Michael Lawrence
Faces of Five Wars
Story by Karin Orr
Portrait by David J. DeJonge

Historical original interview; not a current biography.
Recovered original Word document: Sergeant Michael Lawrence.doc

Sergeant Michael Lawrence
U.S. Army
Desert Storm

	“I grew up afraid of a lot of things,” concedes Mike Lawrence.  A little guy, he was “picked on a lot . . . beat up a lot.”  But at 17 or 18, about the time he was going into the service, Lawrence determined “fear will never stop me again,” and “it never has.”  A paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, Sergeant Lawrence logged over 40 jumps out of airplanes and helicopters from 1985 to 1989.
	Called back to active duty in 1990, he went to Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm with a trucking unit, the 180th Transport Company.  “They say the war was run by rear echelon, the transportation, medical supplies,” Lawrence observes.  “When we got there, we were hauling 40 tons of ammo on each truck,” up the supply route from Port Dammam to King Khalid Military City, a Saudi base that became operation headquarters.
	“Two days before the war started, I remember that it was 100 miles of bumper to bumper traffic,” says Lawrence.  The trucks didn’t fit the roads; the drivers were exhausted, and there were a lot of accidents.  
	Lawrence was a section leader, and with him in his squad was his younger brother, Dan, who had come over to Saudi Arabia in the same reserve unit.  One long night during a black-out, they pulled watch together.  Sitting on a 50 caliber machine gun, their gear and night vision goggles on, the two Lawrences talked through the night, working out problems of the past, forging an uncommon bond of battle comradeship and brotherhood.
	Also of concern to Lawrence were the SCUD missiles, 2500-pound TNT bombs, that started coming in consistently, about every two hours, around the time of the air war (January 17, 1991).  At first people would break arms and legs diving into bunkers, heading for cover.  Then they became much more casual, going outside and watching the bombs blow up overhead.  “After the building that housed the 182nd got hit,” and 28 people were killed, Lawrence notes grimly, “they stopped” being so careless.  But the “biggest fear at the back of our mind the whole time, from beginning to end,” Lawrence declares, “was getting hit with heavy biological and chemical weapons.  I couldn’t even count the number of times I put my gas mask on and took it off, couldn’t even guess.”
	It would not have occurred to Lawrence to pray during these episodes.  Scornful of praying during “bad times,” he went to church to give thanks when his son was born, and when his troops came together as a unit in the Gulf.  “I just don’t believe in praying when you’re so down,” Lawrence explains.  “I believe in praying in the good times,” because “everything good that’s ever happened, (God) is in that, too.”
	Lawrence has no illusions about why the U.S. was in the Gulf.  “It was a holy war for Iraqis, not for us,” he acknowledges.  We were there “for oil and commerce, you know, capitalism and all that.  I think that’s enough of a reason… I believe in our way of life in America, in what we support.”  But “what does bleed my heart,” Lawrence discloses, “are the quarter-million people who died on the other side, women, children, men of all ages.  And each one of them were individual tragedies.”
	“So when I looked at myself and why I was there and why I believed in it, did I need to pray to God every time I got scared or something bad happened?” Lawrence asks, squinting so hard the freckles on his face move, and that little kid is almost visible again.  This time without the fear.  “No.  And if I died, no, it wouldn’t have made a big difference in the scheme of things.