BAGHDAD, IRAQ — Since Fort Bragg, N.C. and neighboring Pope Air Force Base are home to several of the most highly deployed units in the U.S. military including the 82nd Airborne Division and the U.S. Army Special Forces Command, Poulsbo’s Jarred Taylor not only knew he would be out on the front lines, he embraced the idea.

“With our job, you beg to be deployed, we crave it. It is why we train so hard to be out doing it for real,” he said. “My first trip to Iraq was 7.5 months, not your standard AF (Air Force) deployment of 90-120 days.”

Being on the front lines, Taylor said he has witnessed the realities of the war that extend beyond the sensational footage seen on TV.

“This war is like nothing we have seen. It is a tough and very different fight,” Taylor said. “When you have to look a father in the eye, and tell him his 8-year-old son is not going to live, and there is nothing we can do, because an insurgent decided to put a roadside bomb outside their house. It gives you motivation to keep hunting and keep searching to get these guys off the streets.”

“The only thing the Iraqi people want is to be able to live their lives and practice whatever religion they want to without fear,” he added. “I am sure if we as Americans were unable to do that, we would want all the help we could get.”

Before people form opinions on the war, they should talk to someone who has been there, he said.

“Too many people have misinformation and wrong ideas about what we are doing,” Taylor said. “Just ask. I’m sure any of us would tell you anything you want to know, and then you can decide where you stand on what is going on over here.”

Sacrifice and strength

Because of his occupation, Taylor has seen many servicemen make the ultimate sacrifice, but he has found the strength to carry on.

“You just have to swallow it and realize that it comes with the business,” he said.

“I do miss them dearly, but I know I have a mission to do, and if they were still here they would be thinking the same way.”

During those brief times between deployments Taylor got married and had to leave his wife and daughter just six weeks after she was born in 2005.

“It was tough, but my wife is a strong girl, and she has the support from my parents since they have lived their whole lives with military deployments getting in the way,” he said.

With his daughter’s second birthday in April, Taylor said he has been deployed for more than half of her life.

“It is getting more nerve racking on me, knowing that when I go out to fight, I don’t want to leave my little girl without a daddy,” he said. “But you just have to bottle that stuff up and try not to think about it, there is a job to do, and I am the one that said I would do it, so it is in my hands.”

Memorial

Day hope

On May 28, Poulsbo will join the rest of the nation in remembering Memorial Day and all of the servicemen, whether stationed stateside or on foreign soil will as well.

“Memorial Day is that day I let myself think about all the brothers I have lost,” Taylor said. “It is when I think about how their life impacted me and how they no longer get to be here with us because they stepped up to do a job, few volunteer to do.”

Taylor said his hope is that the job in Iraq can be finished so his daughter’s generation doesn’t have to return and endure a similar experience.