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Saturday, March 3, 2007
A day of highs and lows
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Louie Favorite
Col. Keith Geiger presents a Combat Infantry Badge to Spc. Hector Arbosferrer during a ceremony at Foward Operating Base Sykes at Tal Afar, Iraq.
Tal Afar, Iraq — The second day of March brought with it a rapid swing of the pendulum for the soldiers of Hotel Company.
At a sobering afternoon service, they eulogized a buddy. Moments later, they stood in formation at a ceremony to celebrate the heroism of two dozen of their own.
A day of highs. A day of lows.
Some lamented that it had to be so.
Two ceremonies back to back — one a celebration of the human spirit; the other a sad reflection of how it can be snuffed out.
At 2 p.m., soldiers of Company H, 121st Infantry, filled the royalblue stadium seats in the auditorium here at Forward Operating Base Sykes.
In their hands, a memorial program for a medic everyone knew as “Doc.” But Spc. Christopher Boone did not fall in combat.
There were no boots and dog tags hanging from upended rifles, as is military tradition to honor the dead.
The Army says Boone, who listed his address as Augusta, died from a drug overdose on Feb. 17, and that he killed himself intentionally.
Capt. Kenneth Hutnick, commander of Company H, 121 Infantry, reflected on Boone’s death.
Somehow, he told his men, suicide seems especially tragic in the war zone.
“We each have our demons to bear,” Hutnick said. “Doc Boone was no different.”
The soldiers took in his words, then marched to a spot near a bunker designated for Company H.
Under a clear, blue sky, Col. Keith Geiger, commander of the military intelligence brigade to which Company H is attached, pinned shiny blue combat infantrymen badges above the left chest pockets of the selected men.
He, too recognized the cir cumstances of the day.
He thanked the soldiers of this Fort-Gillem-based Georgia Army National Guard company for the “magnificent” job they have done in protecting the border between Iraq and Syria. He told them they were “well-respected for their capabilities.”
But if the recent tragedy was ripping anyone inside, Geiger urged them to seek help. “We want to make sure,” he said, “the rest of you get back home.”
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Army wife has mission of own
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mikki K. Harris
Sybil Laudermilk endures husband's absence with mission of own.
If you wanted to, you could call Sybil Laudermilk a promise keeper.
When her husband got called up to go to Iraq, this is what she told him:
“If you’re gonna be on a mission, I’m gonna be on one. You’re deployed and activated, then I’m gonna be deployed and activated working just as hard as I can for you.”
No use worrying about what you can’t control, and Sybil Laudermilk knows for sure that she can’t control Congress, the troop increase, insurgents or public opinion. Yet in the messy situation that is this war, Sybil Laudermilk can keep her word. And calling herself up for her own tour of duty might make enduring her husband’s tour a little bit easier.
Her husband is Georgia Army National Guard Sgt. James Laudermilk of Flovilla, by way of Everywhere, USA, because he was a Navy brat. She never once told Jim, “Don’t go.” Maybe she cried to herself in private, but to his face she told him, “Go and serve your country.” Her daddy served 40 years in the Army National Guard and her uncle was military, so, by her telling, she’s got it in her honest. She cries when they play the “Star Spangled Banner.” And she doesn’t particularly care if some people find that hokey.
Jim has been over there now seven months with Company H, 121st Infantry. When she’s not in downtown Atlanta working as a personnel administrator at CNN, Sybil’s post is in their home in Flovilla, south of Atlanta.
She starts each week of her tour at Jackson Church of the Nazarene. She and Jim found each other later in life, and Nazarene is where they made their oath. Hardly a Sunday goes by that she doesn’t have the pastor lift up Jim’s name in prayer. Maybe it changes things, maybe it doesn’t, but it helps her stand all this a little better.
