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March 2008
U.S. base in Iraq offers no safety
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
BAGHDAD — This is a different sort of fear, the kind that can do a number on your head. You begin to live with the chilling notion that you can die a gruesome death at a random moment, in a random place.
“You think you’re on a FOB, that you’re going to be safe,” says Spc. Juan Herrera, 25. “The fact of the matter is they can get you right here.”
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| Soldiers fill a bunker during a mortar attack at Forward Operating Base Falcon, Arab Jabour, Iraq, Tuesday, March 25, 2008. View more photos |
Forward Operation Base Falcon is the current home to Herrera’s unit, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment from Fort Stewart. Rockets and mortar rounds have slammed into this base southeast of the Iraq capital since mid-March. One soldier has been killed.
The attacks give new meaning to the common statement about Iraq: There are no front lines here. The war is everywhere.
After 10 most nights, the soldiers at Falcon unwind with music, a movie, a shower. Many are back in their tents and on their cots, spent after a hot, strenuous day.
Then comes the ominous whistle overhead. Immediately, the soldiers begin dropping to the ground. Everyone knows what’s coming.
Boom! Boom!
The earth shakes. Bottles of Gatorade and mp3 players fall from shelves. Obscenities fly.
“Go, go, go!” someone shouts.
They scramble to grab helmets and body armor. And run into darkness, all the time hoping another rocket won’t explode before they can get inside something more solid than plywood and tarp.
Like bees to a hive, the soldiers hurtle toward the nearest bunker, encased in 9-inch-thick concrete.
“It keeps you on edge,” says Spc. Matt Brawner, 23, of LaGrange.
“You think about it all the time. You’re always looking over your shoulder,” says Sgt. Wes Marriner, 44, of Hull, Mass.
Imagine a quiet afternoon at home, listening to music or watching television. A bomb comes out of nowhere and destroys your world.
Private 1st Class Tyler Smith 22, of Bethel, Maine, was a sapper scout but on March 21, he wasn’t out in Baghdad clearing roads or shooting at insurgents. He was on this fortified base that gives, perhaps falsely, a sense of security.
He was killed when mortar rounds hit near his living quarters. He died when he had his guard down; when there was no expectation of death.
There was no warning, no chance to seek cover. Soldiers aren’t supposed to die in that fashion on the FOB, said Tyler’s squadron commander.
This is the constant stress of Iraq.
When soldiers roll out of the gates of a military base, when they go “outside the wire,” they learn to expect certain things. They have their game-face on. They are mentally prepared, as much as they can be, to be targeted, to be shot at, to drive over an improvised explosive device.
But these days at Falcon, the soldiers are vulnerable in their beds.
The barrage of attacks on Falcon is part of a recent escalation of violence in Iraq that recently tipped the U.S. death toll over 4,000. The soldiers speculate that warmer weather brings out the insurgents.
Recent news reports suggest that the bloodshed is related to rising anger within the ranks of the Mahdi Army militia, led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Black humor in the dark
Private Smith’s death on Good Friday cast a pall over Easter weekend and beyond.
Soldiers at Falcon are under orders to wear full body armor all day. The base feels desolate; no one wants to walk around carrying 70 pounds of extra weight. Or wander far from the bunkers.
Easter decorations in the dining facility were bright and festive — colorful eggs and bunnies and an ice sculpture. But the tables were empty. Safety regulations required everyone to get a plate to go.
The 1-30 Infantry has soldiers scattered at several bases near Falcon: patrol bases Red, Murray and Hawks and two smaller outposts farther south. The unit was part of the surge, and the idea was for soldiers to live among the local populace, not commute to work.
Falcon is a fairly large and established U.S. military base. The 1-30 soldiers living at the smaller facilities rotate through here so they can eat a decent hot meal, get a haircut, shop at the PX or use a bathroom with a flushing toilet.
But at the moment, they are glad to stay away. Last Tuesday, the sirens rang as late as 11 p.m. after a day of constant runs to the bunkers. On Thursday, a rocket whizzed through the air, again late at night. Friday, the sirens for incoming rounds rang past midnight.
As the rockets rain down, soldiers huddle between the barriers in the dark and wait for more booms.
“Get down. Get low. They’re close,” comes an order from a sergeant.
Hearts are racing. Everyone is thinking the same thing.
Every few seconds, a face is illuminated in the glow of another cigarette lighting up. Nervous small talk is interrupted only by crackling radios. And occasional black humor.
“You know why they put up fences around graveyards?” asks one soldier. “Because everyone is dying to get in.”
Lulls only temporary
Every night, I push back the time when I take a shower for fear of being caught in an unprotected area of the base during an attack. Friday night, I have just put shampoo on my head when I hear that all-too-familiar whiz. Then the sirens. “Incoming! Incoming!” I drop to my knees inside the plastic shower stall.
For a few seconds, I am paralyzed, not knowing whether to stay in the shower or run. Run where? And expose myself to the attack? I have no body armor or helmet.
