OXFORD– With the ongoing war in Iraq, one local family is learning to adjust their lives with a son overseas.
Terry and Roxanna Harvey are just one local Oxford family out of a hundred thousand others nationwide that have been intimately impacted by the war in Iraq.
“The only time you ever hear about one of our boys is if they’ve been killed. It’s a shame,” said Terry Harvey.
Their son, Specialist Daniel M. Harvey, is serving in Iraq with the Army’s 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment. He turned 26 Feb. 23. Dan is an Abrams M1 tank operator.
“My father was in World War II; I guess this is how it has always been. He left in November of ‘42 and was gone for three years, no cell phone, no e-mail, nothing. If you were lucky maybe you’d get a letter or a package ... at least it’s not like that today,” said Terry.
Dan arrived in Kuwait in August of 2007, and after being stationed there for a short time, he headed to Baghdad in December.
“Then in early January he was sent to Mosul to search for enemy combatants. They told him it was one of the last strongholds left,” said Terry.
The northern city of Mosul is a largely Sunni Arab city of nearly two million residents and has a significant population of Kurds.
On Jan. 28 in Mosul, five American soldiers were killed when militants ambushed a convoy with a roadside bomb and opened fire from a nearby mosque. The troops returned fire and eventually Iraqi military forces raided the mosque, but most of the gunmen had fled.
Dan’s group was nearby and he was ordered in to protect the rescue efforts trying to reach the injured convoy. While operating his tank he fired several rounds into a nearby building where enemy fire was coming from.
“He and his group came to the rescue of some soldiers. Some were pinned down; some were dead,” said his mother.
At the time of the attack, Dan had been in Iraq for little more than a month. “We’ve still got a long while to go. I find myself watching the news and checking the Internet several times a day. I thought I’d block it out but I find I want to know what’s going on even more than I ever did before,” said Roxanna.
Dan called home as soon as he was able to let his parents know that he wasn’t one of the soldiers lost in the attack.
Just the week before this attack, 60 people were killed and 280 wounded in a blast in the city after Iraqi soldiers entered a building booby trapped with thousands of pounds of explosives.
“I’m very proud of him and of what he’s accomplished, all the way from basic until now. I’ve put him in God’s hands. There was this great sense of relief after we heard he was all right, but then your attention turns, it turns to the five other soldiers and the five other families that weren’t OK. Having a son over there makes you more keenly aware of what it’s like for all those other families,” said Terry.
“There are always two versions of the story, the brother’s version and the parent’s version,” said Roxanna.
“With the election going on, the media coverage has shifted away from the war, but it still there just like it was before. People just don’t seem to be as aware. It’s understandable I guess, times are tough, people worry about the cost of fuel oil and things, they forget about the bigger issues that don’t effect them. I’m glad the military is finally taking it’s gloves off to try and bring stability to the region because this is going to be effecting a lot of people for a long time,” said Terry.