No, he?s never been shot at ? at least not that he knows of.
Yes, he enjoys cookies and ice cream, but not too much because he can?t get too big in the military.
Army Maj. William Bickel, 42, of Baltimore City and a member of the Maryland National Guard, was peppered with questions from about 75 Odenton Elementary School fifth-graders Thursday, just weeks after returning from a 10-month stint in Iraq.
“It?s not a lot of fun over there,” Bickel said when asked how he spent his free time.
“Personally, for me, I did a lot of reading and communicating with my wife. E-mailing and talking to her was probably one of the things I enjoyed most.”
Even though he?s an 18-year veteran of the Army and Marine Corps, serving in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Haiti, the deployment to Iraq was difficult because he had to leave his son only a month after he was born.
“My wife [Megan] here had it harder than I did,” Bickel said. “She worked and had to raise a baby.”
Bickel, an assistant state?s attorney in Baltimore County, became pen pals with the students through his sister, a community relations advisory board member at Johns Hopkins HealthCare, which is a school partner.
“Yes, I have fired a gun, many of them in fact, but I?ve never shot a cannon or rocket,” Bickel wrote in response to questions from Morgan Jung, 11.
“I have been inside a tank and have driven and ridden inside an armored vehicle. Most everything I?ve done here has not involved combat.”
Bickel was the command judge advocate at the Victory Base Complex in Baghdad, one of the largest military bases in Iraq.
“It was really fun writing to him,” Morgan said. “I told him what I like too, and about sports I play like soccer and lacrosse.”
Although most of the questions were lighthearted, one student asked why the United States was fighting in Iraq.
“A lot of people thought that Saddam Hussein was doing a lot of bad things and needed to be stopped,” Bickel said.
Also joining Bickel was Staff Sgt. Salvatore Lumaro, 26, of Towson, who earned a Combat Action Badge after nearly being struck in a rocket attack.
He explained how the U.S. flag on the uniform was backward to symbolize troops moving the flag forward.
“I learned a whole bunch of things,” said Michelle Oliver, 11. “I didn?t even know they communicated and talked with the Iraqis.”
