Local firefighter continues to fight for Iraqi Freedom overseas
Published on February 13th, 2008
STONEHAM, MA - Stoneham native Sean Fitzgerald was ecstatic to be safe at home in the month of January visiting with family and friends, but this wasn't the normal prodigal son returning from somewhere else in the country during the holiday season.
Fitzgerald was home on leave from a tour of duty in Iraq as a member of the National Guard Army Infantry 181, a command liaison element put together to "blend in better and get along better with the locals in the rebuilding process."
Basically, Fitzgerald travels the Iraqi countryside with his squad members in plain-clothes, beard and long hairs and is based out of the Kirkuk Air Base - roughly 240 kilometers north of the war-torn Baghdad area.
The Kurd-dominated northern region is a place that Fitzgerald has enjoyed watching the development and rebuilding taking place over the last year, and is a far different situation than the Iraqi capital of Baghdad - a place that Fitzgerald spent several weeks and didn't sound all that enthused at returning.
"Baghdad was a totally different situation," said Fitzgerald. "You didn't know where the danger areas began or ended, and everything sort of seemed like a battleground area."
Instead, Fitzgerald has spent much of time in the northern area of Kirkuk and hasn't donned the normal outfit of battle fatigues or army green wear.
"We don't operate in the unusual way," said Fitzgerald, who has served 10 years of active duty including stints in Germany, Bosnia and Cuba. "We don't travel in Humvees and instead have civilian cars and we have long hair and beards. We're supposed to blend in with the locals and get an idea of what's going in day-to-day life for the Iraqi people.
"We had no idea that this is what we'd be doing, and then they took us shopping and gave us our information on what we'd be doing...it's pretty different," added Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald has been utilized as a plainclothes solider in northern Iraq since August and has seen a great deal of difference between his home base of Kirkuk and the Kurdish areas to the north where his squad sometimes works with the Iraqi people.
"I like where we are...we go up in the Kurdish regions a lot and you go from Kirkuk -- which is pretty war-torn and there's a lot of fighting over the oil fields - to the areas up in the northern hills where a lot of the rebuilding is coming along and you can see physical evidence of the recovery," said Fitzpatrick. "It's pretty funny a lot of the people that we run into on the Kurdistan area. They'll say things like 'We love the United States' and "we are the 51st state in the United States. They love Americans because they've never tasted freedom before.
"There are a lot of European investors and Turkish investors that are putting money into the region and building skyscrapers and really turning the area around. They have amusement parks and water parks and go-cart racing up there, and in a lot of ways it's nice to see something nice going on up there after the years and years of persecution under Saddam," said Fitzgerald. "My team of guys have been deployed in Bosnia and other places, and we're doing things that we've never done before and might never do again...so it's really interesting. I think in talking to people that it's really exciting to see some of the differences that we're making here."
The area of Kirkuk that Fitzgerald is describing is perhaps the most central piece to the entire war in Iraq, as the city is chockfull of the oil fields that both Kurds and Shiite Muslims have been at conflict over.
Fitzgerald is proud of the work that his team is undergoing while he is overseas and -- while he's bummed that he won't be home in time to catch the Annual Dropkick Murphy's St. Patrick's Day show - he knows that his other brothers, his fellow firefighters at the Stoneham Fire Department, are taking care of anything going on back in the Boston-area.
"If I need anything at all - somebody to fix something around the house or something that needs to be picked - the guys at the fire department are the first people I call and I know it's going to be taken care of," said Fitzgerald. "I can't tell how much it puts my mind at ease to know those guys have my back here at home."
Fitzgerald said that - while his family has taken great care of him during his overseas service -- some of the other guys within his squad live for the packages that groups like Stoneham's Help Our Troops (HOT) are delivering to the troops.
"You see the woman come around with the mail and packages every day and a lot of the guys pretend like they don't care, but then you see their reaction when they get something and you know it means a lot," said Fitzgerald, who added that snacks, batteries and compressed air machines are the most popular items among his squad. "Just the fact that people take time out of their days for us means a lot."
Fitzgerald plans on being back in the United States for good in July after a year deployment in Iraq. Why would that be Fitzgerald's last stint overseas?
"I just got married in March and then had to leave in late June for Iraq," said the newly married Fitzgerald. "If I get deployed again I think my wife would kill me."
It will mean the world to the Fitzgerald family when Sean is back safe and sound with his family and again a regular member of the Stoneham Fire Department - a moment that can't come soon enough while one of Stoneham's favorite sons continues to bravely serve in Iraq.
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