Christian Girardot doesn’t mince words.
“The first five months we were in Iraq, we got our asses handed to us. We lost a lot of good men,” Girardot said. “I wasn’t even old enough to buy alcohol over there and I was there two weeks in and had already had a near death experience. When I got back and took my gear off, it finally hit me that these people are out to actually kill us.”
During that first 15-month deployment Girardot’s unit lost 16 soldiers, with more than 100 wounded, many of them missing limbs.
Girardot, who had enlisted in the Army two months after graduating from high school, trained as a forward observer — a specialist who uses radio communication to coordinate air support fire, determine target coordinates and fire mortars. He served two tours in Iraq (2007-08 and 2009-10) as a specialist (E4). On the first tour, his unit was based near Saddam Hussein’s former palace and country club, the Abu Ghraib Presidential Grounds outside Baghdad. It was rough.
“We were there less than six hours and they already started mortaring us. I think that’s the moment, six hours in, that I became desensitized to attacks,” he said. “Since we had just arrived, we didn’t have any shelter built yet. We were just under camouflage tents. From that moment on, it was a fight every day. Our units were running over four to five IEDs every day, and getting shot at every single day.”
Girardot said that every few days they were allowed to rotate back to the main base to take a shower, use the phones and just decompress.
“One day, I’m talking to my mom on the phone and sirens go off, signaling incoming. I heard the alarm and heard the multiple explosions going off, one right after the other,” he said. “Everybody cleared the phone bank area except me and another guy. We just kept talking. Finally, an officer comes in the tent and orders us to get off the phone and into a bunker. I just said, ‘Mom, I have to go.’ That’s how desensitized I was. I felt like there’s no point hiding from it, because if it was going to happen, it was just going to happen.”
Girardot’s unit was responsible for working throughout the neighboring communities in an attempt to “win the hearts and minds” of the people.
“And we did do a lot of good stuff when we were there,” he said. “We took the dogs through to find the IEDs and other booby traps so the population could move back to their homes and the kids could return to school. We actually were able to open several schools.”
Because of the goodwill generated from that work, many of the locals began aiding the soldiers in their attempt to find the “really bad guys,” as Girardot described them.
His second tour in Kirkuk was a bit quieter in terms of action. Their unit, unfortunately, drew the “short straw” and became the final one deployed back to the States.
Two months after returning to Billings, Girardot was working as a security guard when the PTSD symptoms hit him.
“Evidently, I learned later — after much therapy — that I didn’t properly process what had happened over there. It also ruined my first marriage.”
He tried college for a bit, before finding a job as a caregiver for the elderly. The majority of his clients are veterans.
“It’s a perfect job for me. It’s flexible, I don’t have to be in an office, and I can talk with the clients,” he said. “I really enjoy it and it’s very good for my mental health.”
He has since remarried, is now great friends with his former wife, and father to five (two with his first wife, and three stepchildren). The discipline, organizational skills and relationships with his Army friends are the greatest things that survived his two tours.
“I think one of the best days of my life is when the therapist at the VA office in Billings told me that she didn’t think we needed to see each other again,” he said. “She told me, ‘You have my email and I’m just a keystroke away if anything rears its head again.’ And so ever since, I’ve been doing really well.”
This profile was sponsored by AARP as part of their Stories of Honor is sponsored by AARP, series honoring veterans across Montana. For more information, please visit states.aarp.org/montana/storiesofhonor.
