Lucas: Heels In Iraq Ready For Holidays
January 7, 2004 | Lucas
Dec. 23, 2003
By Adam Lucas
For most of us, the only difficulty with watching the Carolina-Wake Forest basketball game last Saturday was finding a way to cope with the outcome.
That wasn't exactly the case in Baghdad, Iraq, where a group of interested fans gathered around a camp television after midnight in order to watch the game live. The Armed Forces Network broadcasts one satellite station. In the wee hours of Sunday morning, that station just happened to show some ACC hoops. Some who watched were neutral observers, but others--like Capt. Doug Pratt, who boasts an undergraduate and a dental degree from North Carolina--were a bit more fixated.
"The Wake game was the first I've been able to watch this year," Pratt typed from Baghdad, where he has been deployed since September. "Seeing the floor, the jersey and those fans...I can only say that for three hours I felt like I was home again. I was lost in the moment and really forgot I was here."
Sometimes, though, it's not that easy for the Tar Heels--and everyone--who will spend the holidays overseas to forget where they are. Pratt is a third generation Army man whose grandfather served in World War II, father in Vietnam, and brother in Panama. As a dentist, he is part of a medical company that provides emergency care to the troops in the surrounding area, which occasionally includes troops from the 82nd Airborne from Ft. Bragg.
At home, going to the dentist can sometimes be a chore. In Baghdad, however, it's a welcome relief from the everyday duties of some soldiers.
"Every day I treat young men and women who put themselves in harm's way," Pratt writes. "I have never seen so many people happy to sit in a dental chair. For some, it is the first time they have relaxed in weeks. Whenever I think I have it hard, I just think about our guys performing the raids and sleeping on the other side of the fence."
Eventually, Pratt may run across someone near and dear to the Carolina basketball family. Assistant coach Joe Holladay's son remains in Iraq, where he parachuted into the unfriendly country in late March. Capt. Mathew Holladay, an Army Ranger, has put together a diverse resume since landing in Iraq. Earlier this year, he described one of his occasional duties: "We get a lot of calls from people with unexploded bombs in their backyard that need to be destroyed."
Since then, he's served as the mayor of an Iraqi town, Daquq, where he implemented city elections, ran a 200-man police force, and had weekly city counsel meetings. He's currently running the property claims office in Kirkuk, where he's in charge of determining a plan to help redistribute Iraqi land to the people who owned it before it was seized by the now-deposed government. It is estimated that over 100,000 people may have land claims, so trying to devise a solution that does not provoke tension and violence between the ethnicities can be a challenge.
Last Sunday, Capt. Holladay was in a tense land dispute meeting that caused nearly 200 Iraqis to gather outside to learn the outcome. Extra soldiers were called in to prevent hostilities. Suddenly, gunfire broke out.
"We thought we were under attack," Holladay writes. "However, it was just all the people of the city celebrating because they heard the news [of Saddam Hussein's capture] on the radio. You should know that when Iraqis celebrate that means firing any type of weapon they can find into the air. The entire city was celebrating that night. The sky was filled with tracers all night. Eight people died due to celebratory fire...When the bullets go up, they eventually come down somewhere."
The assistant coach and his wife, Roi, try to stay in contact with their son as much as possible. Two weeks ago, Mrs. Holladay rose before the sun on a Monday morning in order to bake a fresh batch of cookies and brownies for her son. She had them at the post office almost by the time they opened, and although they probably weren't still warm once they reached Mathew, they were warm when they went in the box.
Coach Holladay sent his son some Tar Heel t-shirts before the season began. They arrived at a fortuitous time. Most of us have to adjust our Carolina wardrobe before each basketball season, but this was different.
"When he got them he told me they had gotten there just in time," Holladay says. "He said, 'Last night the Iraqis decided to blow up our laundry, so they sent a mortar in and blew up the laundry. A lot of us are without shirts.'"
Christmas is always a hectic time for college basketball coaches. While the rest of America takes a couple days off, they're usually on the road recruiting or preparing for the next opponent. Carolina's schedule this year allows the Tar Heels a brief holiday break, and Holladay took his first day off in over a year earlier this week. His daughter, Heather, is in town, and the family will spend Christmas together before the assistant coach departs for Myrtle Beach and Carolina's game with UNC-W on Sunday.
The latest word is that his son might be home by February or March, and until then, the Holladay family will spend plenty of time on Thursday thinking about the one member of their family who has yet to get acquainted with Chapel Hill. He's also missing out on the holiday-themed television commercials and music that fill the Triangle airwaves.
"I was speaking to a colleague yesterday and at the end of our conversation he told me, 'Merry Christmas,'" Holladay writes. "That was really the first time it dawned on me that Christmas was only three days away. Needless to say, there has not been much Christmas build-up or reruns of 'It's a Wonderful Life' on TV to remind us what time of year it is."
In Baghdad, Doug Pratt will spend the day as usual, perhaps including a medical humanitarian mission to the surrounding villages, where he says the troops have received a warm reception, especially from children.
He'll get a chance to communicate with his family, but asked us to pass along his best wishes to dental school roommates Mark Austin, Mike Rossitch, and Matt Savage.
Odds are that he won't be able to watch the Heels take on UNC-W on Sunday, although there's a chance that he might be able to catch the Kentucky game on Jan. 3. As it turns out, though, watching the Tar Heels isn't the only thing he's developed a greater appreciation for in the past few months.
"This experience has really changed my perspective on life," Pratt writes. "I know one thing for sure. I'll never again take for granted being with my family and loved ones on holidays, especially Christmas."
Oh, and Capt. Holladay wanted to deliver a message to Tar Heel fans back home, one that he must have typed with a smile that was almost visible from thousands of miles away and that showed a very conscious awareness of where his father hopes to end this basketball season: "Book your airfare and hotel in San Antonio early in order to get the best fares."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.