Joe Guidry, deputy editor of The Tampa Tribune Editorial Board, conducted the interview.

Here's what Jetton has to say about his experience in Iraq:

ON HIS WORK IN IRAQ:

``Actually we have two missions. ... We have responsibility to provide meteorological data to all artillery, rocket and mortar fires. Also ... civil military operations. That job entails - we use the acronym SWEAT, and that stands for sewage, water, electricity, academics and trash.

... We go out and try to improve the living conditions for the local nationals. We do a lot with giving out Beanie Babies and school supplies

and stuff like that to the children. But basically we have the ability to be able to recommend projects to be funded, and then we get a chance to hire some of the local workers and get those projects accomplished, such as putting in power grids, water networks, sewage networks, that type of thing.''

ON IRAQ'S CHANGES SINCE 2003:

``When I was over here the first time, it was kind of more directed toward what you would anticipate the military does. A lot of attacks were going on at the time, but now we're at a point where security has stabilized ... we are able to focus on the outside areas besides guarding radio towers and that sort of thing.''

``Now we're able to get out there with the public and let them know we're here to help them and give them the opportunity to cooperate with us. It creates a strong bond. ... They realize we are concerned with their well-being, and in turn, they try to help give us information about the bad guys.'' ON THE INSURGENCY:

``It hasn't gone away but it's definitely diminished. A large part is we're seeing the Iraqi army being a lot more stabilized and picking up a lot of the areas we were having to be concerned with before. I know the sector that we're in had absolutely no Iraqi army in it when we got here, and now we're seeing them out manning checkpoints. They definitely contribute a lot to enabling us to focus on other areas and do missions like the team I'm on right now.''

ON IRAQI-AMERICAN RELATIONS: ``For the most part I'd say the attitude is steadily improving. The one thing I think is probably the most difficult to overcome is they don't understand why the process takes so long. ... Before we can put 100 percent of our efforts into improving the economy, we have to make sure we can guarantee the safety of coalition forces as well as local nationals. Until that's able to happen and the election process is completed, it's going to be a slow process for us being able to make things happen with the speed that they would like it to happen.''

ON FEELING APPRECIATED:

``Absolutely. As we pull up in an area, you can tell by the amount of children. They'll just swarm around the vehicles. The older people will come out. They'll try to hug us, and we've gotten to where we've picked up a few words of the Iraqi language and we understand that they thank us and feel safer in their communities now. But we still have more work to do.''

ON HIS BIGGEST CHALLENGE:

``Obviously the heat is a factor, especially with all the gear that we wear and everything like that. ... It's gotten up to 120 and ... you can go through a liter and a half of water in a half-hour.

``I think that if anything were a challenge, it would be not being able to do enough. Like with the children - we'd always like to be able to give more, like toys, soccer balls, school supplies, that sort of thing. We'd like to be able to give more to the people in order to help stand on their own a little bit better. Some of them are in pretty poor living conditions. The ones that are doing the worst, I really wish we could do more for them. But we're kind of limited with our resources and what we can do.

``What we would see within a poverty lifestyle in the United States, it's much, much worse here, and it's almost incredible that someone can survive under those type of conditions. I guess it just shows the human spirit is always able to survive.''

ON IRAQ'S POTENTIAL FOR DEMOCRACY:

``The best impact that we have will be on the children. They're going to be the wave of the future as far as ensuring that all our efforts here are going to go toward democracy. This country is pretty much deep-seated on 2,000 years of fighting and religion, and I don't think from their perspective it's going to change overnight. I don't think that's really the intent.''

ON WHAT AMERICANS SHOULD KNOW:

``I'd like them to know the American soldiers are working very hard every day, and in spite of their lives being placed in harm's way, I think there's a sense of satisfaction being on the ground helping such a large amount of people at one time. Also, any support that's coming from the United States is greatly appreciated. It sure makes an old soldier like myself feel really good to know that we're getting ... support from not ... just family members and friends, but people that we don't know who really open up their hearts.''

ON CHANGES IN THE MILITARY:

``This deployment is probably one of the most comfortable ones that I've ever been on. I was over here for Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and some of the changes we've seen as soldiers [are] we have Internet, we're able to speak to our families by e-mail, using chat. We have telephones, AT&T or different ones, the mail runs a lot more smoothly than it ever did before. So as far as what we have available to us, we're a lot better. The food in some places is incredible.''

ON WHAT HE'LL DO WHEN HE GETS HOME:

``I'm ready to go fishing! I got a big old pond behind my house that's 40 foot deep and it's fully stocked.''

Keyword: Keyword: Commentary, to read other Voices From The Front stories and more on the media coverage of Iraq. The Tribune is arranging these interviews through U.S. Central Command to allow members of the military to share their perspectives with our readers.