Fish Out of Water

In March of 2003, a coalition of countries headed by the United States invaded Iraq. Two months later, President Bush declared the end of major combat operations. It was almost a year later that the Navy recalled Paul Sherbo to active duty. At that time, one of Paul’s fellow Reservists was sure the war was winding down and Paul would be home in just six months. It wasn’t winding down. He was not home in six months.

Admitting he was “not one of the 19-year-old American warriors kicking in doors in Fallujah,” Paul says, it was nonetheless an expedition into unfamiliar territory. “I began this journey as a married father of three in my early 50s with a good job, a transplanted Iowa boy living and working in the Denver area. I was a captain in the Navy Reserve with a decent amount of sea-time on active duty behind me. None of this prepared me for a ground war insurgency in a desert.