A soldier home to stay

If the pyrotechnics popping today in Petaluma put Steve Countouriotis a bit off, it’s not for lack of appreciation of July Fourth.

America’s birth 233 years ago today in Philadelphia is among the most significant dates in history, the retiring Army lieutenant colonel said.

“People fought for our independence; gave their lives because they thought the promise of a free nation was worth it,” Countouriotis said. “I’ve always loved our country and felt it was worth fighting for.”

Four times since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Countouriotis has gone off to war, serving two tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan, about a year each time.

Today, the 57-year-old soldier, a softspoken grandfather who rides a Harley-Davidson, will celebrate the holiday, his homecoming from Iraq and his retirement after 23 years of active duty and deployments to 10 countries.

If the rockets going off at the Petaluma fairgrounds jar his nerves a bit, Countouriotis will be surrounded by friends and family, including his three children, all Iraq combat veterans themselves.

For most of the past year, home for Lt. Col. Countouriotis was Forward Operating Base Sykes, an isolated military post in the desert west of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

It’s a remote area, 250 miles northwest of Baghdad, once occupied by the “children of Eden,” according to the Bible, but more recently a region wracked by insurgent violence.

In the last of his four post-9/11 deployments to the Middle East, Countouriotis flew Black Hawk helicopters on combat missions over hostile, unforgiving terrain, a .45-caliber pistol strapped to his hip.

“I don’t know too many guys my age who do that,” Countouriotis said. “It’s possible” that his $6 million flying machine was shot at, he said, not wanting to alarm his family.

“We flew over some areas that were kind of dicey,” Countouriotis said. FOB Sykes took occasional rocket and mortar attacks, including one that killed an Army doctor.

On May 19, Countouriotis returned to the tranquility of a tidy northeast Petaluma subdivision, his close-cropped hair graying at the temples.

“It sure is nice to look outside and see a quiet street, blue sky and clean air,” he said. Bird songs are a welcome relief from the incessant roar of generators and staccato of distant explosions at FOB Sykes.

All that could cloud the moment is the suspicion among those closest to Countouriotis that he might not really be hanging up his officer’s hat after almost 30 years in the service.

“We’ve done this before, haven’t we?” said John Navarro of Santa Rosa, a friend for four decades. There was, in fact, a big retirement party in 2005 after Countouriotis had served two tours as a Black Hawk pilot in Iraq and then as an adviser to the Afghan National Police.

But the Army called again in 2006, and he came out of retirement to return as an adviser to Afghan authorities. “No reservations, none at all,” Countouriotis said.

Two of his kids — Army captains Alethea Bordwell and Nick Countouriotis — were in Iraq at the time, making it personal. Those two and their brother, Marine Staff Sgt. Demetrius Countouriotis, are now in the reserves, with a combined five Iraq tours behind them.

Military service seems embedded in their genes. Steve’s Greek-Japanese ancestors include samurai warriors, and his father served with the Air Force in Korea. His wife, Debbie, a fifth-generation San Franciscan, has family ties to Civil War combatants.

When Steve was commissioned as an Army Reserve officer at the University of San Francisco in 1981, he hadn’t intended to ever go on active duty. World events, he said, “set the course for me.”

In all, Countouriotis has served 11 overseas missions since 1985 — to Korea, Germany, Cambodia, Thailand, Central America and Bosnia as well as the Middle East — with 11 years as a California Highway Patrol officer wedged among the deployments.

During his three Iraq tours, including the first Gulf War in 1990-91, he flew 550 combat hours in Black Hawks, the Army’s workhorse that flies up to 222 miles per hour.

A registered Democrat, Countouriotis followed the 2008 election by satellite TV at FOB Sykes. He said President Barack Obama is “on the right course” in Afghanistan, intending to double U.S. forces there to 68,000 and striving to curb civilian casualties.

Those deaths erode the Afghan public’s support, which Countouriotis said is “fundamental” to the coalition forces’ campaign to root out al-Qaida and the Taliban.

An equal commitment is needed to combat corruption, reform the judicial system and prop up Afghanistan’s chronically weak central government, he said.

Should war-torn, impoverished Afghanistan revert to fundamentalist Islamic Taliban rule, “it could be a threat to the free world,” he said.

Countouriotis is also optimistic about Iraq, where U.S. troops pulled back from cities Tuesday and should be able to leave on schedule by the end of 2011, he said.

Iraq’s educated population, ample water and abundant oil give it advantages Afghanistan lacks, he said. “I see a bright future for Iraq,” he said.

What of his future?

Countouriotis said he’s hanging up the fatigues in time to watch his two granddaughters, ages 20 months and almost 7 years old, grow up.

Debbie Countouriotis, like many military wives, spent years raising three kids with an often-absent husband. “It’s something you just do,” she said.

Driving to her job as vice principal at a Marin County private school in May, Debbie Countouriotis said she felt a surprising “lightness about me.”

It was a week after her husband had come home, and it took her a while to realize that it was the first time since 2001 that neither he nor any of their three children were in a foreign war zone.

“It’s a nice feeling,” she said. “I could get used to this.”

But the invitations Debbie Countouriotis sent out described today’s party as a welcome home from her husband’s “final” — in quotes — tour of duty.

“I wouldn’t rule out serving again,” the retiring soldier said, noting that mandatory Army retirement isn’t until 60. Then he said: “I doubt it’s going to happen.”

For action, he has the big Harley in the garage, and can go riding with Navarro and other friends.

But when a helicopter roars overhead, Countouriotis said he always looks up.

“I miss the flying,” he said. “I’ve got to be honest with you.”

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.