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For Lawrence, military duty comes first |
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Wednesday, 05 March 2008 |
Cliff Buchan
News Editor
Music and theater performance may be Brittany Lawrence’s passions in life, but for now, the Scandia resident is sacrificing her college days for days in the desert.
Lawrence, 20, is one of the estimated 150,000 members of the American military who are deployed as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. She is stationed in the Southwest Asia country of Kuwait following her National Guard activation in 2007.
In a time when there would be no war on terror, Lawrence would still be in school at Century College in White Bear Lake. But when her country called last year, Lawrence went willingly.
“Honestly, I was looking for a challenge, something different,” Army Pfc. Lawrence said by telephone for her post in Kuwait recently.
It has been a long but fast journey for Lawrence who is only two years removed from high school in Forest Lake.
She had been 17 for only 20 days in the summer of 2004 when she joined the National Guard. Between her junior and senior years at Forest Lake High School, she completed her basic training at Fort Jackson, SC. It was a nine-week duty program that opened her eyes to what was likely to come.
Lawrence graduated Forest Lake High School in 2006 and was attending Century when she received the deployment notice that Guardsmen have become accustomed to receiving.
In the summer of 2007, Lawrence’s Roseville-based Minnesota Army National Guard unit was called to active duty. Following three months of advanced training at Fort Bragg, NC, PFC Lawrence was shipped to Kuwait where she is with the Army’s 347th Personnel Services Department, stationed at Ali Al Salem.
She deployed to Kuwait, a country of 2 million people on the Arabian Peninsula at the head of the Persian Gulf, last August.
She is assigned to a human resources unit that provides support services to military personnel.
Call was expected
When the unit was called to active duty last summer, it was no surprise, Lawrence said. As a member of the military in a time of conflict, Lawrence said the activation was expected.
She accepted the assignment willingly and believes she is doing her part in the war effort, even in a support position in Kuwait where there is no fighting.
When she learned Kuwait was her destination, she said there were thoughts of excitement and being scared. But she has adapted well to the major change in lifestyle and remains so committed to the cause that she has extended her duty in Iraq for another six months.
“It’s definitely been a culture shock,” Lawrence said of the adjustment to life in Kuwait. As an American in a foreign land, she has learned new customs and to understand cultural differences.
She works a shift six days a week and has little time off. When she is free from her duty, Lawrence uses the time to read, relax, listen to music and play the guitar.
Lawrence says she has gained a new appreciation for the effort in Iraq by taking part. And that’s true, she says, even with duty in Kuwait.
“It’s more real than if I was in the states, but it seems just as far away,” she said. “We get soldiers in here (from Iraq) with stories. But at the same time, it’s not in your own backyard.”
The future
Pfc. Lawrence is a little more than halfway through her six-year enlistment. She is not totally sure what will happen when the contract is fulfilled.
Lawrence is enjoying her duty and a sense of accomplishment with the military, but says she does miss home.
Her parents, Duane and Sally Lawrence, and a brother, Breck, 24, communicate on a regular basis by e-mail, she says.
Lawrence says she does look forward to coming home, buying a car, getting back to college and eventually finding a job. But for now, her mind is firmly planted on her mission in the Army.
Duty first, she says.
If the Army has taught her one thing, it is discipline, she says. It has helped her focus on the future, both long-term and while in the Army.
“I still feel like there are things for me to do,” she said.
Don’t be fooled by Lawrence’s job as a human resource worker. She is much more than a pencil pusher, said Staff Sgt. Jeff Camp of the United States Central Command Public Affairs Department, MacDill Air Force Base, FL. She is required to be armed when she leaves the base at Ali Al Salem.
“She is first a fighting soldier and second an administrator,” Camp said of Lawrence who is trained and qualified with an M-16 rifle and M-9 side arm.
“Putting her personal agenda aside, she is answering the call of duty in support of the war on terror,” Camp adds.
Lawrence said she believes in the effort.
“I’m glad I am here,” she says of the U.S. effort to protect the region and its peoples.
A six month duty extension speaks that commitment loudly, Camp adds.
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