Wednesday’s
meeting of the West Boca Leaders was more
a homecoming than a business session.
Those
attending welcomed back a “member of the family,”
Staff Sgt. Michael Karp, who served a year
with the Army in Iraq before returning home
in March.
He
is the son of Lynn Karp, a West Boca Leaders
member.
The
club presented the GI with a commemorative
plaque, and also heard the sergeant speak
about his experiences in the Middle East.
“I’ve
known his mom for four years,” said club Vice
president Seth Marmor. “We wanted to do something
for him.”
He
said Karp “is a very private person. His mother
had to drag him to the meeting. But she and
her son deserve special honors.”
“It
was very inspirational to have him here, especially
because his mother is a member,” said President
Barry Epstein. “It felt like we were welcoming
back a member of the family.”
Sgt. Karp, 27, who joined the service seven
years ago after graduating from high school
in Cincinnati, is a member of the Army’s deep-sea
diving corps. He spent about six months of
his Iraqi tour stationed along the Tigris
River. The other six, he moved from site to
site.
Army
divers, he said, get the same training as
Navy SEALs. But the Navy group specializes
in specific functions while the Army guys
learn to do “a lot of things.”
His
time in the Middle East “was always busy,”
he said. As a diver, he was called on to conduct
river reconnaissance, checking for explosives
or obstructions in the water before a troop
tried to cross over.
Often,
the work took a grimmer turn – checking for
missing soldiers or survivors of downed helicopters.
“We
did a lot of rescue and recovery,” he said.
“It wasn’t always good, but it was important.”
“We
worked non-stop,” Karp said. “But when you’re
on overseas deployment, you don’t want any
down time. That’s when you start to get homesick.”
The
staff sergeant found the situation in Iraq
a lot more positive than is being reported
back in the states. “I think a lot of the
news focuses on the negatives. There are positives,
but unfortunately, they don’t seem to be reported”
“You
can see the impact of what we are doing,”
he said. “With the technology we have today,
we have done in eight months what it took
10 years to do after World War II. The newspapers
are free to report, people are eating and
people are working.”
In
most communities, “we were welcomed.”
He
said President Bush and his cabinet “are really
trying to do the right things.”
West Boca Leaders member Dr. Steve Perman
particularly admired the soldier’s frankness.
“I felt he was very straightforward about
the work he was doing,” he said. . “He is
one of only 140 divers in the Army.”
He
was also intrigued with the soldier’s personal
observations and “on how we are restoring
services over there. We get a distorted view”
from the media.
Perman
said he is “good friends with Michael’s mother.
The West Boca Leaders are a close-knit family.
We got to see his mother’s anguish when he
went to war – and it was great to see the
look on her face now that he is home.”
Karp
said the Iraqi people are not causing the
problems, but rather the radicals and insurgents
bent on causing terror.
“We
helped the Iraqi police. They are good, hard-working
people,” he said.
Sgt.
Karp will spend some leave time in the area
with his mom and 8-year-old daughter, Kaya.
Dad and daughter were at the beach Wednesday.
Once
his leave is over, he’ll report back to Port
Eustis, Va., for further orders. “We do a
lot of work stateside,” he said. “We do a
lot with the Army Corps of Engineers and underwater
inspections, checking dams and bridges.”
