Suddenly Russ Meyer heard a sharp whistle and then, “BAM-BAM.” A mortar shell had exploded a dozen yards away from him in a shell-pocked building in Iraq.
“That’s as close as it got,” said Meyer, a new assistant adjunct professor in the ROTC program at UC Davis. “I was standing there with a another soldier, and we were both glad a brick wall was between us and the shell. I looked at him and said, ‘So that’s what a mortar sounds like close.’”
Meyer, who began his ROTC stint on campus in August, spent almost four months in Iraq earlier this year. As a commanding officer, the North Carolina native was in charge of 140 soldiers in the U.S. Army’s 502 Infantry Regiment in the 101st Airborne Division.
The Iraqi army was not well-trained, Meyer said. Some Iraqi soldiers would even stand straight up and fire their weapons without any cover, he said.
Was he nervous? Yes and no. Meyer said he experienced some nervousness before battles or forays when he had time to think about what could go wrong, but not much did. Once the action started, a survival instinct kicked in, he said, and he had a job to do.
“We’re perfectionists. We plan and train — extensively — for all the possible outcomes.”
Still, there’s nothing like when the bullets start flying. “Nothing can truly prepare you for real combat — it was different than I imagined it would be,” Meyer said.
“I expected the fear to be a lot deeper,” Meyer said. “But the feeling was shallow in a way. In the heat of battle you don’t intellectualize the fear because so much is happening instantly. When it’s over, that’s when the danger of it all becomes apparent. You suddenly realize what you’ve just been through. You don’t have as much bravado as you might think. You just want to finish the tasks at hand and keep your guys alive.”
Meyer is frustrated with media portrayal of the war. He said the vast majority of people in Iraq welcomed American troops for ousting Saddam Hussein’s regime. He said he had Iraqi men coming up and kissing him on the cheek.
He was near Baghdad standing on a dam his unit had just secured when he got the phone call saying he’d just gotten a job as an ROTC instructor at UC Davis. Meyer, who has served in the Army for almost nine years, now teaches Advanced Military Leadership and has a class of 20 cadets.
Raised near Charlotte, N.C., he did an about-face when he saw California home prices. “I was shocked. Nothing in Iraq prepared me for California real estate prices.”
Why did you choose a career in the military?
One of my goals in the military was mentoring young people, and that made for a good fit with the ROTC program. In college, I studied business and marketing (Appalachian State University, ’95) and got hooked on the military after taking a freshman ROTC class. Right away, I loved the camaraderie and the challenge. It’s even more intense in combat. The bond you establish with the other soldiers — it’s like nothing anywhere — beyond anything I knew before, a once-in-a-lifetime feeling of fellowship.
What do you like most about work?
Being able to see cadets grow and mature. I haven’t been here long, but I’ve seen this profound maturation process in other young soldiers who grow into adults, who have a surer sense of themselves, especially in situations that demand leadership and confidence.
What’s surprising about you?
I’d be a different person if I hadn’t joined the Army. It’s given me a strong personality. In high school, I was shy, a bookworm, the president of the chess club, had a 3.9 grade-point-average and was not at all physical.
What’s the biggest challenge facing ROTC programs today?
A cadet must balance the ROTC program with his or her academics. Some of our cadets will go on to careers in the military, but others will not, so we need to get them the best educations possible, so wherever they end up working they will have benefited from the entire university and ROTC experience.
How would your cadets describe you?
Outgoing, competent, maybe bombastic. I like to challenge them to fulfill their potential, and I believe in what I say. We want our young people to also feel confident about their own abilities, and so I understand I’m a role model.
What’s a big decision you made as a military commander in Iraq?
I had a choice to make whether to send some of our men across the Euphrates River to take out some remaining Iraqi opposition or to keep focused on protecting the convoy we were assigned to. While it might have been nice to totally eliminate any threat from that area, it wasn’t essential to the movement of the convoy, and it would have some of our guys in harm’s way, unnecessarily. Showing restraint and judgment is very important on the battlefield. It was one of the best judgments of my life.
Read any good books lately?
Believe it or not, I enjoy Harry Potter books, and recently finished The Order of the Phoenix. Another book that captured my attention recently was Harry Turtledove’s, American Empire: Victorious Opposition. Turtledove is an alternative history genius.
What are some of your treasured possessions?
I have a copy of a letter that a biology professor from Baghdad University sent to our unit thanking us and all the other American troops for toppling Saddam Hussein. One sentence reads, “Don’t forget to tell everyone in America that we love the American people.” I have another letter from an Iraqi who expresses gratitude for “saving their country from the Dracula Saddam Hussein.”
What’s your guilty pleasure?
Watching football all day Sundays — an in-dulgence my girlfriend, Sherry, puts up with. •