Contract Workers Seek the American Dream in Iraq
Small-town firefighters and police, weary of struggling to make ends meet, accept the risks.
By Faye Fiore
Times Staff Writer

July 11, 2004

CONWAY, S.C. — At 8 o'clock on a recent morning, firefighter Darrin Grant finished his last shift at Station 18, collected his county paycheck and walked out to make more money than most people in the remote Carolina "Low Country" would ever dream possible.

In a few days, he will take up his new post as a firefighter on a U.S. military base somewhere in Iraq. His current $1,600 monthly take-home pay will balloon to $9,000. In one year, he and his wife can break free of the financial pressures that have been dogging them — an endless struggle to pay too many bills with too little money.

But to do that, and maybe save enough to buy their first house, Grant had to make a choice he never thought he'd face — risking his life in a dangerous but lucrative war zone instead of slowly losing his shirt in a backwater economy. He lies awake at night wondering how, at 39, his options came to this.

"My family will make out much better while I am doing this. In one way, this is a dream come true" said Grant, a three-year Horry County Fire/Rescue veteran with three children under the age of eight. "But it is also going to be very hard for the next 365 days."