An Iraq Soldier Faces a Difficult Homecoming

Christine Cassell faces challanges coming home
after living life for four years in a combat zone

by ASHLEIGH SANCHEZ

“What do incoming mortars sound like nowadays, baby?” John Cassell wrote.

“They don’t, Dad,” Sgt. Christine Cassell wrote back.

Photo by: Ashleigh Sanchez

Sgt. Christine Cassell runs a mission with the National Guard, where she has continued her service since discharging from the Army.

An excerpt from an
e-mail conversation between a soldier in Iraq and her father, this exchange reveals the chilling reality of 21st century warfare.

“It’s a game of chess now,” Sgt. Cassell said. “It’s not out in the open like it used to be.”

But she faced an even tougher challenge than combat: coming home.

Cassell, 23, was a
member of the 66th Transportation Company.

The company arrived in Iraq on Valentine’s Day in 2004, nearly a year after the U.S. began bombing Baghdad.

Now back in on American soil and living in her hometown of Rio Rancho, Cassell is trying to find her way in civilian life.

“I joined right out of high school, so I’ve never known anything but the military and combat,” she said. “Some people had lives to come back to. I really didn’t.”

Cassell flew to Germany in December of 2003. The night her company landed, they were told they were joining the forces already fighting in Iraq.

“I thought, ‘I’m going to die,’” Cassell said. “People started getting all drunk and doing stupid things because nobody thought they were coming back.”

It was even harder because nobody wanted to make friends, Cassell said.

“Everyone was scared and kept their head down,” she said.

The experience wasn’t any easier on her family. Her father, John Cassell, said he prayed every day that his daughter would come home.

“We e-mailed and talked whenever we could,” he said. “She’s following what she believes, and I love her for it.”

The elder Cassell, himself a veteran, expressed his fears and emotion in a short story, from which the earlier e-mail excerpt came, titled “Lest We Forget: A Story of a Daughter’s Courage…And A Father’s Love.”

Though the story is fictional, all the e-mails and wartime experiences of Christine are true. The story is available at Amazon.com.

Cassell’s company was attacked three times since its arrival. The truck Cassell drove traveled all around Iraq loaded with supplies, ammunition and food, making Cassell and her company prime targets for terrorist attacks, she said.

One such attack, in Mosul, left a strong imprint.

“We drove into Mosul and the whole town fired at us,” Cassell said. “Mosul has a high concentration of Taliban and there were kids shooting at us from the rooftops. The city shot everything they had.”

Cassell fired back and hit one of her attackers that day but has no idea if she killed him.

“I saw him go down, and he didn’t get back up,” Cassell said. “But I didn’t keep looking either…you can’t.”

Cassell said her worst moment, however, came in August 2007, when her boyfriend and fellow soldier, Paulo Pacificador, was killed in an IED attack.

“I pretty much shut down,” she said. “I cried all the time, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. They pulled me off road duty for two weeks because they didn’t trust me.”

Despite the traumatic event, Cassell said she never regretted serving her country.

“I have confidence in everything I do now,” she said. “I learned a lot about myself, my strengths and weaknesses.

A fellow soldier Spc. Ty Rogers, who served with Cassell in Iraq, said he has been impressed by her since the day they arrived in Iraq.

“We were the same rank, and she surpassed me,” he said. “She faced tough challenges she had to face to achieve E5 (sergeant rank), and she’ll show her rank when she needs to.”

Rogers said Cassell faced challenges being a female in a position of authority in a combat zone.

“There’s people who have the thought that you can’t do what men can do,” he said. “She never let that thought linger very long.”

Photo by: Ashleigh Sanchez

Newly discharged from the active duty, Cassell now owns
two uniforms: one for the National Guard, right, and another for her job as security at Santa Ana Star Casino.

Now, Cassell is not longer active duty, and she said getting used to different social norms and financial situations was the hardest part of transitioning to civilian life.

In particular, the lack of military structure she was used to came as a shock to Cassell.

“At first I was happy to be out, and I felt like I could do whatever I wanted,” she said. “But I went from a place where I had a voice, people had to listen to me and respect me to a place where people do whatever they want.”

Cassell found work as a manager at Kohl’s department store in Albuquerque, but she said the experience of dealing with disgruntled customers and drama among the employees made her detest the job.

Cassell said she, like many soldiers, find it difficult to relate to people who have never served.

Recently, she was hired at the Santa Ana Casino as a security officer, where she says a high percentage of the employees are former military members.

“It’s so much more comfortable,” she said. “I’m with people who have also had a hard time transitioning, and doing a job very similar to what I had to do in the military.”

Tough transitions aren’t new to Cassell, whose family moved frequently in her childhood.

Cassell lived in her hometown of Clovis, N.M., for four years until moving to American Samoa for six months.

Her family then moved back to New Mexico, this time to Rio Rancho. The family packed up again and moved to Nuuuli, American Samoa in 1996 for her father’s job.

Cassell said the move to American Samoa was hard.

“I hated moving,” Cassell said. “People threw rocks at me because I was white. I had to learn a lot of patience.”

Cassell spent her high school days at a private Catholic school on the island until her graduation in June 2003. One month later, she shipped out to Ft. Leanard Wood, Mo., for basic training, and she went straight to another training session after to learn to drive Army trucks.

“I joined the Army to escape the island,” Cassell said. “I saw an opportunity to see the world and go to college.”

Cassell said the confidence she has learned is what gave her the drive to return to school at Central New Mexico College, where she will start in the fall.

“I know I can finish college,” she said. “I really want to be an EMT, or do something in the medical field. I think it’s that adrenaline rush I miss.”
Rogers said he knows Cassell will succeed.

“She has a good attitude in the worst of times,” he said. “It affects everyone around her in a positive way. She’s a good battle-buddy.”
It’s a sentiment Cassell’s father agrees with.

“I’m very proud of her,” John Cassell said. “I’m so proud of her I can’t see straight.”

Posted April 22, 2006

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