Within five days of arriving to my unit in Nasiriyah last October, my first story assignment was one that involved venturing outside the safety of our base’s perimeter – “the wire,” as we call it – and riding in a convoy to the nearby town of Al Batha.

In my five years as an active-duty servicemember I was never deployed, despite being there at the cusp of both Sept. 11 and the Iraq War. Therefore, my only viewpoint of the conflict was what I saw on the news. And what I saw wasn’t good.

I’d watch a SPECIAL REPORT! on TV about a suicide bomber who walked into the heart of a crowded marketplace and detonated himself, or I’d read a front-page story in my local newspaper about improvised explosive devices that were being placed along the roads and left there until a line of Army Humvees passed by, when an unseen trigger man would then set off the blasts. Basically, Iraqi highways and urban areas were not where you wanted to be.

And yet, here I was: once again in uniform and now a bona fide wartime journalist about to embark on his first mission after a short but comfortable break as the civilian editor of an Army newspaper, two years removed from my former existence as a soldier.

I won’t say I had forgotten everything the Army taught me – my writing and photography skills were obviously still fresh in my mind, and I had faint recollections of how to march in formation and properly fire a rifle – but I had, for the most part, moved on from that chapter of my life after proudly fulfilling my duty. So you can understand what a jarring ordeal it was for me to be suddenly thrust back into a military mindset and lifestyle – and in the middle of a war, no less.

A mere eight weeks earlier I had been at the Airport Hilton in El Paso, enjoying the last few days with my wife and daughter before they flew to Japan to stay with her parents for the duration of my deployment. As for me, I traveled to two Army bases in four weeks for “refresher” training before heading back to El Paso in order to be shipped overseas. Needless to say, it was a lot to take in.

I was still taking it in on the morning of Oct. 5, 2006, while preparing to hit the road for the aforementioned assignment. Members of our command were going to attend the unveiling of a new reverse-osmosis water treatment plant and a renovated playground, both of them built with the help of Army engineers and American civil affairs dollars. It would be my job to chronicle this event.

After hoisting 60-pound protective vests over our shoulders and onto our backs, we headed out on the road. Every cardboard box we passed, which looked like they had just been simply discarded on the side of the highway, was a potential explosive device in my mind. Every random pile of dirt or piece of trash seemed like a big boom waiting to happen. I didn’t know what to expect, so I just sucked in a deep breath and held it each time we drove by something that was even remotely out of the ordinary.

We arrived to our destination without incident, and the grand openings of the water plant and playground went off without a hitch. I saw children who were ecstatic to have a source of clean water in their town and a place to play together after school. The entire experience was nothing like I expected and was one of my most memorable assignments, considering it was just a simple ribbon-cutting.

And so we returned to base. I had successfully and safely completed coverage of my first wartime assignment.

It felt good.

A group of Iraqi children dance and laugh in the town of Al Batha, Iraq. They and several others had gathered to witness the grand opening of a new playground and reverse-osmosis water treatment plant that had been renovated with the help of U.S. Army engineers.