Another of Oxford’s sons has returned home safely from the war in Iraq.
Specialist Ryan Giroux arrived back in Oxford June 19 after serving a year in the Middle Eastern nation with the Michigan Army National Guard’s Company B, 1st Battalion, 125th Infantry. He was one of 122 soldiers from the Saginaw-based unit to return home last month.
‘You go over there expecting what you see on the news,? said the 2002 Oxford High School graduate, who’s the son of Steve and Diane Giroux. ‘It’s nothing like what you expect.?
Giroux arrived in Iraq in July 2005 and was stationed in Habbaniyah, between Ramadi and Fallujah, which has a military base with about 800 American soldiers and four or five times that in Iraqi soldiers. He described the base as a ‘little oasis? on the banks the Euphrates River.
There he did everything from base security to driving a humvee on patrols and search missions in a ‘generally hostile area? known as the Sunni Triangle. The Sunni Triangle is a roughly triangular area of Iraq, northwest of Baghdad, inhabited mainly by Sunni Muslim Arabs, the sectarian/ethnic group to which former dictator Saddam Hussein and most of his senior lieutenants belonged. The triangle’s three corners lie in and around Baghdad (east side), Ramadi (west side) and Tikrit (north side).
Armed insurgents opposing U.S. Forces and Coalition rule have launched many guerilla attacks in the Triangle since 2003. ‘There was a lot of tension there,? Giroux said.
Driving around in the Sunni Triangle meant dealing with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs for short) placed along the road and remotely detonated by insurgents hiding nearby.
Giroux said his humvee hit IEDs on five separate occasions.
‘I was lucky not to have any serious injuries,? he said. ‘We got lucky. That’s all it comes down to. They missed the trigger time by a little bit on each one. Or they had them buried too deep.?
‘A lot of guys weren’t as lucky.?
Roadside bomb attacks came without warning.
‘You don’t see it coming,? he explained. ‘It happens so quick.?
And forget about trying to locate whoever’s pulling the trigger.
‘There’s no way you can find them,? Giroux said. ‘It’s almost impossible. There’s so many buildings and they’re all so close together. And every building has an 8-foot fence around it. It’s so hard to find anybody who does it.?
‘Shock. . . unbelievable noise . . . pressure? was how Giroux described hitting an IED.
‘You don’t get scared. You just go. You don’t really think about it until after the fact.?
Speed is the key to avoiding serious injury or death from these roadside bombs. Giroux said the humvees would typically drive at about 50 miles per hour to give them enough ‘momentum? to go right through the IED explosions.
‘The only way you can do it is fast,? he said. ‘If you were going slower, it would just flip the humvee over.?
Thanks to the 14,000-pound humvee’s sheer toughness, most of the IED explosions resulted in shredded tires and broken windshields.
‘It took a lot to stop them,? Giroux said. ‘Those things are incredible. It’s best piece of military equipment I’ve ever used in my life. They’ve saved a lot of lives.?
IEDs weren’t the only dangers Giroux encountered. ‘Snipers were always a big problem,? he said.
Giroux was involved in a few engagements with insurgent shooters.
‘It’s not scary,? he said. ‘It’s more pure adrenaline. You wouldn’t even know it if you got shot.?
‘It’s all instinctive,? Giroux explained. ‘Your training kicks in. You have more focus on what your buddy’s doing, making sure he’s in the right spot.?
‘Watching my buddies get hurt? was the hardest part of being in Iraq, he said.
Giroux observed firsthand the violence and hatred between the two major sects of Islam ? Sunni and Shiite.
‘You’ve got Sunnis and Shiites always fighting with each other,? he said. ‘And the poor Christians, the few that they have over there, just hiding in the corner.?
‘It’s interesting to see two religions so close in beliefs are always fighting each other. It makes no sense,? he explained. ‘They don’t even know why they don’t like each other. That’s what they’ve been taught since they were little kids.?
Despite these internal conflicts, Giroux said he met a lot of nice Iraqis. He described the civilians who worked at the Habbaniyah base as ‘extremely polite? and well-mannered.
‘It was nice to see that,? he said. ‘That’s something you don’t usually see here.?
He was amazed at how well some of the Iraqis spoke English.
‘Some of them speak better English than we do because they learned it the proper way,? he said. ‘We just say whatever.?
Overall, Giroux believes America’s presence has made a big difference in Iraq. ‘When we first got there, we had a lot of problems, a lot of people getting hurt,? he said. ‘We managed to calm it down a lot.?
Giroux is confident the Iraqis will someday be able to govern and secure their own country without American troops.
‘They’ll be able to take over, I know they will,? he said. ‘It’s not like a Vietnam. These people have a government. The Iraqi police are stepping up. The Iraqi army is getting amazingly good.?
‘When we first got there, half these guys didn’t know how to shoot a rifle,? Giroux explained. Now, Iraqi soldiers ‘go places we don’t want to go.?
‘We were slowly handing off our battle space (territory), little bits at a time, to them,? Giroux said. ‘By the time we left, they were taking almost about 50 percent.?
These days Giroux is working at Appliance and Electronic Brokers in Oxford and getting reacquainted with life back in states.
‘Everybody’s been nice to me,? Giroux said. ‘Kind of giving me my space, letting me get adjusted in my own time.?
But some habits from Iraq are hard to break. ‘I still look for my rifle all the time,? Giroux said. ‘You spend a year holding your rifle everywhere you go. It’s kind of weird when you don’t have one. That’s a huge adjustment.?
Giroux plans to attend Oakland Community College in the fall and continue pursuing a degree in Criminal Justice.
He has three years left in the National Guard, but doesn’t expect to be redeployed to Iraq.
Giroux feels his experiences in the National Guard and in Iraq have made him ‘more mature.?
‘I understand people a lot better,? he said. ‘I think the biggest problem in the world is people don’t understand (each other) or refuse to understand.?
‘The army’s been a great learning experience,? Giroux noted. ‘I called my recruiter and never once regretted it.?