By Jean Cole

jean@athensnews-courier.com

Across the front porch of Robbie and Wendy Irvin’s home in Hartselle, a red, white and blue welcome-home banner waves.

In their living room, a pine tree twinkles with lights and colored balls.

On their coffee table, a calico cat named Goldie remains brazenly unmoved.

Robbie, a National Guard soldier, and his wife are enjoying the best Christmas present they could possible get — each other.

A member of the Athens-based 203rd Military Police Battalion now serving in Iraq, Robbie got a 15-day pass home for Christmas.

It is a break in the battle.

“It’s nothing like World War II or Vietnam or anything like that over there, but it is still great to be home,” said the 23-year-old soldier who is a detention deputy at the Morgan County Jail when not deployed.

He is one of 80 members of the 203rd stationed in Basra to train Iraqi police for their eventual takeover in the country.

The battalion shipped out this summer on a tearful Father’s Day and headed to Fort Bliss, Texas, for extensive training. From there, they traveled by plane for about a week, Robbie said, to Kuwait and then on to Iraq.

His fear about the place was quickly replaced by routine and sweat.

“It is better than I thought it was going to be,” he said.

“The worst part was him not knowing what it was going to be like,” said Wendy, 27, who holds a degree in biology from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and works as a massage therapist and for a dentist, both in Decatur.

“When you first get there, you think about it being dangerous, but now it is calm and routine — it’s like being stuck in ‘Groundhog Day,’” Robbie said, referring to the 1993 movie in which a weatherman finds himself living the same day over and over again.

There was nothing routine about the summer temperatures, which were stratospheric even for a Southern boy.

“It was usually about 120 degrees,” he said. “I think the hottest it got was 127 degrees with 50 or 60 percent humidity. I lost 20 pounds, even though they fed us three meals a day.”

When his plane touched down in Atlanta on Dec. 15, Robbie was on American soil for the first time in six months. The feature that first captured his attention is something we all take for granted every day.

“As odd as is sounds, it was the grass,” Robbie said. “In Iraq there is a lot of sand. A lot.”

Wendy, alone, welcomed Robbie as he stepped off the plane.

“I was so excited,” she said.

“She said I lost weight,” Robbie noted.

Robbie’s parents, Sharon Brown and Douglas Irvin, and Wendy’s parents, Bobby and Rita Speegle of Priceville, were looking forward to his homecoming but they didn’t know the precise day.

“Robbie’s mom asked me when he was arriving, and I told her I didn’t know,” Wendy said.

She knew, she just wanted to surprise her mother-in-law by bringing her boy by the house.

“She was really happy,” Robbie said. “I thought she was going to cry but she didn’t.”

After he was home a few days, Robbie realized how much he missed his freedom. Not freedom in the political sense but, rather, in the couch-potato sense.

“Over there, you can’t sit around and watch Fox News when you want,” he said. “You can watch sports on AFN but you can’t watch whatever you want when you want like you can at home. We have watched the Alabama games and that has really kept morale high because they are doing so well.”

He has missed some of the conveniences we take for granted.

“From our house, we can walk to Walmart,” Robbie said. “It was like going to Six Flags. They have everything compared to what they have at the PX. Here, if you want something, you just run to the store.”

This concept struck him early in his tour, so he had Wendy send Vienna sausages and other delicacies.

Iraq isn’t without its conveniences. The soldiers, when they are not working their shifts, can go to the theater, use the Internet, telephone home, play basketball at the gym, lift weights, play volleyball or go to the USO, which just opened, he said.

Also, they have a place called The Oasis, where vendors come each day and sell food and other wares.

“You can get camel rides or sit and smoke a hookah,” Robbie said, describing the water pipe that some soldiers other than him use to smoke tobacco.

“It’s not like a bong,” he quickly added. “It’s to smoke tobacco.”

Robbie joined the National Guard three years ago because he wanted to serve his country, he said.

“I enjoy helping people,” he said.

Before taking a job at the jail, he worked at the Salvation Army homeless shelter in Huntsville. He also takes classes online through Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. He wants to pursue a career in law-enforcement.

“Hopefully, I will be able to be a regular deputy when I get back,” he said.

But for this week, he will rejoice in the splendor of Christmas with his wife, family and friends and, perhaps for the first time in his young life, realize what it all means to him and what we all mean to one another.