By Tonia Moxley
The Roanoke Times
July 28, 2009
Summary: Retired Virginia National Guard Sgt. 1st Class Debra Weir grew to love Iraq and hopes its biblical heritage is preserved.
BOONES MILL — It’s been five months since Debra Weir returned from Iraq, but she still savors the taste of an ice-cold Coke unwarmed by the desert sun.
She likes going to the bathroom without having to don a uniform and walk 100 steps across a sandy expanse.
Weir revels in canoe trips with her husband, Dave, and simply being near her two sons, Benjamin and Nickolas.
But she misses some things from Iraq: singing in Camp Adder’s church choir and long talks with friends in the on-post women’s Bible study group. Most of all, she remembers time alone, away from her Boones Mill home and everything familiar, that she said helped her grow closer to God.
Weir didn’t return from Operation Iraqi Freedom with physical injuries or symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, as have many of her fellow troops.
Despite living in a combat zone for 10 months, she didn’t even fire at an enemy. But her deployment to the biblical land of Ur has changed the 26-year military veteran in ways she never imagined.
“I had the … opportunity to go and walk on the ground of Abraham. To me, that’s mind-boggling,” Weir said.
Wellspring of faith
Contingency Operating Base Adder, Iraq, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, is a sprawling coalition forces base set in open desert near the Iran and Kuwait borders.
Soldiers from the Virginia Army National Guard’s 1710th Transportation Company, stationed there from mid-2008 to early 2009, provided logistical support to troops across Iraq.
Weir — a sergeant first class in the Guard, and in her civilian life tourism manager for Franklin County — was one of those soldiers.
She and her fellow soldiers, like the ancients before them, plied the dangerous desert roads in supply convoys, ever alert for attack from an unseen enemy.
It wasn’t fear of improvised explosive devices or mortar attacks that deepened her faith, Weir said, although she experienced nearly a dozen shellings at Camp Adder.
It wasn’t just support from her “battle buddy and spiritual partner,” Lt. Sheryl Lloyd, that made her, as Weir says, a better person.
A big part of it was walking on and touching with her own hands the wellspring of faith for Islam, Judaism and Christianity: the house of Abraham.
A snapshot of Weir in uniform shows her sitting on a reconstructed stoop of the 27-room complex believed by many scholars to be the house of Terah, an idol merchant and father of Abraham.
Abraham’s childhood home sits in the shadow of the great Ziggurat of Ur, a 4,000-year-old temple complex dedicated to the moon god, patron deity of the ancient city.
Ur was one of Mesopotamia’s wealthiest and most vibrant cities. And the Ziggurat of Ur is one of dozens of similar temple compounds built around ancient Mesopotamia, which may have included the biblical Tower of Babel.
Centuries before the birth of Jesus, Abraham of Ur is said to have defied the pagan religion of his father and worshipped one God.
According to the Book of Genesis, God commanded his loyal servant: “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and … all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Muslims trace their lineage through Muhammad back to Ishmael, son of Abraham and a servant. Jews — and by extension, Christians — trace their lineage back to Isaac, son of Abraham and Sarah.
Before 1700 B.C., Abraham made his way to present-day Jerusalem, a land promised by God in the Old Testament to Abraham’s descendants forever. And they have been fighting over it ever since.
For the past six years, American and coalition forces have been battling Iraqi insurgents in and around Ur and throughout Iraq.
Previously Iraq’s most famous tourist destination, the ziggurat complex has been part of Camp Adder since 2003, putting it off-limits to all but military personnel and approved visitors.
The foundations of the ziggurat and Abraham’s birthplace were reconstructed by Saddam Hussein after Pope John Paul II requested permission in 1999 to pray at the house. But security concerns and political posturing led to the cancellation of the trip, the New York Times reported.
Weir was able to arrange three trips for soldiers to the sacred sites, and found an Iraqi tour guide to explain their significance.
Weir said she was stunned that she could touch the cuneiform carved into the walls and descend into the tombs of the ancients.
“I wasn’t looking at it through glass. I was breathing it, touching it, walking it,” she said.
Deepened faith
Raised a Presbyterian in Norfolk, baptized a Southern Baptist as a teenager, Weir said she later attended a United Church of Christ congregation. But it wasn’t until her father died shortly before her deployment last year that her faith really started to grow.
“I’m a new Christian. I’m learning,” she said.
Little by little, people around Weir fed her spirit. Her mother-in-law’s prayers for her helped. Christian music — Toby Mack kind of music, not Sandy Patty style, Weir emphasized — encouraged her along her path.
Living in Iraq and strengthening her friendship with Lloyd, Weir’s military superior and spiritual adviser, brought her a long way.
“I saw the growth in her, as we got into the word,” Lloyd said. “She was just more committed to the Lord.”
As the women saw their comrades’ marriages falling apart, they encouraged each other “to stay pure,” Lloyd said.
Weir said she met fellow soldiers traumatized by their experiences, “but they had such a spirit.”
“It’s a holy land that’s just full of a lot of hell right now,” Lloyd said of Iraq.
While on the roads, Weir saw Iraqi children begging the convoys for food and living in tents nearby.
Through it all, her visits to Abraham’s house grounded her, she said. “I read Genesis. I’ve studied the Old Testament. But I didn’t realize until I looked at a map … this is the cradle of civilization. … I felt like I was doing my spiritual journey.”
Hopes for Iraq’s future
Before deployment, “I was fearful. I was expecting to get shot. I expected the people to really hate us,” Weir said.
But while there, she formed relationships with Iraqis who worked on the base. By the end of her tour, she was no longer afraid.
“The whole deployment was God’s plan for me to be a better person. I’m different.”
Weir said that in the desert she found a new spiritual and religious identity tied not to a brick-and-mortar church, but to a deep sense of gratitude.
“I make a conscious effort to be appreciative,” Weir said. “I try to say thank you … for food on the table, my two sons. I love our property. We have money to put gas in the car. … I have the best job in the world.”
Weir said she was blessed to fulfill a lifelong desire to serve her country and to experience a different culture. Now, she hopes Iraq can be stabilized.
“I wish people could get in their car and do things and not have to worry about being stopped or being shot at or being blown up,” she said.
While there, Weir wanted to broaden her pilgrimage and visit Babylon and the presumed site of the Tower of Babel, a truck ride away. But it wasn’t feasible.
“It’s hard to get off post,” Weir said. “I would have needed a gun escort.”
The tourism manager sees incredible potential for Iraq that can only be achieved by peace.
“They have so much to offer people outside their little Middle East world,” she said. “I hope for a time when Christians … and Muslims … can go and do a pilgrimage there. I tell you, it got me reading the Bible again.”
In May, according to an Army news release, security for the Ziggurat of Ur and Abraham’s house was ceremoniously transferred to Iraqi police and the country’s ministry of tourism.
Since returning home, Weir has retired from the Guard and joined American Legion Post No. 6 in Rocky Mount. She is only the third woman to do so.
But she hasn’t yet found a permanent church.
Copyright 2009 The Roanoke (Va.) Times


