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December 2005
Celebrity welcome for Baby Noor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
W.A. Bridges Jr./AJC
Baby Noor and grandmother get plenty of media attention Saturday. • MORE PHOTOS
“Baby from Iraq.”
“Iraqi baby.”
“Sick baby from Iraq.”
The news photographer had staked out a front-row spot in the line of media awaiting Baby Noor at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Saturday afternoon. Now she bore the brunt of the public’s questions.
Who’s coming? asked the travelers, looking warily into the lenses of seven TV cameras before continuing toward baggage claim. A few smiled nervously or reached up to fix their hair.
But the cameramen weren’t there for holiday airport atmosphere. They wanted the money shot: Baby Noor’s grand entrance into the United States, with her father and grandmother.
Soldiers with a Georgia-based unit discovered Noor during a raid in Abu Ghraib and helped arrange her flight to Atlanta, where she will receive treatment for spina bifida. A doctor at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta agreed to perform surgery for free. Her story is now national news.
“What’s all the commotion?” asked Carlos Cuesta, 32, who was about to board a flight home to Miami.
A reporter explained Noor’s plight. Cuesta’s friend Douglas Longhini said he’d heard about the baby.
“We’re disabled, so that’s dear to our hearts,” Cuesta said, adding that he and Longhini have cerebral palsy.
Not all were as enthusiastic.
A man named Mohammad, who declined to give his last name, said the uproar over Noor didn’t make sense.
“People get killed over there every day,” he said. “What’s the big deal about a 3-month-old baby?”
About 3:30 p.m., word came that Noor had landed. More waiting followed as the family wound through customs and immigration.
The eager crowd included members of the church that one of the National Guardsmen who found Noor, Lt. Jeff Morgan, belongs to. Morgan asked the church for help in coordinating Noor’s journey.
“For us to see it culminate fully is a really wonderful thing,” said Adam Roberts, pastor of Shepherd of the Hills United Methodist Church in Douglasville. “We feel very attached to baby Noor.”
Shortly after 4 p.m., the waiting ended.
“They’re coming,” said an airport spokeswoman.
Applause broke out. The entourage approached.
The family hosting Noor, her grandmother and father greeted them with roses. They peered into the eyes of the baby who had brought together strangers from across the ocean.
Orbiting Noor like crazed satellites, cameramen and reporters moved with the group toward the door.
The baby, dressed in an orange sweatsuit, picked her head up from her grandmother’s shoulder. She watched the microphone boom floating above her.
Open-mouthed and alert, she looked curious, then bewildered, then borderline fussy. But she didn’t cry.
Her grandmother, wearing a black robe, lifted her into an ambulance waiting to take her to the hospital for evaluation. At 4:25, it pulled from the curb.
News of Noor’s progress will come largely from the hospital, spokesman Kevin McClellan told the media before the plane landed. The baby’s family will decide how much information is released.
Updates could be as meager as “good, fair, serious or critical.”
The host family has asked to remain anonymous, McClellan said.
“Please respect their privacy,” he told reporters.
Noor arrives in Atlanta for crucial surgery
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
Delta Air Lines attendant Mary Frances Shine gets a smile from Noor during Saturday's flight. • MORE PHOTOS
The ailing infant who captured the hearts of Georgia National Guardsmen in Iraq arrived in Atlanta Saturday after flying thousands of miles, moving a huge step closer to life-changing medical help.
Cradled by her grandmother, 3-month-old Noor al-Zahra rode up an escalator at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport with her father just after 4 p.m. As bystanders applauded, they strode past television cameras and met a metro Atlanta family that has agreed to house them several weeks, while doctors at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta treat the infant for free.
An ambulance took Noor to Children’s Healthcare for an assessment by Dr. Roger Hudgins, the hospital’s chief of neurosurgery.
“Chances for her survival are good,” he said.
Soldiers from a 48th Brigade Combat Team unit based in Gainesville discovered Noor on a raid several weeks ago. She suffers from a severe form of spina bifida, an ailment in which the spine does not fully form. Iraqi doctors lack the proper equipment to treat the baby. They gave her 45 days to live and sent her home.
First Lt. Jeff Morgan of Douglasville, a single father of five, set out to arrange medical care for Baby Noor in the United States. He and Debbie Stone, a friend and social worker in Douglas County, eventually enlisted Sen. Saxby Chambliss in an effort made possible by the generosity of Children’s Healthcare and a Christian nonprofit in Atlanta, Childspring International, that arranged medical treatment for 83 children from 15 countries last year.
Hudgins and his colleagues completed their examination of Baby Noor by about 6:30 p.m. Saturday. The hospital said in a statement that she “is in good condition, is responsive and smiling and seemingly resting comfortably.”
Noor was to stay overnight at Children’s Healthcare, where more doctors planned more tests before determining her treatment. The initial plan called for her to stay with the Atlanta host family until doctors scheduled an operation, with at least one surgery possible in the next few days.
“Obviously good works happen every day in Iraq and good works happen with the soldiers. We hear all the negative. It’s about time, I think, that we have the opportunity to hear some of the good,” Hudgins said. “It’s showing the tender side of the military. These are good guys. They went out of their way to make this happen.”
The doctor said he plans to perform at least one surgery, to close a portion of the baby’s back where the spine has protruded. He said he also plans to scan her brain for evidence of fluid build-up, common in spina bifida cases. If he finds fluid, he said, a second surgery is likely to drain it. Though he said he hopes for the best, the doctor said it was too soon to know whether the baby might suffer paralysis or brain damage.
“We want to make this child developmentally and cognitively as normal as possible,” he said.
That she is being evaluated in a top-flight hospital in the United States represents a remarkable change of fortune for Baby Noor, nicknamed “Baby Nora” by soldiers in Iraq. She had seemed destined to die until Morgan and his colleagues in the 48th Brigade Combat Team intervened.
Stone, the Douglas County social worker, rallied members of her Shepherd Of the Hills United Methodist Church to the cause. They raised $10, 000 for the baby and chipped in baby clothes and a crib. Stone also worked her network of church friends to find out about Childspring International, the Christian nonprofit in Atlanta that agreed to match the baby with a metro Atlanta host family.
“One person can make a difference,” Stone said Saturday afternoon, after introducing herself to the baby’s grandmother amid a crush of news reporters. “I made a promise to Jeff and the men that he’s fighting with and I’m a woman of my word. The baby is here and she’s in good hands.”
Staff writers Moni Basu, Curtis Compton and Heather Vogell contributed to this article
Baby Noor arrives in Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John Bazemore/AP
Baby Noor clings to her grandmother as they arrive in Atlanta Saturday. • MORE PHOTOS
Baby Noor, the little Iraqi girl born with a severe spinal cord defect , arrived in Atlanta Saturday afternoon and moved a big step toward the medical care she needs to survive.
The baby’s grandmother cradled Noor in her arms as she stepped off an escalator and walked in the terminal of Hartsfield-Jackson International about 4:10 p.m.
The grandmother and Noor’s father walked past a bank of television cameras and met a metro Atlanta family that has agreed to house them for up to several months. The host family, who asked not to be named, gave the baby’s grandmother a fruit basket.
The father climbed into an SUV that quickly sped away. The grandmother accompanied the baby in an ambulance bound for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, where doctors planned an examination Saturday. Surgery could come within the next week or so.
The doctor who will perform surgery on Baby Noor — born with spina bifida — praised American troops, members of the 48th Brigade BCT, who found her.
“These are good guys and they went out of their way to make this happen,” said Dr. Roger Hudgins of Children’s Healthcare shortly before the plane arrived Saturday.
Members of the Gainesville-based Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment found the baby during a search of the family home in the slums of Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad.
“It’s an honor for us to be able to do this [surgery],” Hudgins told a gaggle of reporters and seven TV news cameramen at the airport.
Earlier Saturday, high above the clouds, Delta Air Lines Captain David Damare had something to tell the passengers on Flight 15 from Frankfurt to Atlanta.
All of Delta’s customers were special, he said. But Saturday there was a particularly special person on board. Her name was Noor al-Zahra.
She was three months old and traveling from her native Iraq all the way to Atlanta to receive surgery to correct a life-threatening problem in her spinal cord.
Noor left Baghdad on Friday with her father, Haider, and grandmother, Soad, for the long journey to America.
Cradled in Haider’s arms, Noor took off into clear blue skies in a C-130 military transport plane from Baghdad’s airport after soldiers of Gainesville-based Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment bade her farewell at their headquarters at Camp Liberty.
“We are very excited about this trip,” said Soad. “We are thankful to the people of Georgia.”
However, once the reached Kuwait, they discovered that the KLM flight that was to take them to Amsterdam was canceled. U.S. Embassy officials rerouted the family on a Lufthansa flight through Frankfurt but because they are Iraqi citizens, they needed transit visas for Germany.
Early Saturday morning, U.S. officials were able to contact the German Embassy in Washington to issue clearance for the family to land in Frankfurt. In Frankfurt, the three boarded Delta Flight 15.
The family was put in business class. Noor was given a bassinette in which to sleep. Flight attendant Suzanne King gave Noor a teddy bear.
Born three months ago with Spina Bifida, Noor has a large growth on her back where her spinal cord did not properly close. She requires immediate surgery to correct the problem.
Iraqi doctors told the family they could do nothing for the baby and that she did not have long to survive. Charlie Company soldiers found the baby during a search of the family home in the slums of Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad.
They were determined to help save the life of the frail child.
“Just knowing she’s going to get a chance in life she will never get here gives you a warm feeling,” said Staff Sgt. David Squires, who works for a hearing aid company in Gainesville. “The children of Iraq are the country’s future.”
Noor doctor praises Army unit who found her
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta doctor who will perform surgery on Baby Noor — born with a severe spinal cord defect — praised American troops who found her.
“These are good guys and they went out of their way to make this happen,” said Dr. Roger Hudgins of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta shortly before the plane carrying the Iraqi infant arrived Saturday.
Members of the Gainesville-based Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment found the baby during a search of the family home in the slums of Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad.
“It’s an honor for us to be able to do this,” Hudgins told a gaggle of reporters and seven TV news cameramen at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Noor, whose name means light in Arabic, was born with a severe form of spina bifida.
She was flown out of Baghdad Friday to Kuwait, then on to Frankfurt, Germany. She took a Delta commercial flight to Atlanta Saturday.
Noor will die if she does not receive surgery soon, doctors say. Hudgins will perform the expensive operation for free.
Noor will spend the next 24 hours being evaluated at the hospital. If spinal fluid is found to be leaking she will have immediate surgery. Otherwise the first surgery will come in a few days.
Child’s smile melts hearts, renews hope
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baghdad, Iraq — Journalists are not supposed to become part of the story they are reporting. All week long, I kept telling myself that I had to keep my distance.
It wasn’t easy.
The subject of my stories was a beautiful 3-month-old baby who represented all that is good in the midst of an ugly war that randomly snuffs out innocent lives almost every day.
Noor al-Zahra, born with a severe spinal cord defect, could not understand why Iraqi doctors lacked the resources to make her well. She didn’t understand the incredible risks her family and American soldiers had taken so that she might have a new chance at life.
But Noor could flash a smile that melted hearts.
She could fix her gaze on mine and take me away from the evil that lurked outside — the rocket attacks, improvised explosive devices, car bombs and gunfire.
She took me away from the shocking living conditions of her neighbors; away from the children with no shoes playing in mountains of trash and streams of sewage that snake through eastern Abu Ghraib.
When Noor’s grandmother Soad handed me the tiny child, I held her in my arms.
“She is hungry,” said Soad. “Can you please hold the bottle? She likes you. See, she is smiling.”
Soad needed to use the restroom. She needed someone to watch the baby. Noor’s father was in Baghdad obtaining necessary paperwork for the family to travel to Atlanta.
There were no other women around. The Georgia Army National Guard unit that discovered Noor is an infantry unit and has no women assigned to it. It can be tough to take care of a fragile baby on a military base designed to house rough-and-tough soldiers.
Soad asked me for help. I could not refuse. To do so would be to betray all compassion.
Over the three days that Noor and her guardians spent at Camp Liberty, I helped change diapers, mix formula, burp the baby and keep watch over her while her grandmother took breaks.
Soad and I exchanged long conversations through an Army interpreter.
She pulled out a small photo album from her bag and showed me pictures of her six daughters and three sons, a trip to Iran and family gatherings at her home.
She peppered me with questions about Atlanta. She was nervous traveling such a long distance. She had never even been on a plane before. She was nervous about Noor’s pending surgery. How long would she have to be gone from home? She asked if I would go back with her.
I explained to her that Atlanta Journal-Constitution photographer Curtis Compton would be making the long journey with her, Noor and Haider. He would be documenting their trip. I told Soad she should not worry.
All the while, Noor lay on my lap, gurgling like babies do. Occasionally she would raise her arms and grab my hair, though she never kicked her legs. The military doctors who examined her here said she would probably end up with paralysis in both legs.
Noor’s spinal cord was not fully closed when she was born on Sept. 23. A pinkish cyst-like growth consumes her little back in place of a normal spine. Doctors in Iraq gave her no hope for survival.
Her family, like so many others in poor nations, accepted Noor’s condition as the will of God. The young, helpless parents, Iman, 18, and Haider, 23, could do nothing for her.
That was until soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment’s Charlie Company stormed into their home on a December night. The troops were searching the area for suspected insurgents.
Instead, they found Noor.
The Gainesville-based soldiers wanted to do something good here. If they could help save the life of just one Iraqi child, their entire deployment in the war zone would be worth it, many of them told me.
There are days, the soldiers said, when they come back to their trailers wondering what they are doing so far from home, separated from their own children. There are days when they question why their fellow soldiers are dying.
After seven months of grinding urban warfare, Charlie Company soldiers had found a child who reinvigorated their purpose here.
Getting Noor to the United States for treatment was a mission that would help them sleep well — at least for a night.
