His latest address: Iraq

LOWELL -- In the 1980s, Daniel Rivet took the exam to become the Lowell firefighter he always wanted to be.

But by the time he learned that he passed, it was too late. He was already sweating out basic training in the Army.

How different his life would have been.

Instead of telling future grandchildren about plucking victims from burning buildings, Sgt. 1st Class Rivet will now recall his days guarding enemy POW camps and thwarting terrorist attacks in the remote desert.

The 45-year-old military police officer, assigned mostly to National Guard units, has played a role in nearly every major U.S. military campaign in the last quarter-century, including Operation Just Cause in Panama in 1987, Operation

Enduring Freedom in Kosovo in the 1980s, and Operation Desert Storm in 1990-91.

These days its Operation Iraqi Freedom. The last eight months he's been guarding Camp Bucca, a remote desert POW camp 300 miles from Baghdad.

“I guess I was in the right place at the right time and will continue to do so,” he said of his long record of service. “I wouldn't trade any of it.”

On leave since December, Rivet visited his wife, Jodie, and their four children at their home in Fulton, Mo., and recently returned to his hometown to visit friends and relatives.

Eleven years have passed since he was last in Lowell.

The city has changed dramatically, he said -- traffic is heavier, there are new businesses and restored historic homes.

“I'm glad to see it,” he said.

He was saddened, however, that Lowell no longer stages a Memorial Day parade.

“I'm personally disappointed,” he said. “It promotes patriotic feelings.”

He'll return to war Tuesday.

After 24 action-packed years, perhaps he's proudest of the Bronze Star award he received for heroism.

Between July and November, while guarding an American base in the Middle East nation of Qatar, he helped thwart 18 attacks, mostly at night.

Not many shots were fired, he said. But he and his comrades rounded up numerous prisoners.

In 1987, serving with the Missouri-based 1138th M.P. Co., he used patrol dogs to help control rioters in Panama after U.S. forces captured dictator Manuel Noriega.

In Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War, he came face-to-face with Iraqi POWs.

“They were under-clothed and under-equipped,” and GIs “would walk up to them and they'd give up,” he said.

These days he can be found at Camp Bucca, out in the Iraqi desert. The POW camp was named for Ron Bucca, a New York fire marshal who died in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

The camp was originally supposed to shut down but instead swelled up with thousands of POWs after the Iraqi insurgence flared up.

Rivet wouldn't discuss the Abu Ghraib prison scandal that he only heard about. But speaking generally, he said coalition forces follow the Geneva Convention rules of war. And anyway, soldiers should know right from wrong.

“At my level, a soldier out there on the ground, we were abiding by the Geneva Convention. The prisoners were treated well. They ate the same food we ate,” he said.

If it were peacetime, Rivet would be retired from the military.

But there's a war going on, and the Army needs him. If he's upset about it, it doesn't show.

Rivet was raised in Lowell's Pawtucketville neighborhood, the oldest of five children.

His father, Gerald, a retired lumber salesman and mother, Jacqueline, a former Union Bank employee, now live in Tyngsboro.

When he graduated from Lowell High School in 1978, the Vietnam War was over but he still had to register with the Selective Service.

Under the watchful eyes of recruiters, Rivet and most other boys in the senior class marched to the post office downtown.

“We wanted to march,” he said.

What are people saying about mortgages today:

Rates on 30-year mortgages edged down last week to a seven-month low. Mortgage-giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell to 6.3 percent, down slightly from 6.31 percent two weeks ago. It put rates at the lowest level since they were at 6.24 percent the first week of March.

Bank of Hawaii, Central Pacific Bank, Territorial Savings Bank and Wells Fargo Home Mortgages all cut their 30-year mortgage rates to 5.75 percent this week.

Most people think of a mortgage as a means to an end. After all, you buy a house, not a home loan. But a mortgage is much more than the path to homeownership. It is a financial instrument that must be managed, just like any other financial investment.