Navina Prasad had to deal with death and destruction long before his Fort Benning unit was shipped to Iraq last year. The 28-year-old Army specialist, a member of the 63rd Engineer Co., a heavy equipment construction outfit, spent the early months of Operation Iraqi Freedom at the Talil Airport. One of the war's earliest battles took place at An Nasiriyah, just outside Talil, as soldiers from the 3rd Brigade stormed their way toward Baghdad. Prasad, though, wasn't actively involved in the fighting. "It was all construction work," he said. "Hot construction work." But clinging like dust to his desert BDUs...