AJC.com > Iraq coverage > Blog > Archives > 2006 > April > 10
Monday, April 10, 2006
Preparing to go home hard work
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton
Sgt. Steven Wilson, 53, Athens, Ga., HHC 48th Brigade, waits to have his tote box go through a customs inspection before loading it into a connex container for shipment home.
Tallil Air Base, Iraq — A red bull and a rolling W.
More and more of the U.S. Army patches emblazoned with those crests have been showing up at the offices, living areas and chow hall at Camp Adder on this base in southern Iraq.
And they are a welcome sight because those insignias belong to incoming troops who will replace the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team.
After a yearlong deployment in the Middle East, the 48th Brigade begins returning home in a couple of weeks with virtually all the soldiers due home by mid-May.
Brig. Gen. Stewart Rodeheaver, the 48th commander, said his staff has been working around the clock to get the 4,400 soldiers safely back to Fort Stewart and reunited with their families.
“Folks don’t realize what it takes to move this many people,” Rodeheaver said.
Besides getting that many soldiers on flights home, brigade officials have to move a massive amount of equipment onto ships at Kuwaiti ports and then train their incoming counterparts on the jobs they are about to inherit.
The official transfer of authority from the 48th to the Minnesota Army National Guard’s 1/34 Brigade Combat Team is set for May 6.
The 1/34th, whose soldiers wear the red bull insignia on their left uniform sleeves, will take over base security and convoy escort duties that Georgia units have been providing since the 48th shifted from a full combat role to support duties in November.
“For me, the center of gravity is shifting back to Georgia,” said Rodeheaver, an economic and community development planner for Georgia Power Co.
Lt. Col. George Fisher, the brigade logistics officer, said the 48th will fill about 400 full-size shipping containers with communications, office and other types of equipment, including what are known as “tuff boxes,” which are filled with soldiers’ personal belongings. More than 300 vehicles will be cleaned, sanitized and loaded onto ships.
Many 48th vehicles, including new armored Humvees and Armored Security Vehicles, will remain in Iraq for other units.
Fisher said planning for the redeployment began last November. The process, both physically and bureaucratically, is challenging.
“Every time the phone rings, it’s something different,” said Fisher, who started out as an infantryman. “It’s a thankless job. What we have to do is make it seamless.”
The job is made that much more difficult because the 48th is dispersed throughout Iraq — from Balad north of Baghdad, to al-Asad near the Jordanian border, to Baghdad and to Tallil, near the southern city of Nasiriyah.
“It would be a lot easier if everyone was in one place,” Fisher said. “But communication is a lot easier now than compared to the first Gulf War. Can you imagine what it was like without e-mail?”
The brigade has about 150 soldiers in Kuwait and at Fort Stewart to assist in the move.
Several units have already ceased operations. Others are in the process of training their replacements.
“If I pull out too quick and the unit that’s coming to take my place is not ready to take that territory so they can control it, the enemy will move in, set up mortars and start shelling the bases,” Rodeheaver said.
“I have to do a relief-in-place so that my guys are replaced by their guys and there is no break in the contact.”
On a recent afternoon, Sgt. Daniel Muns, a soccer coach from Columbus, and two other soldiers from Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment, were training soldiers from the Lincoln, Neb., Army Reserve unit on the new Armored Security Vehicles.
These soldiers from the 308th Transportation Company, who wear the rolling W patch, will be taking over Bravo Company’s convoy routes from Tallil to Taqqadam, Anaconda and the Baghdad airport.
Their sage-green uniforms are still in mint condition, their goggles dust-free and their energy levels high.
It was how the Georgia soldiers were last May when they arrived in Iraq.
Bravo Company soldiers were happy to teach the new guys about convoy security duties.
“We’re infantry. They’re transport. The irony of it is that this is a military police mission,” Muns said. “It doesn’t fall under either purview.”
The Armored Security Vehicles are new to most soldiers. Bravo Company has only been using them for a month.
“These 48th guys, they’ve got this stuff pretty squared away,” said Spc. Daniel Shields of the 308th.
On the other end of Camp Adder, Headquarters and Headquarters Company soldiers had opened their tuff boxes for inspection. There were stacks of books, CDs, cold-weather gear, gloves, letters and video games for the inspectors to look through.
Rodeheaver peered into a trunk full of food items. One soldier even planned to send an extra supply of Spam and Vienna sausages home.
“It does amaze me how much stuff people have over here,” Rodeheaver said.
“I could not believe some people actually brought three or four sets of civilian clothes,” he said, eyeing a pair of jeans in a tuff box. “When were they going to wear them?”
Rodeheaver was among those who had to remove items — cigars and packets of Crystal Light tea — since customs won’t allow alcohol, aerosol cans, food items that may carry bacteria, classified information, weapons or ammunition.
With all the packing up that’s going on, every soldier’s conversation these days is about leaving the war zone.
“I’m hearing there’s pollen on Lake Lanier,” Rodeheaver said. “It’s time to go home.”
