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Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Barbecue fetes Charlie Company
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
Staff Sgt. Christopher Pitts,32, Douglasville, (left) and Sgt. Frank Fortner, 34, Royston, Ga., spice up hot dogs and hamburgers.
Baghdad, Iraq — With the end of a grueling, year-long deployment in sight, one platoon of a Gainesville-based infantry unit decided to celebrate with a good old-fashioned American barbecue.
Soldiers threw hot dogs and Bubba Burgers from Georgia on the grill that stood between rows of trailers that Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment calls home at Camp Liberty here in the war zone.
The familiar aroma of grilled meat wafted through the air as the sun set behind the living area. Soldiers heaped potato salad, cole slaw and chips on their plates and settled for soft drinks and non-alcoholic beer during the gathering thrown by the non-commissioned officers of 3rd platoon.
The party was a show of appreciation for the soldiers of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team who have been patrolling in the Baghdad and Abu Ghraib areas since their arrival in June last year. They are the only 48th Brigade unit still out in the neighborhoods and streets of Baghdad, where the security situation has worsened since the bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra in February.
The shindig provided a little taste of home just weeks before Charlie Company is scheduled to board a plane to fly back to Fort Stewart.
All they lacked was Georgia greenery. And some cold Budweiser.
Photo essay: Day in the life
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Keith Hadley/AJC
Staff Sgt. Michael Griffin (right) has just received an Army Commendation Medal at Camp Adder in Iraq. • MORE PHOTOS
Life in a war zone is largely a daily pattern of rituals and routines. Whether it’s washing the grime off a Humvee, analyzing intelligence data about insurgents with the help of sophisticated computers, welding protective steel plates onto trucks or preparing for another combat mission, soldiers find some comfort in the rhythm of their jobs.
At Tallil Air Base in Iraq, AJC staff photographer Keith Hadley recently spent a day observing the jobs and lives of 48th Brigade Combat Team soldiers of the Georgia National Guard.
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