ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) — Before Albert Campbell built a career selling cars in Albany, he served in the Army during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Today, he says the lessons he learned in the military helped him succeed. But the hardships of war have stayed with him, too. He hopes his story will help people understand the sacrifices he says are sometimes overlooked on Veterans Day.

“People say ‘thank you for your service’ and then move on,” Campbell said in an interview, “but veterans, especially war veterans? Man, we served over there. You sleep with it, go to the bathroom with it. You can’t ever leave it behind, and it follows you forever.”

Campbell says he joined the U.S. Army on May 26, 2000, because he wanted to follow his family’s history of service. His grandfather and father both served in the Army, while his uncle spent his entire career in the military.

“It was a big family thing,” Campbell said, “and so I was just proud to be able to say I was doing it too.”

After basic training, Campbell spent a year and a half stationed at Fort Eustis in Virginia. He then served a year in Korea, where he was promoted to sergeant.

The same month he returned from Korea, Campbell learned he would soon leave home again. This time, he was being sent to Iraq. He was going to war.

Campbell describes serving in the first wave of the invasion as brutal. He says his unit slept in 30-pound protective suits with gas masks because they feared chemical weapons could be used against them during the night.

Living conditions were poor, too. He says the soldiers showered using a bag of water with holes poked in it. They also had to dig holes to relieve themselves.

Campbell says the 100-degree heat during the day, freezing temperatures at night and blinding sandstorms made things even harder as the soldiers slept in tents in a war zone.

The constant violence took a toll, too. Campbell says he thought so often about death that he became convinced he would never make it home.

One incident changed how he thought about the possibility of dying. Campbell says he once took a sick soldier’s driving shift. The following week, that soldier took Campbell’s shift.

While Campbell was working at his station that week, he learned the military truck he normally would have been driving had been destroyed in a bombing. He says everyone inside was killed.

“A friendly Iraqi we had met turned on us. He blew up every single person that was in that Humvee I was supposed to have been driving,” Campbell said. “That made me scared in a way I hadn’t been in weeks. Suddenly, I wasn’t at peace with dying anymore. I knew I had to get home after that.”

Campbell says the struggles didn’t end when he and other veterans came home. Many had trouble adjusting to everyday life.

“It was very difficult because you go from where there are so many bombs dropping that the ground is always shaking beneath you to a place that is so quiet you can’t sleep at night,” Campbell said.

He says he also saw other veterans struggle with severe mental trauma after coming back home.

“I lost a lot of friends over there in Iraq, but I have seen even more people lose their minds and then their lives after they came back,” Campbell said. “It gets swept under the rug just how many people get messed up mentally, and we just throw them back into the civilian world with no help.”

Despite what he went through in Iraq and the challenges he still faces, Campbell says he is an advocate for the military and that he encourages others to serve.

He also credits skills he learned in the Army with helping him find success in car sales after he returned to Albany in 2004.

He started with contract work earning $20,000 a year. He later took a car sales job earning $90,000 a year, then opened his own business, Premier Auto Choice LLC, in Albany.

“My people skills from the military were helping me to sell cars like candy bars,” Campbell said.

He wants people to understand that military service involves sacrifices for both service members and their families.

“Some people think that the military is just another job,” Campbell said, “and so everything we do and go through gets belittled because of that misconception. It’s not just a job. It’s a service to our country, and it’s a sacrifice for both us and our families.”

When asked what he wished he had known before joining the military, Campbell said he wouldn’t change anything.

“No. I wouldn’t change anything that happened to me either, because I know I did my part to keep our country’s freedoms safe.”

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