'It definitely changes you'

“I don’t talk about it a lot,” Staff Sgt. Konrad Reed said, as a Black Hawk helicopter buzzed overhead the East Baghdad base he was calling home in February.

“I have a platoon of 33 guys, and maybe 10 of them know about it.”

“It” is a Bronze Star with “V,” and one of the weirder combat stories to come out of Afghanistan.

Reed, who was then 23 years old, was an artilleryman with the 82nd Airborne Division’s C Battery, 3rd Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment. They were posted at Firebase Shkin, near the border with Pakistan.

On April 25, 2003, Reed survived a firefight that included not one, but two grenade explosions — including one that went off right underneath him and threw him six feet in the air.

Two U.S. servicemembers died in the fight that day, and more than 20 were wounded.

But despite 42 shrapnel wounds, Reed was back on duty after just three days of recuperation at the hospital at Bagram Air Base.

Four years later, Reed is still with the 82nd, this time with the 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and he’s on his fourth deployment.

Now that he’s moved away from the unit where everybody knew the story about the Afghanistan battle, he’s no longer accorded the same kind of quiet deference, said Reed, who has been selected for promotion to sergeant first class.

“In my old unit, everybody wanted to hear what I said,” Reed said. “Everyone treats you different.”

In his new unit, Reed said, “I feel more invisible.”

It doesn’t help matters that Reed has such a difficult time talking about what happened that day — except with people who went through it with him.

“The few who talk about it a lot, they were there (in Afghanistan on April 25, 2003), but they weren’t involved” in the actual battle, Reed said. “It seems like the more someone talks about it, the less he actually did.”

In fact, despite the fact that he’s back in a combat environment, with reminders of war all around him, “I don’t (even) think about it a lot,” Reed said.

Then he paused and corrected himself.

“I do and I don’t,” he said. “Certain smells, certain sounds — they take you right back. It’s kind of weird.”

Asked whether the events of April 25 changed him, Reed paused.

“It definitely changes you, makes you think about things differently,” Reed said. “At the same time, a lot of the reason I’m good at my job is because it hasn’t changed me.”

Reed moved off the topic quickly, clearly uncomfortable.

Reed, who hails from Murdo, S.D., scored the Iraq trifecta when his unit crossed the Kuwait berm in January.

For this last deployment, “we got the official word we’d be going on Dec. 27, and we were in Kuwait on Jan. 5,” Reed said.

The 504th PIR is part of the 28,000 troops ordered by President Bush to Iraq in January to help secure Baghdad.

The unit wasn’t completely surprised, Reed said: As the Army’s “ready” battalion, expected to be prepared to pick up and go anywhere in the world on a moment’s notice, the 504th was “on the bubble” anyway.

But it’s a little more complicated for Reed to leave than it is for some soldiers, because he’s leaving behind five kids, as well as his wife.

So far, none of Reed’s experiences in Iraq have come close to the level of danger he experienced in Afghanistan, he said, although he’s been on patrols where his Humvee came under fire, and insurgents used to throw rockets and mortars at his base, Anaconda.

“Other than that, though, nothing extreme,” Reed said.

Now, however, Reed and his unit are in the heart of Baghdad, based at Forward Operating Base Loyalty and in charge of Sadr City, one of the most restive and dangerous areas in the entire country.

“I don’t really worry too much for myself,” Reed said. “I’ve been here a few times, and I know what to expect. I believe I know how to keep myself out of trouble. But I definitely worry about the people in my unit.”

Watching Reed outside the 504th tactical operations center, or TOC, at Loyalty, it’s clear that other soldiers treat him with respect and even a slight deference.

“He doesn’t always say much, but he’s a stud,” one sergeant, who didn’t want his name used, said about Reed.

“I know what he did in Afghanistan, and it’s not about the medal,” the soldier said. “It’s that he survived (the battle). I’d rather go into a fight with someone like that any day.”