IU student shares experience of military service overseas

School has reopened, and students are back to learning math, English, science or journalism. But Katherine Lowry is having lessons of a different kind: lessons of life, lessons for life. \nPvt. Lowry, a senior majoring in anthropology, is in the medical unit of the National Guard, which is presently deployed in Afghanistan. She wrote to the Indiana Daily Student about her life at Camp Phoenix in Kabul via e-mail.\nOn Aug. 29, a car bomb exploded outside of a private American security company and killed as many as 11 people. This was the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital in two years, according to The Associated Press, which prompted a quick e-mail from Lowry. \nShe said she had received several e-mails from people asking her if she was safe, as they had seen the Aug. 29 news. \n"A vehicle bomb IED (improvised explosive device) went off at a camp called OMC-Alpha yesterday night (Aug. 29) -- about 20 minutes from camp Phoenix," Lowry wrote. \nShe said a civilian contractor was killed and some non-U.S. soldiers died. \n"The whole camp knew about the incident within 10 minutes of it happening, and we were put on heightened alert," Lowry said. "But no attacks have happened at our camp."\nThough her camp was not attacked, Lowry has seen much of the violence of Afghanistan first-hand. \nIn her e-mail, Lowry described that her unit had a couple of Afghan National Army soldiers brought to them who were hurt in fighting in Kabul. \n"One man had a gunshot wound to the neck, and another had injuries from shrapnel to the leg," she wrote.\nDoctors at the camp were able to dislodge the bullets and keep the patients stable for transport, she said.\nThis 22-year-old's life is much different than most other women her age. She has not just seen the luxuries of life here at home, but has also seen the miseries of life in under-developed countries. \n"I'd be totally messed up in my mind if I saw things like those. It would take a long time to recover. And if you've never seen it before, it could leave an emotional scar forever. It depends on what kind of a neighborhood you come from," freshman Anthony Briggs Jr. said, reacting to Lowry's story of life in Afghanistan. \nSophomore Tuneika Cooks agreed, "We (Americans) will never see ourselves like that." She said that makes it difficult for us to comprehend and understand what it feels like to see or endure a life, like those of children and women in Afghanistan.\nLowry said she saw little Afghan children running behind the military trucks with their arms in the air begging for food. The wealth of the place, with its rugged mountains and scenic nature, is a contrast to the life the people there lead. Children run around in tattered clothes, women huddle outside poorly thatched huts and men and women beg for food and water as military trucks pass by them. Though Lowry's camp has some luxuries of home like running water, air conditions and a computer lab, she said the condition of children and women of Afghanistan troubles her.\nLowry left for training to Camp Atterbury April 26 and arrived in Afghanistan in the first week of August. She has been in Afghanistan for about a month now. \n"Things have started to seem a lot more real lately," she signed off.\n-- Contact staff writer Hina Alam at halam@indiana.edu .