Kevin Clifford/Nevada Appeal Roy Hutchings shows his combat helmet with "Death to the Enemy" inscribed on the back. Hutchings, a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper, is a gunnery sergeant for the U.S. Marine Corps. He recently returned from Iraq after helping train the country's police force.
Roy Hutchings' title depends on what uniform he's wearing.
For the last 26 years, he's been a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper. But in war zones - and there have been a few in his three decades in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves - Hutchings wears the camo and rank of gunnery sergeant.
Both missions have one goal: Coming home.
"One more year, and it's over," the 54-year-old native Philadelphian said with a hint of the East Coast accent and attitude he brought to Nevada at 15 years old. "I've been to Africa, Ethiopia, Somalia and Iraq - Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Operation Enduring Freedom."
Hutchings has been gone for 21 of the last 36 months.
The latest was a nine-month deployment to the Al Anbar Province of Iraq training Iraqi security forces.
That task, he said, he wouldn't wish on anyone.
"These aren't the bravest guys in the world. We're trying to spin them up so they can patrol their own streets and realize they can make a difference. We'd take three steps forward and one step back," he said.
"I'd tell a group of guys to show up at oh-800 hours, and you're lucky if they showed up at 6 p.m. And if one or two of them had their guns, you're even luckier."
During his time in Iraq, he put "45 combat tours under my belt,"
And all the while, in the Iraqi desert, Hutchings was pining for his new bride.
He and Ellen had been married only a year before he was deployed. For their first wedding anniversary, he was in Iraq. But for their second this October, they'll be together.
When Hutchings wasn't squaring away his Iraqi troops, he was often talking on the Internet with Ellen via voice chat and Web cam. Sometimes, she said, he'd call her on a satellite phone.
Other times, he would ask her to put the phone to his dog, Schatzi's, ear so he could coo to the dachshund from across the continents.
For two months now, Hutchings has been back in Carson City patrolling the streets.
He said he isn't sure if he's completely adjusted to being home yet.
"I've been doing this job for a long time, and after a while, you can become complacent. Coming back from Iraq, I'm out there running and gunning."
If another deployment comes up, Hutchings said he's sure he could get out of it. He could have gotten out of the last.
But then, he said, speaking to prior and active-duty troops everywhere, "You know how it is, it's just something you got in you that says you gotta do this."
• Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213
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