Moses Lake grad recounts time in Iraq

FORT CAMPBELL, KY. — Army First Lt. Wyatt Ottmar, a Moses Lake High School graduate, lived in an overthrown terrorist’s palace in Iraq and later received a Bronze Star for his service as a platoon leader.

Ottmar, 26, and his fellow soldiers stayed in the palace about 30 miles south of Baghdad, he told the Columbia Basin Herald.

The palace previously belonged to a terrorist who was trafficking weapons and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) throughout the area.

“We stopped his trade and set up shop in his house,” Ottmar explained.

One year prior to their arrival in Iraq, the area was called the “triangle of death,” Ottmar said.

“By the time we left, there hadn’t been an IED contacted in about 11 months.”

He also attributed the safer environment to a a neighborhood watch type program called the “Sons of Iraq,” in which the U.S. government would pay Iraqis to monitor locations where IEDs were found previously.

Now, there is a good government and army established in Iraq, he explained.

While overseas, he said the biggest reassurance he received was e-mails from friends and family.

The hardest part of his assignment was being away from home, he said.

One troop shared three computers, which were constantly breaking down, he explained.

At the time, phone service was expensive, so they didn’t use it often. When he did call home, he said he spoke to his fiancee and parents.

He spoke about the traditions of the Iraqis, mentioning the differences between people in the cities and those living in the countryside.

While in the country, they would have to sit down and discuss family issues.

“You couldn’t just get to the point,” he said. “You had to talk.”

Ottmar also noted how Iraqi females performed the majority of the work.

While the men were in air-conditioned rooms, the women were outside in more than 100 degree weather plowing fields, he said.

Iraqi females aren’t allowed to show their faces and wrap them with scarves or veils.

“All you can see was their eyes,” he noted. “Even if you’re trying to be nice, you can’t wave at them.”

He explained the women would have been spoken to, but nothing would have happened to the men who were waved at.

Ottmar returned to the U.S. on Nov. 1, 2008, and is now stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky.

His next career steps include either taking over a troop in Afghanistan or making sure soldiers have the equipment they need in Afghanistan, he said.

“If anything happens, I hope I get to go the career course,” he said.

“It’s more of a tactical mission versus sitting there making sure people have the proper equipment to fight.”

His future also includes marrying his fiancee, Emily Reed, on March 28.

Ottmar’s mother, Terri Ottmar, a Moses Lake nurse, commented how area residents and Samaritan Hospital employees sent her son and his platoon gifts.

“I know he would like to thank everyone who supports the military,” she said.