Finally, I manage to get clothes on and sprint to a bunker, shampoo still in my hair.
Someone else has been caught in midshower. He is there in his black Army shorts and flip-flops. You keep laughing to get through the ordeal.
Spc. Francisco Martinez is standing in his socks on dirt and gravel. He was sleeping and had no time to put on boots. “At least they match,” one of his platoon mates says.
Martinez, 25, of Lubbock, Texas, doesn’t look down at his feet, doesn’t respond to his friend. He contemplates the war: “It’s not like a video game.”
Relief comes finally through the loudspeaker: “All clear!”
But everyone knows the lull is temporary.
The medics ask if the soldiers are OK. A few days ago, I watched the medics run instinctively toward the place where mortar rounds exploded, stretchers and medical bags in their hands.
They wore no body armor, no helmets. They were doing what they are trained to do: seek out the injured. I don’t know many people with the courage to run toward bombs.
There’s not much you can do when you’re hit by an incoming rocket or a mortar round. You can’t fight back. All you can do is hope that it doesn’t send shrapnel slicing through your body.
Nearing their 12th month of a tough 15-month deployment, 1-30 soldiers are starting to turn their thoughts on going home this summer. With rounds slamming into Falcon almost every day, they say they just want to stay alive to see their families again.
“Everyone wants a break,” Herrera says. “We’re not going to get it.”
Marriner, the sergeant from Massachusetts who is on his second tour of Iraq, has a solution: “I’m going to put a bunk bed in the bunker for the next three freakin’ months.”
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Talkin’ trash
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Patrol Base Hawks - Remember the movie “Jarhead?” I’m talking about the scene where Jake Gyllenhaal’s tough Marine character gets put on latrine duty.
Not a pleasant thing to have to pull out large tin drums of poop and burn it all.
That’s the only way to dispose of it here at Patrol Base Hawks, where a bathroom means a small wooden box with a seat and a can.
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| Pfc. Joseph Reardon’s smelly detail takes three hours to perform. |
It’s not the kind of detail Pfc. Joseph Reardon joined the Army for. Nor had he expected this job when he arrived in Iraq last August. But four days a week, the 22-year-old from Decatur is on latrine detail.
In the mornings, he pulls out the eight drums, douses them with JP-8 (jet propulsion fuel used in military vehicles)
“It’s unbelievably gross,” Reardon says. “It doesn’t smell too good.”
Reardon says the job can take up to three full hours. Yuk.
But, he looks on the bright side. In the winter months, when low temperatures in the Baghdad area can hover around the freezing mark, a fire, no matter how smelly, can be a good thing.
“To be honest, people want that detail,” Reardon says. “It’s cold in the winter. Everyone would come out there to get warm.”
Never thought of it that way, but he has a point.
Of course, now the days are getting warmer. There are hints in the air of the sweltering summer ahead. Reardon isn’t thinking about it. He’s going home on leave to Atlanta in a few weeks. It’ll be good to be back to the land of thermostats and flushing toilets. And the smell of fresh blossoms billowing in the breeze.
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Grady baby honored
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Capt. Micah Hutchins had his moment in the sun here in Baghdad, a proud Grady baby made good.
Hutchins, 28, born at Grady Memorial Hospital and raised in Decatur, relinquished command Friday of Georgia-based 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment’s Fox Company to Capt. Jonathan Kirkland.
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| Capt. Micah Hutchins, 28, Decatur, Ga., right, is hugged by Cpt. Andrew Kirby, both with the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, Fort Stewart, Ga., as Hutchins is honored. |
The military values its change-of-command ceremonies, steeped in tradition and honor. Officers read out Hutchins’ achievements and the many medals he has been awarded. Hutchins participated in an elaborate passing of the company colors.
Hutchins, who attended Southwest DeKalb High School and Atlanta Bible Baptist Church, said it was a bittersweet moment for him. After 22 months with the company, he was moving on. He said he would miss the soldiers he has been deployed with for the past 11 months.
Since 1-30 Infantry arrived in Iraq last May, Hutchins’s 218 soldiers in Fox Company have been the backbone for combat operations. As the support guys, they have run 450 combat missions moving 1 million gallons of fuel, all the water the soldiers drink, 100 tall concrete barriers and “the unaccountable number of widgets” the battalion has needed in the patrol bases spread out throughout the area, said Lt. Col. Kenneth Adgie, the battalion commander.
Fox Company has also become sort of a “taxi service” for soldiers wanting to travel between the bases since it runs a supply convoy almost every day and often has empty seats in the trucks.
“You made the difficult look easy,” Adgie said about Hutchins and his company.
Then it was Hutchins’s turn. Not too many officers begin speeches by thanking their wife first. Hutchins did.
Rhea is also an Army captain, stationed at Q-West near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq. Relatives back home are taking care of their children, Abria, 5, and Peyton, 2. The parenting hardship was not lost in ceremony on this day.
As Adgie said: “They have sacrificed much.”
