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DEL.ICIO.USLock and load your mops at Camp Taji
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s something strange oozing from the ground at Camp Taji.
Some mornings, the gravel and dirt paths between the soldiers’ trailers turn to chocolate brown slime.
Bita Honarvar/AJC
A soldier’s boots is caked with the thick mud that periodically oozes up from the ground at Camp Taji.
“I had it all over my flip-flops,� said Staff Sgt. Gilbert Sheppard of Millen, who serves in the 1st Battalion, 118th Field Artillery Regiment. “It took four days for them to dry out.�
At the pods where soldiers of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team live, conspiracy theories run rampant.
Some said the muck came from morning dew. But even at 10 a.m. under a searing sun, the ground was wet.
Others said the grounds were purposely wetted down to keep the dust away. That sounded like a plausible theory, except that the mud can be rather greasy. Hmmmmm. Where did the oil come from then?
The massive sand storm that came through the area might be a culprit, surmised another soldier. It brought with it alien particles that settled in the ground.
But this is Taji, after all. Home once to Saddam Hussein’s army. Perhaps the Iraqis were testing chemicals here to build weapons of mass destruction. The stuff coming out of the ground could be anthrax or some other deadly substance that could kill us all.
Yikes.
My vote goes to a sergeant who told me this: Taji is a military base built on swampland surrounding the Tigris River. The ground, he said, can stay naturally wet and hold onto diesel and other fuels leaked onto the dirt.
The official explanation from Camp Taji geologists verified some of that information. Due to the area’s low water table — between two and six feet — the composition of the soil is mostly clay, the geologists said. They assured the soldiers that every last bit of it would wash out of their clothing.
Clay? That should be a familiar sight to Georgians. But, who knows?
One day, someone will get to the bottom of the mystery. Until then, it’s lock and load your mops.
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