With one eye on the news as officials announced they found warheads in Iraq last week, Reno Hartzell of Sharon pulled out his photo album and relived the time he spent on foreign soil 12 years ago.

The 32-year-old Gulf War veteran went to war in 1991 as part of the 5th battalion, 18th infantry in the 3rd Armored Division and spent nearly four days in combat during the ground war.

As he flipped through the album, Hartzell took his seven-month journey all over again.

First, there were pictures of the condominiums the soldiers stayed in when he first arrived in Saudi Arabia on Jan. 3, 1991 -- two years to the day after he joined the Army. The condos contrasted with the small tent Hartzell would sleep in in the middle of the desert.

When he first got to Saudi Arabia, Hartzell said he could see Scud missiles flying in the distance.

"They would sound alarms, kind of like the fire alarms they sound downtown," he said.

There were pictures of armored vehicles driving through mine fields with smoke on the horizon. "As long as you stayed on the path, you were good," Hartzell recalled.

In another picture, Hartzell stands next to the Bradley Fighting vehicle that his unit named "Coming Home." Hartzell was a gunner.

"I wasn't really worried about getting shot or the vehicle getting blown up," he said. "It was the chemical stuff that scared me."

Hartzell hasn't really had to worry about that, though he may. After the war, Hartzell's unit blew up a munitions area where chemicals might have been. He said he received a letter from a Veteran's Administration hospital letting him know that he may have been exposed. Hartzell has been tested, but is fine.

As he flipped through the photo album, the war passed quickly in brief glimpses of burning vehicles, oil fires and the smoke that Hartzell said blocked out the sun.

"The scariest part was waiting for the Republican Guard to come over a hill," Hartzell said. But as they were waiting, air support took care of them, and the Iraqi soldiers never got to his position.

Another flip of the page brought pictures of Iraqi prisoners, who Hartzell's unit would capture and hold until another division came and took them away. He pointed out that many of the captured soldiers weren't even wearing shoes.

After the war, while manning a checkpoint where they checked papers of passersby to see if they were soldiers, Hartzell said they captured one man who spoke English.

"He didn't even want to fight," he said. "They came in his house and took him."

When he stepped back to the present day, the reality of another war in Iraq screamed at Hartzell from the television as Bush announced that he would give Iraq no more second chances.

Hartzell said if troops are going for good reasons, like weapons violations, then we should go back to the Persian Gulf, but if it is all about oil, then we should stay out.

He will not be going to the Gulf again. After Hartzell finished his time in the Army, he joined the National Guard, but he is no longer in the military. Hartzell was awarded the combat infantryman's badge for his role in Operation Desert Storm. He is working at Sam's Club in Niles, Ohio.

For those going, Hartzell has some flippant advice.

"Take lots of baby wipes," he said laughing. "We didn't get showers very often."

He also urged those who are deployed to get people to send them food, because the ready-to-eat food wasn't very good and the occasional hot meal was full of sand.

You can email Herald Page Designer Heidi Krieger at hkrieger@sharonherald.com