TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

SALMAN PAK, Iraq -- Under a steamy tent at an Iraqi Army headquarters, surrounded by Iraqi security men waiting in 120-degree heat for their monthly $300 paycheck, Sgt. Aaron Navarro takes his helmet off for a few minutes, wipes off the sweat.

Navarro, a 33-year-old from Bakersfield, is checking in on two of his junior soldiers who are helping provide basic security. During his first deployment to Iraq, in 2006-07, Navarro would never have removed his helmet on any mission "outside the wire" of his unit's headquarters.

Back then, assigned to the northern Iraq city of Bayji, it was far too violent for any sort of relaxation.

"That was an intense summer," Navarro said. "We didn't realize it then, because we were going through it, but that summer (of 2007) was about the worst point of the war."

The "tempo" of 2009 is much slower, he said, and while Iraq is never a safe place, it's been much quieter this deployment. His company's primary goal is to move into the background and let local Iraqi forces take control. It's slow going. The Iraqi Army has a long way to go.

Stationed north of Salman Pak, a rural city on the Tigris River with a regional population of 100,000, the U.S. soldiers live in the same dusty and rugged conditions they dealt with in 2007. But in 2007 there were mortars, snipers and car bombs as Navarro patrolled the always-dangerous Bayji.

In the biggest attack on Charlie Company's Bayji headquarters, a suicide truck bomb destroyed an adjacent Iraqi police barracks and killed 27 Iraqi policemen, though miraculously no U.S. soldiers. It was the worst of many attacks. Snipers killed three US soldiers, and wounded others.

"I read about World War II, and guys who did missions even though they thought they were going to get killed, and I always wondered how they did it," he said. "But then in Bayji, we'd have to go down some alley, and we knew we'd probably get ambushed.

"Somebody would ask, 'Why?' and it was 'Because we have to.' And we'd say, 'OK,' and go down the alley," Navarro said. "One of the very last Bayji patrols, the Iraqi soldier behind me got shot, right through his armor plate. ... I was so glad it was him, not because I was happy, but because I didn't want it to be me."

That was then. In Salman Pak, about 25 miles south of Baghdad, Charlie Company conducts far fewer missions and operates under strict rules set out by the new Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government. Each mission must involve an equal number of Iraqi and U.S. soldiers -- and since the Iraqi Army can rarely field as many men as the Charlie Company, patrols and missions are often canceled.

Soldiers even have "off days," something unheard of in Bayji.

"It's a lot different not being shot at all the time," Navarro said. "The tempo is a lot more mellow. But something could happen at any moment."

As a squad leader, a big part of Navarro's job is to make sure his men don't get complacent in the face of this supposed peace and quiet. "When it goes bad," he tells them, "it will go bad quick."

And sudden tragedy does not, unfortunately, only happen on the battlefield.

Navarro had to travel home in April for emergency leave after the death of his father, Jesse, who went into liver failure and then cardiac arrest.

The Red Cross notification was terse and to the point -- "the prognosis is poor. Life expectancy is an issue."

Navarro made it home to California in just two days -- but found out in Kuwait it wouldn't be fast enough.

"I called my wife; she told me he didn't make it," he said. "I really wanted my father to hang on so I could say goodbye, but it didn't happen."

While that trip was technically "leave," it was no vacation, with little quality time to spend with his wife, Alexandria, and three children -- Aaron Junior, 4, Gina, 6, and Jay, 11 -- at home in Bakersfield. He's hoping - maybe - for a second leave in August.

Even while in the States, he said he called back to Iraq, to check in with a team leader on the progress of a few changes to the unit's mission.

And Iraq, he said, will never be that far away. On his wrist Navarro wears a metal wristband, carved with the name of Eric Palmer, a soldier shot and killed in June 2007.

"I wear it back home, in California, back at Fort Bragg. Over here," he said. "I never take it off."