Someone here at Camp Liberty asked me why the U.S. media were making such a big deal out of one baby. There are, after all, thousands of other Noors in Iraq who desperately need assistance. Their stories may never get told.
Perhaps Noor’s story did, not just for the sake of the child, but for all the other lives she has touched in the most profound of ways.
Noor, whose name means “light” in Arabic, stole our hearts and, even if for just a moment, took away the darkness in our lives.
Baby Noor expected in Atlanta today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baghdad, Iraq — Noor al-Zahra, the baby born with a severe spinal cord defect who was discovered by soldiers of the Georgia Army National Guard during a raid, left Baghdad on Friday afternoon for Atlanta, where she is to receive desperately needed medical care unavailable to her in Iraq.
Cradled in her father Haider’s arms, Noor took off into clear blue skies in a C-130 military transport plane from Baghdad’s airport after soldiers of Gainesville-based Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment, bade her farewell at their headquarters at Camp Liberty.
“We are very excited about this trip,” said Soad, 45, Noor’s grandmother, who is also accompanying the baby to America. “We are thankful to the people of Georgia.”
However, once they reached Kuwait, they discovered that the KLM flight that was to take them to Amsterdam in the Netherlands was canceled. U.S. Embassy officials rerouted the family on a Lufthansa flight through Frankfurt but because they are Iraqi citizens, they needed transit visas for Germany.
Early this morning, U.S. officials were able to contact the German Embassy in Washington to issue clearance for the family to land in Frankfurt. Baby Noor is expected to arrive at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport this afternoon.
Born three months ago with spina bifida, Noor has a large growth on her back where her spinal cord did not properly close. She requires immediate surgery to correct the problem. Iraqi doctors told the family they could do nothing for the baby and that she did not have long to survive.
Charlie Company soldiers found the baby during a search of the family home in the slums of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad. They were determined to help save the life of the frail child.
“Just knowing she’s going to get a chance in life she will never get here gives you a warm feeling,” said Staff Sgt. David Squires, who works for a hearing aid company in Gainesville. “The children of Iraq are the country’s future.”
The soldiers worked with charitable groups, hospitals, lawmakers, U.S. Embassy staff and military officials to shuttle the child out of Iraq — a feat that can be difficult given the current violence and the political climate in the country.
Soad and Haider hid their faces as they walked from Charlie Company headquarters to vehicles waiting to take them to Baghdad’s airport. The family is afraid of retribution if they are publicly associated with the U.S. military. Their full names are being withheld to protect their identities.
As they waited in a VIP tent on the military side of the airport, Soad and Haider caught footage of themselves on CNN. They watched keenly as Noor’s big brown eyes and wide smile lit up the screen. Soad picked up her mobile phone and called home one last time before leaving Iraq to speak to her daughter and Noor’s mother, Iman. The traditional Muslim family decided it would be improper for Iman, 18, to make the trip with her baby. Iman said she was happy to have seen her baby one more time, even though it was on television.
Air Force Capt. Robert Farkas carefully pared down a pair of neon green earplugs so that they would fit in Noor’s tiny ears. Military planes can be deafeningly loud for adults, let alone infants.
“There’s something unique going on here every day,” Farkas joked about his unusual assignment.
Curious soldiers came in and out of the tent to catch a glimpse of the baby who has captured a host of military hearts. Soad and Haider munched on seafood nuggets while cameras clicked constantly on Noor’s face.
Then at 3 in the afternoon, it was finally time to go.
After weeks of negotiations and diplomatic wrangling, Noor and her guardians boarded the Air Force plane waiting to fly them to Kuwait.
“This is a very special day,” Soad said. “We are very happy.”
Noor slept during the almost two-hour flight to Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base. Soad and Haider, who had never flown on a plane before, peered out the small windows to get an aerial view of their homeland.
Childspring International, an Atlanta-based charity that matches sick children from the developing world with U.S. hospitals, has made arrangements for Noor and her family to stay with an Arabic-speaking family in Atlanta.
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has offered to perform the surgery to correct Noor’s spinal cord at no cost.
It’s unsure how normal a life Noor will be able to lead even if the surgery goes well. But the Georgia soldiers were determined to give the baby a chance.
“It’s nice to see something we started come to a final result,” said Pfc. Justin Donnelly, a 19-year-old Charlie Company medic from Owego, N.Y., who first took the photos of Noor three weeks ago that started the ball rolling.
“It’s a pretty good feeling for us today.”
Update: Baby Noor leaves Baghdad, arriving in Atlanta Saturday
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baghdad, Iraq — Noor al-Zahra, the baby born with a severe spinal cord defect who was discovered by soldiers of the Georgia Army National Guard during a raid, left Baghdad Friday for Atlanta, where she is to receive desperately needed medical care unavailable to her in Iraq.
Cradled in her father Haider’s arms, Noor took off in a C-130 military transport plane from Baghdad’s airport after soldiers of Gainesville-based Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment bade her farewell at their headquarters at Camp Liberty.
“We are very excited about this trip,” said Soad, 45, Noor’s grandmother, who is accompanying the baby to America. “We are thankful to the people of Georgia.”
The C-130 arrived in Kuwait late Friday afternoon. Noor and her family are expected to arrive in Atlanta on a Delta flight about 3:15 p.m. Saturday.
On Thursday, Soad said she would name her granddaughter Georgia in honor of the people who tried to help Noor.
Born three months ago with spina bifida, Noor has a large growth on her back where her spinal cord did not properly close. She requires immediate surgery to correct the problem.
Iraqi doctors told the family they could do nothing for the baby and that she did not have long to survive. Charlie Company soldiers found the baby during a search of the family home in the slums of Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad.
They were determined to help save the life of the frail child.
“Just knowing she’s going to get a chance in life she will never get here gives you a warm feeling,” said Staff Sgt. David Squires, who works for a hearing aid company in Gainesville. “The children of Iraq are the country’s future.”
The soldiers worked with charitable groups, hospitals, lawmakers, U.S. Embassy staff and military officials to shuttle the child out of Iraq a feat that can be difficult given the current violence and political climate in Iraq.
Soad and Haider hid their faces as they walked from Charlie Company headquarters to vehicles waiting to take them to Baghdad’s airport. The family is afraid of retribution if they are publicly associated with the U.S. military. Their full names are being withheld to protect their identities.
As they waited in a VIP tent, they saw themselves on CNN. They watched keenly as Noor’s big brown eyes and wide smile lit up the screen.
Soad picked up her mobile phone and called home one last time to speak to Noor’s mother, Iman. The traditional Muslim family decided it would be improper for Iman, only 18, to make the trip with her baby.
Iman said she was happy to have seen her baby one more time, even though it was on television.
Air Force Capt. Robert Farkas carefully pared down a pair of neon green earplugs so that they would fit in Noor’s tiny ears.
“There’s something unique going on here every day,” Farkas joked about his unusual assignment.
Curious soldiers came in and out of the tent to catch a glimpse of the baby who has captured a host of military hearts. Soad and Haider munched on fried shrimp nuggets while cameras clicked constantly on Noor’s face.
Then at 3 in the afternoon, it was finally time to go.
After weeks of negotiations and diplomatic wrangling, Noor and her guardians boarded the Air Force plane waiting to fly them to Kuwait. From there, the family will be flown on commercial jets first to Amsterdam and then to Atlanta.
They are scheduled to arrive at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Saturday afternoon.
“This is a very special day,” Soad said. “We are very happy.”
Noor slept during the almost two-hour flight to Kuwait’s Ali Al-Salim Air Base. Soad and Haider, who had never flown on a plane before, peered out the small windows to get an aerial view of their homeland.
It’s unsure how normal a life Noor will be able to lead even if the surgery in Atlanta goes well. But the Georgia soldiers were determined to give the baby a chance.
“It’s nice to see something we started come to a final result,” said Pfc. Justin Donnelly, a 19-year-old Charlie Company medic from Owego, N.Y., who first took the photos of Noor three weeks ago that started the ball rolling. “It’s a pretty good feeling for us today.”
Iraqi baby’s new name: Georgia
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baghdad, Iraq — The first time Georgia soldiers entered her house, Soad was scared. Americans had detained her eldest son for questioning once. She didn’t like gun-toting men in camouflage uniforms poking around the family home in Abu Ghraib.
But out of that frightening moment came a gift of joy.
Gainesville-based soldiers of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team promised to help give new life to Soad’s granddaughter Noor al-Zahra, born three months ago with a severe spinal cord defect that was untreatable in Iraq.
“I am so thankful for everything,” Soad said. “We will call the baby Noor al-Zahra Georgia.”
“Georgia! Georgia!” she told her daughters when she called home from Baghdad’s Camp Liberty on Thursday. “We want to name her that because the people of Georgia are helping us,” Soad said. “It will be a nice name for her.”
Just hours before an anticipated departure from Iraq, Soad sat in an Army trailer sorting out a host of emotions racing through her heart.
She had never left her family behind or flown on a plane before; the only times she had left Iraq was by car to neighboring Syria and Iran.
Now she was about to travel halfway around the world with a sick child in her arms. She had surrendered her granddaughter’s future to people she didn’t know in a foreign and faraway land.
“I am amazed by the generosity of the Americans,” Soad said through an interpreter. “They came to my house so many times. They paid for everything.”
Soad, 45, said she never dreamed that one day she would see the United States. She was excited, even though her trip was under such stressful circumstances. She knew that even with the best medical care, there were no guarantees for Noor.
Military doctors who have examined Noor said she would probably be left with paralysis in both legs. No one knows with certainty whether potential fluid buildup has caused any significant brain damage.
Soad knew, too, that she was putting her family at risk by accepting American help — insurgents often target Iraqi citizens who are seen as cooperating with U.S. soldiers.
But she said she had to take the chance and accept the soldiers’ offer to fly Noor to Atlanta. She could not live with herself knowing that she had not done everything she could to give her granddaughter the possibility of a productive life.
The full names of Noor’s family members have been withheld because of security reasons. Soad said she told friends and family that she was going to Georgia, not to America.
“It can be dangerous for us to be associated with America,” she said, fixing the tan, crocheted scarf around her head.
Noor, nicknamed “Baby Nora” by the soldiers, was born with spina bifida. Her spinal cord had not fully closed during her mother, Iman’s, pregnancy, leaving a tumorlike growth on her tiny back.
Iraqi doctors told the family that they lacked the facilities to treat the baby and that she would not survive long.
Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment’s Charlie Company discovered the little girl during a search of the family’s house. They were determined to save her.
Noor’s father, Haider, 23, cradled the frail baby in his arms, thankful that the medical treatment she desperately needed was finally within reach. He’d spent a good chunk of the afternoon getting Noor’s name added to his passport.
He poured hot tea for his mother and the interpreter and occasionally stuck his head out the door to smoke a cigarette. He said he had seen America in magazines and movies. He, like his mother, was incredulous that he would soon be there himself.
Capt. Anthony Fournier, 38, commander of Charlie Company, was optimistic that, after weeks of negotiations and efforts to expedite travel arrangements, Noor and her guardians would arrive in Atlanta on Saturday afternoon.
Late Thursday night, Fournier, a schoolteacher from Augusta, drove to central Baghdad’s heavily fortified International Zone and collected the visas that would enable the family to enter the United States.
Soad, Haider and the baby are expected to leave Baghdad today for Kuwait, from where they will board a commercial jet that will fly them to Atlanta.
Childspring International, an Atlanta-based charity that matches sick children from the developing world with U.S. hospitals, has made arrangements for Noor and her family to stay with an Arabic-speaking host family. Children’s Healthcare has offered to perform surgery to correct Noor’s spinal cord at no cost.
The traditional Muslim family decided Noor’s mother, who is only 18, was too young and should not be traveling out of the country. “Iman has been crying a lot,” Soad said about her daughter-in-law. “She misses her baby but is happy that she is getting help. She is very young. She doesn’t leave the home.”
Soad fired off a dozen questions about Georgia. “Where will we stay in America?” she asked. “How will I let my family know we are safe? How tall are the buildings there? What is the weather like?”
She worried about leaving behind the small shop she runs with her sons at Abu Ghraib market. She worried, too, about one of her daughters, Niran, 24, who is eight months pregnant.
“I didn’t have time to make any preparations for her,” Soad said. Charlie Company soldiers traveled to Soad’s house Tuesday night to fetch her, Haider and Noor. The family was given minutes to pack their belongings for the long journey ahead. Since then, the three have been housed in a trailer behind Charlie Company’s headquarters at Camp Liberty.
Soldiers have been stopping by to make sure the family has everything it needs.
Thursday evening, Staff Sgt. David Squires wished the family a safe trip. “I hated that it took so long to get administrative and logistical things taken care of,” said Squires, 47, who works for a hearing aid company in Gainesville. “We’re all hoping for the best possible outcome for this baby. It’s our little project here. It’s our mark on this country.”
Soad sipped her tea and tried to placate her sobbing granddaughter.
She held up a small stuffed animal, tickling Noor’s cheeks.
“Georgia,” she said. “Look here, Georgia.”
The baby stopped crying. She looked into her grandmother’s eyes — and smiled.
Hoping for an ace of a new year
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The soldiers of the 48th Brigade offer their resolutions for the new year, including one from a real card. • PHOTOS, RESOLUTIONS
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Infant ruled fit to fly to U.S.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
"It just makes you feel good inside knowing you're doing something for a sick child," says Staff Sgt. Darryl Clark, feeding Noor. • MORE PHOTOS
Baghdad, Iraq — It was a sound not heard before around the Georgia soldiers’ trailers at Camp Liberty: the frantic cries of a hungry baby.
Staff Sgt. Darryl Clark, 40, picked up the tiny girl, Noor al-Zahra, and put the small plastic bottle filled with baby formula into her mouth, gently rocking her frail body in his arms. Within minutes, the baby had fallen sleep.
“That’s just good stuff,” said Clark, a soldier in the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team. “It just makes you feel good inside knowing you’re doing something for a sick child of that age.
