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| Photos courtesy Sean Cannon |
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| Maj. Sean Cannon takes a Blackhawk flight to Baghdad earlier this year. |
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Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series about Sean Cannon, who is serving in Iraq. The second part will run next week and focus on his family and the role of the Church in his life.
Sandstorms, malarial mosquitoes and 130-degree temperatures are part of everyday life for Maj. Sean Cannon.
A geography professor at BYU-Idaho, Sean Cannon left Rexburg last year, reported to Kuwait Dec. 23, 2004, and has been in Iraq since Jan. 21.
Cannon began his military career in 1986 with just one semester left at BYU.
After basic training and Officer Candidate School, Cannon was on active duty for the next 12 years as a transportation officer. During that time, he served with the 5th Special Forces Group in the Gulf War, attended graduate school at the University of Utah and taught geography at The United States Military Academy at West Point.
Cannon left active duty in 2000 and moved to Rexburg to teach geography at what was then Ricks College.
“He was our most experienced geographer here at this university, and we relied on him a lot,” said Michael Madsen, professor of geography at BYU-I. “He’s very professional, good with students and really knows his stuff.”
Madsen said that the call up came as a surprise to many of the staff. However, “when we found out that he had been called up, we never heard him complain or say anything negative,” he said.
Cannon’s wife, Lorena, said she wasn’t as surprised. “That’s just the way it is when you’re in the army. When you’re in a war you just have to expect it,” she said. “So, surprised? No. Scared? Yes. I was pregnant at the time — that was inconvenient.”
Cannon serves as a company commander, responsible for everything that goes on in his company, including the morale, safety, disciple and welfare of all his soldiers.
“My biggest leadership challenge has been building a functioning team out of a group of soldiers who came from all across the country to serve together in combat,” he said.
When supplies such as food, fuel, ammunition and repair parts are flown into the airport at his base, they are processed and sorted in the cargo yard for movement to smaller bases throughout Iraq. Cannon and his crew then haul them to these smaller bases.
The job is dangerous at times. The roads the convoy travels are often under attack. One route “experiences daily and nightly shooting, rocket attacks, land mines, roadside bombs and vehicle-borne suicide bombers,” Cannon said.
Despite the peril Cannon and the troops face, Cannon said the morale in Iraq is good.
“We have the equipment we need to protect ourselves and … the United States has spared no expense to make our separation from home and our duties as pleasurable as possible,” Cannon said.
What does Cannon think about the United States’ role in Iraq? He agrees with many that the U.S. has suffered from poor logistics and planning.
However, “no reasonable person can ignore the turn to democracy that the Arab world is making and the freedom from a cruel dictator that the Iraqis now enjoy,” Cannon said.
Although Cannon has not had very much interaction with local Iraqis, the ones he has met “are extremely hopeful for a better tomorrow and willing to risk all to preserve their newfound freedom … for the first time in decades, they have some measure of control over their destiny,” Cannon said.
