convicted. He even served in the now-infamous Abu Ghraib prison — three rotations after the misconduct that brought infamy to the prison.
McAfee also saw injured soldiers, including some who didn’t survive.
“It’s sad because you think, I’m leaving this place and this guy’s not. But I’m Catholic and I believe in eternal life. That’s what helped me through it.”
The McAfees have a long history of American military service, dating to the Revolutionary War, and Kurt McAfee said he always expected to serve. Influenced from childhood by his father, Scott, a former Marine, he enlisted in the National Guard.
The unit was activated in November 2005 and ordered to Iraq while McAfee was in basic training — something McAfee learned first not from his unit but from his mother, Sherry, and fiancee, Kayla Thompson, who had heard news reports. At the time, he had finished just one semester at John Brown University in Siloam Springs where he was studying construction management.
At Abu Ghraib, McAfee said the stress was greater because of the misconduct that had occurred previously.
“We had to pretty much baby them,” he said of prisoners there.
Mortar attacks were common, he said. “We got mortared a lot, maybe three to five times a week, for about four months.” Once McAfee counted 12 attacks in one day.
“Some of my buddies got nervous” about the attacks, McAfee said. But for the most part, “the fear was overshadowed because it was cool.” They wanted to see the blasts since that’s the work they had trained for. McAfee said he felt as if he’d been training for it all his life, playing war in the backyard with his brothers and father.
“Everything seems older” in Iraq, he said. “Everything seems more conservative.”
While the desert landscape reminded McAfee, in some respects, of parts of Mexico, it’s poorer and dirtier. Piles of trash from decades past are everywhere and are sometimes used as camouflage for bombs by terrorists.
Five times a day McAfee heard the call to Muslim prayers. “I liked it. It sounded almost like monks chanting.”
The prisoners McAfee guarded ranged in age from juveniles to men in their 50s or 60s, and he noticed a difference in their demeanor and language. “A kid might say, ’Hey, what’s up?’ They call everyone ’sergeant.’”
The older men were usually more respectful and complained less, he added.
Not all the prisoners were guilty of crimes — they just happened to be in the vicinity when a bomb exploded and were swept up by police until the culprits were identified. All were allowed to call home when they were arrested and each one received a copy of the Quran, clean clothes and food.
During his months of duty, McAfee said, he listened to numerous calls home from men who had been arrested. The parents always asked whether it was an American or an Iraqi prison.
“Every time they’d say, ’American,’ I’d hear the mother yelling, ’Praise God’ or ’If God wills it.’ They were so happy” because they knew prisoners in American custody were treated justly, he said.
For several months, McAfee and his fellow soldiers worked in a Baghdad hospital, protecting the staff and guarding patients. When their 12-hour shift stretched during the night hours, the guards would sometimes watch DVDs on laptop computers while the prisoners slept.
One night, the guards were watching a movie when they noticed a prisoner had awakened and was peering at the screen. McAfee thought it was fine for the man to continue watching since the film was “The Gospel of John.” The next day, recovering from surgery, the man, while still groggy from the anesthesia, was heard mumbling, “Jesus and Mary are good. I love Muhammad.”
The most harrowing experience McAfee recalls from Iraq was while he was directing local traffic as a gunner from the top of a Humvee. The convoy McAfee was leading headed down the middle of the street to avoid bombs. Oncoming traffic was supposed to move to either side of the road.
During this trip, an approaching truck driver was inattentive and spotted the convoy late. He jerked to the side and slowed down. The truck driver behind him, also inattentive, pulled around and headed straight for the convoy until he, too, realized what was ahead. That happened in a series until four trucks and trailers had pulled to the side and the convoy narrowly squeezed by.
“That was too much of a rush for me,” McAfee said.
McAfee is on reserve status with the National Guard now but knows it’s possible he could be called back for further duty. In the mean time, he’s got a full schedule ahead. He and Thompson will be married Feb. 3 at St. Raphael in Springdale. He hopes to apprentice in a couple of the construction trades as he pursues his dream of becoming a general contractor.
