Bryan M. Keller woke up on March 20, his 27th birthday, not expecting the present waiting for him.

The Farrell native was in Kuwait and wasn't anticipating streamers and cake, but also didn't foresee the start of a war.

Not long after getting up, Keller, a sergeant with the 3rd Infantry Division, learned cruise missiles had been fired, and shortly afterward he was on the march into Iraq.

Keller, who has been home for a weeklong leave, said very little information was passed down through the ranks during the war.

"We didn't know when we were moving, and we didn't know where we were going," said the 1994 Farrell High grad, speaking at a party in his honor Sunday at the Wheatland borough building social hall.

Wherever they were going, they moved quickly. The speed presented a logistical problem, he said. Supply vehicles could not keep up and were open to attack by Iraqis who chose not to engage the armored fighters.

He was usually in a group of nine soldiers, and they had to conserve water and food. They had about four bottles of water a day, and only enough food to eat every other day.

"That was the hard part, going from eating three times a day to hardly eating at all," he said. "We survived on a minimal amount of water and food because all our supply lines had been attacked."

By late March, the desert was heating up and the wind blew the hot sand around.

"The sandstorms were unbearable," he said. "It was hard to breathe."

Combat could be intense, but usually only for short periods of time, Keller said. Still, the Iraqi fighters put up more of a struggle than he had been told to expect, he said.

"We thought they would surrender more than what they did," he said. "They gave a shock to the whole world."

Once the Iraqi army had been routed, civilian fighters became a threat. Without uniforms, they were practically undetectable before they opened fire.

"It was hard to tell who was the enemy," he said. "They would smile at you and, when you turned your back, they'd shoot at you."

Keller said he's proud that he and the five men under him in his mechanized infantry unit came home "without a scratch."

Keller heads back to Fort Benning, Ga., Tuesday, but is not anticipating being sent to any of the world's hot spots. President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have said they hope to keep the 3rd Infantry Division home for a year or two for rest, Keller said. Before arriving in Kuwait, it had been stationed in Kosovo.

"We've been gone for 13 months," he said.

The most difficult part of serving was not combat, the sandstorms or the heat, he said. It was being away from home.

"The war part wasn't hard," he said. "That was just a reaction. We did what we were trained to do."

Letters from home -- many from people in the Shenango Valley he had never met -- buoyed his spirits.

"It lifted a weight off my shoulders, my heart," he said, to know that people cared about him.

Although proud of his accomplishments in the war, it also has changed his outlook on life.

"It really opened up my eyes to a lot of issues and a lot of problems in the world," he said. "We, in the United States, don't realize the freedoms that we have. I've learned to never take anything for granted and to live life to its fullest."

Keller's mother, Berenice, of Wheatland, also has seen a change in her son.

"With the action that he saw and things he was in, he's shown a sensitivity to the people there," she said. "He saw both sides of the situation."

Ms. Keller said she's thankful she was able to have a party for her son, and noted people were coming from as far away as Mississippi to see him.

"It's just wonderful to have this much family and friends who have prayed for him while he was overseas," she said.

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