Sergeant Anthony Purtscher was deployed to Iraq with the 3rd platoon B Company, 3rd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment. Like soldiers from the beginning of time he collected war trophies. In his own words,

â�?�?The first town we came to was As Samawah. My platoons mission was to secure several bridges leading into the town to prevent reinforcements from entering and to prevent and Iraqi army withdraw or counter offensive. The first bridge we took was near a house which had recently been evacuated by its previous tenants. We set up observation/firing positions on both sides of the bridge, and from an adjacent position at a vulnerable spot. We used the walled in courtyard of the house as our sleeping area. Inside the courtyard was a cement bench, the bench was hollow and inside were several artifacts that had been hidden,â�?¦ After that everywhere we went I was always looking for things which had been left behind by Iraqi soldiers.â�?

Sgt. Purtscher��?s Grouping contains two Saddam Hussien era Iraqi national flags, headgear, equipment, currency and other ephemera from the Iraq War. While it is common for GI bring-backs like this to survive, it is very rare to acquire an entire collection with a first person account.

�?