“It got me all teary-eyed,” Clark said later about the baby that soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment’s Charlie Company are trying to send to the United States so she can receive the medical care she needs to correct a life-threatening spinal cord defect.
“If I hadn’t gotten out of there when I did, I would’ve been crying my head off,” said Clark, a full-time Guard soldier who has six children.
Charlie Company soldiers fetched Noor, her father, Haider, and grandmother, Soad, from the family home in impoverished Abu Ghraib on Tuesday night and brought them back to Baghdad’s Camp Liberty.
After an hourlong examination Wednesday morning, two Army doctors declared Noor, born in September with a severe form of spina bifida, medically fit to fly to Atlanta, where several organizations and hospitals have volunteered services to care for the baby and her guardians.
Noor requires surgery to repair her spinal cord, which did not fully close during her mother’s pregnancy.
If everything works out, the baby could arrive in Atlanta as early as New Year’s Day.
Normally, conversation in Charlie Company’s command post centers on battle space and insurgent activity in the treacherous neighborhoods of eastern Abu Ghraib. Wednesday, the discussion among the machine gun-toting soldiers was far more challenging: where to buy diapers and baby formula.
At times, Charlie Company’s office felt more like a travel agency than a military operations center. Company commander Capt. Anthony Fournier spent a good chunk of his day negotiating necessary paperwork and making travel arrangements. He said the family would fly on a military plane to Kuwait, where they will board a commercial flight to Atlanta via Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Well into the night, Fournier was still on the phone with Army officials and Atlantans who are involved in the case.
“I don’t think this is a diversion from our fight over here,” said Fournier, a schoolteacher from Augusta. “It’s a big part of the fight.
“The terrorists’ strategy is to do bad things and blame it on the Americans. This goes directly against that: offering peace and freedom against the terrorists’ death and destruction,” he said of the efforts to save “Baby Nora,” the nickname soldiers have given little Noor.
Childspring International, an Atlanta-based charity that links sick children from the developing world to hospitals in America, is sponsoring the family for the visas. A doctor at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has agreed to perform Noor’s surgery at no cost.
Childspring’s development director, Helen Shepard, said her agency typically does not support male family members because they are considered a greater immigration risk.
But Shepard said her group would take responsibility for Noor’s father if the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad grants him a visa.
Fournier said the U.S. Embassy has agreed to expedite visas for the family.
Noor’s grandmother, the matriarch of the family, said Wednesday that she would not travel without her son by her side. It is uncommon for a traditional Muslim woman such as Soad to travel unaccompanied by a male relative.
Lacking the resources to treat her in Iraq, doctors here told the family that Noor would not live past 45 days. The gap in her spinal cord left her susceptible to infection and fluid buildup in her brain.
But Noor was almost 3 months old when Charlie Company soldiers discovered her during a house-to-house search for suspected insurgents in mid-December.
“One of the women in that house mentioned to me there was a sick baby,” said Pfc. Justin Donnelly, a 19-year-old Charlie Company medic from Owego, N.Y. The family showed Donnelly the tumor-like growth on the baby’s back.
“I brought a photo back. That started the whole ball running pretty much,” Donnelly said as he walked over to the baby’s trailer with a fresh supply of baby formula purchased at a local market. “To be honest, I didn’t think we’d be able to do anything to help her just because of the situation here right now.”
Capt. Keith Compton, a pediatrician with the 10th Mountain Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, said Noor looked healthy other than her spinal cord defect. So far, he said, there were no signs of fluid buildup in Noor’s brain.
But Compton said Noor most likely would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. The baby did not respond to touch on her legs and feet.
“I wouldn’t say she will be a normal child walking around, but she’ll have a chance at a functional life,” Compton said.
Even though Iraqi doctors were unable to perform the surgery Noor needed, Compton felt confident that medical facilities in the Baghdad area would be able to support Noor after her return from the United States.
“I’m pretty excited about this,” Donnelly said. “I’m doing a job I feel like I was put here to do.”
Staff photographer Curtis Compton (ccompton@ajc.com) contributed to this article.
Commander quells rumors of early return
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baghdad, Iraq — Every soldier has his or her way of counting down the days to going home.
Some count paychecks; others strike out days on calendars or simply post the magic number on the walls of their trailers or tents.
Then there is wishful thinking.
Rumors have swirled about the possibility of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Team returning to Georgia before a year’s deployment in the Middle East. Now it looks like it won’t.
Last week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumseld, on a visit to Baghdad, said that President Bush had authorized new cuts in U.S. forces below the 138,000-troop level that has prevailed for most of this year.
He did not reveal a specific figure, but the top military commander in Iraq and the U.S. ambassador said in a statement that the reduction would involve two combat brigades, or about 7,000 troops.
“That will bring down the total level from 17 brigades to 15,” Gen. George Casey and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said.
But the Georgia brigade’s commander, Brig. Gen. Stewart Rodeheaver, dispelled talk of early departures from Iraq during a stopover Wednesday at Baghdad’s Camp Liberty, where Gainesville-based Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment is stationed.
Rodeheaver said he was required by the Army to have at least 51 percent of the brigade home by May 16, one full year after the Georgia soldiers left the tall, piney forests of Fort Stewart for the Kuwaiti desert. The brigade entered Iraq in early June.
“My goal is to get about 80 to 90 percent of the brigade back home by May 16,” Rodeheaver said on a trip from Tallil Air Base in southern Iraq, where the brigade’s headquarters is now located.
He outlined a timetable for 48th companies to trickle out of Iraq. A small “torch party” would leave Iraq by Feb. 15, Rodeheaver said. A month later, an advance party would make its way back to Fort Stewart to make preparations for the arrival of the rest of the brigade.
Companies will begin leaving their posts most likely in April. The brigade officially hands over its mission to an incoming Army unit on May 1, Rodeheaver said.
He told the soldiers to expect a minimum of a three-day stay in Kuwait and then at least six days at Fort Stewart before they can go home to their families.
“All of you know, you’ve got to keep doing your missions until you get out of here,” Rodeheaver said. “The thing I need you to do between now and when you go back home is to keep each other safe.”
Men of the ‘Lost Company’ lift hopes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
Charlie Company soldiers patrol Dec. 13 through the Al-Ban Apartments, one of the poorest areas around Baghdad.
Abu Ghraib, Iraq — Not many years ago, they were high school students learning history, geography and civics at Cross Creek High School in Augusta.
Their teacher, Anthony Fournier, would sometimes issue an order or two: “Run to the library” or “Make a copy of this chapter for me.”
Now, Fournier’s orders are far more serious.
As the commander of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment, Capt. Fournier has three of his former students — Spc. Joseph Noble, Spc. Patrick Walworth and Cpl. Wade Key — patrolling dangerous neighborhoods in the Abu Ghraib district of Iraq.
Noble was involved in a recent incident that ended with the shooting and killing of a drive-by gunman.
“I imagine it’s a little strange for them to be out here with their teacher,” Fournier said. “Sometimes I find myself out on a raid, and I’m in a room with just my guys. The same kid I used to send to the library is now carrying a [machine gun].”
Fournier commands about 150 men. The soldiers call themselves the “Lost Company” because since they arrived in Iraq last May, they have been separated from their parent unit, the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team.
Charlie Company soldiers even had T-shirts made bearing the name they adopted.
Parceled out first to the 3rd Infantry Division, then to the 256th Brigade Combat Team from Louisiana and now to the 10th Mountain Division, Gainesville-based Charlie Company is the lone 48th Brigade unit stationed at Camp Liberty, a sprawling complex that hugs the Baghdad airport.
The soldiers said they have had little contact with brigade officials, now at Tallil Air Base in southeastern Iraq, or their friends in other units from Georgia. But Fournier said that has not necessarily been a bad thing.
“I think being attached to active-duty battalions has been great for the company,” he said. “We’re brushing shoulders with pretty esteemed divisions. And my men are holding their own and then some.”
In the seven months that Charlie Company soldiers have been at Liberty, they have patrolled impoverished east Abu Ghraib in their armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles, scouring the neighborhoods for insurgents.
Fournier said his soldiers have captured nine suspects in the past few weeks.
“Our informants are starting to give us accurate [intelligence] as they see us snatch the bad guys,” Fournier said, “and the informants see that their identity is staying secret.”
Since its arrival in Iraq, Charlie Company has been hit with more than 30 bombs and been involved in four rocket-propelled grenade ambushes and dozens of small arms and mortar attacks.
Caring for residents
The company lost one Bradley to what Fournier described as a “rather huge” roadside bomb.
“God watched over my men that day, as the blast was enough to push the engine through the armored hood,” he said.
Fournier said morale is high among his men: The company has 19 soldiers who have re-enlisted in the Guard, and six others have applied for a transfer to active duty following redeployment.
“I feel like a coach or like a father who has kids excelling at stuff,” Fournier said of the soldiers, some of whom he has known for 10 years. “It’s just a real good feeling.”
More than anything, though, Fournier said his soldiers know their job is more than just rounding up terror suspects.
“We want to show the people how soldiers act in a democracy by interacting with the local population,” he said.
Charlie Company has been building a reputation for doing just that. A medic who sometimes goes out on patrol with the Georgia soldiers described the unit as “very caring.”
On a typical patrol through an area known as White Gold — milk production from water buffaloes was once big business here — the soldiers stopped to hear the concerns of residents.
“How has it been since the election?” asked 1st Lt. Jeff Morgan, a Douglas County engineering inspector.
A group of men standing amid a heap of trash nodded their heads and replied: “Quiet. Good.”
A woman interrupted, pleading with the soldiers to take a look at her daughter.
“This happened a few years ago,” said Hamida Madloum, pointing to her 13-year-old daughter Amel Ali.
Amel flashed a big smile, but she had large scars on her face. Her left eye was closed. Her right eye was milky white.
Where her right forearm should have been was a stump.
Amel was playing with a grenade she found in a field when it exploded in her hands.
Morgan looked at Amel and her mother.
“Tell them,” he said to an interpreter, “next time I am out with a doctor, I’ll swing by and let her take a look at the girl.”
Up close and hopeful
Charlie Company went next to check on a diabetic man who had both legs amputated because of an infection. The right leg was taken off just weeks ago.
Ali Hassoun sat on a rug on the floor of the front room of his house. The smell of incense wafted through the open halls, overpowering the stench of garbage and cow dung outside.
Morgan handed a battery-powered stuffed hamster toy to Hassoun’s grandson as he asked Hassoun to unwrap his wound. He could tell Hassoun had not be dressing it properly: The bandages were stained with pus.
Morgan explained to the family why Hassoun’s leg had to be properly tended. In the background, the hamster played “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy” over and over.
The soldiers walked on through the dirty streets of White Gold, where the war had taken its toll.
Morgan surmised that trash pickup and proper sewage service was nonexistent because residents did not want to be identified with Americans and because of local government corruption.
“Everyone wants their uncle to get the garbage pick-up contract,” he said.
Still, Ibrahim Sabah Ali told Morgan that “everyone here is happy after the election.” He was hopeful the violence would wane.
Charlie Company soldiers were happy to hear optimism in Iraqi voices.
The sooner things settle down, the sooner they can go home, they told themselves.
A former Iraqi Embassy official echoed the thought. Faisal Solaybi al-Jumaili said now that the elections are over, Iraq is headed for change. Al-Jumaili had traveled to Abu Ghraib from Mansour, one of Baghdad’s wealthiest neighborhoods.
He opened up a plastic bag to show why. In it was a liter-size water bottle filled with fresh buffalo milk. He was pleased to have found White Gold.
Baby is Atlanta-bound for treatment of spina bifida
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Abu Ghraib, Iraq — Baby Noor al-Zahra, born with spina bifida and little chance of survival in the slums of Abu Ghraib, made her first move Tuesday in a long journey that Georgia soldiers pray will end, possibly this week, with medical care in Atlanta.
And perhaps give the frail child new hope for life.
Born in September with the severe spinal cord defect, Noor was discovered by soldiers of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team earlier this month when they raided the family home looking for suspected insurgents.
After two weeks of sorting out bureaucracy — it’s not logistically easy to shuttle Iraqi citizens out of the war zone — and frantic communications with military officials, lawmakers and a host of Atlanta-area hospitals and charitable organizations, Gainesville-based soldiers picked up the baby, her father and grandmother Tuesday night and carried them back in a Humvee to Baghdad’s Camp Liberty.
“I’ll feel much relieved when we get her under a doctor’s care,” said Capt. Anthony Fournier, commander of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment.
The soldiers had instructed Noor’s family to be ready to go at a moment’s notice because when arrangements finally fell into place, there would be no time to waste; for Noor, every passing day lessened her chances of survival.
With just one last obstacle remaining — clearance for Noor to enter the United States — Fournier thought it best to bring the baby on base to be seen by military doctors.
A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said the senator has been in touch with the American Embassy in Baghdad and that the paperwork for Noor and her relatives should be processed within two days or so.
“I’m very pleased that Baby Nora is now at a place where she can receive the critical attention she needs,” Chambliss said in a statement sent via e-mail, calling the baby by the soldiers’ nickname for her.
“This has been a top priority of mine over the past few days,” Chambliss added. “I’m proud of our troops, and we will continue our efforts to get her back to Georgia, where she can be treated.”
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is committed to treating the child at no cost, spokeswoman Jennifer Sinclair said Tuesday night.
Hours earlier, when Fournier took his men back to Abu Ghraib, he was concerned that the family would not yet be ready to go. He was unsure if they had been able to obtain passports on such quick notice — and if the family would be ready to let go of the child who lit up their lives.
For family members, whose full names are being withheld because of security issues, the moment was bittersweet. They want so much to see Noor receive the medical care she desperately needs. But America, the land of the gun-toting soldiers they know little about, is so far away.
“Please don’t be afraid,” Fournier told Noor’s grandmother Soad through an interpreter as he looked over the three passports handed to him by the woman draped in black. “We are going to take care of you.”
