Outskirts Press, INC.

The Timeless American Grunt Story

Term of Service, dedicated to a fallen comrade, is a compelling memoir that portrays over two years of combat operations during the heat of the war in the Iraq Theatre of Operations. Graphic scenes such as the rampant sectarian violence of 2006, Iraq’s first democratic election, and the push for a kidnapped American journalist are just a few of the thrilling stories chronicled in this thought-provoking book. With firsthand clarity and insight, author Brian Welch paints a vivid historical picture for civilians to appreciate and veterans to remember. Through training exercises, Continental United States (CONUS) deployments, and the humor surrounding military life, the reader will experience nearly five years of life on the interior of a modern infantry battalion in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division. In contrast, the last chapter compares modern America with that of the early colonies and calls for this nation’s citizens not to let the American veterans’ service be in vain.

In less than a second, we went from mundane to engaged. The supersonic boom of a bullet passing close by made me crouch behind the shrub and pull my weapon to my shoulder. Gael doubled over, then straightened and sprinted for my bush. Screaming, he flopped down on his back; blood filled his nomex flight glove and spilled over onto the ground. I could see tendons exposed and raw tissue where the sniper’s bullet had torn through his wrist. A second shot rang out, this time grazing an Iraqi boy’s shoulder. He too, fell to the ground writhing from the burn-ing pain. I was temporarily rendered useless. The magnitude of the blast stunned me as if I had done a mental dump of all training I had ever received. After several seconds of raw stupidity, I noticed from my peripheral vision that the Platoon Sargent’s truck had been thrown sideways. A door swung open with no discernable movement inside. “Demon-17 this is Demon-16, over” LT. Kwang’s attempt to establish communications was met with eerie silence. “Demon-17 this is Demon-16, what is your status? Over”……Silence once again The next day wasn’t much different. From then on, our purpose seemed like body patrol. In between bagging the unfortunate victims of senseless stupidity, we served as a rolling target for IEDs and RPG attacks. It was demoralizing to never be able to fire back, to never be able to un-leash what we were capable of and enjoy some retribution. A man lay underneath a motorcycle where he had been shot riding down the street; a man at a café seemingly asleep but with blood adorning the crest of his head, a bullet hole entering his chin and exiting his scalp; a woman face-down in the median, dead from a gunshot wound; an Iraqi official with a makeshift tourniquet around his head, tightened until his skull cracked and many, many more. I recall noticing a local-national standing by the curb. As we passed, he discreetly drew a knife-hand across his throat and pointed to a small shop. We stopped and entered the dark building at the high-ready. Blood spatters could be seen behind the counter but not a soul was present. Tac-lights clicked on illuminating the darkness of the deeper recesses. The all-familiar gut feeling of dread overtook my mind as a shape appeared in front of me. It was the outline of a morbidly obese man lying in a lake of blood. AK-47 rounds had pierced his body from his thighs to his chest. Half his face lay folded over like an open trap-door. Flies were everywhere and the stench was overwhelming. However revolting the scene might have been, we managed to drag the unlucky business owner out of the shop by his feet and fit him in a body bag. In the cramped confines of a Humvee, it’s hard to find an appropriate spot for a body. Out of necessity, we regularly slid bodies over the gunner’s platform for transport. As the gunner on most of these missions, I was forced to straddle or stand on the bodies to perform my basic job functions. It was just another do-what-you-gotta-do thing that I was getting used to sucking up. Hell, we had been in country for nine full months at this point.