Phillips to Bush: ‘Keep up the good work’

PHOENIX — Brent Phillips comes from a small town outside Big Bear, California. He says he was put on earth to be a soldier and his mother, a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputy, agrees.

A six-month stint as a Marine in Iraq made him a star on Veterans Day, when Phillips joined seven other grand marshals for the country’s fourth largest parade honoring the holiday.

Phillips, 24, said he joined the Marines right after high school. He served in the presidential helicopter squadron — a “cush” job, he said.

He was in a report-writing class with other Marines when the announcement came: Terrorists had struck the World Trade Center in New York City.

”We thought, ‘Yeah right,’” he recalled.

Phillips put in for a transfer. He wanted to be closer to the action. During his first day in Iraq, 51 Iraqi soldiers surrendered to his team.

“From then on it started slowing down,” he recalled. “My team started joking around, like ‘We heard there’s a war going on . Where’s it at?’”

The war found them two days later when a Humvee Phillips was traveling in was struck by four rocket-propelled grenades. Several men were thrown clear and survived, he said. Phillips crawled out and emptied a magazine of bullets before realizing he had lost sight in his right eye.

That battle ultimately sent him home. Doctors flown from Boston to a military hospital in Germany surgically repaired his eye, improving his vision from 20/2800 to 20/30.

But there are about 500 pieces of metal in Phillips’ body. They are smaller than a fingernail, he said, and doctors refuse to do an MRI on his body because they fear the metal may move and cause him greater pain.

Despite his experiences, Phillips said the war in Iraq is worth it.

“Iraq is the place to be right now,” he said. “We needed to get Saddam out of power, we needed to get his regime out of power.”

“Once things get settled down there,” he adds, “it’ll be a better place.”

And the message to President Bush?

“Keep up the good work. Stay in it and give the insurgents a run for their money.”

Phillips, a Republican, said he is exploring a future run for the Gilbert Town Council.

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