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Saturday, June 11, 2005
Compared to other camps, Stryker is the Four Seasons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Stryker, Iraq —- The 48th Brigade Combat Team’s headquarters here is considered the low-rent district in the sprawling military complex that surrounds the Baghdad International Airport.
Originally built as a transition area for soldiers on the move, Stryker’s dust-covered tents and trailers are likely to be home to about 3,000 of the brigade’s members for most, if not all, of their year-long deployment.
Compared to the far smaller facilities to the south like Row, St. Joe and St. Michael, however, Stryker is like the Four Seasons.
There’s 24-hour food provided by KBR — not Army cooks — and it’s excellent. The tents have full-time electricity and wood-framed doors that cut down on dust and allow soldiers to walk in and out without crouching. There’s Internet access around the clock and AT&T phone service. Indian barbers charge $3 for a haircut, and that includes a neck-snapping chiropractic adjustment — whether the customer asks for one or not.
The outhouses are emptied twice a day without fail — an important consideration in a place where daytime temperatures commonly reach 115 degrees.
Knowing they’re likely to be here awhile, soldiers from the 48th have launched into home improvements with gusto. Many have swept and mopped their plywood floors, added partitions and purchased refrigerators, chairs and fans.
Foam mattresses are big sellers at the PX and privately owned “hajji shop.”
Soldiers place the mattresses on top of their military canvas cots, a move they say is well worth $12.95 price for thin mattresses and $20 for thicker ones. Both come in washable, zippered sleeves.
“You’ve got to do what you can to make it more like home,” said Spc. Lawanda Brown, 25, of Dublin, a human resources specialist at Rockwell Automation in civilian life and a member of the 148th Service Battalion’s Alpha Company. “Family pictures, sheets, comforters, music and DVDs. All of those things help get you through.”
DVDs are particularly popular here because they’re cheap. Pirated copies of current movies such as “Cinderella Man” are openly sold in the hajji shop for as little as $1, and no one seems particularly concerned about thorny intellectual property issues.
In fact, the knowledge that movie makers get stiffed is a plus to some.
Sgt. David Parrott, 33, of Americus, a firefighter and emergency medical technician at home, bought a double feature containing Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9-11”, a critique of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq, because he knew the controversial Moore wouldn’t get anything out of the transaction.
“The only reason I felt good about buying it was that I knew (Moore) wasn’t going to get one cent of my money,” said Parrott, who works at the 48th Brigade’s headquarters. “I’ve read the reviews. I want to see other points of view. But I couldn’t have bought it in good conscience knowing it was going to make that guy one cent richer.”
From the absurdity file
48th Brigade soldiers ona two-day convoy to Baghdad were ordered to remove plastic labels from their water bottles before they entered Iraq. The labels showed the water had been bottled in Kuwait, and at least one officer was afraid they would betray the “secret” that American military personnel and equipment have been flooding into Iraq from massive staging bases in Kuwait since the 2003 invasion. (When the convoy got to Iraq, soldiers found Kuwaiti water on sale at every stop.)
About mail:
Letters and packages can be sent to 48th Brigade members using the following address as an example. Letters can arrive in as little as one week, and packages take about three weeks. Even if units move, this mailing address will stay with them.
Pfc. Audie Murphy
HHC 48th BCT
APO AE 09372