Three of Soad’s daughters quickly packed a bag for her and Noor. They gave Soad a brand-new black purse to carry with her to America.
Tears rolled down the cheeks of Noor’s mother, Iman. Only two adults could go with her only child: It was decided that her mother-in-law, Soad, the matriarch of the family, would be one; the baby’s father, Haider, would be the other. The family thought it was inappropriate for a Muslim woman to travel unaccompanied by a male relative.
“I am happy my baby is going,” said Iman, wiping tears. She knew that it could be many months before she would see her baby again. “It’s hard to be separated like this. But what else can I do?”
Once Noor is fully evaluated by a pediatrician here and the family gets permission to travel to America, Charlie Company hopes to put Noor, Soad and Haider on a commercial flight to Atlanta.
Under cover of night — Noor’s family lives in an impoverished area west of Baghdad that is racked with political violence — the soldiers came into the modest house where they had found the baby two weeks ago during a raid for suspected insurgents. They were smitten with the tiny girl, cradled in her mother’s arms.
“Most of my guys are fathers,” said Sgt. 1st Class Michael Sonen, a furniture maker from Dahlonega. “We would do anything we could to take care of our babies. It’s been a little frustrating that this is not working as fast as it could.
“She’s so young,” Sonen said. “What makes my daughter more special than this child? Nothing.”
Noor was born with a severe form of spina bifida, in which her spinal cord was not fully enclosed during her prenatal development. She has a large, tumor-like growth on her back.
With no resources to treat her, Iraqi doctors told the family that Noor would not survive more than 45 days, but she beat the odds.
Charlie Company Lt. Jeff Morgan, a Douglas County engineering inspector, contacted his church back home for help. As the case drew more attention, the soldiers saw that their Christmas wish might come true.
“I am thankful that this child is being given a chance for a normal life, but she still has a long way to go,” Morgan said.
Military doctors who have examined Noor said she is showing some signs of developmental delay but she could still have a chance at a productive life. Maj. Susan Robinson, an Army doctor who examined Noor on Tuesday, said she was doing well, “considering.”
Babies born with this severe form of spina bifida usually don’t survive very long.
In the United States, the defect is usually treated with surgery in utero or within the first few hours of birth.
As Robinson checked her, Noor smiled at her from a blanket-covered bed in a soldier’s trailer. Soad covered the frail child with a white-lace zippered quilt to shield her from the night’s chill.
“She’s fragile, but she looks good. She will probably end up in a wheelchair, but she’s doing remarkably well,” Robinson said. Spina bifida often causes paralysis of the legs.
Spina bifida also could cause brain damage from too much spinal fluid buildup, Robinson said. Soad explained to the doctor that the baby’s head was getting big.
“Where at the top of her head does it feel big?” Robinson asked, feeling Noor’s head.
“It is bigger, especially in the forehead,” Soad said.
Robinson said surgeons in the United States probably would have to insert a shunt to help the fluid drain.
The doctor’s visit was happily interrupted by Sgt. 1st Class James Wong of the 48th Brigade’s Chicago-based 133rd Signal Battalion, Alpha Company. He burst into the trailer with two beanbag toys for Noor.
“We heard the baby was here,” Wong said. “I love babies. I’ve got two of my own. That’s what we’re here for — to take care of the kids for the future.”
Fournier picked up a can of baby formula the grandmother carried and asked: “Is this the last of it?”
“Yes,” Soad replied.
“OK, we’ll get some more,” said Fournier, writing down the name of the formula: Dieluc. “Can she eat oatmeal?”
His question generated a stream of laughter from both interpreter and grandmother. “No,” Soad said. “She is only 3 months old.”
Later, at Charlie Company headquarters, Fournier joked about calling in his latest assignment for his soldiers.
“Here’s the mission,” he said. “Find the baby formula. Stand by for the name.”
Staff writer Maryn McKenna contributed to this report.
Finding joy far from home
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tallil Air Base, Iraq — In the darkness of this vast military base, sometimes it was hard to tell that Christmas was here.
Many of the soldiers kept to their trailers. Others were out on supply convoys that would last all night or even a few days.
“Is it Christmas? I hadn’t noticed,” was a common comment.
Soldiers can find Christmas especially difficult because of the separation from family and friends; they give up the comforts of home for a crude, and sometimes lonely, existence in a combat zone.
Here in southern Iraq, members of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team tried to make the best of it. Some units threw Christmas parties or organized gift exchanges. A few Christmas lights and decorations sparkled among the trailers soldiers call home. An inflatable snowman bobbed up and down in the wind that swirled between the metal buildings.
In a courtyard outside the main recreational facility, some troops gathered for a Christmas program of carols, readings and a live Nativity scene.
Two friends who serve in the 220th Engineer Company, based in Festus, Mo., held up battery-operated plastic candles and sang “Away in a Manger” together.
“I’d probably be heading to my aunt and uncle’s house right now,” said Spc. Jeremiah Johnson, 22, a corrections officer from DeSoto, Mo. “That’s what we do every Christmas Eve. I miss the food, the gifts.”
Johnson said he could go for a good roasted turkey.
Sgt. Robb Breck, 37, a driver for United Parcel Service in Imperial, Mo., said he was really missing his twins.
“It’s kind of sad to be here,” he said. “We usually go visit relatives on Christmas Eve and exchange gifts.”
Spc. Lisa Evans, 37, a Macon State University student from Griffin, said soldiers try to make the best of being so far from home on this special day.
“I didn’t want to be thinking about home,” she said. “I wanted to be in the Christmas spirit.”
“This is wonderful,” she said of the outdoor Christmas program. “The narration of the whole event — why we celebrate Christmas was represented really well.”
Across the street and by the rows of trailers that occupy Living Area 2, members of the Puerto Rican National Guard took out guitars and gathered at a gazebo to sing traditional songs from the countryside known as aguilando. They shared arroz con dulce (a sweet rice pudding) and later went from trailer to trailer regaling soldiers with Christmas cheer.
“I feel great,” said Capt. José Lopezmolina, 48, commander of the 1st Battalion, 295th Infantry Regiment’s Charlie Company. “This is what we do at home in Puerto Rico. It’s real meaningful for the soldiers to be able to do this.” See photos
Sgt. Emeline Felix of the brigade’s Headquarters and Headquarters Company said she was warmed by the Puerto Rican contingent’s sense of family.
“When you do something together, it makes you feel like you belong,” said Felix, 51, a full-time Guard soldier from Marietta.
At the main base chapel, about 50 Georgians were joined by a group of Romanian soldiers for a service.
“Christmas by Chemlight,” led by chaplains of the 48th Brigade, included readings from the Bible and Christmas carols — and of course, outdoor chemical lights instead of candles.
The Romanians sang a few carols in their native language.
“We saw something here tonight that was amazing to me,” said one chaplain, Lt. Col. Stanley Bamberg, 53, of Fawnsdale, Ala.
“Sixteen years ago, NATO was in the West, Warsaw in the East. The dividing wall came down. We could have met in the plains of battle. Tonight we met to sing Christmas carols.”
AJC photographer Curtis Compton contributed to this article.
A soldier ‘you never forget’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dave Hirschman
Staff Sgt. John Mason puts on a protective suit as he prepares to detonate a corpse IED next to an irrigation canal in Mahmudiyah in July.
Staff Sgt. Johnnie Mason wasn’t a member of the 48th Brigade Combat Team, and he was a native of Texas, not Georgia.
But the explosives expert with the quick, Johnny Depp smile and offbeat sense of humor earned the Georgians’ admiration by defusing scores of roadside bombs aimed at them.
Mason was killed Dec. 19 in Mahmudiyah by insurgents who apparently targeted him personally.
Mason had just destroyed a roadside bomb in the dusty, violent town south of Baghdad when someone called his attention to a suspicious-looking trash bag nearby. The tall, gangly 32-year-old career soldier approached it, then turned to his fellows and yelled for them to seek protection in their Humvees. At that moment, the hidden bomb exploded, killing Mason. No one else was hurt.
Mason was scheduled to be home celebrating his daughter’s birthday in Clarksville, Tenn., where he was stationed, the day before he was killed. But the Army kept him in Iraq because of fears of insurgent violence around the time of the Dec. 15 elections.
Mason was married with two children — a daughter, Ashley, and son, Adam.
“He found humor in everything he did,” said Brook Mason, his widow. “He could read technical manuals and wiring diagrams and instantly understand them, and he’d be smiling the whole time. He loved what he did because he knew it saved lives, and he cared about the people around him. He enjoyed his work and thought his job was fun. I supported him because I wanted him to be happy — and he was.”
Mason kept his composure through some of the most ghastly and disturbing situations in Iraq. He defused bombs planted in rotting corpses and animals, knowing all the while that bomb disposal experts were prized targets for insurgents.
He was nearly killed in July when a bomb went off prematurely. The blast temporarily knocked out his hearing, gave him a raging headache and covered him with dirt and grime. But 15 minutes later, he was back on the job at the very same spot, neutralizing deadly artillery shells that hadn’t exploded the first time.
Front-line infantry soldiers, a hard crowd to impress, marveled at Mason’s bravery.
“You are, without a doubt, nuts!” Sgt. Guillermo Thorne of the 1st Battalion, 108th Armor Regiment told Mason admiringly that day.
Mason, a member of the 717th Explosive Ordnance Detachment, kept up a steady banter riding in military vehicles on Iraq’s demolition derby roads, and he frequently prodded drivers to be more aggressive. When his Humvee sideswiped a truck in heavy traffic, Mason clapped the driver on the shoulder approvingly and quipped, “If you ain’t rubbing, you ain’t racing!”
Lt. Col. John King, the 1st Battalion commander, said members of the mortar platoon who worked with Mason regularly have taken his death hard. The battalion left Mahmudiyah in November, but the mortar platoon plans to return for Mason’s memorial service.
“We will miss Johnnie very much,” said King, Doraville’s police chief in civilian life. “He was one of those soldiers you never forget. Mahmudiyah has a way of humbling the best of us. We pay very close attention to the number of soldiers that have been lost there, but when you know the names behind those numbers, that changes you forever.”
Troops seek to aid Iraqi girl with spina bifida
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Abu Ghraib, Iraq — First Lt. Jeff Morgan watched with concern as Soad Jaffar al-Hasan cradled her precious baby girl, the mother’s smile masking the inevitable.
Morgan, a single father of five from Douglas County, knew that in a few months, possibly weeks, Noor, al-Hassan’s firstborn, would succumb to a birth defect.
“If no one helps us, the baby will die,” Noor’s grandmother, Iman Sami Abbas, told visiting soldiers with the Georgia Army National Guard.
Noor, whose name means light in Arabic, was born with a severe form of spina bifida. Iraqi doctors lack the resources to treat her. They sent her family home, telling them the baby had 45 days at most to live. Barring a miracle, the light in their lives would go out.
Noor beat the odds and will be 3 months old Friday. Her time, though, is running out. No one is sure how long she will live in her condition.
But Noor’s family might get the miracle they have dreamed of, thanks to soldiers from the 48th Brigade Combat Team’s 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment.
Morgan has been furiously e-mailing friends and contacts in Atlanta to get help for Noor. Now, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta has stepped forward and is offering to treat the child.
Jennifer Sinclair, a Children’s Healthcare spokeswoman, said one of the hospital’s neurosurgeons, Dr. Roger Hudgins, had agreed to perform the surgery at no cost to the family once the child arrived in Atlanta and was evaluated.
Noor was found earlier this month during a raid seeking insurgents in an area of Abu Ghraib known as 1 March by soldiers from the 1st Battalion’s Charlie Company, based in Gainesville.
They could not forget the tiny girl with wisps of black hair and big brown eyes. When they learned Noor’s life could be saved back home in America, they set out to find a way to get her out of Iraq for medical care.
“I think every child deserves a chance,” said Morgan, a Douglas County engineering inspector. “The whole company is focused on getting her help. It means as much to the soldiers here as it does for the parents.”
In U.S., she would survive
For Charlie Company, saving Noor has been a heart-warming distraction this Christmas season from the routine of daily patrols in the treacherous neighborhoods of Abu Ghraib district, just west of Baghdad.
Morgan, 40, who carries his children’s photos in his wallet, said: “It’s a chance to help a kid. Who knows? She could grow up to be president of Iraq one day.”
Morgan said he thought of his own five when he first saw a photo of Noor taken by a soldier during the raid. He thought about how he would feel if his daughter had been born with such a debilitating deformity. He thought how lucky he was that in the United States, doctors would be able to treat his daughter and give her a chance at normalcy.
But in the trash-strewn, sewage-infested slums of impoverished Abu Ghraib, few children receive basic medical attention such as vaccinations, much less the kind of intensive care Noor needs.
Morgan took a military doctor to visit Noor, called Baby Nora by the soldiers. The doctor determined that she was born with spina bifida, an open spine. In the early stages of her mother’s pregnancy, Noor’s spinal cord did not fully close, leaving a gap where a cyst-like growth the size of a baseball now sits on Noor’s back.
“She doesn’t have a chance here. She will definitely die,” said the American military doctor, who is not authorized to treat patients outside the bases and did not want to be identified.
The March of Dimes Web site says one of every 2,000 babies born in the United States has spina bifida. But it is easily treatable with proper prenatal care, or postnatal surgery.
In her mother’s arms, Noor looked perfectly healthy. But she cannot feel it when someone tickles her feet. Spina bifida often results in paralysis of the legs.
Noor tried but could not follow a moving finger with her eyes. The military doctor who examined her said Noor showed signs of developmental delay. Typically in spina bifida cases, the doctor said, fluid begins to build up around the brain and eventually causes severe neurological damage.
“Often, when babies are born like this, they don’t survive,” the doctor said. “In the States, we would have done in-utero surgery, or we would have done surgery on the first day.”
