A Hudson High graduate now in the Army parks his tank for now after being in the thick of fighting in Iraq.
By ALEX LEARY
Published September 25, 2003
MOON LAKE - Rumors spread fast in the Kuwaiti desert. In the weeks leading up to the war, there wasn't much else to do but play baseball, talk and speculate.
So when Staff Sgt. Michael Deliberti heard the Second Brigade might be heading home, he feared his unit was next.
All the training, the time spent away from his family, for what?
"I didn't want to get back and watch the war on the news like everybody else," Deliberti said, recounting the experience from his parent's home in Moon Lake.
A few days later the troops got the call. As Deliberti's M1 Abrams tank rolled over the sand berm into Iraq, music from AC/DC blared through his speakers.
The War Pigs, as his unit called itself, were eager for action. "It was like playing a sport; you get butterflies in your stomach," said Deliberti.
The 31-year-old Deliberti, a 1990 Hudson High School graduate, is a tank commander with the Army's 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor, Charlie Company out of Fort Stewart, Ga.
Deliberti's four-man crew earned the distinction of recording the first tank kill among the unit. It happened March 28 near Karbala. Deliberti's platoon sergeant came over the radio. "Hey, you've got a tank in your sector."
They scanned the turret across the distance and then saw the enemy T-72 tank lining up its gun about 1,200 yards. "We just unleashed. We weren't going to sit there and find out if a round of theirs could penetrate our tank," Deliberti said.
The assault from the Abrams' 120mm cannon rocked the Soviet-made T-72, blowing its turret clean off. "It's either him going home to see his family or me," Deliberti said.
His wife Janine, also a Hudson High graduate, sat at the dining room table listening to the stories. The sense of relief was palpable on her face. She went nearly a month without hearing from her husband or knowing where he was, searching television reports in vain for a sign.
She worried her husband might jump out the tank and try something overly heroic. On the day he left she gave him some advice: "Keep the hatch closed."
As their parents spoke with a reporter, the couple's three children played in the next room. Deliberti tries to avoid talking about the war in their presence. Older cousins ask if he killed anybody but he is unsure how to respond. "Do I be the cool uncle and say "Yeah'?"
Some soldiers, particularly younger ones, have problems coping with the war experience. Deliberti said it has still not fully sunk in, but feels good.
"I'm still the same person as when I left. It's just what we train for," he said. "I didn't join the military for money or college. I joined to go to combat."
After a long day of patrols, Deliberti would retire to his temporary home, one of Saddam Hussein's palaces. He'd get out of his hot, dusty uniform, slip on some trunks and jump in the pool.
"They had a diving board and everything," he said.
In time, Deliberti came to see the human side of Iraq. While in Baghdad, he was "adopted" by a family.
They brought him tea and cooked fish and invited him to their home to watch the BBC news reports. When Deliberti went on patrol he would bring a bag of candy for the kids.
"People would come up and kiss our hands," Deliberti said. "They talk about heroes but we were just everyday people doing our jobs."
It was not all fun and praise, of course. Some people began to complain about the electricity outages and crime. "They'd say someone just stole my car, can you help? We can't chase down the street in our tanks."
In the weeks since Deliberti returned to Fort Stewart, problems with rebuilding Iraq have dominated news headlines. And the debate over the war's justification continues.
Deliberti avoids such questions. It's his job, he said, to enforce the president's orders. "In the long run," he added, "everybody will look back at this and see the president made the right decision."
- Alex Leary can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6247, or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6247. His e-mail address is leary@sptimes.com
