Craig Daily Press

Photo by Hans Hallgren

Lindsey Browning, a Moffat County High School senior, gives a speech Saturday during the Hometown Heroes community picnic. Browning’s speech was on what the “Moving Wall meant to me.” The Moving Wall is a replica of the Vietnam Veterans National Monument in Washington, D.C. The Wall visited Craig last summer.

It was memories — of roadside explosions, of losing a friend in combat, of being blessed enough to come home safe and alive — that proved difficult for Ben Rinker while delivering a speech before hundreds of listeners Saturday afternoon.

“Actually, it was harder than I thought it would be,” said Rinker, a Craig resident and former U.S. Army specialist who served in Iraq. “I got a little choked up during the whole process. Memories.

“Like I said — I was one of the lucky ones.”

Rinker, 28, a 1998 Moffat County High School graduate, served in Iraq from November 2005 to August 2006 as a wheel vehicle mechanic and was a part of convoys running throughout the country. He was the keynote speaker at Saturday’s annual Hometown Heroes community picnic, an event designed to pay homage to past and present veterans.

Nonetheless, his nerves didn’t stop him from going through with a speech that Bill Harding, Moffat County Veterans Service Office, called “from the heart.”

“I think he did pretty well,” said Harding, who asked Rinker to speak at the event. “That can be very difficult (to do) for a guy coming back.”

More than 250 people attended Hometown Heroes.

When first asked to give the keynote speech, Rinker said he was hesitant.

However, he later warmed to the idea.

“I just figured Mr. Bill Harding wanted to hear my opinion on it,” Rinker said.

Rinker said he was never injured or attacked while overseas. Other units weren’t as fortunate. Convoys are constant targets of roadside bombs, he said.

He knew two men who died in Iraq, one of whom was his friend.

“It was always the convoy right behind us, or right in front of us. … We always wondered when our turn was coming up. … To be completely honest with you, I think I’m a lucky son of a (deleted).”

Rinker entered the military in February 1999 when he joined the Navy. He was an ejection seat mechanic and a petty officer third class. After a brief stint away from the military, he joined the Army in January 2005.

Rinker said he couldn’t gauge the opinion most Iraqis have for the U.S. in Iraq, but that the times he asked a citizen for an opinion, the response was positive. A 12-year-old boy and an older man, both of whom Rinker met at a market, told him changes in the country have been for the better.

The boy “said it was much better now that we have been to Iraq,” Rinker told the crowd.

The older man “said he loves America … for what we have done to help him and his country,” he added.

Rinker got out of the Army on May 9. He has numerous family in the area and is looking for work. He said he plans to stay in Craig for a while, but doesn’t discount perhaps rejoining the military someday.

“That depends on how things go back here,” he said, “and how long it takes me to get bored again.”