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‘Robin Hood’ risks life for his people
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Arab Jabour, Iraq — Brig. Gen. Mustafa Kamel beams with pride. He adjusts his red-and-white head scarf, tied and knotted the way Iraq’s Jabouri tribe wears it, and the leather holster that holds his 13 mm pistol. He stands and faces a dozen Iraqi television crews.
For the first time, high-ranking government officials have traveled from Baghdad to Arab Jabour. They want to hear how darkness turned to light in this impoverished rural, Sunni district southeast of the capital.
Once a stronghold for al-Qaida in Iraq, the area is now hailed as an example of “surge” success.
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| Lt. Col. Kenneth Adgie is greeted by religious leaders as he arrives to meet with Baghdad officials and Brig. Gen. Mustafa Kamel. |
There had been no sustained U.S. presence here since November 2005. The surge in troops brought the Georgia-based 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment to Arab Jabour in June.
Now, nine months later, Lt. Col. Kenneth Adgie, 41, commander of the 1-30, shares the spotlight with Mustafa, 54. Adgie is eager to credit the former Iraqi general with the area’s transformation.
He calls him a Robin Hood who risked his life for his people.
‘These kids were punks’
After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Mustafa was left without an Iraqi army job. He wanted to settle down as a beekeeper. That never happened as discontent among disenfranchised Sunnis made Arab Jabour a perfect breeding ground for al-Qaida ideology.
Adgie likes to describe the area as a petri dish for terrorism. He says the seeds were sown here by outside forces. Out-of-work, listless, rogue residents took up the mantle for al-Qaida. But they were hardly in the vein of Osama bin Laden. “These kids were punks,” he says, who did it for money.
The violence was so out of control that Adgie was ready to call it quits just days after his battalion arrived here.
Mustafa, meanwhile, hunkered down in his house, an AK-47 in his hands. The insurgents' threats came via phone, e-mail and text messages: "We will cut off your head."
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| Despite threats to cut off his head, Brig. Gen. Mustafa Kamel walked outside his compound and told Adgie he wanted to help. |
Then one day in early August, Mustafa walked outside the gates of his compound and told Adgie he was ready to help. He was determined to save his familial land and people.
The soldiers knew it would be a hard fight, and it was. The Fort Stewart infantry unit has lost 14 men and had more than 80 injured.
As the Americans began to clear routes and detain suspects, residents fed up with the spiraling violence followed Mustafa’s lead and found the courage to stand up. In the winter, U.S. forces staged large air assaults to drive out remaining al-Qaida cells. It was the intel that came from residents — whom the Americans call “bird dogs” — that made the bombing campaigns a success, say the 1-30 soldiers.
Now, as Mustafa recounts his story for the Iraqi media, he pulls out a U.S. Army fever-line chart that tracks the number of terrorist attacks by month. In June, Arab Jabour averaged almost 100 attacks.
There were times it was so bad that Mustafa admits he even wished for a return of Saddam Hussein. Adgie stationed an entire tank platoon to guard Mustafa and his family.
“He was a dead man walking. He was the guy we had to keep alive,” Adgie says.
The American commander and his new Iraqi ally met seven days a week, under cover of night, sitting in vehicles with the lights out to talk about what they could do to rescue Arab Jabour.
Men who were insurgent one day became a “concerned local citizen” the next. The CLCs were Sunni militias who have since rebranded themselves as the Sons of Iraq. They wear bright orange reflective vests, carry U.S.-issued identity cards, man checkpoints (Arab Jabour has no police presence) and are the eyes and ears of the counterinsurgency here.
The Sons of Iraq
They began as a group of 89 men. Now they number more than 1,400. Mustafa uses the chart again to show the correlation between militia recruitment and the downturn in terrorist attacks. In February, there were fewer than five incidents.
“The more recruits we got, the more intel we got,” Adgie says. The Sons of Iraq collect $10 a day from the Americans for their efforts. The Americans also reward residents for helping turn in unexploded ordnance that litter the area.
The soldiers of the 1-30 take personal satisfaction in Arab Jabour’s turnaround. Adgie, a pragmatist at heart, acknowledges the fragility of peace here. It’s on everyone’s mind, especially in recent days as the number of violent attacks in Iraq seem to be on the uptick again.
The Georgia-based soldiers have turned their attention to reopening local power plants, water pumping stations and schools. Last week, they helped the Iraqi police establish a presence here with a recruitment drive.
Mustafa, too, admits that Arab Jabour’s tale is far from finished. As he closes his speech to the crowd gathered at his house, he says he hopes officials in Baghdad will pay heed to the needs of his people.
That they even deemed Arab Jabour secure enough to make the drive down from the capital is, in itself, a victory.
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Welcome to the war zone
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baghdad, Iraq — We’ve been moving around in an area southeast of Baghdad with the chaplain for 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment. The Georgia-based unit has soldiers scattered at several bases: Forward Operating Base Falcon, patrol bases Red, Murray and Hawks and two smaller outposts further south.
