In 2003, many of my peers were starting their spring semester of college partying, buying books and staying out late. For a few of us though, this was a time for writing wills, packing personal belongings into a warehouse and saying our goodbyes. I was 21 years old, and in March 2003, as part of Alpha Company, 4th Combat Engineers, I was deployed in response to escalations in Iraq. The 14 months that followed are not what you see on television or read in the papers -- rather they are the nightmares that follow each of us deployed into combat.

During the first half of our deployment, it seemed like we were on the scenic tour of Iraq. Sandstorms in the lower half the country would fill up my sleeping bag while I slept. In the northern half of the country, mosquitoes would swarm while I tried to eat dinner. I stopped noticing trivial things that would normally bother me. My first shower, dripping water from a bucket, came three months into the deployment.

One night, just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard two .50 cal machine guns rattling off rounds.

By the time I'd reached the command post, Cpt. Jim Riely was already flying into the passenger seat of my humvee. We drove through the middle of camp and out to towers 3 and 4, where something -- we weren't sure what -- was going down.

I flipped down my night-vision goggles. Through my green and black world, I saw a fellow soldier with pants, untied boots and no shirt; hands holding on to his helmet and gun. Another ran by with flip-flops, a gun on his back and a towel wrapped around his waist.

I maneuvered my way through the thick mud that led to the towers, large underground bunkers that rose some 40 feet out of the ground. Riely and I hiked up to the top of one of the towers, where two gunners were finishing up a box of rounds. They were shooting at unknown blobs of movement from the little wooden shack that contained just a .50 cal mounted and a radio.

Moonlight reflected in the small lake in front of us, and the low-lying shrubs made the entire view muddled. It was hard to discern anything, so I just kind of waited for something to move. I wondered what they were shooting at.

Then all hell broke loose. Tower four panicked and opened up a fresh box of ammo in our direction. The assistant gunner yelled to take cover, but I was already face-first in the dirt. I heard the whizzing of bullets overhead, saw the muzzle flash from the other gun and had a crunchy, sandy taste in my mouth from the dirt that I'd just inhaled. It felt like I had really bad tunnel vision.

Riely crawled his way to the radio. "Cease fire damn you, hold your f---ing fire!" he screamed.

The towers were quiet again and stayed that way for the rest of the night. The next morning, I heard through the grapevine that the whole fiasco -- getting shot at by our own men -- was because of some water buffalo that had strayed from a nearby herd and right into our fence.

Sometime later, First Platoon spent several days clearing munitions, or bombs, out of a small, isolated building outside of the city of Samarra. It was filled with tank shells, mortars, artillery rounds and propellant. After removing and destroying all the munitions, First Platoon decided to detonate incendiary grenades inside the building to burn the propellant.

When all the necessary explosives were set, everyone took cover either behind their own vehicle or an Armor Personnel Carrier (APC). I found the closest driver hatch to hop into and film the fire.

"Fire in the hole, fire in the hole, fire in the hole," yelled whoever was pulling the igniter. The flash of the detonation cord zipped by, and just as I was pushing the button on the camera, the shockwave blew the camera right past me. I got slammed by debris and tried to cram myself down the hatch. I closed my eyes and started praying.

I could hear people shouting "Medics, we need medics!" By the time I arrived with my medic bag, I was floored by what I saw. The platoon sergeant was laying face down beside the APC and not moving. A friend of mine, Spc. Joseph Tyler, sat in the dirt, staring at his bloody hands, his face almost unrecognizable. I yelled for an airlift.

A few moments later the ground got really close, and finally, blackness.

I woke up in the back seat of a humvee next to Tyler, whose face was all bandaged up. He was sent to Germany for operations and eventually back state side. I stayed in Iraq with burns to my arm, two dislocated shoulders and some broken gear. That gear was uncomfortable, but uncomfortable isn't dead.

Painkillers and some oral steroids helped me stay the next 10 months. When I returned home, I was taken off all medications, lost most of the movement in my arms and spent six months in physical therapy.

Two weeks after the incident, I revisited the blast site. Nothing remained except a crater and a few huge chucks of building that littered the area. After investigation, there is no definitive answer to why the building exploded at such a great magnitude. One theory is that the propellant produced a flash fire that quickly built up pressure in the building. I believe a hidden basement was missed, filled with high explosives -- tank and mortar rounds -- ignited by the flash fire.

Two months later, after facial reconstructive surgery, Tyler was the only one to return to Iraq.

I saw him before he left, walking out of the command post. "Holy cow, Batman," I yelled to him. "You look damn good, guy." He answered, "Hey, chicks dig scars."

Being in the Army is extremely personal -- more so than the jobs of those in the Navy or Airforce. I was face-to-face with those I could kill or save. It's not like dropping a bomb and flying away. When you kill somebody, you have to get the body, retrieve it, tag it -- you see what effects you have caused. Then you walk away. Your day goes on as if nothing has happened.

Pulling the trigger is a split-second decision. That's one of the things I really hate about the reporters there -- they make judgments on the actions of the soldiers without really knowing what they go through mentally. They don't have to make the decision -- they're just watching. It's easier to be critical.

I came away with leadership, because I can see things other people don't see. I have a better understanding of how the world works around me, and I respect people and individuals more. I have direction in life now, and I know that life can be gone in a heartbeat.

The effects aren't all positive. I'm short-fused; if things don't go my way I get extremely critical. In raids, everyone has to be dead on, because if somebody steps out of line, somebody dies. I now have high expectations for people and their abilities.

I think about those days all the time. I wake up in cold sweats on occasion, but I don't usually remember my dreams. I think I've dealt with posttraumatic stress syndrome -- I think everyone who has gone to Iraq has. It has to do with things that you can block out in your mind, and things that you can justify.

I think about the memories of Iraq everyday. I have photos in my room of the group after a mission, a Polaroid of my captain and I, a chunk of the blown-up building that I found in my vest. I have a coin with Saddam's face on it, which I got in exchange for a CD player. I think about a late August evening, when a friend got a package in the mail of an inflatable pool with lounge chairs. An hour later, inflatable toys filled, we relaxed to Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville." I remember trips to Samarra, to an inner city market where a café owner once offered me cold ice water -- a stark contrast to my hot bottled water I normally carried. I remember turning it down for fear of getting dysentery again. I remember the Iraqi kids, who would try to get a picture with us or wanted to play soccer. Most kids knew some English and always wanted to know what new bad word we would teach them. Usually they would just end up pissing us off because they couldn't keep their hands off our stuff.

I remember a kid whom I helped after he was hit by a speeding car. I remember the next week, when his family greeted me with hugs and cheers.

In the one year of my deployment, I have grown immensely, along with everyone else deployed with me. My perspective and mannerism of my everyday life have been affected. My outlook has been affected.

But life is an adventure, not a guided tour.