NAME: Lance Cpl. Timothy Edwards
AGE: 24
HOMETOWN: Fremont, Wis.
BRANCH: Marines
ROLE: Driver
———
CAMP VIPER, southern Iraq—Lance Cpl. Timothy Edwards wrote his nickname on his helmet: Preacher.
Edwards, 24, of Fremont, Wis., is a youth minister and plans to become a pastor.
"I get a lot of mail from the kids I work with," Edwards says. "That's the stuff that cheers me up the most. The kids remember me and tell me how good I was. It makes me feel good about what I was doing.
"I was working at summer camp this last summer," Edwards says. "One of my old pastors who had transferred to a different church was looking for a youth director. He knew I was planning on going to the seminary. He wanted to know if I'd like to get my feet wet and wondered if I wanted to be their youth director for a couple of years. Firsthand experience is even better than getting an education. I was trying it out. I really like it."
He went to college thinking he was going to work as a chemist, but he loved working with youngsters.
"When I graduated from college, I was undecided what to do," Edwards says. "I kinda wanted to follow the rest of my family. My dad was a Marine, and my uncle was a Marine, and grandpa was a Marine. I figured, `What the heck, I'll try it.' "
His grandfather fought in World War II, while his father and uncle were in Vietnam.
"They didn't say a lot about their experiences until the day I got called up," Edwards says. "All of a sudden, they started telling me a whole lot of stuff that happened to them. They gave me little tips of advice: Keep your head between your legs and don't be afraid to get up and do stuff."
Edwards is a truck driver assigned to Charlie Company, 6th Engineer Support Battalion. He drives everything from 7-ton trucks to dump trucks.
"These new trucks are kinda like driving a car," Edwards says. "It's all push button. It's pretty nice. The old trucks are a little trickier. Stuff breaks, and you have to be semi-mechanically oriented. You can fix it."
He says that in Iraq he daydreams about war scenarios.
"What would I do if a 12-year-old kid were running after you? Would you shoot him? I've thought of hundreds of outcomes," he says. "Some are good; some are bad. It could go wrong; it could go right."
Edwards tries to maintain a Christian walk in a place where profanity is as common as sand.
"I can't judge other people for swearing," Edwards says. "Sometimes, it's just the way they vent their frustrations."
———
(c) 2003, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
ILLUSTRATION (from KRT Illustration Bank, 202-383-6064): USIRAQ-EDWARDS
Iraq