"Jason Westlund" News

After a year of e-mails, letters, photos and care packages, Candace Zepp and Jason Westlund met for the first time in Frankfurt. Four years later,the two are now stationed together in Iraq, one of two married couples in Oregon's Charlie Company.

'We’re glad to help Oregon boys' | Oregon medics helped transport a wounded Oregon soldier in Iraq on Friday when an IED ripped through his armored vehicle in Baghdad. Two soldiers from Oregon died from injuries sustained in the blast.

"It was a combat, stress-related, non-battle injury," says Sgt. Jason Westlund, 27, from Corvallis, Ore. "The patient movement request said he was suffering from psychotic schizophrenia." According to his paperwork the patient was hearing voices in his head.

Flight medics Sgt. Jason Westlund, 27, from Corvallis, Ore., and Spc. Scott Thurman, 27, from Keizer, Ore., sit inside a trailer swapping stories when a voice crackles over the little black radio on the table. Nine minutes later, they are in the air.

After dust storms grounded Blackhawks from Oregon now in Iraq, the company got the all clear to fly -- and make up for lost time. PIlot Bryan Caudle, 34, from Eugene, Ore., leans back in his chair for a moment. “It’s going to be a long night,” he says.

For Oregon citizen soldiers serving a 400-day deployment in Iraq, the Internet is the only link to spouses, children, extended family and friends. At Joint Base Balad, the Internet is like a precious stone that is hard to get -- and easy to want.

Oregon soldiers training to make medical evacuations in Iraq over the next year woke up early this spring to take a bus to the airfield to spend the morning washing dirty Blackhawk helicopters.