July 30, 2007 - Sgt. Paul Abernathy says he knew there was something wrong from the start.

As a combat engineer in the Army, he was attached to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, the ground troops who were at the front in the invasion of Iraq.

"We would get these briefings saying that because we were going through Shia towns and villages we would experience very little resistance," the 28-year-old South Fayette native said. "Our experience was completely the opposite. It ended up being a bloody and tough fight on the road to Baghdad, and when we experienced that, we began to wonder what else the government was wrong about."

It's a question that Mr. Abernathy has kept asking since he was discharged in 2004 after a year in Iraq. As a local organizer with the activist group Iraq Veterans Against the War, he has been mobilizing people who have seen the horrors of combat firsthand.

He was no typical soldier in Iraq. Half African-American and half Syrian, Mr. Abernathy had studied in Syria in 2000 and spoke enough Arabic to get by in conversations with Iraqis.

Nor was he a soldier who had signed up to go get Saddam. Mr. Abernathy had joined the Army Reserves in 1996, while still attending South Fayette High School.

"I had this romantic fascination with American history," he said. "I wanted to be part of the same army that fought at Gettysburg and was at Valley Forge." He had been an active member of a Civil War re-enactment group while in high school.

That would change to active duty in a real war when he was sent to Iraq in 2003.

Mr. Abernathy didn't expect to wind up there. He volunteered for active combat duty on Sept. 12, 2001, excited to go to Afghanistan.

"I was sure that's where the war would be," he said.

But just the next month, the Army had him preparing for nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. "We knew of course that the Taliban didn't have those capabilities, and it was an indication to us that they were planning to send us to Iraq," he said.

As a combat engineer, Mr. Abernathy was with a company that built temporary bridges ahead of lead Army and Marine forces.

"Our specialty was that we could do this while the enemy was shooting at us," Mr. Abernathy said. "When you're doing what you do, you can't fight. You have to trust the other guys are covering you sufficiently."

Nick Tobin served under Mr. Abernathy in Iraq and remembered him as a capable leader.

"As a squad leader, he was excellent," Mr. Tobin, 27, said. "He was a really good guy; he kept us all close, and he stood up for us all the time."

It was a tough and dangerous job, and according to Mr. Abernathy, many of his fellow soldiers soon began to question the value of the invasion.

"I think it was July of 2003 when we had finally gotten word of Bush's famous 'Bring It On' speech," Mr. Abernathy said. "I can't think of a period during our deployment in which we were more offended, in which we were more angry, in which we were more disgusted with this administration. They're willing to put our lives out there, never having served themselves."

One place soldiers vented their frustration was on the walls of the bathrooms. In a Kuwait bathroom right before the war, Mr. Abernathy said someone had written, "Don't blame me, I voted for Nader."

Mr. Abernathy came home in March 2004. His active duty commitment ended that month, and he was honorably discharged in July 2004 when his reserve commitment ended. He had been accepted into University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, which he planned to start in the fall. In the meantime, he worked at Wheeling Jesuit University, his alma mater, in the community development office.

"But to work a normal job after being in a place where a bomb can go off at any time ...," Mr. Abernathy trails off. "There is a part of you that feels like you shouldn't be in a place that's just so calm, that's just so tranquil."

Mr. Abernathy's first protest was the National Anti-War March in Washington, D.C., that happened in September 2005.

"I made the decision to wear my army top," he said, "and I was happy to find a lot of other guys dressed the same way." Since then, he's been working for the Iraq Veterans Against the War organization full time, living off his savings and his family's support.

"I'm not alone," he said. "There are so many veterans that have given up work to do this type of thing. In many cases they're using the money that they saved while they were in Iraq."

Representatives from the group speak at protests across the country. Another tactic has been to use street theater to re-create combat situations back home in the United States.

Called "Operation First Casualty," the protests involve groups of veterans dressed in their uniforms "detaining" groups of actors as though they were insurgents on the streets of Baghdad. The veterans pretend to scan windows for snipers, treat every alley with suspicion, and throw hoods over screaming captive "Iraqis." The veterans group has done it in Manhattan, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and elsewhere. Thousands have watched it on YouTube.

"There's definitely more of an impact" when veterans protest, said Mr. Tobin. "It means a lot that there are people out there who want to serve their country -- that they have the belief that the war is wrong, but that they fought for the country anyway."

Mr. Abernathy is also working to establish a Pittsburgh chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War which has a total membership around 510.

"I think one of the things that makes Pittsburgh very unique is that people here are committed to forming actual systems of support for veterans," he said. Pittsburghers have stepped in to help former soldiers navigate the bureaucracy of the VA health system, and have also provided more basic needs such as food and money, Mr. Abernathy said.

"It appears that this will be a support system that'll be in place from here on out," he said. "Veterans are starting to come forward, and it's becoming a powerful voice in the city and the region."

Six local veterans have embarked on a Pittsburgh speaking tour, and more than 75 veterans nationwide have become active with Iraq Veterans Against the War.

The local movement that Mr. Abernathy has helped to establish will soon have to survive without him, however. In the fall, he's entering St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary, near Scranton, to become a priest in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Religion was one thing that became more important to him after his time in Iraq. Another one of his old passions, Civil War re-enactment, has largely dropped away.

"I've found it very difficult to relate to [the re-enactors]," he said. "After being in a situation in which there was sectarian strife, I understand this concept of civil war a little bit more, and that it's not just people from the north and people from the south sending armies, but it was actual disagreements and tensions that people had with their neighbors, and displacements, and war on the civilian population. It has made American history much more alive to me, and has changed my perspective of it in a more human way."