E-Mail This Article to a Friend THE WAR IN IRAQ Soldiers’ stories BY DEIRDRE FULTON

When US troops first arrived in Iraq, the civilians greeted them with smiles and waves, recalls 26-year-old Sergeant Kelly Dougherty. But as time dragged on, things changed.

"After we continued to stay there, they would more just turn their heads," she says. Dougherty, a Colorado resident, was in Iraq for 10 months; the longer she stayed, the more disillusioned she became.

"The whole time I was there, I didn’t see improvements in the areas I would patrol," says Dougherty, who has since co-founded Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). "It seemed, in a way, that we were just creating problems, and if we fixed a problem, it would seem like victory. We were fighting the problems we created."

In their photos, Dougherty and fellow IVAW co-founder Lance Corporal Michael Hoffman, 25, look like young, tough, and earnest soldiers. Perhaps that will encourage people to listen a little more closely to their message next week, when the pair visits more than a dozen town meetings, along with high-school and college campuses, here in Massachusetts for the Iraq War Veterans Tour. IVAW is co-sponsoring the event with Military Families Speak Out and a coalition of local campus, community, youth, and labor groups.

Both veterans admit they weren’t sold on the war when they left. Essentially, however, they are two young people who have been there, seen the ruin and wreckage, and come back to tell their stories.

Hoffman, of Pennsylvania, was in a Marine Corps artillery battery during the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. After the frontline battles were over, his battery would roll in following the infantry, allowing Hoffman to see the devastation from a horrifying vantage point. He remembers "seeing cities and towns decimated" and civilians who "just looked completely and utterly lost, shell-shocked about what had happened to them.

"We were all left wondering, what were the reasons for this? And the reasons we were given were definitely not good enough.

"It’s something I wouldn’t even wish on my worst enemies," he adds. "You’re forced to make decisions that no one should have to make and you’re forced to do things no one should ever have to do. Unfortunately, the decisions we made over there are decisions we’ll have to live with for the rest of our lives."

The Iraq War Veterans Tour will stop at Faneuil Hall on Sunday, January 30; at Salem State College, Endicott College, and a Lynn community meeting at St. Stephen’s Church on Monday, January 31; at 48 Rutland Street in the South End, MIT, the Harriet Tubman House, and Bridgewater State College on Tuesday, February 1; at UMass Lowell, UMass Boston, Tufts University, and Northeastern University on Wednesday, February 2; at Boston University and Saint Rose Church School on Thursday, February 3; at Roxbury Community College, Harvard University, and St. John’s Methodist Church on Friday, February 4; and at the Community Church of Boston on Sunday, February 6. Check out www.bringthetroopshomenow.com or www.mfso.orgfor more information, specific times, and locations.