“It was challenging,” said 1st Lt Charles Waters of the moment infuriated enemy bombers exploded a truck full of his soldiers during his first mission as a platoon leader.Hearing the Bermudian combat engineer’s account of the incident in detail, “challenging” sounds like an understatement.Aged just 24 and barely out of military school, 1st Lt Waters was taking his 60-strong platoon deep into an Iraqi desert to remove a bridge the United States army built five years previously but no longer needed.Iraqi insurgents, angered to lose a bridge providing a vital trading link between two Kirkuk towns separated by a river, tried to block the mission by attacking the lead truck with an improvised explosive device.“There was a huge explosion which rocked everything,” 1st Lt Waters, a former Saltus Grammar School student, told The Royal Gazette.“It sent dirt a quarter of a mile into the sky and the truck disappeared from view.“We had to quickly find our people and look for the enemy, the trigger man. Then I saw the truck barrelling forward with all kinds of stuff coming out of it. Luckily, the only injuries our soldiers got were cuts and bruises and concussions.“It was challenging, but I had run through all the scenarios and had a plan for every situation.“Every day I had drilled my guys, drill them, drill them, drill them. They would hate me for it, but it became muscle reaction so when we needed to act, it paid off.”The trigger man was never discovered and, after dusting themselves down, 1st Lt Waters’ team, the 74th Multi-Role Bridge Company, completed the rest of their bridge removal in a routine fashion.It was a fiery baptism but it gave 1st Lt Waters an early opportunity to show the leadership skills which have earned him a Bronze Star Medal for his service in Baghdad from May to December 2011.During a brief stay with his family in Bermuda, 1st Lt Waters recalled some of his experiences in Iraq and looked forward to his next nine-month mission, in Afghanistan, beginning in a few days’ time.The son of long-serving soldier, Colonel Chip Waters, he aspired to a life in the military from a young age; he was earmarked for a big career after being named number one cadet in his Army Royal Officers Training Corps battalion three years ago.But even with the most intensive of training courses to fall back on, few men in their early 20s would not be fazed at the prospect of leading scores of experienced soldiers into missions on enemy territory.“I was 24 and fresh out of school,” he recalled. “They told me I had got to take this team down to Iraq to do combat operations.“I came to the unit, took over and did some training for four months and worked really hard to gain a rapport of the soldiers, and made sure all our battle drills were good and all our techniques and tactics were accurate.”As the only Multi-Role Bridge Company in Iraq, his team’s job was to carry out any military work needed on any bridges in the northern half of the war-torn nation.Duties included moving military bridges and inspecting civilian bridges to make sure they could withstand military traffic, while sometimes partnering with Iraqi soldiers to ensure bridges were safe.“It was pretty wild at first,” he said.“The cool thing was that a lot of other infantry platoons don’t have the kind of responsibility that we did. My peers, their responsibility was a couple of little towns. We were expected to travel anywhere in Iraq in a heartbeat to do a bridge mission that could last two or three weeks.”Training sessions would regularly begin at 4.30am, while breaks were extremely rare and 24-hour shifts were not unusual.And then there’s being shot at.“In Iraq, when you got attacked, it was very unexpected,” said 1st Lt Waters.“The insurgents are smart. They know how to attack you. You don’t have many warning signs before it happens. Every time you go out there’s going to be a threat. You have just got to be ready to react to it.“But in terms of being prepared, that first attack in Kirkuk set the tone for the whole deployment. We did an excellent job managing to bring everybody back alive.”The narrative for his Bronze Star Medal states of the Kirkuk incident: “He executed his duties flawlessly by manoeuvring aviation assets for support, and pushing his element out of the kill zone while simultaneously gaining the status of all personnel and equipment.”He was awarded the medal for “exceptionally meritorious service to the United States” as 1st Platoon Leader in the planning, resourcing, execution and supervision of more than 20 combat missions covering a nearly 40,000 square kilometre area of operations. Now 25, he has been handpicked as an executive officer in Afghanistan, where he will be responsible for planning operations.While the separation from home and the lack of weekend breaks are tough, he said: “The thing about deployment, it’s incredible to be part of a team that has a very strong mission and everybody’s geared to that mission all the time. You have got all that energy and exhilaration.”A holder of dual Bermudian and American citizenship, he has inherited his father’s patriotism.“I have always loved the US. A lot of my family history goes back to the US and Bermuda,” he said.“I’m a strong believer in taking a stand for a group that you believe in. In today’s age, a lot of people are not as ready to stand up for their opinions and views.“A lot of people like to sit in the stands and not get involved. But the fact of the matter is you are involved just by being here.“It’s really an honour to be able to lead a group like that.”