With time, damage grows
The doctor said that if Noor could get surgery fairly soon she would have a chance at a productive life. But the more time that passes, the less likely it is that Noor will be able to survive.
“I wanted to help her in any way I could,” said the doctor, a mother separated from her own children. She wrote up a diagnosis that Morgan sent back to Atlanta in an effort to solicit help.
“I go out and see the kids here — actually it’s kind of selfish,” she said. “At least I get to hold a child.”
Morgan also has been writing to church groups in the Atlanta area, pleading for help. So far he has contacted the Southern Baptist Convention and two churches in Douglasville that he has attended.
One — Shepherd of the Hills United Methodist Church — is trying to set up a charitable fund to help Noor.
“It is a way for our congregation to get connected with Iraq,” said Adam Roberts, the pastor. “This definitely gives folks a hands-on way to respond. This is just good through and through.”
Visas coming, but when?
Morgan said the Marriott hotel group was willing to donate living space for the girl and an accompanying relative. Delta Air Lines has agreed to fly the child and one relative from Kuwait to Atlanta through its charitable Sky Wish program.
And Childspring International, an Atlanta nonprofit that matches sick children from other countries with doctors in the United States, is working with Children’s Healthcare to arrange Noor’s medical care.
“We will work as hard as we can to make it happen,” said Rose Emily, executive director of Childspring. “I look forward to going to the airport and picking up this little girl.”
But Morgan still has one major obstacle ahead — government clearance to bring Noor to the United States.
He said he contacted Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) for help in getting Noor out of Iraq.
AnnieLaurie Walters, a spokeswoman for Chambliss, said in an e-mail that the senator’s office was working on securing visas for the baby and her grandmother.
“I’m sure it’s going to happen,” Morgan said. “My problem is trying to make it happen fast. The doctor said the window is closing in on the time we have to prevent brain damage.”
Father would ‘do anything’
On a recent chilly night, Noor and her family were huddled around a kerosene heater in their living room when Charlie Company soldiers dropped by for a visit. Morgan needed additional information about the baby and wanted to look at her birth certificate.
“You promised me you would help,” said Abbas, the matriarch of the family, who runs a family grocery with her three sons.
“I’m working on it,” Morgan said through an interpreter, explaining all the contacts he had made in Atlanta.
“Who will go with the baby?” he asked.
“I will,” Abbas said, pointing to herself. “Only one person can go?”
“Yes,” Morgan said. “I will try and see if her father can go as well.”
Noor lay swathed in white cloth on her aunt Zainab’s lap. Silver earrings dangled from her pierced lobes. She could move her toes but did not respond to touch below her waist. Her aunt unwrapped the cloth and showed the American visitors the large pinkish growth on Noor’s back.
“The pregnancy was normal,” Abbas said. “This has been very sad for us. But the Americans brought us hope.”
“Will she be OK?” Abbas asked Morgan.
“If she gets treatment soon, she will grow up normal,” Morgan replied.
“I’ll do anything for her,” said Noor’s father, Haider Khalif, 23.
Capt. Anthony Fournier, 38, a schoolteacher from Augusta, said Noor gave his soldiers a chance at measurable success in the middle of an often perplexing guerrilla war.
“No one can question this,” Fournier said. “This is tangible.”
Staff Sgt. Darryl Clark, 40,
of Lula said Georgia soldiers want to feel a sense of accomplishment, that they did something to make a difference instead of “just riding around in circles in Baghdad.” Nothing would be better, he said, than to save Noor, especially now, at Christmas.
“If we do anything in this whole deployment, we’d like to make this happen,” he said.
Staff writer Jeremy Redmon in Atlanta and staff photographer Curtis Compton in Iraq contributed to this article.
It’s North vs. South in good-natured culture clash
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Al Asad Air Base, Iraq — Georgia’s soldiers are learning the art of “cawfee� talk in Iraq.
Yes, “cawfee.� As in how the Yankees in their unit pronounce coffee. Add “dawgs� for dogs and “bettuh� for better. Then throw in some Northern phrases like “wicked bad,� which means really good, and that is enough to make the Georgians’ heads spin.
National Guard soldiers from across Georgia are serving in the 48th Brigade Combat Team with scores of Northerners from the 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Regiment of Rhode Island. The 172nd pulls troops from all over the Northeast, including New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut.
After fighting alongside the Northerners for months in Iraq, some Georgians find the culture clash has become a source of much good-natured bantering. Some of the Southerners have started dropping their r’s like New Yorkers. Others do it just to tease each other.
Sgt. Jesse Bowling of Lumber City smiled when he spotted one of his Rhode Island buddies, Spc. Gregory Carter, wandering around piles of auto parts at the motor pool recently.
“Cawter!� Bowling shouted. “Did you find some pawts?�
“When he first said ‘pawts,’ â€? Bowling said, “we said, ‘Are you going to do some cooking?’ â€?
The Northerners also say they have trouble understanding their counterparts from the South. The Georgians greet them with “y’all� and pronounce “pens� as “pins.� Carter laughed as he talked about how he heard a Georgian use a made-up word.
“I learned a new word from these guys, ‘The onliest thing you got to worry about.’ â€? Carter said, imitating his friend.
Despite their occasional communication problems, the soldiers appear to get along well — even when they talk about the Civil War. On the night before Thanksgiving, a few of them were excitedly discussing the war at Camp Korean Village, a small U.S. military outpost near the Jordanian border.
First Lt. Jeff Ahern of Johnston, R.I., proudly talked about how he plays a Union soldier in Civil War battle re-enactments. Sitting across from Ahern, Capt. William Bailey of Milledgeville said he played a Confederate soldier once.
There was a touch of tension in the air when 1st Lt. Alan Dufresne of Warwick, R.I., walked into the room and rolled his eyes.
“The only thing you have to know about the Civil War is who won,� Dufresne joked.
As if to rub it in, Dufresne imitated a Southern drawl. Bailey immediately saw an opening and jumped in.
“What was funny was your attempt at a Southern accent. Because it was really quite pathetic,� Bailey said.
Dufresne shot back: “That wasn’t a Southern accent. That was a Capt. Bailey accent.�
It took a week just to get to the war
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baghdad, Iraq — Covering the war in Iraq is a challenging assignment for journalists. But first, you have to get to the war.
And that, as I discovered on this, my fourth trip to Iraq in three years, can be almost as challenging.
After a 20-hour flight from Atlanta to Kuwait City via Frankfurt, I arrived at my hotel almost at midnight Dec. 11.
The military encourages reporters who are going to embed with military units to travel through Kuwait, where we board C-130 transport planes into Baghdad. I spent a day in Kuwait sorting out passport and visa issues and made the hour-long journey by bus to Ali Al Salem Air Base at 1:30 a.m. Dec. 13. The sun was rising by the time our bags were finally loaded up onto the palette.
It was breakfast time but for only those with military or contractor credentials. Passport holders (this reporter included) had to wait at the wooden picnic bench near the luggage staging area. Luckily, a good-hearted bus driver brought me a gravy-slathered omelet and a passion fruit drink from the chow hall.
No times for military flights are ever announced because of security concerns; we are simply given a code name for the flight - our flight was Chrome 15 - so that “folks up north” can come to the airport to pick you up. In my case, it didn’t matter. No one would be waiting for me at Baghdad airport, commonly known as BIAP.
Chrome 15 finally took off at about 9:30 in the morning. Almost two hours later, I was on the ground in Baghdad, lugging all my gear - computer, satellite phone, battery chargers, notebooks and enough clothes and supplies for two months - through dust and gravel to the covered waiting area on the military side of BIAP.
I had been ordered by the military to make my way to the International Zone, the heavily fortified area of central Baghdad formerly known as the Green Zone, to obtain press credentials that would theoretically allow me to move freely on military bases.
I tried to call a company called Catfish Air that has the power to manifest passengers on helicopters to the IZ. After three tries in vain (the woman on the other end either put me on terminal hold or hung up on me), I gave up and waited another hour to catch a shuttle bus to nearby Camp Striker, a military base that houses transients.
This was familiar territory for me. A chunk of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team had been stationed here last summer. I had called Tent 5-35 home for almost three months.
Upon arrival, employees of Kellogg Brown & Root, an arm of the Halliburton Company that runs the camp, issued me a room that was basically a shipping container with a bed. I dumped my belongings there and several hours later was back waiting at the KBR office for a ride on the Rhino, a large armored bus. In the thick of night, the Rhino traveled from Striker through western Baghdad and into the IZ, arriving at 3:30 a.m.
There, we did as we had been ordered to do at Striker. Help unload baggage, a process that exhausted every last bit of energy in me. Where was a high-powered, calorie-filled Hooah Bar when you needed one?
About 45 minutes later, a soldier from the Combined Press Information Center (CPIC) came to pick me up. I was the sole remaining passenger at the Rhino stop by that point. It was late. It was dark. Thoughts of bad things happening had floated in and out of my head.
The CPIC soldier directed me to a loft space with several Army cots. I had never been happier to see one of those aluminum and green canvas folding contraptions.
About 10 a.m. I was taken to the credentialing officer. It took all of 6 minutes and 32 seconds for my credential to be renewed. I asked for a six-month renewal since I plan to return to Iraq in the spring. But that was not possible. Ninety days is all I would get. I would have to go through this rigamarole again.
Next stop: a session with several senators and the U.S. ambassador that ate up a good bit of the afternoon. I made my way to the IZ helipad, where I hoped to catch a chopper back to Striker at 6 p.m.
After several delays, the two Blackhawk helicopters finally landed at 9 p.m. The passengers were told to strap themselves in. I was dreaming of ahot shower and the little bed in the connex at Striker.
But that turned out to be many, many hours away.
Citing weather conditions, the crew ordered the passengers to be off-loaded. I went back to the Rhino pound to see if I could catch the armored bus back to Striker after midnight. But no one was available to manifest me. I had just about burst into tears when a kind-hearted soldier from the helipad returned to tell me that a Chinook helicopter was on its way to BIAP. He whisked me back to the helipad in his golf cart.
I could feel the draw of that bed again once I buckled myself in the seat.
We landed at Camp Falcon, where we sat on the tarmac for what seemed like an eternity. By the time I got into my bed at Striker that night, I had been traveling for more than six days. And yet, I had not reported one word for a story on the 48th Brigade.
“For what?” I asked myself. For a credential whose credibility is questioned by gate guards all over Iraq.
I can hardly complain given the hardships soldiers in Iraq endure. But for journalists, the clock is ticking. The pressure is on to begin filing stories.
I planned to hook up with a Georgia unit at Camp Liberty - Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment. I had been warned by military officials that I could not begin to interview soldiers until I was with my embed unit, no matter how much good news they had to offer.
Because the 48th Brigade is now dispersed across Iraq, embedded journalists must inform not the unit with which they are embedding of his or her intentions but also every military unit that has any sort of authority over the 48th. In my case, I was ordered to inform at least four different public affairs officers of my plans.
That was done easily enough through e-mails.
Early Friday morning, I was ready to be picked up by Charlie Company soldiers. My colleague, AJC photographer Curtis Compton, who was already with the unit, called around 11. “There’s a problem,” he said. Some officials in the 10th Mountain Division were not aware of my arrival; the message had not filtered down. I would have to wait until it was cleared.
I finally made it to Charlie Company by dinner time. Seven days had elapsed since I left Atlanta. I still hadn’t reported anything on the 48th Brigade.
I understand there are serious security issues at play in Iraq, but why make it so difficult for embedded journalists to get to the soldiers they want to cover? Military officials often complain the media report only the negative from Iraq. But how are we to report the full story when it is so tough to even get to it?
Worse still, this kind of arduous process may actually deter journalists from embedding with military units at all. One American journalist I met in Kuwait told me he had second thoughts about doing this again. The process had plain worn him out even before he got to the real action.
I, too, am exhausted just thinking about having to go through all this again.
Oh and that CPIC credential? It couldn’t even get me through the door of the chow hall at Camp Striker.
Devoted father, son, husband is killed in Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At age 14, Joseph Alan Lucas faced a heavy, yet common dilemma for a teen whose parents were splitting up: Live with Dad, or Mom?
He chose his mother, who was starting a new life in Georgia, 1,100 miles from the small town in Maine where he had grown up.
“He was the older one, so he thought he could take care of his mother,” said Jeffrey Lucas, his father who stayed in Maine with the younger son, Jason.
That thoughtful son is the latest casualty of the Iraq war, one of the two Fort Stewart-based soldiers to die last week.
Army Spc. Joseph Lucas was killed by an improvised explosive device Thursday while serving with an armored squadron of the 3rd Infantry Division in Balad, about 40 miles north of Baghdad, officials said.
Things were looking bright for Lucas, 23. He was married to his high school girlfriend, Heather. The two had a 16-month-old son, Joseph Jr. The couple had bought a house in Augusta.
Lucas was supposed to return home Monday to spend Christmas with his family, his wife said. His tour in Iraq was scheduled to end in April.
Nine years ago, the soldier moved to the Augusta area with his mother, Barbara Davis, when she divorced from her husband. The older brother had to be separated from his younger brother, who looked up to him. The boys didn’t see each other much, their father said.
“But it was a good decision because he turned out pretty good. I have no regrets at the decision at he made,” said the elder Lucas.
In high school, Lucas led the life of an ordinary student. He played soccer and basketball. He was easy going and well-liked. He also decided to enroll into a ROTC program.
After graduating from high school, Lucas enlisted in the military. He planned to leave the service and was contemplating becoming a state trooper, a job with a steady paycheck suitable for a man with a family, his father said.
“What happened was sad and a mistake. They shouldn’t have been over there to begin with, but he was doing his job,” said the father.
The funeral is slated for Dec. 27 in Georgia.
Staff Sgt. Curtis Mitchell, 28, also with the 3rd Infantry Division, was killed when a bomb exploded near his tank in Baghdad on Monday, 36 hours before he was scheduled to leave Iraq, said his father, Edward Mitchell.
