The Steelers 2005 Season From Iraq

I was a young First Lieutenant embarking for training for my first Iraq mobilization in January 2005. My unit was a National Guard Combat Engineer Battalion from Johnstown, PA. I, like many of my unit members, was from Pittsburgh. Many of us were Steelers fans which had watched our team roll through virtually everyone during that 2004 season. We watched our team roll to the AFC Championship game.

Our unit was augmented by three companies as if picked by the football God's themselves. One was from Rhode Island, and were mostly Patriot fans. One was from within our state from Philadelphia. The other was from Indiana, and mostly built up of Colts fans.

Our Rhode Island outfit took great pleasure in the misery of the Colts, Steelers, and Eagles fans, in that order, during those first few weeks of mobilization training. The hatred was so thick that you could cut it with a bayonet. If you have never watched a playoff game in a room filled with 100 Steelers fans and 100 patriots’ fans that are all trained to kill and are enjoying the last alcoholic beverages that they will be allowed to consume for a year, then you cannot imagine the chaos that I have seen.

We deployed to Iraq in the early summer of 2005 with our Rhode Island company having the hometown champion team. They flew a Patriots Superbowl Championship flag outside of their orderly room, which was right across the building from my orderly room.

My goal was to see my team wipe the smug look off of those Patriots fans' faces in the third game of the 2005 season. But that was not to be as the Pats pulled out a come from behind victory off of the foot of Adam Viniteri in the closing seconds.

I remember this season as what helped get me through the deployment. I was constantly leading military convoys, and between IEDs, direct fire, indirect fire, and snipers I was beat up. My Colonel would ask me how the games went, he would let me adjust missions to allow me to watch the games. If when discussing changing the date of a Ground Assault Convey to the date of a Steelers game, I would cry foul, and that was considered a legitimate excuse.

The playoffs were memorable, in that I was coming home for the superbowl, and I desperately wanted to see my team in that game.

Watching the Steelers tear down the Bengals and Carson Palmer was worth staying up until 5am.

I remember watching the Colts game at 3AM in my hooch, I had been yelled at twice to shut the hell up, because my screaming had awoken everyone.

I was awaiting airlift out of the country for my two week, mid-tour R&R leave, and our chopper lift was delayed due to a sandstorm. Thank God for that sandstorm, as I was able to watch the Steelers beat the Broncos in the AFC Championship game in an aircraft hangar in Al Taqqedum Iraq.

Upon arrival home to the States I was presented with my Christmas gift from my ex-wife (we were happily married back then). A 65 inch High Definition TV to watch my team on. All of my family and friends came to my house to watch the game. I enjoyed some of the first beers that I had in a year, and with my daughter on my lap, my wife cuddled up on my side, and all of my friends and family around; we watched them get that "one for the thumb".

I will always count that as one of my most cherished memories. That and being able to hang the Superbowl XL champion flag outside of my unit orderly room in Iraq only days after the Superbowl.