The idea, of course, was for the soldiers to live among the local populace, not commute to work from faraway camps.
Falcon is a fairly large and established U.S. military base. The 1-30 soldiers who are living at the smaller places rotate through here occasionally so they can eat a decent hot meal, get a haircut, shop at the PX or use a bathroom with a flushing toilet.
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| Medic Steven Goodwin, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, (left) arrives at the scene of a mortar attack to check on injuries as a soldier retrieves the remains of a shell from a blast crater at Forward Operating Base Falcon, Arab Jabour, Iraq. A second blast impact is inspected in the background. |
But they would rather be at their patrol bases, away from Army bureaucracy.
In the last few days, Falcon has been a rather scary place anyway. Incoming rounds are becoming a regular event in the afternoons. The soldiers say that warmer weather bring the insurgents out to play.
Today, 1-30 medics grabbed stretchers and made mad dashes toward the headquarters of another battalion across a dirt field from them after a series of thundering booms.
I am living in a tent filled with medics and as soon as I heard all of them rushing out, I knew things could be bad.
Spc. Juan Herrera, 25, was changing out of his uniform when the first round hit.
At first he thought it was a controlled detonation. Those are rounds that are intentionally blown up by U.S. explosives experts. Usually, there is a warning on the base loudspeakers that tell you a very loud noise is coming up even though I’ve heard it after the fact on numerous occasions.
This afternoon, there was no announcement. Just earth-shaking, ear-rattling explosions, one after the other.
Herrera quickly put on his gym shoes and flew out the tent into a nearby bunker. He saw a cloud of dust where a mortar landed. I watched him and other medics go into autopilot. They gathered up stretchers and their medical bags and began instinctively hurtling across the field toward the attacks.
They had on no body armor, no helmets. They were doing what they are trained to do: seek out the injured.
I don’t know too many people who would have the courage to do what they do. Even some of the other soldiers in this battalion have told me they are in awe of the medics.
“You really don’t even think about it,” Herrera said.
Until it’s all over.
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| A stunned soldier and a civilian survey the damage Thursday from a mortar attack just outside the concrete walls protecting their offices at Forward Operating Base Hawks, Arab Jabour, Iraq. The barricades did their job, preventing injuries from the attack. |
That’s when he said he sometimes asks himself what drives him to do his job. Being a medic at war requires a hard stomach and superb skillsets.
“The most complex thing on Earth is the human body.” Herrera said.
Here in Iraq, it seems so easy to destroy what is complex. So hard to fix it. Luckily, Herrera was not put to the test this afternoon. No one was seriously hurt.
But the mortar rounds landed near enough to shake everyone up. Within seconds the bunkers around the 1-30 tents were filled with soldiers, some admittedly nervous about the proximity of the attacks.
There’s not much you can do if you get hit with a rocket or a mortar round. You can’t really fight back. All you can do is hope that it doesn’t send shrapnel slicing through your body.
“Get down. Get low,” screamed a sergeant in the bunker. “They’re close.” Last week, a rocket hit 75 yards away from my tent. Then just a few days ago, more incoming rounds landed on our side of the base.
Now this.
I crouched low, sandwiched between soldiers. Our hearts were racing. We were all thinking the same thing.
I heard someone say: Welcome to the war zone.
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Switching gears just part of duty
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Arab Jabour, Iraq — Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Brisley remembers the day he crossed the berms from Kuwait into Iraq in his Bradley Fighting Vehicle. It was March 20, 2003. He had his mental “kill” switch on.
His company rolled north through harsh desert terrain into Iraq’s urban epicenter: Baghdad.
There he began taking hits. Rocket-propelled grenades smashed into his Bradley. Hails of AK-47 fire pinged off the steel harness. The enemy — about 2,000 of them — charged his vehicle. His soldiers killed 150 of Saddam Hussein’s fighters.
A few days later, U.S. forces toppled a statue of the Iraqi dictator. Brisley, like so many other Americans, thought the war was over.
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Brisley, 35, of Glennville is in the middle of his third tour of duty in Iraq, all with the same Fort Stewart-based battalion. For a photo gallery with this story, click here. |
Now, five years later, Brisley, 35, is stepping into Iraq again, this time after an 18-day leave at home in Georgia. He’s in the middle of his third tour of Iraq, all with the same Fort Stewart-based battalion.
“Hey, Sergeant Bris! Welcome back,” yells a soldier as Brisley walks toward his hooch in a metal shipping container, hidden behind tall concrete barriers at Patrol Base Hawks.
Brisley and the rest of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment have been at this small outpost in Arab Jabour, a poor, Sunni district southeast of Baghdad, since September. They were part of the “surge,” and as such, live and operate close to the local people.
Switches on and off
As the sixth year of the Iraq war begins, Brisley has become adept at flipping mental switches on and off.
Kill or no kill.
Platoon sergeant or father.
Stoic or emotional.