Mitchell’s brother, Spc. Jimmy Mitchell, was on the same patrol and was due to come back in January, but instead has started home for the funeral, Edward Mitchell said.
Another brother, William Mitchell, graduated from Air Force basic training Dec. 9.
“My children were raised up in a lifestyle that we were supposed to protect our country. They are proud to do so,” said Edward Mitchell, who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War.
Curtis Mitchell, known as “Tony,” was born in Columbus, Ohio, and grew up outside McConnelsville. He joined the Army out of high school in 1995.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Hair-raising flight
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In the skies above Iraq — This was Capt. Scott McKeever’s last flight into Baghdad International Airport before going home for a few months. The Air Force captain who has been flying C-130 cargo planes since 2002 was on his third deployment.
He sat confidently behind the yoke in the cockpit with his co-pilot and two other crew members. The four had become fast friends over the four-month deployment, during which they ferried passengers — soldiers, contractors, government officials and journalists — from Kuwait into Baghdad.
“They make fun of my melon,” McKeever, 29, said of his head.
They made fun of a lot of other things as well as the plane soared high above lands that are perilous to U.S. soldiers.
“You’re free to get up and look around,” said McKeever, a native Atlantan who graduated from St. Pius X high school.
To which Staff Sgt. Joseph Frantz, added: “Yeah, there’s desert on this side. And desert on the other side.”
“Hey, were you there when the guy went up on the crane?”
Frantz inquired about the 57-hour standoff between murder suspect Carl Roland and Atlanta police.
That question sparked a conversation about the series of events in Buckhead last May.
But McKeever said no matter the banter, the crew was keenly aware of the dangers below.
“It’s a tough job,” he said. “The insurgents are trying to shoot at you. The communications capabilities are not always great. There’s a lot of activity, a lot of planes in the area. So you have to be extremely sharp at all times. But it’s exciting. I enjoy this job.”
As the plane began its descent into Baghdad, McKeever and crew donned flak jackets for safety.
“We’re going in,” Mckeever said.
Just seconds from landing, McKeever suddenly took his plane back up. Another plane was still sitting on the runway. Bad communication from air traffic controllers.
The passengers inside the cargo hold had no idea what was going on — the C-130 has just a few tiny windows.
But from the cockpit, the situation was scary for this lone journalist. I thought the end was near before I had even touched Iraqi soil.
After a few hair-raising twists and turns, we were back on for a landing. This time, McKeever landed the plane without any problems. We were free to walk into the combat zone.
Happy holidays. With love, from Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We asked members of the 48th BCT in Iraq to share their holiday greetings and wishes for family and friends. • PHOTOS AND COMMENTS
Patrols find bombs but win hearts
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
Lt. Stephen Johnson, 24, of Rome, gets a smooch from 2-year-old Nada. His squad makes frequent stops by her home near Baghdad, to deliver candy and toys. After more than 20 visits, it was the first time Nada warmed up enough to reward kindness with a kiss.
Baghdad, Iraq — Inside the commander’s turret of his Bradley Fighting Vehicle, 1st Lt. Stephen Johnson of Rome was on high alert.
His eyes scanned the right side of the road and the pavement ahead of the armored vehicle on patrol in Baghdad, looking for mines and bombs.
To Johnson’s left, his gunner, Sgt. George Runkle, 22, a Georgia Southern University student from Lawrenceville, cautiously eyed the median for improvised bombs.
For these soldiers from the Georgia-based 48th Brigade Combat Team, it was just another day in the war. One minute they were looking for roadside bombs, the next, they were trying to win the hearts and minds of the citizens who live along this main supply route.
Up ahead, several children ran to the edge of the pavement, knowing that the passing soldiers would toss out candy and food. Johnson pointed at the children and waved.
“If I had kids I wouldn’t let them anywhere near this road,” he said, shaking his head.
Johnson’s driver, Spc. Jesse Wilkins, 24, a self-employed carpet installer from Covington, had to steer around one of the more aggressive boys, who jumped into the road to snatch the bulk of the goodies before running off.
“I wouldn’t want to ride with anyone else,” Spc. Robert Lloyd, 31, of Sandy Springs, the crew’s radio operator, said of Wilkins. “He’s the best driver in the company.”
As the light began to turn golden over the long, flat, desolate road, the Bradley crew renewed its focus. The patrol’s most dangerous time was fast approaching.
“The sun seems to set much quicker over here,” said Johnson, 24, a Carson-Newman College student. “The activity picks up just before sunset. It seems to be when they are putting them [roadside bombs] out.”
He pointed out a nearby light pole where the crew found a bomb the previous night.
“It was a 155-millimeter artillery round wrapped in a brown paper bag. They know we use this spot to turn around a lot,” Johnson said.
The next day, insurgents planted a daisy chain of bombs at that spot. The four bombs were wired to explode in rapid succession, destroying anything nearby. Another squad out on patrol ran over the bomb, but it failed to detonate.
Although these soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment, have been patrolling this dangerous supply route into Baghdad for seven months, none has been killed.
“The good Lord is looking out for us,” said Johnson. “Every crew has been hit a couple of times. What makes us successful is noticing the changes. Seeing what wasn’t there the time before. We hope we find the bombs before they find us.”
But it doesn’t always happen that way. Sgt. Leroy Kirkpatrick, 55, a Vietnam veteran from Lawrenceville, was slightly burned on his face and hands when a suicide bomber drove a car into his vehicle.
“The whole Bradley was covered in a ball of flames,” Johnson said.
Kirkpatrick returned to duty a week later.
The Bradleys rolled on, passing farmers irrigating their fields, children playing soccer with a ball that Johnson’s men had given them during a previous patrol, roadside stands hawking gasoline and soft drinks, and a shepherd tending his flock.
“These people live their lives no matter what happens,” said Johnson.
The soldiers have met most of the families who live along their route. They work hard to foster goodwill as they focus on their little piece of the road.
Near one adobe house, the Bradleys pulled off the road. Waiting in the yard was 2-year-old Nada. She had heard the vehicles approaching and came out to greet them.
“This is our favorite little girl,” Johnson said as the Bradleys came to a stop. “We have to stop over here at least once a week.”
The soldiers showered Nada with candy and stuffed animals, then each took a turn holding her in their arms and taking pictures.
It’s a scene that has repeated itself multiple times over the past seven months. But this time it was different. This time Nada kissed Johnson on the cheek as he held her.
For her, and for the Georgia soldiers, it was much more than a kiss.
It meant Nada had finally lost her fear of the American soldiers.
Short leaves help GIs look to end of Iraq duty
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sgt. 1st Class Vincenzo Battaglia has been away from home on duty longer than he has been married. This year, he considered himself lucky: He arrived home the afternoon of Thanksgiving Day just in time to eat turkey with his wife, Tricia.
But his short leave was soon over and Battaglia, 41, was heading back to join his unit, the Georgia Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 108th Armor Regiment, stationed in Scania, Iraq.
It was difficult, no doubt, for the paramedic from Roswell to once again leave the woman he married on Valentine’s Day last year and his three German shepherds that he affectionately calls his “children.”
He missed Christmas with Tricia in 2003, just before they got married, when Battaglia was deployed stateside with a medical unit. This year, he will be across the globe in a nation ravaged by war.
“This one is really hard on her,” Battaglia said recently as he waited to board his plane to Germany at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. He was joined by several of his friends from the 108th, who were also returning to their posts in Iraq.
As hard as it was going back right before the Christmas holidays, some of the soldiers were eager to get on with it.
“I want to go back and get it over with as fast as I can,” said Sgt. Michael Perez, who saw his grandson, Luke, for the first time during his leave at home in Columbus. “It was a miracle seeing him.”
Battaglia said coming home was in some ways a shock to the senses.
“You realize that this is reality. This is what our lives are really like,” he said.
He jolted out of bed one morning when he mistook loud thunder for the sound of mortars. He got jittery when cars on the highway pulled up right next to him. In Iraq, cars must stay away from U.S. military vehicles.
Battaglia is ready for his tour to be over and resume his life in Roswell when the 48th completes its one-year deployment in May.
For now, he would get on the plane with one small backpack — and a lot of determination.
Decorating for Christmas
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Across Iraq, members of the 48th BCT are joining the holiday spirit, with trees and yuletide decorations brightening drab tents.
Staff Sgt. Gordon Spears, 42, Blairsville, Ga., of the 121st Infantry, was grateful for items sent from home.
“You’re looking at the support back home in Georgia. This tree, the gifts under it, and the decorations were sent to us. You couldn’t ask for better support than the people in Georgia” Spears said.
Life inside the Bradley
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton
Spc. Robert Lloyd of Sandy Springs peers through a narrow sliver of bulletproof glass in his Bradley Fighting Vehicle on patrol in Baghdad.
Baghdad, Iraq — A narrow beam of light pierced the darkness, illuminating Spc. Robert Lloyd’s face.
Lloyd’s window on the war is a small sliver of bulletproof glass at the bottom of a periscope in the back of a 25-ton armored Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The window is designed to keep out deadly pieces of shrapnel and bullets while permitting Lloyd to see out the back.
“I’ll sacrifice the comfort for the safety,” said Lloyd, 31, of Sandy Springs. “This thing is like being in an easy bake oven in the summer and a Frigidaire freezer in the winter.”
During the summer, the heat often tops 150 degrees inside the Bradley’s cramped troop compartment. There is no air conditioning. In winter, the temperature outside plummets, sometimes into the 30s. It feels even colder inside. The only heat is from the engine, but it’s in the front of the vehicle, too far away to benefit Lloyd.
When the Bradley is moving, a horrific vibration originates from the pair of tracks rolling across the pavement beneath the steel-plated floor. It numbs Lloyd’s feet, makes its way up his legs, travels through his spine and the plates in his body armor and exits by rattling the fillings in his teeth and numbing his mind with a monotonous, clanking hum.
“You get used to it, or become numb,” he said during a recent patrol along Route Tampa, a main supply route into Baghdad. “I get tired of trying to keep up with ear plugs, and talking on the radio prevents me from using them.”
Lloyd compares the noise to being inside a giant steel blender grinding up concrete blocks.
“I always find I’m grinding my teeth,” the BellSouth phone technician said. “If I don’t have gum in my mouth, I end up chewing the side of my jaws. I’m scared I’ll bite my tongue off if I don’t.”
The Bradley is prone to sudden, violent motions when it hits bumps or holes in the road, or when the driver has to make a sudden stop. Lloyd, who is looking out the back, never sees any of those things coming.
As if the noise and vibration are not enough, Lloyd also has to deal with constant dust and the smell of diesel fumes and sulfuric acid from the Bradley’s batteries.
Despite the tough working conditions, Lloyd is as upbeat as any soldier you could find in Iraq. After spending four years in the Air Force (1994-98), he joined the Georgia National Guard following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He re-enlisted when he found out his unit, 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment out of Lawrenceville, was being mobilized for Iraq.
Lloyd wanted to serve in Iraq, but after seven months of patrols around Baghdad, he, like most of his fellow 48th Brigade Combat Team soldiers, longs for home.
“I think about Krystal chili cheese pups. Most of the time it’s home or food,” said Lloyd, who was married in October while on leave.
Staring through his tiny window, looking for possible trouble, Lloyd knows that a moment of inattention could be disastrous. But often the patrols are long and boring.
“Sometimes you just get off into the stare,” he said. “I’m always thinking about how I’m going to react to a situation. I’m hoping to make a difference.”
Family recalls ‘jovial’ soldier killed in Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
A memorial service was held Thursday in Iraq for victims (from left) Philip A. Dodson Jr., Marcus Futrell and Philip L. Travis.
A Gwinnett County man was among three Georgia National Guardsmen who were killed Friday in a truck accident in Iraq.
The Department of Defense has 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 Tallil Air Base of injuries sustained when their truck rolled over.
Travis grew up in Alabama before moving to Atlanta as a teen, his aunt Yvonne Carter said. Travis previously served in the Navy, she said.
“He loved to read. He loved computers,” Carter said. “He was a very jovial guy, a very happy-go-lucky guy.”
Sgt. Bruce Westbrook, 47, of Atlanta, was a friend of Travis.
“We met in Lawrenceville at the guard unit. He was the cook. He was just a nice fellow. We got to know each other pretty good and went out together to eat lunch,” Westbrook said.
“He really cared about his job. We use to say when we got back to Atlanta we were going to go out and laugh about all this. He use to love big knives and had a collection of them. He was so close to going home. He was suppose to be safe down there. I don’t understand it.”
The three accident victims were assigned to the Headquarters Company of the 148th Support Battalion, a unit of the 48th Brigade, based in Monroe County.
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.
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.
State leads U.S. in citizen soldier fatalities
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A vehicle accident in Iraq on Friday helped push Georgia into an unwanted position: first in the nation in the number of Army National Guard soldiers killed in Iraq, according to an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Spc. Philip Allan Dodson Jr., a corrections officer from Forsyth, was among three Georgia Guard soldiers killed in a rollover accident near Nasiriyah. The names of the other two have not been released. Dodson’s wife, Melissa, said Monday that she did not have additional details of her husband’s death.
The Journal-Constitution reviewed data on the home states of fallen National Guard soldiers compiled by icasualties.org, an independent Web site that tracks troop deaths, and the National Guard Bureau. Since the start of the Iraq war, 27 of Georgia’s citizen soldiers have died, most of them members of the 48th Brigade Combat Team. Louisiana, which has lost 23 soldiers, has the second-highest total, according to icasualties.org.
Jack Harrison, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau in Washington, said officials there do not compare troop deaths by state and believe that could be seen as disrespectful to fallen soldiers and their families. “We really don’t get into comparing which state has the most or the least, because it really serves no purpose,” Harrison said. “Every single death is unfortunate and unique.”
Gov. Sonny Perdue, who went to Iraq to visit Georgia Guard soldiers during the Thanksgiving holidays, released a statement Monday expressing gratitude for their service.
