Iraq veteran visits St. Augustine of Canterbury School
By: Paul Koepp
Students lined the halls and sang "God Bless America" Friday morning at St. Augustine of Canterbury School, giving a rapturous welcome to a veteran just back from an eight-month stint in Iraq.
Lt. Cmdr. Lou Kosa, 45, of South River, strode through the Kendall Park school building in his khaki fatigues and slapped dozens of little hands on his way to the third-grade classroom of Mary Ann Fama, as the kids chanted "USA! USA!"
Ms. Fama, who had Lt. Cmdr. Kosa’s son as a student five years ago, said her class wrote to Lt. Cmdr. Kosa each month while he was overseas, and sent care packages with toiletries, puzzles, paperback novels and candy. Her classes have written to soldiers overseas since the start of the Iraq war, she said.
Lt. Cmdr. Kosa told the class that he and the other sailors in his unit of the Navy Reserve appreciated each package that was sent.
"We were happy you guys remembered us," he said. "Everything got used, trust me."
The class presented him with a stuffed bear in a Navy uniform after asking questions for an hour.
Lt. Cmdr. Kosa was stationed for 216 days at Navy Customs, Battalion Romeo, Delta Company in Balad, just northwest of Baghdad.
"There’s not much except a big airfield," he said.
He described the irrigation system of the farms surrounding the base, saying "they still farm the same way they did thousands of years ago."
However, Lt. Cmdr. Kosa said, the area is also a battleground for feuding populations.
"The Sunnis don’t like the Shiites, the Shiites don’t like the Sunnis, and neither one gets along with us very well," he said.
He said his unit did the best it could to fix arguments between the groups.
"It’s gotten a lot better but there’s still a lot for us to do," he said.
Lt. Cmdr. Kosa was put on active duty June 28, 2006, and trained for a month in Virginia before going to Kuwait and then Iraq. Previously, he was deployed to Iraq in 2003 and to the United Arab Emirates in 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks.
"When I’m not working for the Navy, I’m working for the Army," Lt. Cmdr. Kosa said, laughing. His regular job is designing electronic jamming equipment for the Army.
Lt. Cmdr. Kosa gave the students an idea of what his daily life was like while serving on a military base in Iraq.
"How would you like to eat all your meals in a cafeteria?" he asked them. "Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not so good. It was the same thing each week. You could tell what day it was by what was for lunch."
He said a Taco Bell recently opened on the base, but it was always mobbed with soldiers.
Lt. Cmdr. Kosa said he could talk on the phone with his family for just 15 minutes each week, although he was able to use e-mail regularly.
The class asked Lt. Cmdr. Kosa to put on the body armor vest and helmet he brought, and smiles broke out across the room when he complied. Three kids claiming to be the strongest in the class each strained to lift the vest, which weighs about 35 pounds with heavy plates in front and back. Several students also tried on the helmet and agreed that it’s heavy.
"It’s like having a barbell on your head," said Robert Perez, 9. Christian Reyes, 9, said "It’s like wearing part of a bowling ball."
Lt. Cmdr. Kosa told the students he had to wear the armor and helmet in temperatures reaching 120 degrees, while on some nights it was cold enough to snow.
He said it felt strange to no longer have to wear any of that protection or carry a weapon. "But it’s good because I’m home and I don’t have to worry about that stuff," he told the class. "I do it so you guys don’t have to worry about it. I pray you guys won’t have to go over there."
Lt. Cmdr. Kosa said he would probably get about a year off before being re-deployed. He told the students frankly about some of the things he experienced, like being subjected to 228 "indirect fire attacks" during his time at the base. An F-16 pilot who lived right across from him and was "a really good guy" was killed in a plane crash, he said.
Lt. Cmdr. Kosa, in response to a question, said he had used his rifle a couple times but it was "nothing to be proud of."
One girl asked if he had won the war.
"No one really wins" a war, he answered. "At least you hope that you come out with peace."