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Wednesday, June 8, 2005
Don’t go out without body armor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Forward Operating Base St. Michael, Iraq — The Marines used to call this place “Camp Incoming” for the daily rockets and mortars Iraqi insurgents fired at it.
It’s one of the few forward operating bases in the country where soldiers must wear helmets and body armor every time they step outside, even if they’re only making a short trek to an outhouse or shower.
There’s also a total blackout at dusk to make the base less of a target at night.
Only a few insurgent fireworks have landed in or near this dusty compound since soldiers from the 48th Brigade Combat Team arrived, and the troops tend to regard them like springtime lightning; dangerous to be sure, but usually more sound than substance.
Commanders here hint that if all goes well the body armor restriction could be lifted during their yearlong deployment.
“We’re working on expanding the perimeter,” Brigadier Gen. Stewart Rodeheaver, the 48th commander, said during a visit last week. “Hopefully, we’ll make it safe enough our people won’t have to wear their [individual body armor] all the time.”
Unlike other forward bases that tend to be set apart from populated areas, St. Michael is right off Route Jackson, a heavily traveled military supply corridor. That’s part of the reason it’s such a mortar magnet.
Insurgents know that if they launch rockets or mortars from neighborhoods, Americans will be reluctant to shoot back with their heavy artillery for fear of inflicting civilian casualties.
The heart of St. Michael is a military command post set up in a three-story brick building that used to be a chicken processing plant. The non- descript, good-enough-for-government-work structure is still pockmarked from hundreds of bullets that struck it during the 2003 invasion. Now, it bristles with antennae from a vast array of communications gear packed inside.
The Marines, who first took over the chicken factory, and the factory’s current Army residents set up a warren of offices and sleeping quarters on the first floor.
Soldiers consider the chicken factory the high-rent district because people inside sleep on beds instead of cots and the air conditioning runs day and night.
Any American fire marshal would be appalled by the miles of dangling wires and pigeon roosts inside. And any self-respecting building inspector would condemn the place.
Lookouts are posted around the clock in a series of turret-shaped, Medieval-looking guard towers. Any civilian vehicle that stops along the roads by the base is greeted with warning shots.
It’s not uncommon for firefights to break out between guards and insurgents, but they seldom last more than a few minutes because the American firepower is overwhelming.
St. Michael is one of the most austere forward operating bases in Iraq.
Most of the soldiers live in 10-person, Army-issue tents. They’re dark green but quickly turn desert tan when coated with a thick film of moon dust.
The kitchens are manned by soldiers, not civilian contractors known for their better food and service.
The Internet Café is hopelessly jammed at peak hours, and it’s hard to get a telephone line that works reliably.
But the 48th Brigade has plans for upgrades. When the Georgia Army National Guard soldiers replace the current inhabitants near the middle of the month, they plan to rewire the place, clean it and paint it.
They’ve started putting down gravel on the roads to cut down on the powdery, choking dust.
Outside the gates, soldiers encounter scenes that are almost biblical and are replete with shepherds, donkeys, camels and extreme poverty.
Also waiting just outside the gates is the ever-present danger of attacks by insurgents.
There’s little charm in Mahmudiyah itself, a midsized town at the eastern edge of the so-called Sunni Triangle of Death. A ferocious, close-quarters tank battle was fought on the city’s narrow streets three years ago when the 3rd Division based at Fort Stewart plowed through with its Abrams tanks.
The place was shabby then and has grown worse, with buildings falling apart and wrecked cars and garbage strewn everywhere. Now, more than two years after that battle, it’s just about impossible to tell where it took place.
But on the outskirts of the city are spacious, well-kept homes with lush palm groves and well-tended yards. The land looks tremendously fertile with tall grass and trees, and there’s an extensive network of irrigation canals.
Those irrigation canals run parallel to the roads and represent grave danger to the soldiers. Insurgents use them to tunnel into the soft ground underneath the narrow roads to plant bombs � some of them large enough to destroy American tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles.
The roads are deeply cratered in places from violent explosions aimed at U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, and the scrap yard at the base holds the carcasses of military vehicles mangled from the force of the blasts.
Surprisingly, soldiers from the 1st Armor Division who have been here for more than four months say they are reluctant to leave.
First Lt. Alan Hill of Powder Springs, a Georgia Tech graduate, said he wants to continue the progress the group has made. “We know the area, and we’ve learned the enemy’s tactics,” said Hill, 30, a former platoon leader.
“We’ve worked our tails off here, and we’re starting to see results,” he added. “There’s less insurgent activity here now than when we got here, and we expect that trend to continue.”
