"What we’ve done over there [in Iraq] is a lot more than people see on TV,"
by Abigail Shaha
Left, Army Staff Sargeant Apryl Watroba hands out fliers to BYU students are part of a recruiting effort at Brigham Square. She previously was stationed in Iraq and is now an Army recruiter in Provo.
People usually avoid eye contact with her while she’s at work. Maybe it’s the camouflage uniform or Humvee she travels in.
Whatever it is, Staff Sgt. Apryl Watroba stops Provo citizens with a polite hello and a question such as "How are you paying for school?" or "Have you ever thought about serving your country?"
Watroba gets lots of different reactions, mostly from people who know little about what she does as an Army recruiter or who she really is. They can’t tell from her quiet, modest demeanor that she’s jumped out of an airplane, been deployed twice to Iraq, fixed cavities on POWs, salsa danced on weekends or that she joined the Army on a dare. But she’s quiet like that; you find out most about this Minnesota-girl from the way she talks about work.
As a civilian, Watroba worked two jobs from 3 a.m. to 10 p.m. She kept this exhausting pace until her enlisted husband pushed her over the top complaining about his life…
"You wouldn’t understand," he told her. "You don’t know what it’s like in the Army."
A year later in fall 2003, Watroba was divorcing her husband as she deployed to Iraq as part of the first all-female unit there.
When she first arrived in Iraq, Watroba lived with her unit in the crumbling remains of Saddam’s palace complex until their base was finished.
Watroba lived in the palace’s slave quarters, which she said were made of marble with gold leafing on the walls and chandeliers. The rooms were five to six times the size of the average Provo apartment.
Watroba worked as a dental assistant for the American, Romanian, Italian, Korean and Polish soldiers who lived on base. Occasionally she saw an Iraqi or POW with dental problems.
"A lot of the ones we saw were part of Saddam’s original army, but they were more or less forced into it," she said. "Now they were back helping us."
These patients were used to a different way of dealing with pain.
"No matter what type of people you work on from all over the Middle East, none of them know what Novocain is," she said, "or they don’t like the needle or they’re not used to the numb. Their threshold of pain would amaze you."
Watroba said she remembered one POW who refused a numbing shot. So he sat, moaning quietly and wincing slightly, as she wiggled his rotten tooth back and forth until it came out by force.
"He didn’t even know what dental hygiene was," she said.
But despite the pain she caused them, Watroba said the Iraqis were grateful for the work the U.S. soldiers were doing.
Leticia Riley, a sergeant who worked with Watroba during her second deployment, remembered the gratitude.
"They brought us treats and they would come by and visit us just to say hello and see if we ever needed anything," Riley said. "One of them brought us a plastic covering for our X-ray table."
"One [Iraqi] gave me a charm of a mythological lion," Watroba said, "like the kind from the hanging gardens of Babylon."
This was Watroba’s life and work routine when U.S. soldiers caught Saddam just 10 miles from her base in Tikrit. Two men from her unit were sent to do the dental examinations to verify his identity.
But even though she was so close, Watroba and her unit didn’t know about Saddam’s capture until they watched the news.
"We found out over the TV just like everybody else," Watroba said. "The crowd [of soldiers] was cheering and clapping, almost as if in shock. I was excited. It made me feel like we actually did something."
Even after the capture, Watroba said she and the other soldiers were happy with their lives and work.
"If you talk to any solider, most if not all enjoy what they’re doing," she said. "They have pretty good morale."
On a phone call home, Watroba tried to explain the heat to her brother Mike.
"She said, ‘On a 100-degree day, go dress in black and stand outside and that’s what it feels like all the time,’" Mike Watroba said.
"She’s really tough," said Sgt. Carol Hebret, Watroba’s former roommate in training camp. Hebret said Watroba won Female Iron Non-Commissioned Officer of the year, a four-mile race done in full combat gear, including a 25- pound pack followed by an obstacle course.
Now Watroba’s work gives her a different challenge than ever before.
"Recruiting isn’t bad, it’s hard," she said. "I just try and take it in stride. The Army isn’t for everybody. It takes a lot of strength and courage to stand up and defend your country."
One of Watroba’s new challenges is to help people understand what really happens in the Army.
"What we’ve done over there [in Iraq] is a lot more than people see on TV," she said. "They think it’s all just easy go and easy come. We’re rebuilding the government, the system. We’re teaching people how to defend themselves. We’re teaching them ways to run their own society – anything from medical help to putting in waters systems to getting streets up and going again to trying to create an education system again."
Watroba said it’s this challenge that keeps her coming back.
"There isn’t a day in the army that’s not challenging," she said. "Not one of them is the same as it was yesterday."
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