By Christopher Williams,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – What began as an informational slide show by Maine Army National Guard soldiers who served in Iraq sparked a spirited debate Thursday night on the Iraq war.

Three soldiers and their commander gave an upbeat talk at L-A College about the schools they – and most of Maine’s roughly 2,000 part-time troops – built, the prisoners they guarded, the bases they ran and the Iraqis they turned into soldiers. About two dozen people attended the presentation.

“These guys made a difference in the lives of the people over there,” said Maj. Gen. Bill Libby, who heads Maine’s guard troops. “In addition to the shooting war going on over there, there’s a lot of things you’re not hearing about.”

His soldiers showed pictures on a floor-to-ceiling screen of soldiers in northern and southern Iraq, building schools and bridges and military installations in 140 degree heat and dust storms.

First Sgt. Michael Lord, who served with Battery A of the 1-152 Field Artillery in Iraq, described the Abu Ghraib prison he and 123 other soldiers from Maine cleaned up and guarded two years ago.

They were there when reports of prisoner abuse by their predecessors went public, triggering a violent reaction.

Insurgent snipers took pot shots from distant high ground as he and about 500 U.S. troops guarded 7,000 prisoners. Drive-by terrorists lobbed mortar rounds into the compound, killing detainees and wounding some soldiers.

All the time, they treated the detainees with dignity and respect, he said. “That was our watchword.”

When the panel was finished, a man who wore a Veterans for Peace cap told the soldiers the Iraq war was waged on false pretenses. There were no weapons of mass destruction that warranted an invasion, he said.

“That’s what I’m upset about.”

Libby agreed, but added that it was not just the Bush administration that was misled by flawed intelligence, other countries were also.

The panelists said most of the Iraqis they encountered during their time abroad were grateful and welcomed the foreign troops.

That’s not the Iraq war Dexter Kamilewicz, who also attended the event, hears about from his son.

Ben, 29, is deployed in Ramadi with the Vermont Army National Guard. He is shot at every day. He’s been blown out of his Humvee three times. He watched as his commanding officer was killed, his father said.

The Iraqi people his son sees “want him to go home. … They hate us there … little kids shake and fall down on the ground” when they see U.S. soldiers, Kamilewicz said.

“It would be nice to see soldiers who have a different view,” he told the panel. “That debate is critical to democracy. It’s not going on right now.”

Kamilewicz said his son’s unit is undersupplied and undersupported. The Orrs Island man said that’s what made him want to run for Congress in Maine’s 1st District.

“It’s a very, very different world” from the one painted by the four soldiers.

“That’s not to diminish what you’ve done,” he said. “I love my son. He’s going through hell.”

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