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May 2005
Bomb-sniffing dog is more than best friend
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Curtis Compton/AJC
Forward Operating Base St. Michael — He’s found hidden weapons caches, searched thousands of suspicious cars and provided security for visiting dignitaries and his only reward is an old tennis ball.
Nero, a 2-year-old German Shepherd with a black face and brilliant white teeth, is trained to find hidden explosives. Along with his handler, Nero goes “outside the wire” daily to search fields, houses, cars and roads around the city of Mahmudiyah.
“Dogs have been my passion ever since I was a kid,” said Mike Sapp, 32, a civilian employee for K-9 Associates International, an Illinois firm with more than 100 bomb dogs in Iraq. “Nero has found (rocket-propelled grenades), rifle grenades and AK-47s — and he’s only been here a month.”
Sapp’s previous dog, Egon, another German Shepherd, left Iraq after a year because he was overworked and over-stressed.
“The environment is just too much after a certain amount of time,” said Sapp, who served with the 82nd Airborne Division during the first Gulf War. “The IEDs, mortars, artillery, tanks and helicopters constantly flying over just wears dogs out. We send them back to the states where they can work for police departments or other agencies in a less stressful place.”
Nero came from the Czech Republic, learned his craft in Illinois and got a few weeks of Iraq-specific training before starting work here. He travels from one U.S. base to another depending on military demand and takes commands in Dutch.
Demand for bomb dogs has surged since 9/11, and a fully-trained animal like Nero sells for about $20,000.
“Everyone who was training drug dogs is now training bomb dogs,” said Sapp, who has been here four months. “We can’t get enough of them.”
Sapp, a former police officer in his home state of Michigan, works 120 days at a time here, then gets three weeks off. He expects to earn a little more than $120,000 this year as a contractor.
“We’ve been told that the bad guys are offering $250,000 for anyone who kills a bomb dog and his handler,” he said. “But this is my perfect job. I get to work with explosives dogs all day, every day. I get along great with the soldiers, and they appreciate the work we do.”
Sapp described Nero as mellow for a German Shepherd and said he’s a patient, methodical worker. Insurgents have tried to disguise hidden explosives by covering caches with manure, chemicals or other strong-smelling items — but Sapp said it doesn’t work.
“Humans smell beef stew,” he said, “but dogs smell peas, corn, beef and onions. They don’t get fooled.”
When Nero finds hidden weapons, he simply sits down. His reward is a game of fetch with a tennis ball.
“He gets the ball and some praise from me,” Sapp said. “He’s like my kid. To me he’s perfect.”
Safe arrival in Mahmudiyah
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Forward Operating Base St. Michael — Curtis and I arrived safely in Mahmudiyah about 15 miles south of Baghdad in the wee hours Monday morning along with about 60 soldiers, most from the 108th Armor Regiment, who traveled by ground.
The last portion of the two-day trip was surreal. All the drivers put on night vision goggles and we made the hazardous drive with all the lights out. We weren’t traveling terribly fast, I’d guess between 30 and 45 miles per hour, but the Humvee I was riding in occasionally would maneuver pretty violently to avoid concrete barriers, potholes and other obstacles. In the back, I wouldn’t see the obstacles until we went by. With no moon, it was “dark, dark.”
We were shot at a few times. I could definitely see tracer rounds arcing over some of the other vehicles. But the Hummer I was in got through unscathed.
The main danger is IEDs (improvised explosive devices), and we didn’t encounter any.
Curiously, when the convoy first came under fire, one of the guys in my Hummer started singing a Boy George tune from the 1980s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”
The driver was doing his best Mr. Scott impression from Star Trek: “I’m giving it all she’s got captain! Should I activate the lithium crystals?” His Scottish accent was a little off, though, and I kept thinking how much he sounded like Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers movies.
I don’t think these insurgents have any idea what they’re up against.
The surroundings here in Mahmudiyah are verdant compared to the harsh desert of Kuwait or southern Iraq, and the place might be pleasant except that we’re getting shot at fairly regularly.
There was a noisy machine gun barrage about 4 a.m. as the gunners in the guard towers cut loose at something outside the camp. There was sporadic fire at mid-morning, but by noon all was quiet.
Soldiers here say a kind of unofficial truce takes place at mid-day when everyone pretty much agrees that trying to kill each other just requires too much effort. Better to take a siesta until evening.
The camp here has all the necessities; food twice a day, laundry and showers.
There’s a former chicken factory – known to the soldiers as “the chicken factory” — where the officers live in air-conditioned rooms with wooden walls and floors. Most of the soldiers, as well as Curtis and I, are in tents where we sleep on cots.