He’s had to turn switches on and off multiple times while going back and forth from Iraq. As he returns to the three dozen men who depend on him here, he has tucked away his wife, Carrie, (his Georgia Peach, he calls her) and four daughters safely in his head. He won’t see them again until the battalion returns home in August.
Five years ago, he never thought he’d go through any of this.
After months of hard train-up and gut-wrenching anticipation, he found the Iraqi resistance in 2003 to be weak. By May, the president declared Brisley’s “mission accomplished,” and he returned home to southeast Georgia that August, feeling “good about what we did.”
Inside his doublewide trailer that sits on 2 acres of land in Glennville, Brisley watched the war footage Carrie saved for him. He reveled in being an American hero. Life’s routine was interrupted for his young daughters to celebrate Daddy’s return after a year away.
But even then, somewhere in Brisley’s mind was this: He had not seen the last of Iraq.
All his years in the Army told him the U.S. military would not disengage so quickly.
As the months wore on and Iraq turned deadly for American forces, Brisley began questioning things. “Where did it all go wrong?” He didn’t know the answer. He didn’t understand.
All he knew was that he was going back to war.
In 2005, the battalion (it was then the 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment) met a faceless enemy in Sadr City, a Shiite slum in northeast Baghdad. Survival had new meaning as American soldiers died routinely from unseen bombs hidden in roads, cars and buildings.
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| Brisley (foreground) and his men cross a field on a mission near Patrol Base Hawks in Arab Jabour, Iraq, last week. |
And the mission had changed. Brisley, an unwavering defender of the versatility of infantrymen, recalls how his platoon picked up raw sewage from the streets.
“To me, it wasn’t a kick in the face. You deal with what’s handed to you,” he says.
“I can’t worry about how the war is going in Iraq. I just have to worry about my piece of the pie. I can’t fight like that. I have to stay focused on what I am doing.”
It’s a statement fitting of a soldier’s soldier. Brisley is here to ensure the well-being of the young men in uniform who look to him for guidance.
‘Depend on me’
He has lost friends here — two were sergeants he raised in the Army who died in a house rigged with explosives last summer. Brisley watched one of them take his last few breaths.
One day, when he’s back in Glennville, when the leaves are green and the house is quiet, he’ll do his own grieving.
Or as he says, “I’ll take a knee.”
“But I can’t sit and sulk now. These men depend on me,” he says. “It hurts, but you got to turn it off.”
There are soldiers in Brisley’s battalion, veterans of the Iraq war, who are tired and frustrated. Some question American strategy here. Others have turned against the war. Not Brisley. “Too many American soldiers have died over here to say, ‘we’re done,’ ” he says.
“I don’t know if we are causing the violence, but the Iraqi people — they’ve got to stand up,” he says, just before heading out on a mission, his first since returning from his leave.
“I can’t make Mohammed like Mohammed,” he says about the sectarian strife.
“Providing security here — sometimes it’s working, sometimes it’s not. But it’s worth it. It’s got to be.”
Brisley puts his personal beefs aside as he steps into the turret of his Bradley. It’s his third tour up there as the vehicle commander, scanning the battered sights of Iraq through high-powered opticals.
Except today, he won’t be ordering his gunner to pull any triggers. Brisley’s men are going to negotiate the repair of a village mosque damaged in the fighting.
It’s another role Brisley has assumed: counterinsurgency. He often monitors the call to prayers that echo from the mosque loudspeakers, just in case the message is violent. Today, he wants to assure community leader Abdullah Ahmed Thedan that he’ll receive $2,000 to fix the broken windows and shattered ceilings.
“These patrol bases started a whole new thing in putting us with the local populace,” Brisley says. “The fighting’s over with. Now we’re told to go be the nice guys.”
Learning experience
Brisley has learned to adapt as an infantryman. He’s also learned to adapt as a human being.
It’s all about the mental switches.
He found out the hard way that life doesn’t stand still while he is away at war; this latest deployment is 15 months long.
“My mind-set used to be that everything is supposed to stop,” he says. “My children weren’t supposed to grow up without me.”
When he arrived in Glennville for leave this time, Brisley insisted his daughters, between the ages of 3 and 10, keep going to school. Don’t do anything differently for me, he told them, because I will be gone again.
Brisley has hope that Iraq will find peace and prosper. He also knows that won’t happen anytime soon. Word is that his battalion is scheduled to deploy for a fourth time in November 2009. As a veteran with three tours already, he would have other options.
He is certain Georgia-based soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division will be back in Iraq.
He just isn’t sure whether Sgt. Brisley will be among them.
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My house is your house
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Patrol Base Red, Iraq - Ken Adgie says he wanted to be an air-conditioning repairman but when that didn’t work out, he joined the Army. He rose all the way to commander of a Georgia-based 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment. But this week, the lieutenant colonel may have found a new calling.
