'Am I Next?'

Spec. Justin Edgington lights a cigarette and inhales, his face illuminated by the pale green glow.

"It's been pretty hard," says Edgington, 23, of West Burlington, who was close to all three of those killed. "I don't think John's death has really set in yet."

Edgington, so traumatized by the losses that he has been unable to go on missions,is one of hundreds of soldiers in Iraq being treated for combat stress each month, even as they confront new dangers every day in the war zone. Only about 2 percent of troops with combat stress are evacuated, Army psychiatrists in Baghdad say, based on a belief they have a better chance of recovery if they stay with their units.

But as in Edgington's case, staying in Iraq also heightens the risk of repeated exposure to trauma, considered the greatest cause of post-traumatic stress disorder. About 17 percent of troops who serve in Iraq are expected to suffer from major depression, anxiety or PTSD, according to an Army study published last July.

Edgington is the sole survivor to stay in Iraq from the IED attack Feb. 27 that killed Gienau and Garceau and wounded two other soldiers. He says he still dreams about the attack nightly, disturbed above all by his last glimpse of his commander. After the bomb exploded and the dust cleared, he found Gienau lying in his lap. "I remember looking for blood, and all it looked like was a little scrape on his scalp. He really looked like he had put his head in my lap and gone to sleep," he recalls.

After treatment in Baghdad for a concussion and combat stress, Edgington went back to Iowa for two weeks in March. There he saw a man halfway across the Wal-Mart who, from behind, looked exactly like Gienau. "I followed him around for a while trying to get a look at his face, and when I saw it -- it was totally different," he said. "It was really hard, almost like reliving the whole thing from the start."

Edgington, who in civilian life deals cards at Burlington's Catfish Bend Casino, can't stop thinking about his own close scrape with death. He's troubled about being apart from his wife, baby daughter Emylea and 5-year-old stepson Jaydon. "I won't see my family for so long," he says, taking a drag on his cigarette, "or I might not see them ever."

Then came the morning's news of another death, hitting Edgington hard. "Which buddy did I lose this time?" Edgington recalls thinking as he escorted Iraqi workers on the base. When he learned it was Miller, he says, "I was, like, numb all over."

Now he stays on the base, taking cover under his bunk when mortar rounds fly in. But he struggles to overcome his fear and return to combat to help the platoon. "Part of me wants to just stay here and never go out again. Another part wants to help my buddies, even though I'm scared to death to go out."

Back in the barracks, Hayes silently cleans his weapon, readying his gear for the next mission. Hoarse vocals from the Staind song "It's Been Awhile" play in the background, and Hayes's body language tells platoon medic Holschlag just how badly he's hurting.

Combat stress takes many forms, and Hayes wrestles not with fear but with guilt over narrowly surviving twice -- when Miller was shot next to him, and when Gienau died riding in his place.

"Lieutenant Gienau jumped in . . . my seat" in the Humvee the day he was killed. "Why did he do that?" Hayes asks quietly. "This time, we were standing shoulder to shoulder," he says of Miller. "What's to say [the sniper] didn't have his cross hairs on each one of us?"

Holschlag worries about Hayes blaming himself for what she sees as the fickle nature of war. With the unit facing several more months in Iraq, she knows all they can do is trudge on.

A construction worker from New Hampton, Iowa, Holschlag tries to sway fate with good-luck charms. On every mission, she fills her pockets with talismans: her bullet, her lucky dollar, photos of Gienau, Garceau and Miller, prayer beads and her Uncle Sam bear. "He brought me to Iraq -- he'll take me out," said the M-16 sharpshooter and mother of two.

To Holschlag and many in the unit, Miller was their "boy," their "kid," and in his sudden death, the good-hearted but awkward young man was mourned as a family member. "You live on top of each other. You get used to working together . . . then you go out one day and -- boom -- he's gone," she says.

"In 2 1/2 seconds, for no particular reason, because we found their weapons cache, they took him out," she says. "And never again will John Wayne Miller steal my Pepsi."