At our “Welcome to Mahmudiyah” briefing this morning, the soldiers were ordered not to complain to people outside their own units, and not to refer to Arabs as “hajiis.” The term has become ubiquitous among U.S. soldiers, and can be used to describe any Arab but is generally meant to describe the insurgents.
There was some chatter about what to call the bad guys if hajii was deemed inappropriate. Some wanted to revert to “Charlie,” the word used to describe the Viet Cong a few wars ago. Others suggested “Benji,” “knucklehead,” or just “casualty.’”
Other units from the 48th are at Camp Taji — known as a “Super FOB” for its swimming pool, plush accommodations and upscale PX and dining facility— while others are at Camp Liberty and Camp Stryker.
Camp Stryker is the low-rent side of the Camp Liberty complex at the Baghdad airport, but it’s still the big city. Thousands of soldiers pass through there every day, and the PX is reputed to be the largest outside the U.S.; it’s like the New York City of FOBs.
Some of the soldiers I talk to here say they don’t want to move to better digs, however. They say they like being on their own away from the higher-ups who tend to micro-manage their every action.
And they like the area. It’s big, about 40 square kilometers, and geographically larger than Baghdad. There’s a lot of insurgent activity, but the soldiers say they’re preparing to go on the offensive — and that idea appeals to them.
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Convoy enters Iraq, sees poverty and speeding motorists
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Somewhere in Southern Iraq — Crossing the southern Iraq border involves little more than a perfunctory nod and a wave from a lonely looking border guard.
There’s a tiny Iraqi flag blowing in the dusty breeze, and a single, bearded guard in military fatigues.
“Go to condition amber,” said Maj. Matthew Saxton, 38, operations officer for the 108th Armor Regiment, as his Humvee rolled into the war zone Saturday.
Cpl. Rodney Bettis, an Atlanta Police Department motorcycle officer, stood in the vehicle’s turret, his machine gun moving from one potential target to another.
“You’re in Iraq,” said Saxton. “This is the real thing.”
While some members of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Teeam flew into Iraq aboard transport planes, others went by road; a long, scorching, perilous ride.
The most striking change upon entering Iraq isn’t the geography. Southern Iraq is as hot, dusty and desolate as northern Kuwait. It’s not the military posture, since U.S. soldiers are wary in Kuwait, too.
The difference is the abject poverty that comes in the faces of the begging children who line the roadside when a U.S. military convoy passes by. They have proud, energetic faces, and some of the little girls’ dresses are bright and festive, despite the dreary filth and crumbling mud houses surrounding them.
The boys give the thumbs up sign, wave and a few even manage heartbreaking, stiff salutes. Others plead and rub their tummies.
Local driving customs are equally horrifying in Kuwait and Iraq. Kuwaitis drive too fast in late-model Mercedes and Lexus sedans. Iraqis drive too fast in 25-year-old Delta 88s, smoke-belching buses and a few late-model Mercedes and Lexus sedans.
When an American military convoy of about 20 slow-moving armored trucks and Humvees took the center lane of the main north-south highway and prohibited cars from passing, the Iraqis immediately adjusted by driving on the wrong side of the road and blazing ahead of the convoy. In moves that would have been beamed around the world by TV helicopters if they had happened in the United States, Iraqi drivers commonly topped 80 miles an hour as they drove toward oncoming traffic on the shoulder of the highway.
Sometimes, multiple cars were driving the wrong direction on the Iraqi equivalent of Interstate 75 — and they were passing each other.
About 30 miles from the border, Saxton got on the radio to warn other members of the convoy of another danger. A herd of camels was on the highway.
The soldiers searched overpasses, berms and canals for signs of ambushes and “improvised explosive devices,” or IEDs, the most deadly weapon of the insurgency. As the convoy drove north, each passing mile raised the danger level.
But a few soldiers seemed impervious to the tension.
Ever since he arrived in the Middle East, Sgt. Timothy Hass, 33, of Kennesaw, a Cobb County police officer, has stubbornly clung to the amusing premise that the 48th Brigade is really in Arizona. Affecting his most convincing country bumpkin manner, he dismisses the subject of Iraq every time the subject comes up.
“Hey man,” he said pleadingly to a fellow soldier. “Let’s just hop in a car and go to Las Vegas. You ever seen Wayne Newton? I’ve got a friend in Yuma. I bet if we go out the gate and hop on Interstate 10, we can be there in time to catch a movie.”
As the military convoy stopped for its first night in Iraq, tired soldiers stepped out of their trucks and into a scalding, 120-degree afternoon. The soldiers had been drinking quarts of water, Gatorade and other fluids during the long drive, and Bettis, the gunner, asked an officer where he could find a latrine.
“We’re in Iraq, corporal,” the officer said. “This whole country is a latrine.”