Adgie, 41, was more a real-estate agent than infantry commander as he showed a prime piece of property in Arab Jabour to Ehsan Salim Hassan. Large eight-bedroom, three-bathroom house with kitchen, verandahs, and terrazzo floors, winding staircase and off-street parking.
“There’s a pretty big yard for parking,” Adgie says, scanning the compound from the roof.
“That’s our overflow tent - sleeps 20.”
Except this is no regular real-estate transaction.
The house, once owned by a wealthy Iraqi family has suffered in the war. Sandbagged and guarded by concrete barriers, it has been home to 1-30 Infantry’s Dragon Company for 10 months and sits on the U.S. military map as Patrol Base Red. The guys here call it the “frat house.”
Soon, Dragon Company will be moving back to Forward Operating Base Falcon; the frat house will be turned over to Iraqi security forces.
Arab Jabour, a Sunni district southeast of Baghdad, was once an al-Qaida stronghold. Last June, Adgie’s battalion arrived here as part of the U.S. surge in troops. Almost a year later, the area is a changed place, the soldiers say. Now, it’s time to hand the reins to the Iraqis, though Adgie’s battalion will continue a presence here until they return to Fort Stewart this summer.
Neither the Iraqi Army nor the police have any manpower in Arab Jabour. Adgie has been helping them get started.
He takes Hassan, an Iraqi Army major, around the house, showing him rooms just like a realtor would. He points to an open field nearby and tells Hassan that soon, an Iraqi police station will be built there.
“It’s a good building,” Adgie says, making his pitch. He tells Hassan he would need at least two weeks to get it in move-in ready condition. Hassan, who grew up nearby, says he’ll consider the house. It would be a great location for his soldiers.
They pass through the kitchen and a storage area filled with cases of Gatorade, soda pop, near-beer and snacks.
“Look at all this junk food they keep,” Adgie says.
His soldiers joke that it could very well seal the deal.
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Wanted: A few good men
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Patrol Base Hawks - Tariq Abdullah Ali jumps up to grab the pull-up bars. After struggling through a handful, he hits the ground for 20 sit-ups and 10 pushups and then takes off for a 100-meter dash on bed of gravel.
Ali wants to become an Iraqi policeman.
There are none in Arab Jabour, a poor Sunni district that lies a few miles southeast of Baghdad. A few months ago, the area was overwhelmed by terrorism. But a partnership between Georgia-based soldiers and a local militia called the Sons of Iraq has led to a radical transformation.
Now, Arab Jabour is struggling to regain normalcy. High on the agenda is a police force to maintain security.
About 800 men line up at the gates of Patrol Base Hawks for the four-day recruitment drive. Several had to be turned away as the last day ended.
U.S. soldiers assist in the drive, providing a place to set up several tents in which potential recruits filled out applications that included a denunciation of the Ba’ath Party and went through various sets of tests.
The vetting process includes retinal scans to make sure applicants were not wanted men.
Capt. Michael Fritz of 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, says three applicants “came up hot in the computer system” on the last day of the drive. “You can never guarantee a hundred percent but we have pour bird dogs,” he says.
In Iraq, where insurgents roam among the population, it’s difficult to pick out good from evil. The Americans use informants known as “bird dogs” to identify insurgents. On this day, they are roaming the American military compound - undetected, unknown.
Ali, 19, passes his medical and physical tests. He is eager to wear the blue uniform of the Iraqi police.
“I want to disprove to the Iraqi people that all Sunnis are bad,” he says. “We are not all terrorists. I want security for my people.”
Several of the applicants, including Mohammed Yarob, say they want to join the police because of the money - that salary averages $500 a month, according to Maj. Mohammed Abdullah.
Yarob, 21, cannot provide for his family selling fruits and vegetables anymore.
“There are few jobs here,” he says. “I have to do something.”
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Gone with the wind. Almost
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Patrol Base Hawks, Iraq — The wind began picking up right after the guys were done with chow. On the menu this evening: BBQ ribs, rice and mixed veggies that arrived in the Army’s Mermite containers from nearby Forward Operating Base Falcon.
Then the tent started rattling. The metal beams holding up the tube lights began creaking so loud that we put on earplugs. Tornado-like winds whipped around us.
Photographer Curtis Compton and I sat there with our laptops, watching the dust accumulate on the keyboard. And wondering whether everything would come crashing down on our heads. Is this how it might all end for us in Iraq?
Luckily, the soldiers of Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, who are based at this rustic outpost, thought the same thing.
The Georgia-based infantrymen came rushing to the aid of their embedded journalists, tying things down with 550 cord and hammering down the stakes of the tent.
Then came a dozen military policemen with the Delaware Army National Guard who have been here for a few days to assist with an Iraqi Police recruitment drive. They had no secure place to sleep so they sought shelter in our about-to-tumble tent. Safety and comfort is all relative here in the war zone.
Suddenly, there I was at a wooden picnic bench, inhaling dirt and surrounded by a bunch of soldiers setting up cots to sleep. Bravo’s first sergeant, Jovito Casanova, gave up his personal space so that we would not have to stay in the tent.
