A local family got an early Mother's Day present when their son, Pvt. 1st Class Chris Pittman, returned home for a two-week vacation following a yearlong stint in Iraq.

He flew to Kuwait, took a "civilian bird" to Ireland and flew to Dallas to get home to Hammond Wednesday night, where he surprised his family -- his mom, Donna, father Charlie, and brother Cory - at the Adobe Restaurant in Seville Plaza.

When the other diners learned Pittman was serving in Iraq and home for a brief break, cheers, catcalls and the sound of applause deafened the local soldier and his happy family, he said.

"I think it's wonderful," Donna Pittman said earlier this morning. "It's the best Mother's Day present anyone could have. Not only is he here to celebrate with me, but my mother and all of my sisters, who are mothers as well, will be here. We were going to have separate celebrations, but now we'll have one big one. All of the family will be here, because he's here, and even my husband's parents will join us later in the day, and we'll spend it at my mother's home here in Hammond."

"I do my job and try to stay alive," Pittman said Thursday in an interview at his family's home on Florence Drive in Hammond.

Pittman, 19, told of war-torn Iraq and life for the people and soldiers stationed in Bayji, which is about three hours north of Baghdad.

Most of his duties in Iraq include riding in trucks and Humvees and trying not to get blown up, he said.

"I have a basic assault rifle. It's an M4. We go out on raids in the infantry doing tactical missions," he said, adding that his squad sleeps in a "con x," which is like a cargo box with windows cut out.

"The windows are pretty useless, anyway," he said. "They're filled with sandbags and the whole thing is covered with sandbags, not that they'll stop a mortar round."

He has felt the heat of enemy fire.

"We get mortared every once in a while," Pittman said. "They're not close enough to hit us unless they've got a really good sniper, but they don't -- we do. Our snipers are bad, man."

Pittman said while he's had many close calls, but he really doesn't prefer to talk about them.

"That's something you keep in," he said. "It scares the hell out of you the first time. After a while, it just becomes another occurrence.

"I've rolled by three or four roadside bombs that didn't detonate. Other patrols found them and set them off and we're like, well, cool, you know? We didn't get blown up."

Pittman said he has seen the brutal aftermath of such roadside bombs, too.

"I've done my fair share of clean up. I know there's lots more to come, but I've definitely seen a lot of gore," he said.

A 2005 Hammond High School graduate, Pittman said he was saddened to hear about the death of fellow soldier and schoolmate Benny Franklin, who was killed in Afghanistan last summer after he stepped on a mine.

"We were in color guard together," he said.

Pittman spent Thursday morning at Hammond High School talking with other JROTC members about his tour of duty and what the conditions are like in Iraq.

"It's like anything else," he said. "My main objective is to stay alive. I couldn't care less if we're helping or hurting these people at the time. I just want to do my job and come home alive. The officials there are so crooked, just like the Iraqi police. They're not tolerating us; we're tolerating them. They don't appreciate our help. They don't see it as help."

Even little kids, who can sometimes be fun, he said, are against the U.S. soldiers.

"They throw rocks at us, but sometimes they regret their accuracy. And they're pretty danged accurate," he said. "When we catch 'em, we tell their parents and they start beating the crap out of 'em, but we're like 'hey, it's only a rock, man, nobody got killed.'"

"You can't trust anybody over there. Besides the routine boredom ... I mean, there's nothing to see," he said. "We're not allowed in the mosques, but I've been close enough to see the Saddam Hotel; it's a s...hole. There's trash and sewage in the streets. You can't walk in the street and then walk in a house; it's just filth. It's so dirty."

Between the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi Police, he said, it is scarcely safe for Americans or anyone else in the wartorn region to walk about normally.

He talked about how the Iraqi police pulled a guy over for speeding near a checkpoint and after keeping him there for 45 minutes, he was allowed to leave.

What happened later reinforced his disgust for the Iraqi's, he said. A bomb was found. The soldiers realized the Iraqi police had been in collaboration with the driver, who was planting a bomb to kill soldiers.

"They're all working against us. The gas stations are open maybe once a week. There's routine hostility and fear in the air, but somehow, you get used to it. You just want people to stay out of your bubble. Don't get in my bubble, or the game's on. A .50 cal works wonders, you know?

"I've never had to exchange gunfire with a known target, no," he said, "but I have had to open up a couple of times. If I'm in the third truck and I have to open up, that means the first truck did too, and it's on. When the .50 cal starts barking, they shut up."

When Pittman returns to Iraq, he'll be given a day or so to get ready to return to the front, he said.

"As far as I'm concerned, they can just throw me back in the groove, it's not like there's something to try to get used to, it gets old quick, see? You quit worrying and you just do it. When you first get there, maybe, you know, it's like oh crap. You're sorta scared. You check yourself, your gear ... constantly. Now, it's a quick pat, and I'm ready, let's go."

While Pittman doesn't have much love for the Iraqi people, he does have strong feelings for his brothers and sisters in arms, he said. He enjoys serving his country with officers and soldiers that he respects.

"We're tight, and you know, we all have to be," he said. "We watch each others back, it comes natural like that. There are two sections in the platoon -- a scout and a sniper section. They take care of us, good. We have fresh fruit and meat, so we eat good. But yeah, my favorite MRE is the one I don't have to eat. We have a chow hall, and we get three hots, with civilian contractors. We hang out together. I did have a TV in my room, and I've got a fridge and an air-conditioner in my room. I've got a computer, so I can watch DVDs too. It's all about passing the time. Whether we're hanging out or pulling scorpions out of the walls with pliers.