Sunday, January 11, 2004

Soldier died 'doing what he liked best'

By CHRIS A. COUROGEN

George Mitchell Jr. gave civilian life a go. He really did.

He flipped burgers at McDonald's, worked in factories and patrolled Wal-Mart as a security guard. No matter what he tried, though, civilian life was not for Mitchell.

George Mitchell was a soldier. That was how he lived. And that was how he died.

On April 7, an Iraqi missile slammed into a tactical operations center near Baghdad, killing Mitchell of Lebanon. He was 35.

"George died doing what he liked best," said Brenda Sue Mitchell, his wife and mother of two of his three children. "He wrote me a letter before he left Fort Stewart saying if something would happen, there was no better way to go. He said he would rather go in battle than in a car wreck or with cancer."

Mitchell planned to make the military his career. He and brother David enlisted together when they were young. They spent four years stationed in Germany together before George decided to give civilian life a try. Mitchell was divorced and remarried. Civilian life was a better way to raise kids, he told David.

A year later, Mitchell's National Guard unit was activated and sent to fight in Desert Storm. Mitchell also was called to pull guard duty at Baltimore-Washington International Airport in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

By the time that duty ended, Mitchell had made his mind up about his future. Never comfortable in civilian clothes, or civilian jobs, Mitchell returned to the Army. He re-enlisted on May 20, 2002, his 35th birthday.

"He decided he wanted to go back in the full-time Army to get 100 percent of the benefits," David Mitchell said.

It wasn't just for the benefits. The army offered Mitchell a comfort factor, a feeling he was unable to replicate in civilian life.

"George didn't settle in too well in civilian jobs," David Mitchell said. "I can't even tell you the last job he worked."

Brenda Mitchell can. Her husband was a security guard at the local Wal-Mart. Before that he held factory jobs.

"None of them really satisfied him," Brenda Mitchell said. "He didn't feel like he was doing anything. When he got back into the service, he was back in his element. ...To see the transformation in him once he got in again was amazing."

George Mitchell Jr. liked just about everything about the military.

"He thrived in the regimented lifestyle of the military," said his aunt, Jennie Smetana of Lebanon.

"George liked the camaraderie of the military," Brenda Mitchell said.

Before he re-enlisted, George Jr. talked it over with his father. He told his dad he was going back to get the eight years he needed for full Army retirement benefits.

He wasn't fooling anybody.

"I doubt he would have gotten out when his 20 was up," Brenda Mitchell said. "He was just too much of a soldier."

There was also a score to settle.

That Mitchell re-enlisted with a unit expected to be deployed to Iraq surprised no one. Mitchell had been there before. In 1991, his Guard unit was rolling toward Baghdad when the hostilities ended.

Mitchell never shared details about what he saw in Iraq. He rarely talked about it. His family noticed a change in him, though. Something seemed to haunt Mitchell.

"It was always on his mind," Smetana said.

"It took him three or four years to get past what he had seen," David Mitchell said.

He thinks it was the suffering of the Iraqi people -- the children in particular -- that got to his brother.

Others think it was more personal.

"It might have been a score to settle in his mind," said Mitchell's father, George Mitchell Sr.

Whatever the reason, one thing was certain: George Mitchell Jr. was eager to return.

"It left a mark on him, whatever happened," Brenda Mitchell said. "He wanted to go back to finish the job."

A half-hour before his death, Mitchell borrowed a phone from a reporter to call home. Baghdad was about to fall. Mitchell wanted a record of his triumphant return.

Make sure you set the VCR to record Fox News tomorrow, he told his wife.

"We're going to finish it this time," he said.

CHRIS A. COUROGEN: 975-9784 or ccourogen@patriot-news.com