Thanks, Top.
Dust storms and high winds are common here in Iraq, but tonight’s was a doosie
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Bond on the battlefield
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baghdad, Iraq — Mitchell Chambers longed to see his daughter Natasha.
His heart ached for the little girl who used to dance on his feet. He taught her to work on cars and took her to Disney World. He cheered her on at softball games and made her the athlete she is today. He parlayed her zest for life.
But the last time the two were together was a year ago, on March 18, when the family threw a going-away party for them in their hometown of Dahlonega. Both were headed to war.
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| It’s chicken nuggets and fries for Sgt. Mitchell Chambers, 43, and his daughter Pfc. Natasha Chambers, 20, both of Dahlonega, as they share lunch in a mess hall. It was their first time together in a year even though both are stationed in Iraq. |
So when Natasha, now 20, told her father she was coming to see him last week at a base in southeast Baghdad, he was excited. But he still said: No. Don’t come.
“I didn’t want her to do it. I was trying to get her mom to tell her not to do this. It’s too much of a risk. But, no, she won’t listen to me,” he says. Natasha pipes up: “I’m rebellious.”
Mitchell feared for Natasha because father and daughter are stationed at two different places with their respective Army units. In Georgia, the drive from one base to another would be nothing. In Iraq, it’s a long journey fraught with peril.
But Pfc. Natasha Chambers was determined to see her dad. “Daddy’s little girl” was talking about her father to her fellow soldiers a few days ago when her supervisors told her to go find him.
“My dad’s my everything,” she says. “He’s my life support. Just in case anything happened, I’d regret not having come to see him.”
Emotions fly at reunion
It’s not often that you see father-daughter teams deployed in a war zone at the same time.
Mitchell is a communications specialist with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, based at Forward Operating Base Falcon. He’s with infantrymen who have been living rough since they arrived in Iraq last summer.
Natasha is a heavy equipment operator and arrived in Iraq last October. She is based at al-Taqqadam Airbase, 60 miles west in Anbar province.
The soldiers in Alpha Company have heard about Mitchell’s daughter. He refers to her as “the girl,” as in: “The girl got into theater today. The girl’s coming to see me.”
Though Mitchell, 43, is surrounded by hardened soldiers who often hide their emotions, he choked up when he saw Natasha. Just like when she was a rebellious 18-year-old and told her mom and dad she was leaving home. He cried then, too.
“Knowing what can happen here, knowing that she’s in [this] country adds to my stress,” he says. “I worry every day. I’ve seen the mortars. I’ve seen the aftereffects of an IED,” an improvised explosive device.
Mitchell says his wife, Yong, a seamstress in Dahlonega, worries even more than he does. She’s at home with Natasha’s younger brother Johnathan. But he’s a 19-year-old senior at Lumpkin County High School and is more interested in his girlfriend than trying to keep mom calm, Mitchell says.
Natasha says her mom’s hair falls out when she is stressed. “She’ll be needing a wig in a month or two,” she jokes.
Army brat from jump
Natasha grew up with an Army dad and had the military instilled in her at an early age. She listened to her father tell stories of Black Hawk helicopters skimming the Grand Canyon and the eerie howl of coyotes in the desert. Mitchell took his children to visit Santa Claus sitting inside a Black Hawk.
Natasha wanted to be the first woman in the infantry. “That was all I wanted to do,” she says.
She joined the Army 17 months ago, enlisting at Fort Gillem on the same day her father re-enlisted after being laid off as a radio maintenance specialist at Delta Air Lines.
Her goal is to join an aviation brigade, learn to fly and end her career as a brigadier general working in the Pentagon. But mostly she wants her dad to salute her one day, she says laughing.
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| Pfc. Natasha Chambers hugs her dad, Mitchell. “My dad’s my everything,” she said. “He’s my life support. Just in case anything happened, I’d regret not having come to see him.” |
In Iraq, the two try to e-mail each other two or three times a week but have only spoken by phone three times since Natasha arrived here, partly because dad is usually away from FOB Falcon, living at a rustic patrol base with very few amenities.
So, having three whole days to spend together is precious for father and daughter, even if the time has to be spent here.
They eat together — both get plates of chicken nuggets and french fries. They pass an afternoon fixing a radio antenna. They don’t always agree on things. He doesn’t like flying and doesn’t understand why his daughter wants to go to jump school.
But he sticks by her. Even this tour of Iraq — as much as he hated to see her deploy — will “get her where she wants to go.”
They walk down the road to the motor pool: A sergeant and a private with M-16 rifles slung over their shoulders. In the same camouflage uniform, wearing the same striped combat patch of the Fort Stewart-based 3rd Infantry Division.
Mitchell tells his daughter to hold his rifle as he walks back to his tent to get something he needs.
“All right, Dad,” she says.
Not too many soldiers get to say that in Iraq.
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Once a terrorist haven
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Arab Jabour, Iraq — We took our first ride in the highly touted MRAP. More about the military’s new anti-mine vehicle in the days ahead.
