MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer
Posted: Sunday, November 23, 2008 7:30 am

The one thing Lt. Col. Karen Neely missed most during her year in Iraq – not counting friends and family – was homemade chocolate chip cookies.

“I still can’t get enough of them,” Neely said.

Neely, 42, could get the basics from the PX while she was stationed in Iraq with her Army Reserve unit, and she even got care packages with letters from home and baked goods. But the cookies were always dried out from their journey.

The Murfreesboro native returned from her first tour of duty in Iraq on July 1. She left in July 2007 with 450 other Army Reservists from across the nation.

She spent her year at Camp Anaconda to the north of Baghdad, where she was stationed with the 316th Expeditionary Sustainment Command. Her unit was responsible for all the material needs of soldiers, including food, ammunition, clean water, fuel and even postal service.

“Everything you could imagine troops needed, we made sure they had it,” Neely explained, adding her team was responsible for 70-75 Army units, which made for very busy days.

The long days kept her occupied while counting down the weeks until she returned home to her three kids – Julie Ann, 17, Dan, 15, and Jonathan, 11.

“They were thrilled to have me back,” she said.

Upon her return, she let her family be irresponsible for one month, sleeping late, eating out, playing games and generally catching up on the quality time they missed while she was overseas.

Now she’s back to being responsible with her kids and at her job, where she teaches math and coaches cross-country running at Middle Tennessee Christian School.

MTCS cross-country team did her proud this season with the boys team taking the regional championship and the girls making it to the state championship meet for the first time in 12 years.

“It was our best season ever,” she said with pride.

She’s got a lot to be proud of.

Neely began her military career 20 years ago in MTSU’s Reserve Officer Training Corps where she served as the first female battalion commander.

She feels like she’s lucky because this was her first deployment, but it was still hard to leave her family behind.

When she was preparing to leave last summer, Jonathan asked, “Why does the Army send mommies?” Neely recalled.

“And I told him some mommies have been two or three times and my going would help one of those mommies stay home with their kids.

“It’s hard on families. It’s hard on marriages. It’s a tough thing,” Neely said, adding being away from her kids was the hardest part of being deployed. But she’d do it all over again if she had to because it made her realize what is important.

She said the deployment gave her a new appreciation for the freedoms and the wealth we have as a nation.

“The people over there can’t even imagine a life like that,” she said, which is what made it worth the sacrifice.

She said the Iraqi people appreciate the American presence and what the occupation has done for the country.

Just providing a freedom for religious worship has made a daily difference in the lives of many Iraqis, she said.

“Everybody I came into contact with were so appreciative of the American presence,” she said, noting many thanked her for what the U.S. has done like improving basic health care, but that still doesn’t mean things are perfect.

While Neely was in Iraq, her base was attacked more than 400 times.

“She talked about getting mortared everyday,” her daughter Julie Ann said. “I was talking to her one time and she said she was sitting under her desk because they’d been attacked.”

In the beginning it was scary, Neely said, but she got used to diving under her desk to protect herself. It even got to the point where she wouldn’t even hang up the phone or tell the person on the other line she was hiding.

It just became a fact of life. And it’s still a fact of life for many Iraqis.

“They live in violence. …” she said. “But this generation of Iraqis, that’s all they’ve known.

“Families are torn apart by violence. They go to sleep with gunfire, and it’s hard for us to imagine.”

She said the American public doesn’t truly understand what life is like in Iraq.

The troop surge also reached its peak, while she was there and she saw the positive effects first hand. Neely said the surge has helped and violence was down 70 percent when she left thanks to the extra troops.

“While we were there, so many Iraqis stepped up to the plate and took control,” she said.

But it will still take many years for a full troop withdrawal, she said.

From her experience, President-elect Barack Obama’s 16-month timetable for withdrawal could be achieved by what she saw on the ground there, if some support troops are left behind and the Iraqis continue to step up and take control of their country.

Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com.