It has been a year of extremes for twin brothers Paul and Peter Cross, and the Lawrence natives still are trying to adjust.

A year ago, Paul was a Marine corporal in Najaf, Iraq, helping keep tabs on a rebellious Shiite cleric and trying to teach ordinary Iraqis the ways of democracy.

Peter, also a Marine corporal, was at logistics camps in Kuwait, tracking American equipment while destroying confiscated Iraqi weapons.

Today, the 23-year-old Free State High School graduates are civilians again. They live in an Overland Park duplex and work ordinary jobs while waiting to start fall semester classes at Johnson County Community College.

“The rules are different in civilian life,” said Paul, a construction worker. “Sometimes I’ll want to switch into corporal mode, and then you realize they are just going to tell you to screw off and go away and there’s really nothing you can do about it.”

Peter, a machine operator at a Kansas City-area furniture store, agreed.

“Working in the civilian world is the hardest thing I’ve had to adjust to,” he said.

The ‘big game’

When the Crosses are asked to describe the past 14 months, they start with the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Though both were in the 1st Marine Division, Paul was with the 7th Regiment, 1st Battalion, and Peter was with a division headquarters unit.

Lawrence natives and twins Paul and Peter Cross are back from military service in Iraq.

The brothers recalled watching artillery shells light up the pitch-black sky and pound a hill across the border in Iraq the night before their units invaded.

“I felt like I was in a dance club with a strobe light going off,” Peter said. “That’s when I realized this really was happening.”

Peter, however, didn’t make it into combat. Within 30 minutes of taking an anti-malaria pill, he became seriously ill from an allergic reaction and was taken by helicopter to a medical facility. A rash covered his body, and he vomited for four hours. His heart rate climbed to 180 beats per minute. Doctors took two hours to get it back to near normal.

He recovered by the next morning but spent the rest of the war working at logistical operations centers in Kuwait.

“I really felt like I had let my unit down by getting sick,” Peter said. “The only way I can describe it is like getting ready for a big game. You’ve practiced all week, but just before kickoff you sprain your ankle. You’re there but you’re not taking part.”

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Paul, meanwhile, went into Iraq expecting to be busy. Assigned to a nuclear, biological and chemical weapons reaction unit, he was waiting for a gas attack by the Iraqis or for the discovery of weapons of mass destruction. However, there were no chemical attacks or WMDs.

And the Marines met little resistance from Iraqi soldiers during the opening days of the war.

“We were looking around and saying, ‘Are they going to show up soon?'” Paul said.

‘Pain in the butt’

Paul’s unit traveled all the way to Baghdad and then went to Najaf, where one year later the Army’s 1st Armored Division is faced with a Shiite rebellion led by Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

“When I was there Najaf was pretty peaceful,” Paul said.

But Marines even then were keeping a close eye on al-Sadr, who is suspected of ordering the killing of another cleric in April 2003.

“We never had any evidence to put the finger on al-Sadr, but the finger kind of drifted in his direction,” he said.

At one point al-Sadr allegedly called an Iraqi television station and told them Marines were at his doorstep coming to get him. He then let the phone go dead. Iraqis aired the report without checking to see if it was true. It was not.

The report sent Iraqis in Najaf into the streets in protest and upset top military commanders, who called the Marines wanting to know what was going on.

Peter Cross, far right, shares war stories from Kuwait with from left, his mother, Lovetta, his twin brother, Paul, and his father, Jerry. The Cross twins are both home from Kuwait and Iraq, where they served in the Marines, and are readjusting to civilian life.

“He was a pain in the butt,” Paul said of al-Sadr.

Since then U.S. officials have shut down a newspaper al-Sadr ran and announced that an Iraqi judge signed an arrest warrant for al-Sadr, now wanted in the cleric’s murder.

Paul hesitated when asked if the Marines should have gone in a year ago and cleared out Fallujah or taken al-Sadr into custody in Najaf.

“When you are dealing with a religion, it is a very difficult decision,” he said. “I’m glad I didn’t have to be the one to make that call.”

Returning home

Paul left Najaf in September and was at his base in San Diego in October. His four-year term in the Marines was nearly up, and he had already decided not to re-enlist. He returned to Lawrence by November.

Peter left the Persian Gulf in June, and he too decided not to re-enlist. Both want a college education. Paul wants to be a civil engineer, and Peter wants to work in the criminal justice system. Both have signed up for the Kansas Air National Guard and spend some time each month at Forbes Field in Topeka.

The brothers keep track of the latest news in Najaf and Fallujah, where Marines are fighting rebellious Sunnis. Many from Peter’s former unit are back in Iraq, and Paul’s former unit is expected to be redeployed to Iraq in October, they said.

The brothers often find themselves checking the Department of Defense Web site for the names of those killed in action. So far they haven’t recognized any of them. They did not know Lance Cpl. Christopher Wasser, the Ottawa Marine killed a few weeks ago.

“Sometimes I feel like I ought to be there with them, but at the same time I’m glad I’m not,” Paul said.

Frustrating memory

One war memory still haunts Paul. He recalled the night Marine Pvt. Ryan Cox, of Derby, was wounded by “noncombat fire” or possibly friendly fire, according to reports. Paul woke a medic who was in bed and took him to meet Cox as he was brought to the base. Paul also helped load Cox into a med-evac helicopter. Cox died after getting to that medical facility.

“There were about 100 guys working at breakneck speed trying to get this guy evacuated,” Paul said. “After all that work and all that hustle, it didn’t work out, and it was just really frustrating.”

When he returned to Kansas, Paul said he felt that as a fellow Marine and fellow Kansan he had an obligation to visit Cox’s family. He and another Marine visited the parents in the Wichita area. The visit went well, and Cox’s parents appreciated it, Paul said.

“I felt like I had to go see the mom and tell her that her son had been taken care of to the best of our abilities,” Paul said.