Deputy prosecutor: Bill Druffel files report on Iraq duty

Druffel in battle fatigues gets ready to move out of his transporter to consult with an Iraqi judge.

Knee-deep in a foreign world of battle gear, Arabic and thousands of miles away from home, Whitman County’s deputy prosecutor Bill Druffel is four months into his deployment in Iraq.

In an e-mail interview with the Gazette from just outside Mosul, Druffel painted a picture of a military branch set on re-establishing an ailing nation and one Whitman County native who spends his days advising American soldiers on legal matters.

He described Iraq as a cool, muddy land where the locals depend on farming.

“We are having some successes in this area and partly because of that, terrorists attack these structures and entities,” Druffel wrote.

“About 10 days ago, they deployed a VBIED (Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device) on the crime lab about five miles from where I am sitting now. The explosion was sufficient enough to shake my CHU (Containerized Housing Unit).”

Capt. Druffel, 38, joined the Army Reserve a year and a half ago and was notified of his deployment in the fall of 2009. As an attorney he provides legal counsel to soldiers in his brigade as well as legal counsel to Iraqis looking to rebuild their judicial system.

Druffel served as a Whitman County prosecutor for three years. He is stationed at COS Marez military base, next to Mosul, in the province of Ninewah.

He spends much of his time advising American soldiers on day-to-day legal matters like births back home, wills, parents dying and divorce. He ventures off his base once or twice a week to work with Iraqis on legal issues.

He eats oatmeal for breakfast and takes lunch and dinner at his base’s cafeteria.

He calls home to his wife and two children in Colton every morning. He says he runs five miles a day- exercise which he feels has helped him maintain the same weight and sleep well.

No cockroaches, spiders, or lizards have yet plagued his quarters, but the Iraqi flies are out in force. He describes them as “aggressive.”

And how much actual war has he seen?

According to Druffel, not too much.

“Iraq has been a relatively peaceful place for many months now. In my time here, our brigade has lost four people, none to hostile fire. I have not been shot at and no one has tried to blow me up. Our base takes indirect fire from time to time,” he wrote.

He said he felt his base was well protected to hold off any direct or indirect attack, adding they travel in “well-armed and armored vehicles or by air.”

“We are still attacked from time to time when we are outside the wire, but it is rare. I have heard, felt, and/or seen explosions of IEDs and VBIEDs,” he wrote.

Druffel entered the Army Reserve under the Judge Advocate General program (JAG), a military-wide program in which qualified U.S. attorneys join the military and offer legal counsel to fellow soldiers.

The Army Reserve called Druffel away for six-months of basic training in 2008, equipping him with physical fitness, knowledge of weapons and combat, and other battlefield lessons. So Druffel already had the know-how to be on the ground in Iraq and was “in shape,” before he left.

Under JAG, Druffel does not serve as a criminal defense lawyer. That is covered by a different branch altogether.

While Druffel spends most of his time working with American soldiers, the Iraqi legal system in and around Mosul recieves some of his attention as well.

He mentioned one situation where an honest Iraqi investigative judge was attacked last year when a terrorist placed a bomb under his car. The judge’s driver was killed in the explosion, and after the judge recovered from the attack, he went back to practicing law. Druffel said he feels the American mission is helping out the cause of justice there as they provide security, both personal and in the courthouse, for this man.

“He doesn’t need help understanding or applying the law- he needs to stay alive. So we do what we can for him. Imagine a scenario where Denis Tracy or Judge Frazier or Judge Robinson were forced to make a legal decision because their lives or the lives of their children were literally at stake?” he wrote.

“What if they had to think about who the suspect is, who the victim is, what families are they from, is any member of the respective families part of the terrorist group…,” he wrote.

His day-to-day routine of advising soldiers on their legal issues puts him in close contact with soldiers toiling under the stress of their deployment in addition to the legal matters.

“The nature of my job requires me to be in people’s lives when things are not going well. Life happens- being a soldier in a deployed environment only makes the bad moments worse and takes away some of the good in the happy times,” he wrote. “I play a role as a counselor in all of these situations and many more. I try to provide sound counsel. I try to soften the bad.”