AJC.com > Iraq coverage > Blog > Archives > 2005 > October > 06
Thursday, October 6, 2005
Is it going to hurt?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Forward Operating Base Michael, Iraq — The big, burly soldiers wielding rifles appeared frightened as they lined up at the door to the medical aid station.
They didn’t want what was waiting for them inside.
Needles.
Louie Favorite/AJC
Spc. Jennifer Rhodes, a pre-nursing student from Macon, gives a flu shot to SSGT John Lovett Dykes Jr., a 59-year-old retired schoolteacher from Waynesboro, in the aid station at FOB St. Michael.
It was time for their flu shots.
But would it hurt? Would they bleed? What allergies must they have to be excused from this shot?
“The bigger they are, the worse it is,� Spc. Jennifer Rhodes, 21, a nursing college student from Macon, said as she administered dozens of the shots.
Most soldiers dealt with the needles just fine. But a few resisted slightly.
“Let him go first,� Spc. Walter Marion said, jerking his thumb at his friend.
When it was his time for the shot, Marion scooted away from Rhodes. She pulled him back by his arm.
“Are you going to swell my arm up?� Marion asked. “I don’t like no shots.�
Marion closed his eyes tight and winced as she pricked him.
“Is that blood running down my arm? Oh, Jesus,� said Marion, 29, a police officer from Dublin.
Rhodes and her colleague, Spc. Courtney Burgwald, 22, of Hiram, decided to have a little fun. They attached a two-inch long needle to a syringe full of lemon-lime Gatorade. They set aside the much smaller flu needles.
“They would be like, ‘No, no. The small one. What happened to the small one?’â€? Rhodes said.
Burgwald smiled and said: “You have to have fun somehow.�
Good eats in a dangerous place
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Forward Operating Base Joe, Iraq — Georgia Army National Guard soldiers live in a windowless, run-down former potato factory.
Louie Favorite/AJC
Spc. Dale Dean works on macaroni and cheese for the soldiers at FOB Joe.
This base in Yusufiyah has been rocketed and mortared.
And they have limited communication with the outside world.
But at least the food is good here. So good, in fact, that this spartan outpost has become a popular destination for soldiers from much bigger and better-equipped bases.
Credit goes to the cooking staff: Spc. Dale Dean of Marietta, Spc. Keith Williams of Columbus and Sgt. Vincent Grant of Atlanta.
Dean, the self-taught dinner cook, is particularly popular because of his macaroni, beef stew and lasagna dishes.
He has a simple philosophy. “I fix what I like to eat,� said Dean, 38, who builds and installs shutters in civilian life.
Dean takes what the military gives him and improves on it. For example, he adds fresh mozzarella to the military’s standard macaroni ingredients.
“They eat the hell out of it,� he said.
His task is particularly difficult given his isolated and dangerous location. Civilian truck drivers are too afraid to transport food to the base, Dean said. So he and other soldiers occasionally make the perilous trip to another base in Mahmudiyah for supplies. Dean said he has become adept at “acquiring� things.
“These will be just right,� he said as he squeezed a ripening pineapple on his wooden supply shelf.
Dean works in a makeshift kitchen with industrial-size burners that are powered by a Humvee parked outside.
Sitting beside the Humvee is a constant reminder of the war around him. His cold storage container has a gaping hole in it from a rocket-propelled grenade.
