http://www.sewardindependent.com/c4204.html
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by Stephanie Croston

It's been just about a year since Tim Hartmann, 21, went through his first ambush. Hartmann and his company were en route from Balad to Polliwoda along Highway 1 when they were attacked by a suicide bomber and an improvised explosive device (IED).

March 18, memories of the attack seemed far from Hartmann's mind as he sat on his parents' couch in Seward with his fiancee, Christine Kippes. He showed pictures of the bases he was stationed at in Iraq, convoys in which he participated and people he met.

Hartmann joined the army in 2000 while still a senior at Seward High School. After he graduated in 2001, he went to Fort Knox for tank training and was sent to Germany Dec. 7, 2001. After five months there, he went to Kosovo, where he stayed for seven months, then headed back to Germany for about a year.

"We knew we would go to Iraq," he said. "We were in training when the war started."

A month of training and acclimating in Kuwait preceded his unit's entrance into Iraq. A two-day drive along Highway 1, also known as the Highway of Death, brought the unit to Balad, about 40 miles north of Baghdad.

Hartmann spent time at five different bases during the year he was in Iraq. He started at Anaconda, a base of about 20,000 soldiers that felt more like a city than an army base. His unit was responsible for delivering supplies.

After a promotion, Hartmann moved to other smaller bases.

"The war was more effective there," he said.

Soldiers often shared their MREs (meals ready to eat) with Iraqi children and, at one point, spent a week and a half eating Otis Spunkmeyer blueberry muffins because all the MREs were gone, Hartmann said.

His "home" at Polliwoda was in an abandoned terrorist camp, and the room he shared with two other sergeants was a converted bathroom. They filled in the holes with cement and sprayed a lot of air freshener, he said.

Part of his job was training the Iraq Civil Defence Corps, police and army, a task he described as babysitting. Absenteeism and desertion were common.

"With the police, four of 10 would join and not show up," he said.

More rewarding was the work done in the villages, where soldiers rebuilt schools and hospitals. Not every villager was happy about the American presence in Iraq, however.

"In some villages we were welcomed, and in others we were not," Hartmann said.

Every day was different. Soldiers were careful not to fall into a predictable routine to keep bombers from easy targets, so supply deliveries were conducted at different times.

The quick reaction force at Polliwoda, which covered about one half a grid square, was mortared daily, Hartmann said, but mortar attacks at Anaconda were barely noticed because of its size. A grid square is approximately one square kilometer.

The sounds of mortars are quite distinctive, especially once you get used to them, he said. If you hear the whistle on an incoming shell, you'll be OK. If you don't, you'd better run for cover, he said. Outgoing shells sound more like thunder.

"There was constant tension. There was no trust," he said.

In November, Hartmann moved to Tikrit, where he was a tank gunner and lived in one of Saddam Hussein's old palaces.

"It's the Fort Knox of the military," he said, adding that the town has ammunition dumps and military equipment left from Saddam's regime.

During the Iraqi elections, Hartmann was in Beiji to help keep the peace.

"They spent weeks planning," he said.

False voting places were set up to deter suicide bombers, and those who wanted to vote went through heavy security.

"It was really successful," he said.

The worst part of being in Iraq was the heat, especially when it reached the 140s, he said.
"The heat was really bad. It killed morale," he said.

In Polliwoda, soldiers were able to get three to five hours of sleep in the afternoon during the "Tiger Siesta," so called because the tank company was called the Steel Tigers. Tanks are not used often because they were not designed to run hard in the extreme heat, Hartmann said.

Communication with America is relatively easy. Letters from Iraq to the States arrive fairly quickly, although return letters take more time. The camp at Anaconda had a computer tent where soldiers could e-mail friends and family. At Polliwada, there were 10 computers for about 400 soldiers, Hartmann said, and that tent was damaged by a mortar attack.

So what did he miss the most?

"A good night's sleep," he said.

While in Germany on R&R, he said it was too quiet. The shelling had become so ingrained, he almost missed it.

Hartmann met his fiancee in early November. They were at a nightclub in Germany, and Kippes said it was love at first sight.

Hartmann is in the army until December of 2006 and returned to his base in Germany March 21.


Welcome Home, Tim, and thank you.