Maj. Ann Kristene Kamarich with husband Maj. Jay Chapman Capt. David Bergum Maj. Patricia Kelly Lt. Col. Robert Brekke News from the front: Alums reflect on service in Iraq by Brenda McDonald, MSU Communications Services The war in Iraq unfolded in the pages of newspapers or television screens for most people, but for a number of Montana State University graduates the war has been a personal experience. The MSU Collegian caught up with four graduates who are serving in or just returned from Iraq. Maj. Ann Kristene Kramarich, '90 EE U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division Aviation Brigade Never had ice cream been so welcome. Kramarich celebrated her birthday May 30 near Tikrit, Iraq, with a surprise in-person delivery of ice cream cones from her husband, Maj. Jay Chapman. "The soldiers who work for me conspired with my husband for a surprise gathering in our TOC ( Tactical Operations Center)," she said. "My boss called me in like I was in trouble. Then my husband came in with ice cream from a local vendor. It was all very nice, especially because my soldiers had their first taste of ice cream in country." Her husband gave her a gold necklace that his interpreter helped him find. She said Jay asked the interpreter what Iraqis give their wives for their birthdays. "He said, 'a goat.'" Kramarich, a 13-year army veteran, is a signal officer who manages the communications between ground units and helicopter pilots as they fly across the division area. Her husband Jay is with the 4th Infantry Division's armored brigade. They've seen each other sporadically since the war began, even though they've been as close as 10 miles to each other. For Kramarich, there have been many memorable moments since arriving in Iraq. "One is definitely crossing into the border of Iraq for the first time, into the unknown. Another is flying across the countryside in a UH-60 Blackhawk Helicopter with the doors open, thinking, 'Wow, I'm flying over Iraq and the Tigris River.'" She said the hardest thing about being deployed besides missing family and stateside creature comforts is the heat and food. "There's no relief from the heat and the food just gets old---however, today for the first time we received what's called B Rations--rice with shrimp gumbo," she said. "We've had salad twice since we crossed into Iraq on Easter Weekend." Capt. David Bergum, '94 PSci 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. (In Iraq this unit was part of the 1st Regimental Combat Team which was part of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.) Life has been bittersweet for Bergum since his deployment to Iraq in early January. The sweet, the birth of his first child, a daughter Laurelin Mae on Jan. 30. The bitter, his left eye was crushed April 27 in an accident in Iraq during a sandstorm. "A strap that was securing equipment broke and hit me in the eye." Bergum, a helicopter pilot and 10-year Marine veteran, returned home to San Diego May 7 to recuperate after surgery. He initially had no sight in the eye but in early June he regained vision in that eye, though blurry. "I'm hopeful I'll regain 20/20 vision. I'm optimistic they can get me back in the cockpit." While convalescing in the military hospital, Bergum said the realities of war hit him. "There were people there who aren't coming back to their families whole." While stationed in Iraq, Bergum was an air officer for a marine infantry battalion. He would coordinate air support and air strikes. The unit was in the thick of the war. "We didn't have a front. We moved far and fast." When the unit would pause for sleep, they would dig themselves shallow holes called "graves" for protection, throw down a sleeping bag and grab a few hours of sleep. "When the 'Attack on Baghdad' came on April 6, I didn't sleep for four days. When you're sleep deprived it all becomes a fog." The most nerve-wracking moments, Bergum said, were on an Iraq highway where they never knew if a vehicle coming toward them was friend or foe. Bergum grew up in Bozeman. His wife and three of his four sisters also graduated from MSU, Lisa (Bowman) Bergum, '96 HHD, Lori (Bergum) Newman, '82 Nurs, Lisa (Bergum) Roeck, '81 Acct, and Leslee (Bergum) Kane, '01 Sec Ed. Maj. Patricia (Camel) Kelly, '73 Nurs 86th Combat Area Support Hospital/115th Field Hospital Doing the best job with what you had was Kelly's experience in the month she spent as a nurse in a combat field hospital two hours from Baghdad in Iraq. "We didn't have everything we needed or wanted for patient care there," Kelly said. She had been deployed to Kuwait on March 14 and returned home to Ft. Polk, La. on May 22. Kelly, a 16-year Army veteran, said the tent hospital had been set up to treat prisoners of war but they ended up treating civilian casualties as well. She said they treated everyone from toddlers to the elderly. The biggest challenge to treatment was communication. "We had translators, but not enough. We learned a lot of sign language." She said it took several weeks once the war started for supplies to get to the hospital. In the early days they would run out of supplies, especially crutches. "As many as 20 patients were sharing two sets of crutches." Kelly said it was tiring and very hot as they worked hard for long hours. "You lost track of the days. We didn't hear any communications about what was happening in the war." Kelly, an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes from Ronan, had spent her Army nursing career as a community health nurse. In Iraq she saw injuries that only nurses in big city emergency rooms usually see. Because many of the patients were prisoners of war, Kelly would caution fellow nurses not to see the patient as a soldier. "I just thought of them all as patients." Lt. Col. Robert Brekke, '81 AniSci 438th Military Police Detachment Brekke of Gallatin Gateway has been deployed to Kuwait since Jan. 19 and probably will remain there until November. "I think that the hardest thing about being over here is missing my son Christopher," he said. "At eight there is a lot of growing up that I am missing, and it is at a time when he has a hard time understanding why I am over here serving my country." His unit currently performs law and order operations for all U.S. military personnel stationed in Kuwait. His unit is the police force for the military.