by Jan Anderson
Tony Zufelt might be one of the lucky ones.
With four years of active duty in the U. S. Navy and more than six years in the Navy Reserves, the 33-year-old was shipped to Iraq in September 2006. Stationed near Baghdad in an area known as the Sunni Triangle, he grew accustomed to the sound of med evac helicopters overhead, bringing the dead and injured back.
“It kind of gave you a sick feeling,” he says, thinking of all the victims of the war.
But Zufelt was one of the lucky ones. He got to come home, uninjured, after only three months.
Called home by a family medical emergency, the father of four is supporting his wife Shelly as her mother battles cancer. He is also launching himself into his work as a supervisor at a residential facility for troubled youth in Boulder. There is plenty to do, he says, and he is getting back to it.
It’s not ever going to be the same, though, as it was before he left, he says.
“Life is just too short,” says Zufelt.
In 1993, two months after graduating from Jefferson High School, Zufelt began four years on active duty with the Navy. He took a break in service from 1997 to 2000 but then signed up for the Navy Reserves.
His prior service took him to Kuwait City during the first Gulf War, but he really did not see any action, he says.
It was different in Iraq.
“I’ve decided I won’t go back to Iraq,” Zufelt says. “My contract’s going to be up in ‘08, and I’m going to be done.”
What made the experienced sailor decide it was time to close out his military career?
It’s not that he doesn’t support the war. His family is so supportive that he has a brother-in-law, Spence Fowler, still in Baghdad.
Politics are discussed all the time, he says, and “the soldiers really feel like they need to be there.” It frustrates the troops to hear that people feel they don’t need to be there, he says.
“It’s a bad place. It’s a really bad place, but if somebody doesn’t step in there and interrupt what’s been going on...the Iraqi people deserve better,” says Zufelt.
He even supports the Bush proposal for a surge, though he thinks it is far too late in coming.
“I think that we should have gone in there full force and took control of the situation and not been messing around like we have been,” says Zufelt.
But what he saw and experienced in Iraq has him questioning the wisdom of what is being done.
The first month he was there, four soldiers – including one buddy from near Billings – were killed when their Humvee hit an IED, one of the improvised explosive devices lying in wait all over the country.
“You’re really in an environment where you don’t know what could happen,” says the Boulder native. “You’d go to bed every night not knowing what tomorrow could bring.”
There were lots of foreigners working on the base – including Iraqis and “third country nationals” all trying to make money to withstand the extreme poverty that has hit the region – and it was hard to know who to trust, says Zufelt.
He would work seven days a week, ten to sixteen hours a day, “and all the time you worry about home,” he says.
In between times, you worry about your buddies, he says, and about your next trip “outside the wire,” a term for leaving the base.
It was all “really, really stressful,” he says. “On my base alone there were several individuals that committed suicide.”
Staring into the distance, Zufelt says he managed pretty well, though, because he tends to be an optimist. “I look to the future and it helps me get past the stuff that is happening. I know it isn’t going to last forever and you’ve just got to work through it.”
The entire region is in conflict, and lots of people are starving or barely avoiding it, and walking away from that is not the answer, says Zufelt.
But he’s not sure what is.
“One has to wonder to themselves what it would take to stop all the bloodshed. I don’t know what the answer is,” he says, “but I wish we would figure it out soon.”
Sending the same troops back to Iraq time and again is wearing thin, he says.
“Some soldiers have done three and four tours, and I think that’s crazy. I think they’re pushing their luck,” he says. After a pause he continues, “At the same time, some people might think it’s pretty noble.”
Even though he came home without a scratch to show for his time in Iraq, Zufelt made it clear that there are things he will never forget.
“My oldest son cried for over an hour when I got back. Just sobbed. And I hope all the rest of my troops come home safely,” he says.
As he stands in the door, ready to depart, Zufelt shares one last thought.
“You kind of become numb a little bit. You just do what you have to do,” says the Boulder man lucky enough to return home safely.
Soldier returns safely, but says he has changed
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Copyright The Boulder Monitor, 2007. All rights reserved.
