...At Patrol Base Fulod, about a 15-minute ride in an armored vehicle from the Jackson camp, Cpl. Ernest Tubbs is something special among his peers. He has discovered three-dozen hidden bombs on this deployment. A smooth talker who radiates confidence, he remembered the first time he uncovered an IED, or improvised explosive device, "heart racing, so many emotions at one time."
Tubbs, 22, of Parsonsburg, Maryland, leads patrols with a metal detector, potentially the most dangerous job in the lineup. In a small victory celebration, he smokes a cigarette whenever he finds an IED; he smoked two in a row after one very hazardous experience.
He is desperate to return to his wife and newborn son, and become a civilian, but he won't forget what it is like to be a kind of savior, to know men depend on him for their lives.
"The feeling of when things happen out here, it's a feeling that you'll never get rid of. But it's a feeling that will always belong to you," he said. "There's no more adrenaline rush in the world than finding an IED. I'm going to miss that a bunch."
For families in the United States, there are no such thrills, only the grind of not knowing. Tubbs' wife, Hannah, gave birth to a boy, Gabe, last month. Her husband's oldest brother cut the umbilical cord. In an e-mail to The Associated Press, she wrote:
"Even when I was still pregnant with him I would tell him that his daddy loves him and can't wait to meet him. I tell him who his daddy is and all about him. Being pregnant for most of the deployment didn't help the emotional part of it all. It was hard getting ready for the baby without him. It was even harder to hear about guys who had been hurt or even killed knowing they did the same job as my son's father."...
God bring him and the rest of them home safe and soon Mrs. Tubbs.
Where do we get such men?
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