By Monday or certainly Wednesday, she’s wrapped up a cardboard box of supplies to mail. She buys for Jim. She buys for the guys in his unit. Like the other week, Jim was hankering for some barbecue sauce from Shane’s Rib Shack over in Locust Grove. Sybil got it for him and sealed it up in a ketchup bottle. Jim told her it’s made the chicken over there taste a lot better. Jim’s captain got a satellite for the unit so they could access a Webcam to keep in touch with family. But they needed extra cable to reach an Internet connection. Sybil went online and found the 4,000 feet of cable they needed and shipped it. She told Jim it was her gift. He started to protest but decided it wasn’t worth fussing with a woman with a made-up mind.
Every two weeks, Sybil lugs 15 pounds of magazines down to the post office and plunks down $20 to get it to Iraq. Sometimes she puts movies in there or clothes for Iraqi kids.
Walking up to that mail box, a feeling comes over her that’s as close to pride as she likes to get. There’s comfort in every pound.
Just like the guys go on special missions over there, Sybil has one here. Almost every day she hits the treadmill and elliptical machine. She’s down 60 pounds now and counting. Jim will be home on leave soon. When he sees her he’ll probably come as close to pride as he likes to get.
Every night before she goes to sleep, she sends him an e-mail saying good night. Because he’s eight hours ahead of her, she tells him good morning in that e-mail, too. By 4:15 a.m. her time most days, he has responded.
She doesn’t burden him with details of what broke down in the house or stuff like that, because she’s 47 and can fix it herself or get it fixed. Besides, he needs to worry about staying safe, not that the plumbing is acting up.
Sybil has a purpose over here. She can’t worry about what ultimate purpose the war will have served.
“Whether you support the war or not, whether it does any good or not, I don’t know. But I’m gonna support them while they’re there. Those are human beings.”
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Terrorized by mud
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Moni Basu
The mud takes on a life of its own, clinging to boots and anything else it can get its greedy hands on.
Imagine walking with 50 jars of Peter Pan peanut butter stuck to both your shoes. Well, that’s what it feels like in Iraq after an evening of rain turns the U.S. military bases into giant mud pits.
No amount of gravel can save us.
And so it was that I ventured out, nice and clean from the “female shower CHU” (that’s a containerized shipping unit) at the CPIC (Coordinated Press Information Center) offices in the Green Zone.
Photographer Louie Favorite and I were ready to make the long trek up to Forward Operating Base Sykes in Tal Afar. Distance wise, Tal Afar, about 60 miles west of Mosul, is not that far from Baghdad. But this is war and all embedded journalists travel by military transport.
That meant that after four days of sitting in a stuffy, smelly “media lounge” (no, there is no bar) with about 10 colleagues (in the end, they were all men I barely knew), I had to take the rhino (not the horned beast but an armored bus) back to Camp Striker.
The rain fell lightly all night. The ground was awakening like a sleeping monster.
A shuttle driven by a Bosnian man took us to BIAP (Baghdad International Airport) at 5 a.m. By then, we were sure to lose our battle with Mother Earth.
He dropped us and all our luggage off in the dark, smack in the middle of a pool full of sloshy goo that, as 2nd Lt. Shiloh Crane of Kennesaw pointed out, “not only will stick to anything it comes into contact with but cling to it.”
So much for being clean. Or walking to the terminal (a tent with a bunch of Air Force guys).
It was like trudging through quicksand carrying cement blocks on my back. By the time I finally got on the C-130, I looked like I had jumped into a vat brimming with creamy chocolate ice cream.
The soldiers have perfected their technique for removing mud from their desert combat boots. They kick jersey barriers, scrape wooden planks, wade through pools of muddy water and shuffle on gravel (all the while using language that cannot be repeated in this space).
The stuff still doesn’t come off.
At some bases like Sykes, the Army requires soldiers to carry an extra pair of boots if they want to use recreational facilities. They have to change into the clean boots before they can enter to use the computers or watch television.
Crane, a platoon leader with Company H, 121st Infantry, theorized that the mud was causing enough anger in Iraq to drive people to blow themselves up.
According to Crane, the answer to combating terrorism here was to send every Iraqi an extra pair of shoes. Until the two-shoe system is introduced, every rainfall will produce a terror cell and American soldiers will have to keep fighting.
At Sykes, the sun was dazzling at mid-day; not a single cloud in sight. I sure hope it stays that way.
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