Ellwood woman spends year broadcasting from Iraq
May 6, 2009
ECO Staff – Laure Cioffi, senior journalist
ELLWOOD CITY – Desiree Wright has seen more of Iraq than most soldiers.
 The 1997 Riverside graduate spent last year accompanying soldiers on patrols, escorting foreign media around the country and even attending a function with President George Bush the day of the infamous shoe-throwing incident.
Wright, who lives in Ellwood City with her two children Ryane, 10, and Thomas “T.J,” 5, says it’s an experience she will never forget.
“It was really exciting seeing things I wouldn’t have seen as a supply clerk,” said Wright, a staff sergeant with the United States Army Reserves.
She worked as a broadcast journalist through the United States Army Multi-National Division in Baghdad in the 354th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment. She was attached to the 101st Airborne Division documenting their daily activities on patrols and other missions.
“I lived a week here and a week there. It was a good environment at Camp Striker and Camp Victory with all the comforts of home, but when you go to the smaller patrol bases, you don’t have all of those same comforts,” she said.
Wright has been in the U.S. Army Reserves as an Automated Logistics Specialist for the 475th QM Co in Beaver Falls first then for the 99th RRC in Moon Twp since leaving active duty. She spent two years in the military where she worked for the Army as a PATRIOT missile systems crewmember in the Air Defense Artillery.
This was her first deployment to Iraq.
“It was a really new job for me,” said Wright, who works as a civilian in the maintenance shop at the 99th RRC and AMSA 105 base in Moon Township.
Wright said she was treated like any other soldier.
Her broadcasts were shown on the Pentagon Channel, some Iraqi television stations and they were available through the military’s digital video and imagery distribution system at www.dvidshub.net.
Wright said she most enjoyed assignments where she interacted with Iraqi children.
“The children were so happy to see us. They are the future of Iraq,” she said.
Wright said she spent a great deal of time south of Baghdad in the area dubbed the “Triangle of Death” because of major combat activity in the region.
She said businesses are now starting to open and people were happy to see the American soldiers.
“They are starting to heal from all the bad things that have happened in the past,” she said.
Wright said she was never shot at or witnesses any improvised explosive devices while in Iraq.
Among her assignments was to escort Iraqi journalists. Wright said she was not present at press conference where an Iraqi journalist threw his shoe at President Bush, but Bush did surprise her unit later that night by showing up at a function.
“One of my soldiers gave him a big hug,” she said.
The Ellwood City woman spent a total of a year away from home returning February.
“I’m glad I went on this deployment. Nobody can take those memories away from me,” she said.
(Laure Cioffi can be reached at LaureCioffi@EllwoodCity.org)
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