AJC.com > Iraq coverage > Blog > Archives > 2005 > December > 07
Wednesday, December 7, 2005
Gwinnett soldier among 3 killed in Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Gwinnett County man was among three Georgia National Guardsmen killed Friday in a truck wreck in Iraq.
The Department of Defense late Tuesday identified the three as Staff Sgt. Philip L. Travis, 41, of Snellville, Spc. Marcus S. Futrell, 20, of Macon and Sgt. Philip A. Dodson Jr., 42, of Forsyth.
The three died Friday at Fallil Air Base of injuries sustained earlier in the day when their truck accidentally rolled over.
The three men were members of the Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team, based in Forsyth.
With more than 2,500 Georgians and nearly 2,000 soldiers from other states, the 48th Brigade represents the largest overseas deployment of the state’s Guard since World War II. Friday’s accident brings the death toll for the unit to 25.
Well site a part of distant, recent past
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
Spc. Greg Hogarth of Fleming, Ga., (top) stands beside what Muslims believe is the well of Abraham and Sarah. Below, Maj. John Benford (left) of Leesburg, Va., and Staff Sgt. Gilbert Sheppard of Millen, Ga., look over a MiG fighter jet once part of Saddam's air force.
Al Asad Air Base, Iraq — “I have only a few rules,” Army Capt. Richard Graves said as soldiers from the Georgia National Guard approached the site that local Muslims believe is the well of Abraham and Sarah.
“Don’t get in the water. Don’t touch the water. Don’t drink the water,” ordered Graves, a chaplain. “Snails will get in your system and attack your bladder, eating it away. This is fresh water filled with parasites that will give you schistosomiasis, a nasty little disease you don’t want to take home with you.”
Graves, 52, of Pine Bluff, Ark., said the well probably was much larger and lusher in the time of the biblical patriarch Abraham. It is now just inside the western boundary of this sprawling military base northwest of Baghdad.
“If you’re familiar with your Bible, you know Abraham lived in the city of Ur with his family and father-in-law,” Graves continued. “When he was 75 years old, his father-in-law died and Abraham moved north with Sarah and his whole family. Lot was with him, and he came across this very lush area with his camels, his sheep and his Humvees.”
Christians are uncertain about whether Abraham actually stopped here, but for local Muslims, this is the place, Graves said. They come out to the site every Friday for one of their five daily prayers.
The site was totally off limits to soldiers until military clergy worked out a deal with local imams that allowed chaplains to bring groups of 20 or fewer. “They looked at us as holy men,” said Graves. “When they found out we were chaplains, they moved us up to seats of honor.”
Spc. Greg Hogarth, 36, of Fleming, a pastor’s assistant with the Georgia Guard’s 1st Battalion, 118th Field Artillery Regiment Task Force based at Al Asad, walked to the edge of the well and paused to listen.
“It’s nice to hear the sound of birds singing,” he said.
There’s more than just the well here. Old Iraqi anti-aircraft guns and radar equipment tucked away in the trees litter the landscape. An abandoned Russian MiG fighter plane sits in a date palm grove nearby. Now covered with graffiti, it’s one of the last remnants of Saddam Hussein’s air force.
Graves brought up one more rule to Capt. David Anderson, 54, of Cheyenne, Wyo., chaplain for the Georgia battalion, who was visiting for the first time: no photographs of the chaplains in the cockpit of the MiG. “It sends the wrong message,” Graves said.
Anderson had his picture taken standing beside the plane instead.
Across a dusty road from the well, dozens of shallow graves on a small ridge are all that remain of Iraqi soldiers killed in the Iran-Iraq War. Rusting metal tombstones propped up with rocks mark their graves.
There’s also an old Iraqi police academy nearby, in a crumbling building that’s believed to be more than 200 years old. It gives visitors an idea of how locals built houses in centuries past, although newer structures in neighboring villages look much the same.
There once was a sizable village near the well, but Saddam had the families removed when he decided to expand the base.