“I saw firsthand that our guardsmen are performing dangerous missions in and out of combat zones every day,” the statement said. “These fallen comrades were Georgia’s citizen soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the name of freedom.”
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.
Dodson was assigned to the Headquarters Company of the 148th Support Battalion, a unit of the 48th Brigade.
“He was a good father, a good provider, a good husband, and he was proud to serve his country,” said Melissa Dodson. The couple had been married 18 years and had a 16-year old daughter, Allison.
Dodson, 42, was born on Robins Air Force Base while his father was serving in the Army. He graduated from Mary Persons High School in Forsyth and spent four years in the Army.
Melissa Dodson, who runs a computer lab at an elementary school in Bibb County, said her husband was a state corrections officer for 18 years and had worked for the past 16 years at the Al Burrus Correctional Training Center in Forsyth. He joined the Guard just before Sept. 11, 2001, to work toward military retirement.
His deployment to Iraq was his first experience in combat. The couple communicated for the last time on Thanksgiving evening, swapping computer messages about what he had eaten and how the weather had turned cold in Iraq.
Melissa Dodson said that when her husband’s unit was called to go to Iraq, he did not complain. “He wanted to do it,” she said. “He felt it was his duty to do what he was asked to do and serve his country.”
She said he enjoyed woodworking and knew how to lay floors, put up walls, build decks and make cabinets. He also liked to spend time with his family, collect guns and knives, and watch westerns and war movies.
Other survivors include his father, Phil Dodson Sr. of Macon; his mother, Janice Hughes of Smarr; and brothers Jeffrey Dodson of Big Canoe and Louis Hughes Jr. of Savannah.
One accident victim identified
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Spc. Philip Allan Dodson Jr., a member of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team, was among three brigade members who died Friday in Iraq in a vehicle accident, his father, Phil Dodson Sr., said Sunday.
Dodson, 42, was from Forsyth, Ga. He leaves a wife, Melissa, and a daughter, Allison, who turned 16 in August — the last time her father was home for a two-week visit.
The Army only told the family that Dodson died when the Humvee he was in overturned near Ali Air Base in the southern Dhi Quar province, Dodson’s father said. He added he didn’t know whether his son was on a combat mission when he died.
Dodson was responsible for repairing generators, but he had volunteered to be a machine gunner on convoys three days a week, according to his father.
“My son was a very gung-ho person,” Dodson Sr. said. “He would get up on his foot locker to recite the soldiers’ creed and wake up the young guys.”
Convoys magnets for bombs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
A U.S. military supply convoy rolls under the arches as it arrives in Trebil, Iraq, on the Jordanian border last week. U.S. convoys escort supply trucks across the treacherous desert, where bombs laid by insurgents are a constant threat. | Photos of convoys, bomb attack | What's it like to be attacked? Read the firsthand accounts of reporter Jeremy Redmon and photographer Curtis Compton.
Trebil, Iraq — The desolate highway from this trash-strewn town on the Jordanian border into western Iraq is littered with bomb craters and burned-out skeletons of supply trucks.
They are grim reminders of the dangers that lurk along this main supply route for U.S. forces here.
Georgia National Guard soldiers regularly travel the highway, protecting trucks loaded with fuel, food and water. They send roughly 100 troops in about 30 heavily armed military vehicles to guard each convoy.
Despite the overwhelming military presence, insurgents are aggressively attacking the convoys with rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs. Between Sept. 1 and Nov. 11, 37 roadside bombs hit convoys or were detected by soldiers before they detonated. One recent convoy was attacked with eight roadside bombs.
“You get hit every damn time you go out,” said Capt. Jeff Schneider, 34, a full-time Georgia National Guard soldier from Atlanta who helps guard the convoys.
More than 2 1/2 years after the invasion of Iraq, the ambushes underscore how insurgencies remain robust in many parts of the country, despite U.S. attempts to stamp them out.
In western Iraq, Guard soldiers are tracking as many as five insurgent and militia groups operating around their supply routes. They include al Qaida in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna. Both of these notorious terrorist organizations are linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a radical Sunni Muslim from Jordan.
The Georgia soldiers also are protecting the convoys from bandits seeking to plunder supply-laden trucks in the restive Al Anbar province.
The soldiers consider these enemies such a threat that they escort each supply convoy. Still, even with the overwhelming military presence, insurgents are aggressively attacking.
“You need all this security. It’s a way to guarantee that our supplies get there,” Schneider said.
Schneider is a member of the Savannah-based 1st Battalion, 118th Field Artillery Regiment Task Force, part of Georgia’s 48th Brigade Combat Team. The brigade is guarding supply convoys across Iraq, from Tallil in the south to Baghdad in central Iraq to Trebil in the west.
The Theater Security Mission, as it is officially known, is important because it ensures soldiers get the supplies they need, everything from beans to bullets.
The 118th troops say their missions are particularly dangerous because Iraq’s western borders are not sealed off to insurgents traveling from Jordan and Syria.
“For every couple of insurgents we detain or kill, there are busloads of them coming across the border to join the cause,” said 1st Lt. Alan Dufresne, 28, a financial adviser who belongs to a Rhode Island-based company of National Guard infantrymen attached to the 118th.
Dufresne is constantly trying to fool the insurgents by changing his travel patterns. But that’s a challenging task — there is only one paved highway between the Jordanian border and their supply hub at Al Asad Air Base, near the city of Hit.
One 118th officer said that predicament makes soldiers “sitting ducks.”
“They are hitting you every time on this mission,” said Sgt. Curtis Wilmont, 45, a truck driver from Pembroke. “They are real consistent because they know your movement. They know you are coming and they know you are leaving.”
In recent months, several civilian truck drivers and U.S. soldiers from other units have been killed on supply routes across Iraq. As of Thanksgiving, no 118th soldiers had been killed or seriously injured on their missions in western Iraq. They have managed to keep their supply convoys running despite the attacks. But their vehicles have taken a beating from roadside bombs.
During the last week of November, a 118th supply convoy was hit by two roadside bombs, narrowly avoided a third and possibly a fourth. The convoy started early on the morning of Nov. 22 and ended on Thanksgiving Day.
The troops started their mission escorting about 100 empty supply trucks to Trebil. On the first leg of the trip, they rolled along a treacherous road called Route Uranium. Pocked with bomb craters, the road passes through a desert landscape. Soldiers wince on the narrow, one-lane route as they drive past suspicious-looking piles of gravel and sand, possible hiding places for bombs. A sign warns of mines off the road.
Route Uranium eventually gives way to Route Mobile, a divided highway lined with the blackened carcasses of supply trucks. When the trucks break down, U.S. soldiers move them far off the road and blow them up so they cannot be used as booby traps.
More than halfway through their trip, the 118th soldiers encountered some Marines stopping traffic. The Marines were about to detonate a bomb they found planted in the median. It was three mortar rounds connected to a car battery. When the Marines blew it up, the troops heard two explosions, the second possibly coming from another bomb planted nearby.
Insurgents sometimes attempt to lure soldiers by placing a bomb, called a “come-along,” in clear view. They conceal a second explosive nearby to kill troops who climb out of their armored vehicles to destroy the first bomb.
“I’m glad they found it because it was intended for us,” Dufresne said while briefing his troops later that evening.
Dufresne and his men slept that night at Camp Korean Village, a small Marine post 223 miles from Al Asad Air Base. Soldiers say the camp got its name from the Koreans who built the divided highway to Trebil for Saddam Hussein’s regime. The camp is blacked out at night, giving soldiers a striking view of the stars.
The National Guard soldiers didn’t start out with this mission. Until October, the 118th Task Force was headquartered at Camp Taji, a sprawling base northwest of Baghdad. The troops patrolled the surrounding area and hunted insurgents. Some 118th soldiers say their new mission is riskier because of the persistent threat of roadside bombs.
“I’m on the end of my tour and we went from dangerous to more dangerous,” said Sgt. 1st Class Wayne Oldroyd, 39, a Massachusetts state prison worker who is attached to the 118th Task Force. “You are basically riding down the road waiting to get blown up.”
On the second day of their convoy, Oldroyd and the other troops traveled 70 miles to Trebil. As they pulled into the outskirts, they saw two puppies wrestling over a dead rat in a pile of garbage.
The soldiers dropped off the empty supply trucks and linked up with 100 others full of fuel, food and water. Before they left, Guard soldiers inspected each truck to ensure it would not break down and make the convoy vulnerable to attacks.
Then the soldiers placed pieces of cardboard in the sand, marking spots where they wanted the civilian truck drivers to stand and be frisked. They searched for weapons, drugs and alcohol, anything that could interfere with the mission.
Soldiers also scan the U.S. military contract drivers for tattoos that could link them to insurgent groups or militias.
They also confiscate the drivers’ cellphones. They don’t want them tipping off insurgents about their travel times and locations. Insurgents have killed drivers in the past, stolen their passports and posed as their victims to gain entry into Iraq, U.S. soldiers said. Most of the drivers come from Jordan, Sudan and the Dominican Republic.
“When you see a new face, you have to keep your eyes on them,” said Spc. Luis Rivera, 41, of Jesup, who works at Sea Island Resort in civilian life.
On the way back to Camp Korean Village, the convoy was attacked with a roadside bomb. No one was seriously injured, but the blast flattened three of the Humvee’s tires.
Insurgents placed the explosive in a storm drain on the side of the road. The drains run perpendicular to the highway, making it easy for insurgents to aim and time their bombs. U.S. troops have stripped the metal guardrails from the highway so they can’t be used to plant explosives.
On Thanksgiving, the last day of their three-day convoy, the troops got hit again. Nobody was seriously injured, and the Humvee was not disabled.
Soldiers aren’t the only ones at risk on these convoys. Chris Lee, a fuel truck driver for KBR, a major U.S. military contractor, said 12 of his colleagues have been killed on Iraq’s roads in the last four months.
Lee, who goes by the nickname “Fuel Dude,” inherited a truck riddled with bullet holes and damaged by a roadside bomb. He said KBR’s rules prohibit him from carrying a sidearm. So he straps three knives to his vest.
“It kind of looks like Rambo,” said Lee, 48, a burly truck driver from St. Louis. “I’m not going to end up on TV, getting my head chopped off.”
“If it gets more dangerous,” Lee continued, “I will pull the plug and go home.”
As Lee prepared to pump his fuel out at a small U.S. military base near Hit, a roadside bomb exploded near the entrance to the camp. The blast seriously injured an Iraqi soldier, who was evacuated by helicopter to a hospital.
“Well, good thing we hadn’t left yet,” 2nd Lt. Matt Pitts, 21, of St. Mary’s, said dryly as he waited to escort Lee back to Al Asad Air Base.
Lee wears a helmet and body armor on his convoys. The interior of his truck is wrapped in a Kevlar blanket and has ballistic shields that fit behind the doors.
Truck drivers for other U.S. military contractors don’t have such protections. Supervisors for the Amman, Jordan-based International Oil Trading Company, said their drivers lack helmets, body armor and Kevlar blankets.
Two drivers have been wounded by roadside bombs in recent weeks, said Ahmad Al-Shaer, an International Oil Trading Company supervisor. One was blinded in his right eye and the other was burned. A third driver was kidnapped and beheaded in Trebil recently, Al-Shaer said.
“They hate us because we are working with” American soldiers, he said.
A fellow supervisor, Cesar Mejia Gonzalez, has been riding on the convoys between Trebil and Al Asad for more than a year. He said he is in Iraq for his wife and two young children back home in the Dominican Republic.
“I want to give a better life for them. That is why I take the risk,” said Gonzalez, 31.
Gonzalez and Al-Shaer agree the U.S. military escorts are critical for their convoys. None of their drivers, they said, would show up for work if the troops were not there to escort them.
Explosion punctuates monotony, unifies us
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
Sgt. Brian Lancey, 36 (kneeling, right) checks for bomb damage along with his driver Spc. Greg Carter, 37, (left) while gunner Spc. Jason Roberts, 32, scans the desert for the bomb's triggerman.
Ramadi, Iraq — The bomb exploded after I let my guard down.
I’m usually on the lookout for bombs while I’m riding in Humvees. But after hours of rolling past featureless desert landscapes, my mind wandered.
Then came the deafening explosion.
During 15 weeks of reporting from Iraq, I have ridden in five military convoys that have been hit with roadside bombs. On Thanksgiving Day, I felt what it was like to be inside one of those vehicles.
I was riding with three Georgia National Guard soldiers in a Humvee. They were guarding a supply convoy on a highway between the Jordanian border and Al Asad Air Base.
Nothing much had happened the first several hours of the trip, lulling me into a sense of comfort. And then at about 8:40 a.m., I heard the blast.
I felt the shock wave vibrate through my body. I felt the wind sucked out of me, as if the bomb was burning up all the oxygen around it.
A thick cloud of smoke and dust enveloped us. We sat for a few moments, stunned and speechless.
Spc. Steven Riley, our 20-year-old gunner from Savannah, was halfway up in his hatch when the bomb exploded. The blast snapped his head back. He heard shrapnel ricochet around his metal gun turret.
“Riley, are you OK?” I shouted.
He quickly responded: “I’m OK! I’m OK!”
As if to prove it, he popped back up in his turret and fired off several rounds. Gunners are trained to lay down suppressive fire immediately after a roadside bomb attack. They want to keep triggermen from detonating additional bombs or hitting soldiers with small arms fire.
Through the dust and smoke, I could see our driver hunched over the steering wheel. Sgt. Curtis Wilmont, 45, of Pembroke, had dipped his head and taken his foot off the accelerator.
The vehicle commander, Staff Sgt. Joshua Winchester, reacted quickly. He knew he had to get his men out of the insurgents’ kill zone, where secondary explosives could be planted.
“Drive forward!” Winchester, 30, of Jesup, shouted to Wilmont.
Wilmont hit the gas, moving up the road a short distance until we saw a house on the left. Riley kept an eye on the house as two other Humvees in our convoy peeled off in search of the triggerman. I could see Riley’s legs trembling from the adrenaline. Gunners are often the most vulnerable to roadside bomb attacks because their bodies are exposed.
