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Monday, January 16, 2006
Tallil Air Base: More luxury, less busy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tallil Air Base, Iraq — Like many of the soldiers of the Georgia National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team, Staff. Sgt. Floyd Barnes had looked forward to moving away from dusty Camp Striker near the Baghdad airport farther south to Tallil Air Base.
The brigade would be in a much safer place and the facilities were plush compared to the tents and makeshift offices and recreational facilities at Striker.
At Tallil’s Base Camp Adder, soldiers are housed in trailers, which for the most part are much cleaner and more private than the 16-man tents that the Georgia soldiers occupied up north. And they get to sleep on real beds with relatively new mattresses. No more sleeping bags on Army cots.
“We all love it here. Time’s just slow,” said Spc. Daryl White, 34, a corrections officer from Douglas and a soldier in the 648th Engineer Battalion’s Charlie Company. “But we don’t have mortars coming in here. It’s a lot safer.”
Some of the boredom translates into more crowded recreational facilities here at Tallil.
“It seems that there was more to do up there,” Barnes said as he sat behind the takeout desk at the chow hall here. He said he enjoyed his job more at Striker because he stayed busier - security concerns mandated tougher rules such as searches of civilians entering the facilities on base.
“To me, it’s kind of isolating down here,” Barnes said. “Maybe that’s because I’m not going out on convoys.”
Striker was as smaller facility. It was easier to run into friends, stop to have conversations. Here, the distances between living areas, company headquarters and other facilities are much greater.
Because units such as the 2nd Battalion, 121sy Infantry Regiment, are providing security for long convoys to military bases up north, including Anaconda, Liberty and Scania, soldiers are often gone for days. When they return, they are tired and spend their time resting in their trailers.
Barnes said soldiers at Striker were able to visit other bases nearby such as Liberty or Slayer. They could eat at different places, shop at a variety of PXs and attend events outside Striker.
Here, the 48th soldiers are restricted to the air base.
But what about the more comfy accommodations?
“I was here in ‘91 when we didn’t have any [air conditioning],” Barnes said. “So, living in tents didn’t bother me.”
But not all shared that opinion. Some soldiers are elated to be here at Tallil.
“I’ll take safe and comfortable any day,” said 1st Lt. John-Paul Laurenceau, a database administrator from Lawrenceville who serves in the brigade’s Headquarters and Headquarters Company.
