Major David Rosner has returned from the frontlines in Iraq with his sense of humor intact. Going to war did not dampen his determination to succeed as a stand-up comic. However, it did require him to face some serious situations.

“I thought, ‘One month ago I had sideburns and was doing standup in New York City, now I’m putting on my gas mask.’ That’s when it really hit me I was over there,” he said as he recalled donning protective gear during an Iraqi missile attack.

Major Rosner, 38, grew up in Albuquerque, N.M., where he attended a military high school in nearby Roswell. He learned to combine his creative streak and the grittiness of day-to-day life before signing on with the military. During college at the University of New Mexico, he patented an “improved male condom,” about which he readily jokes.

At the same time he was undertaking that venture, he commissioned to be a Marine officer. He moved to New York last year to pursue his comedy career, and is still a reservist.

The shock of deployment was not new for Major Rosner, who also served in the first Gulf War. There, his humor eased tensions during stressful moments among the troops. His commanding officer at the time, now retired Marine Major Jim Hart, recalled Major Rosner impersonating another officer to diffuse a strained interaction:

“[The officer] was like a character from ‘M*A*S*H,’ and not in a good way,” Major Hart said. “Dave has a quick mind and would recite this guy’s speech verbatim. His impression was right-on and he embellished where appropriate.”

In his latest deployment, Major Rosner spent six months in Iraq, where he worked as an intelligence officer for a unit that made and maintained airfields – which is vital to providing air support to Marines fighting on the ground. “Everything is computer-based these days,” he said. “The second there is enemy contact, there is someone typing that into e-mail. The pressure is immense. If you miss something Marines could die.”

His team sought to protect Iraqi civilians as well. He remembered relaying the intelligence that Iraqi fighters were using children as decoys to attack Marine convoys.

“The enemy would start attacking while they were hiding behind the children,” he said. “That shows you these fighters’ disregard for human life.”

“In my opinion, the bottom line in the big picture for everyone is children,” he said. “If we really care about children – of all races and religions, worldwide – we need to use a hard fist sometimes to ensure a decrease in horrific, tragic events in the future,” he said.

The Rosner family was supportive of his desire to join the Reserves, although they are anxious when he is on active duty.

“We worry, but we know he is doing what he wants to be doing and what he feels is necessary and right in protecting people around the world from terrorism and dictators and the like,” said Major Rosner’s sister and a New York City psychiatrist, Dr. Melissa Kaye. “He’s been involved with the military since he was a boy; it’s part of who he is.”

“They are a Jewish family. They like to worry,” Major Rosner said. “That is what they do.”

For now, he is grateful to be stateside and is enthusiastic about his budding comedy career. He had moved to New York several months prior to his deployment during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He remains in the Marine Corps Reserves.

“It’s great to be back in New York and pursuing everything I want to pursue,” he said. “It’s also great being on reserve duty because I can get free medical and dental appointments. No matter how hard and tough the Marines made me, I still come from a long line of hypochondriacs,” he laughed.

He emcees every other Monday at Yello, a Chinatown nightclub, where he speaks of daily life in New York and the contradictions inherent in being a neurotic Marine. He has also had a degree of success on television and aspires to own a production company and write, direct, and edit his own films one day.

Earlier this month, he appeared as a character of his own invention, “Ronald the Gold Rod Conspiracy Theorist,” on “Mancow’s Morning Madness,” a nationally syndicated FM-radio talk show.

Since returning from active duty, he has worked as a public speaker. This month he appeared as a panelist on “It’s Your Call with Lynn Doyle,” a talk show on CN8, the Comcast Network. The subject was the American soldiers who have died in Iraq.

His confidence in America’s mission in Iraq has never wavered: “We have to set the Middle East on a progressive path towards true democracy in order to deflect terrorist ideology,” he said.