“It felt like I was getting kicked in the face,” he said later. “It felt like my nose was broken.”
When Winchester perceived the danger had passed, he ordered Wilmont to drive back to the site of the explosion. We found a 3-foot-wide blast crater on the right side of the road. Insurgents had placed the bomb in a storm drain there.
We stepped out of the Humvee. The bomb had scraped and gouged the side of the vehicle with shrapnel. It left two dents in the front passenger-side door, near the level of Winchester’s head. It broke the left back door handle and smashed the right-side mirror. It drilled a piece of shrapnel into the front right tire but failed to deflate it.
Scattered across the road were jagged pieces of black shrapnel as small as the tip of a finger and as large as a man’s forearm. The crater still smelled of burning metal.
It could have been much worse. Inside the trunk sat several cans of ammunition for Riley’s grenade launcher. Basically, we were a rolling bomb.
We were thankful the explosive wasn’t more powerful. Some are so massive that they obliterate armored Humvees. I have heard plenty of stories from soldiers who had to retrieve their comrades’ body parts.
My experiences with road- side bombs are nothing compared to what the soldiers endure. I volunteered to come to Iraq and could leave whenever I wanted. The soldiers must stay, sometimes for a year or more. And they must have the courage to go outside protected compounds again after surviving a roadside bombing. The nerve-racking anticipation of another bomb attack is almost worse than getting hit with one.
The bomb on Thanksgiving did not disable our vehicle. We were able to roll back to base. As we continued our journey, there were long moments of silence. The mood in the vehicle was reflective. At times, we would replay what had happened, discussing in detail each of our experiences. The bomb had drawn us closer. We had lived through it together.
We got back to base without further trouble. Winchester and Wilmont seemed OK. But Riley was complaining of persistent headaches and dizziness.
We had been up since 2 a.m. Physically, I was wiped out. My body had nothing left to give. But I couldn’t sleep that night. I was too alert. It was if my body and my mind were fighting for control. And my mind was winning, just racing and racing.
Shrapnel meant for us, then silent sigh of relief
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
Seconds after his Humvee is hit by a roadside bomb flattening three tires and filling the vehicle with smoke, driver Spc. Greg Carter, 37, drives through the blast.
Al Anbar Province, Iraq — Twenty-two miles east of the Jordanian border, Sgt. Brian Lancey reached for a PowerGel.
His Humvee was the lead vehicle providing security for a U.S. military supply convoy on a dangerous stretch of road between the border and central Iraq. The insurgents who operate here can easily track convoys as they move across the flat, featureless landscape.
They knew he was coming.
He knew they were waiting.
Without warning, a deafening blast ripped through the Humvee from the right side of what is known as Route Mobile.
Shrapnel from three or four mortar rounds fashioned into an insurgent’s most feared weapon, the roadside bomb, ripped holes in the back and right side of the Humvee.
Three tires blew out. The cab filled with thick, black smoke. Gas spewed from the punctured fuel cans strapped to the back.
Lancey felt like someone had blindsided him with a baseball bat. The gunner’s head snapped back as if he had been kicked in the face. The driver reflexively took his foot off the gas pedal. The vehicle shuddered, vibrated and sputtered.
Turning to his men, Lancey yelled: “Is everyone OK? Get us out of here!”
He grabbed the radio mike, calling the two Humvees following.
“Kill zone right. Look for possible triggerman,” he warned.
Lancey looked like Tom Hanks in the movie “Saving Private Ryan.” His eyes were intense, adrenaline was flowing. Yet, he was in control.
The driver, Spc. Greg Carter, straining to see through the smoke and dust, hit the gas and the Humvee emerged from the grip of the blast.
“Stop right here!” Lancey yelled.
He jumped out and began directing his soldiers. Weapons raked the Mars-like landscape, sending clouds of desert sand into the air.
Lancey ran to the blast site and raised his M-14 rifle, aiming down the sight line he suspected the triggerman used. Standing in the still-smoldering debris, he sent rounds down range in search of the enemy.
After a few shots, Lancey returned to his disabled Humvee. Carter, the driver, opened the trunk, which was penetrated by shrapnel. He picked up a steel can that normally is used to carry bullets for the machine gun. This crew used it to carry muffins.
It was ripped to shreds, along with the gunner’s backpack. Lancey paused to look at the can. His favorite snacks, chocolate and blueberry muffins, were destroyed.
“They got the muffin can!” he shouted. “Game on!”
Humvees roared off into the desert in a sweep pattern searching for insurgents while Lancey checked for secondary bombs. He looked over the crater from the blast and recovered pieces of debris that gave clues to the bomb’s makeup. There was no contact with any insurgents on the sweep and Lancey returned to his crew as the soldiers began changing tires on the Humvee.
There was still a convoy to protect.
Lancey addressed his crew before they took off again:
“Great job everybody. Carter, you drove right through there. Roberts, you got right up on the gun. All right Ramblers,” he said, using their nickname, “let’s get rambling.”
Once on the move, 15 minutes of silence passed.
The near-death experience was sinking in. Each man quietly contemplated the experience.
Spc. Jason Roberts, the gunner, was the first to speak.
“Everybody’s real quiet right now,” he said cautiously.
They all exhaled.
“I’m going to call home and tell my wife to buy lottery tickets,” Lancey said. “Until we [return home], my wife doesn’t need to know any of this. She doesn’t need to know anything I do. You know the reality of it is we are all really lucky. We got to see the severity of it and nobody got hurt.”
Lancey held up some of the jagged pieces of shrapnel meant to kill them.
“Man, if I can take these home,” he said, “it means I make it home.”
3 from 48th killed in accident
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Three soldiers from the National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team were killed in a vehicle accident near Nasiriyah at about 3 p.m. Friday (Iraq time).
The military said the incident is being investigated and the names of the soldiers are being withheld until next of kin are notified.
Friday’s accident brings the death toll for the Georgia-based unit to 25 since it was mobilized in January. The 4,200-member brigade left Georgia in May for a year-long tour in Iraq.
Memories of Iraq: Camaraderie, candy and a close call
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Louie Favorite/AJC
Spc. Jorge Luis Dumeng-Mendez has an after-dinner cigarette before leaving on a 12-hour patrol mission. He is a member of a Puerto Rico battalion.
I’m home now after reporting on Georgia’s 48th Brigade Combat Team for 10 weeks in Iraq. I made many friends and had some incredible experiences. Thought I would leave you with some of my most memorable moments.
Witnessing a roadside bomb obliterate the front of 2nd Lt. Homer Wright III’s Humvee. Wright and his troops were hunting improvised explosive devices when one found them near the Sunni-dominated city of Mahmudiyah, just south of Baghdad. Wright, of Hazlehurst, bit off a chunk of his tongue when he rocketed out of his seat and smashed his head on the roof. With blood oozing from his mouth and chin, he took cover in the vehicle I was riding in. Wright cradled his head in his hands. He said he was thinking about his two young sons back home, worrying about them growing up and having to serve in a place like Iraq. With tears in his eyes he said, “I love my boys. I would do anything for my boys.�
Going out on patrol with Puerto Rican National Guard soldiers attached to the 48th. They were hunting insurgents near Baghdad International Airport. Before their mission, they gathered around each other in the glow of a Humvee’s headlights and prayed in Spanish. Out on patrol, in the chilly night, we stood around a Humvee, sharing boiled peanuts. Stray dogs were all around us, howling eerily.
Sharing a homemade meal with the Puerto Ricans at Camp Striker, near Baghdad International Airport. In a big steel pot on an industrial size burner in their tent, they made arroz con gandules, or rice and pigeon peas. They also made beef stew, using ingredients mailed from home. They wouldn’t let a war come between them and a good meal. Everyone in their unit got something to eat. They have a real sense of family.
Watching Cpl. Joe Johnson, of Lyerly, hand out candy to Iraqi children in the impoverished, trash-strewn town of Husseiniya. At 48, the Christian missionary came to Iraq out of a sense of duty and for adventure. But he also did it for revenge. Insurgents killed his son, Spc. Justin Johnson, with a roadside bomb in Iraq last year. Justin’s death as well as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks inspired Joe to come to Iraq. And now that he is there, his heart is changing. He said he is working on turning the other cheek.
Touring the ruins of Babylon and the ancient City of Ur, running my fingers over stray cuneiform tablets. I saw the giant Lion of Babylon sculpture. I wandered through the home of the prophet Abraham. I climbed a huge ziggurat the Sumerians built to a moon god around the 21st BC. And I wondered what had become of this once great land.
Hanging out with Maj. Ray Bossert of Douglasville, and the Iraqi officers he was training in Yusufiyah. It was night and the Iraqis had shed their uniforms in favor of athletic sweat suits and sandals. We sat in their small wooden shack, sipping hot tea and watching “The Simpsons� on television. Bossert and I were the only Americans on the Iraqi base that evening. I thought to myself, “Am I really here?�
Observing 1st Lt. Jonathan Fisher preparing for another memorial service for a Georgia National Guard soldier. He paused for a moment near me. He had already led six memorial services for 12 soldiers and one Arabic interpreter. This was the Fayetteville school teacher’s first military deployment and it was clearly wearing on him. He was only 26. I remember him saying to himself, “I hope this is the last one I do. Period. I don’t want to do any more of these.�
Seeing Iraqis bravely wind their way around concertina wire, past armed guards and into polling places. It was Oct. 15 and they were casting ballots in a referendum for their national constitution. I remember Tahir K. Kadhim dipping his finger in indelible ink after voting “yes.� The 63-year-old repairman said he wouldn’t try to conceal the stain or scrub it off, despite threats from insurgents. God, he said, could take his life at any time.
Huge elaborate meals with Iraqi sheiks, soldiers and businessmen. The Iraqis are incredibly generous. They served lamb, chicken, rice and delicious homemade bread. One of their desserts is a pretzel-shaped sweet that tastes like honey. Many soldiers warned me against it, but it was some of the best food I had in Iraq.
Wandering around the sprawling Talil Air Base at night. I nearly got lost in the immense maze of U.S. military tents and trailers, thinking, “When will we ever get out of this place?�
How tender and fatherly the Georgia National Guard soldiers were with their counterparts in the 101st Airborne Division. The 101st lost eight soldiers in less than a week after taking over the Georgians’ area of responsibility in the Mahmudiyah area. The Georgians traveled a long distance on perilous roads to be with their regular army buddies for one of the memorial services. They embraced the 101st troops, told them jokes and gazed at the stars with them that evening.
Sgt. Jess Weatherholt, of Douglasville, calmly telling me to take cover in an armored Humvee as insurgent mortar rounds started raining down around us at his base in Lutayfiyah. I was struck by how calm and collected he was. He said he heard shrapnel hit the back of our vehicle. And then, almost automatically, he and his buddies were rolling out the gate to hunt the attackers.
Staff Sgt. John Conley, an aggressive, shotgun-wielding soldier from the Atlanta area, zooming out of the base in Lutayfiyah on the hunt for the insurgents who fired the mortar rounds. He questioned several people living near the site where the insurgents placed their mortar tube. No one had good descriptions of the suspects. Frustrated, Conley and his platoon started heading home after four hours of unsuccessfully hunting their attackers. Conley growled, “I hate this place.�
Feeling the shock wave of a roadside bomb vibrating through my body. The blast struck a Humvee I was riding in near Ramadi. Three soldiers and I were enveloped in brown dust and smoke. Staff Sgt. Joshua Winchester, of Jesup, commanded the driver to get us out of there. And then he cheerfully shouted, “Well, fellas, happy Thanksgiving!�
After I finished my 10-week assignment in Iraq, I caught a shuttle to the Kuwait International Airport for my flight home. Inside, I saw a giant Starbucks, a Burger King, clothing shops, and brightly lit commercial signs. It felt so strange. I had just been walking through treacherous Iraqi cities carpeted with garbage and plagued with insurgents and abject poverty. And in the airport, there were people strolling along, shopping, apparently with no concern for their safety. It all seemed unreal. As I walked through the airport on my way home, I wondered, “Did I really spend all that time in Iraq or was it just a scary, crazy, beautiful, enlightening dream?”
Santa will stop by Dec. 10 Christmas party for brigade children
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This Christmas will be different for children of 48th Brigade soldiers.
Most of them have a parent serving in Iraq and will keenly feel their absence.
“Everybody’s spirits are so high. But once the holiday gets here it’s going to be really, really hard,” says Sonya Farrell, whose husband Staff Sgt. Brian Farrell, is deployed.
To help lighten that burden, members of the brigade’s Family Readiness Group are throwing a Dec. 10 children’s Christmas party in Macon.
All children of deployed or rear-detachment soldiers are welcome at the party, which will be held in the gym at Heritage Elementary School, 6050 Thomaston Road.
Farrell, who has three daughters, says she expects 500 or so people, including Santa Claus, at the event, which goes from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Children (infants through high school seniors) can visit with Santa, have a picture taken, and receive a gift. Also featured are free face painting, games, crafts, refreshments and entertainment.
Bus transportation will be available from armories in Cordele, Albany, Savannah, Winder, Calhoun and Oglethorpe (Atlanta).
Organizers are asking for volunteers to help run the event so that 48th family members can fully enjoy the party. Besides volunteers, gift and toy donations are welcome, Farrell says.
For more information, contact party chairperson Sonya Farrell at klassikid@yahoo.com or 706-318-7745. You can also reach Joni Bennett at joni4229@yahoo.com.
Walk like a Babylonian
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia National Guard soldiers in Ur recently inspected the tomb of the Sumerian King Shulgi. The redeployed brigade has a unit near Talil. Troops also have visited Babylon. • SEE PHOTOS
Also at Talil, soldiers hold a lively karaoke contest every Sunday evening in the “Big Top” tent. They poke fun at each other, laugh and mingle with British Army troops.
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