But I have to say I felt safe in there - perhaps falsely so - especially given the fact that earlier in the day, a bomb had gone off on the road we were traveling.
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| Curtis Compton/AJC |
| Conducting counter insurgency measures sometimes means eating with your fingers and talking the local talk. Lt. Col. Kenneth Adgie, 1st Battalion, 30th infantry regiment, Fort Stewart, Ga., shares a meal with Iraqi police district commander Lt. Col. Mohammed Hassan Aboud Al-Iraq. |
The 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team was part of the “surge,” and as such, most of the Fort-Stewart-based soldiers live on small patrol bases and outposts scattered throughout their area of operation.
They are the first sustained American presence in Arab Jabour, a district southeast of Baghdad that was infested with insurgents just a few months ago. Terrorist heaven, as one Iraqi man described it. I don’t understand much Arabic but I hear the word “irhabi” (terrorist in Arabic) in a lot of sentences uttered by residents here.
But as in Anbar province, the people were fed up with the violence and stood up to the insurgents. Led by an influential tribal leader, they formed a citizens movement, which blossomed and morphed into what is now known as the “Sons of Iraq.”
The Sons of Iraq have joined hands with the Americans and the district is now enjoying relative peace.
Soldiers from the 1-30 Infantry set up Patrol Base Murray in a palatial home that once belonged to Saddam Hussein’s sons Udai and Qusai.
You can tell that the house and grounds were grand at one time. Soldiers eat meals by the cracked, blue and turquoise tiles of the two-tier swimming pool. The floors are marble and some of the ornate outdoor lights are still hanging. Even the bathrooms are big enough to accommodate a couple of guys and their cots.
But the damaged building has been sandbagged and boarded up and now feels much more like a military outpost than the luxe mansion that housed dictators.
The last time there was running water here was in April 2003. For a while, a shower meant pouring a bottle of water over your head. But now, the soldiers have set up water tanks and generators. The shower stalls make you feel like you’re at a rustic campsite.
Some soldiers have become well acquainted with the Iraqis who live around them and the customs of this ancient culture.
The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Kenneth Adgie, a burly, affable New Jersey man, sits down to lunch with local leaders often. On the menu is always an assessment of how the security situation and development projects are progressing - and of course, a communal plate of “saniyah.”
The Iraqis take their meals seriously. Adgie and his men eat with the tribal leaders and their guests off large communal plates of freshly slaughtered lamb, rice with vermicelli and raisins and flat bread.
Conducting counterinsurgency operations sometimes means that you eat with your fingers and talk the local talk. Adgie is expert at both.
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On a new mission
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Arab Jabour, Iraq - The U.S. convoy of Humvees, heavy equipment trucks and new Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles finally pulled in through the gates of Forward Operating Base Falcon Tuesday afternoon, with two hours of sunlight to spare.
This was to be home base for photographer Curtis Compton and me on assignment in Iraq this time.
We were tired from six days of travel from Atlanta to Kuwait, and then to Baghdad, FOB Kalsu (named after the football great Bob Kalsu who was killed in Vietnam) and finally, Falcon.
On the way, our convoy stopped to drop off gravel at a vast pit of dust that would soon be turned into Camp Vanderhorn. The new camp will house an entire battalion of soldiers just a few miles southeast of Baghdad.
It takes a lot of money and manpower to set up a new base, Staff Sgt. Fernando Silva of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade support battalion told me.
The cost alone for four of the giant Hesco bags that the soldiers fill with dirt for protection from incoming fire: $200 each. There must be hundreds of Hesco bags at this base.
Silva and his crew sat for hours on land cleared of date palms and other plant life as gravel trucks shuttled back and forth with their goods. The acres of rocks will then be ready for rows of tents and trailers.
Across the road was a fruit orchard - no one knew for sure what kind of trees they were but they were full of white spring blossoms. The owner would not give up his livelihood and sell. Not even for money from the Americans.
I pondered the cost of vast bases like the Victory complex near the airport, a self-contained city of housing, water drums, generators, mess halls, shops and restaurants.
Anyway, I would not be seeing much of those amenities on this trip, as I found out when we finally made it to Falcon. But I don’t think I have ever been happier to see a dusty tent. There aren’t too many women stationed here but I am sharing space with some of the few.
I am embedded with a “surge” unit - the 1st Battalion of the 30th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team. The battalion is based at Fort Stewart in south Georgia. Here, because they were an extra unit, they are housed in tents at Falcon and in even more rustic conditions at nearby patrol bases sprinkled throughout their area of operation.
I crawled into my sleeping bag at night and thought about something an acquaintance in Baghdad told me a few days earlier.
“People in Iraq are tired of the violence,” he said. “That’s why things are a little better. But only a little.”
“What about the surge?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I just think people are fed up,” he said.
I was anxious to see firsthand what Iraq was like as we approach the fifth anniversary of the war. I was about to find out.
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