Sgt. Stephen Cook, one of San Bernardino's citizen soldiers

Cook and Vasquez have a house in San Bernardino's Northpark area. Their son, Devin Isaiah, will reach his first birthday on Oct. 28.

As of Friday, Vasquez said Cook had already reached Kuwait en route to his second tour in Iraq.
Reached by telephone in early October, Cook wasn't shy about saying he wanted to serve stateside, perhaps training a new batch of recruits as a drill sergeant.

But that's not way things happened. Asked if he would get into trouble for voicing his frustrations, Cook said his thoughts would be understood within the service.
"No, no. Every soldier feels the way I feel," he said.

Cook joined the U.S. Army Reserves in 1997. His fiancee is also a sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserves and so is his 27-year-old brother Eric, who he said is also headed to Iraq.

When not called to military service, Cook wears a different uniform to work. He's a teacher for the California Cadet Corps program at Del Vallejo Middle School in San Bernardino.

The Cook brothers are products of a military family. His parents served in the U.S. Air Force and one of their grandparents was a member of the U.S. Navy.

Stephen Cook is a member of the 315th Psychological Operations Company, which has its home in Upland. He said his initial duties in the Reserves had him working on the motor pool, so early on he sought a change of assignments that would increase his odds of going abroad.

He ended up in psychological operations, AKA psyop. Psyop activities include efforts to improve relations with civilians or discourage enemy forces from fighting. The Army calls psyop the reliance upon "logic, fear, desire or other psychological factors to promote specific behaviors."

"We do that through different types of media sources, such as face-to-face, handbills and loudspeakers," Cook said.

Cook has experienced danger while overseas. He said he's been in combat multiple times.

"It's different for every body. For me it feels like a movie, the training kicks in," he said. "But I haven't had one of my buddies next to me die. I think if that would happen, it would catch up to me."

Cook was deployed to Iraq in 2003 and 2004. It was there that he learned what a 147-degree day feels like.

"It was so hot that in order to get on top of the Humvee, I had to put on my black gloves," he said.

Cook said Iraqis were happier to see American forces in the early days of the mission.

"In the beginning people loved us. We were like movie stars," he said, adding that Iraqi civilians became less enthusiastic about the U.S. military presence with the passage of time.

"They were like, 'Get out of here. You've done your thing,'" Cook said.

Afghanistan was next. Cook served there in 2006 and 2007 and was based out of Bagram,which is north of the capital city of Kabul.

This was when Cook experienced the dream mission that he's not at liberty to talk about.
"Nothing could ever top the mission I had in Afghanistan," he said.

Classified activity in Afghanistan wasn't the only major event in Cook's life to happen in 2006. That was also the year he met Vasquez.

Appropriately enough for a couple of soldiers, Vasquez said the two met while at a firing range in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains near Azusa. The big moment was when he told her she had dropped her hat.

One dropped hat and more than two years later, Cook and Vasquez are engaged with a son.
Vasquez said she loves military life, but having to care for Devin while her fiancee heads to Iraq is harder than she imagined.

It's horrible," Vasquez added said. "Feeling really lonely. I'm worried. I have total faith in his tactical abilities."

As for politics, a photo on the Web site of McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey shows Cook taking time to vote on Oct. 15.

When it comes to others' views, Cook said people are free to decide for themselves what they think about the Iraq War. But he doesn't want Americans to turn their backs on the men and women who served there.

"Let the American public know that they don't have to support the war, but they definitely have to support the troops," he said.