He hopes to ride out Operation Shock and Awe in Baghdad's Orphanage of the Sisters of Mother Teresa. Or at least to rush there as soon as the bombing subsides. He's compelled to at least try to quell the inevitable trembling of the children.

"I'd rather die doing something," he told his wife, Judy, "then die ... in some old folks home."

Liteky, 72, is a former Roman Catholic priest and Vietnam war hero awarded the congressional Medal of Honor for crawling under volleys of gunfire in 1967 to rescue 23 injured U.S. soldiers.

According to Army reports, during the firefight near Phuoc-Lac the wounded became too heavy to carry so Liteky turned onto his back in the mud, pulled the men on top of him and crawled backward under gunfire, using only his heels and elbows.

He's plenty scared of war, he said, but his fear is for the children.

When the attack comes, he said, "the most beautiful thing that can happen for me is if I am permitted to be at the orphanage. At least I could pick the children up, hold them, and try to let my calm and love transfer to them."

Liteky speaks every morning to his wife 11 times zones away in San Francisco. Since arriving in Baghdad three weeks ago, it has become increasingly difficult to hang up the phone. On Tuesday they spoke for 40 minutes, said goodbye twice, and kept talking.

"I don't have a death wish," he said in an interview Monday. "I have everything to live for. I have a wonderful wife and a wonderful life back home." Liteky and his wife have thought for a week that the invasion of Iraq would begin sometime between March 10 and 17. So when Judy Liteky, a math teacher at a community college, left for work on Monday, she put a bumper sticker on her car.