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Sunday, August 28, 2005
Give up trying — you can’t escape the dust
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Striker, Iraq — It’s everywhere.
It’s in your eyes. In your shoes. In your tent. In your sleeping bag. In your shower stall. It’s even in the coffee you just poured.
If the dust in Iraq could be spun into gold, every soldier in the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team would be an instant millionaire.
Bita Honarvar/AJC
Dust covers a Bradley manual. Staff Sgt. Larry Webb (left) talks about eye irritation; Sgt. Peter Ziegeler says he is used to the grit.
At Camp Striker, more so than some other permanent bases such as Liberty or Taji, the dust is omnipresent.
“I’ve never seen so much dust in my life,” said Staff Sgt. Larry Webb, a corrections officer at Hancock State Prison in Sparta.
“I hate it,” he said. “It irritates your eyes. It gets you congested. It gets into everything.”
Even the clean clothes returned from the Camp Striker laundry service smell of dust. The air-conditioning units spew the fine powdery substance.
A manual for Bradley fighting vehicles at the maintenance bay was so dust laden that it looked like it had been sitting there since the dawn of Iraqi history. And that is a long, long time.
The haze of dust sits over Camp Striker some days like fog that rolled in overnight. Except, said Webb, “it never burns off.”
There’s not much you can do to avoid it so the soldiers just ignore it. Even when a big cloud of it settles on top of a cup of freshly brewed java.
“I’m used to it now,” said Sgt. Peter Ziegeler, A Staten Island soldier whose infantry unit is attached to the 256th Brigade Combat Team from Louisiana. “It doesn’t bother me.”
Easy for Ziegeler to say. His unit’s tour is over and he’s going home in 10 days.
Vicious unseen enemy in Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
IEDs (improvised explosive devices) have caused one third of all U.S. combat fatalities in Iraq. Every time the military finds way to curb their use, the insurgents find a new method or tactic.