Georgia unit begins rolling into Iraq today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Buehring, Kuwait â€â€? The soldiers worked quietly and efficiently late into the night, packing and repacking their rucksacks as a CD player churned out ’70s rock.
“Sweet Home Alabama,” “China Grove,” and “Cat Scratch Fever” played over and over as the soldiers prepared, seemingly oblivious to the music, lost in their own thoughts of what the morning would bring.
For soldiers of the 48th Brigade Combat Team, it was their last night in the relative safety of this camp before they hit the long and dangerous road to Iraq this morning.
Sgt. Robert Graham, a tank gunner in the 108th Armor Regiment, closely checked the magazines for his rifle one more time to make sure they were fully loaded with live ammunition.
Graham, 39, a fire alarm technician and former Marine who joined the Georgia Army National Guard soon after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, said the last few days of preparations have been a reality check for the entire brigade.
“It’s a little hard not knowing what comes next,” he said. “There’s always a little uncertainty. But I feel like this is where I should be right now.”
The mood among soldiers was pensive and tense Friday. There was little practical joking or frivolity.
They said they had their “game faces” on and seldom talked about Iraq or Baghdad.
Instead, they called their trip “going north,” or “crossing the berm.”
Most seem relieved that the training and waiting were over and that they are finally getting started on their yearlong mission, despite the dangers that await them.
“I’m ready to get this show on the road,” said Pvt. Jeffrey Baker, 27, of Cedartown. “I’ve been away from my wife and family a long time already. The sooner we get on with it, the sooner we get home.”
Over the last few days, soldiers watched tanks, artillery pieces, armored personnel carriers and mountains of other sand-colored military equipment move from logistics bases in Kuwait toward the Iraqi border.
They practiced tactics and worked on their marksmanship.
They also walked over an oversized map of Iraq painted on a wooden floor about half the size of a basketball court to acquaint themselves with the route and the hazards they might encounter.
At this remote desert base, a crossroads for soldiers coming to and from Iraq, they’ve asked questions of returning veterans and learned all they could.
“I have confidence that the boys I’m with are trained, and they’ll react properly to any threat we encounter,” said Sgt. Joe Picon, 40, a member of the 108th and a Gordon County detective in civilian life.
Picon, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division while on active duty in the 1980s, said he joined the 48th in December knowing that a deployment to Iraq was imminent.
He watched the 108th soldiers training in Georgia and said he felt compelled to sign up.
“I was skeptical about coming back [to the military] at first,” said the father of four teenagers. “But then I saw all these young guys and I felt I had something to contribute. I couldn’t stay away.”
Sgt. Ricky Stanley of Dublin drives a 5-ton truck with the 148th Support Battalion and knows he will be a big target once he gets to Iraq. He is among a large number of the brigade who are flying in rather than driving.
“The Lord gave me the feeling we’ll be blessed,” said Stanley, a lay minister. “I know our trucks will be rolling a lot when we’re in Iraq and I know that we’re a target. But if you sit around and worry and get aggravated you’re not going to be able to function under pressure.”
Others said they would trust their training and those around them to get them through.
“I’m with a good bunch of guys,” said Graham. “We’ve trained hard. We’re ready to go. I know what we can do.”
Troops face challenging, risky mission
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Buehring, Kuwait — Maj. Chris Voso has trained elite American military forces and knows the difficulties of such an assignment.
But the 48th Brigade Combat Team officer expects his new task of living, working and fighting with the fledgling Iraqi army to be especially challenging.
On Thursday, Iraqi government officials announced a plan to ring Baghdad with about 40,000 Iraqi soldiers in an effort to root out insurgents.
The plan will be implemented next week, shortly after the Georgia soldiers arrive in Iraq, and it is expected that they will play key roles in the initiative that Iraqi officials hope will enable their forces to move from a defensive to an offensive posture.
“Next week, we will have a strong and safe cordon around Baghdad like a bracelet that surrounds the hand. We will not allow anyone to cross this cordon,” said Defense Minister Saadoun al-Duleimi.
The plan calls for the establishment of 675 checkpoints around the city in addition to mobile checkpoints to keep insurgents off balance in areas where attacks are most frequent.
“You need to be prepared to eat, sleep, train and patrol with these elements every day,” Voso told about 100 Georgia Army National Guard soldiers who will take on the hazardous, high-profile mission.
“We want our guys to be completely embedded, completely immersed, with the Iraqi army,” Voso added.
Voso said officers and enlisted soldiers selected for the training mission should lead by example and help the Iraqis wrest control of their war-torn country from the insurgency.
If successful, the American trainers could eventually allow the United States to begin reducing troops in Iraq, which currently tops 140,000.
But assessments of the fighting abilities of the Iraqi forces continues to be less than encouraging.
A study released earlier this week by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said Iraqi forces were not yet ready to take over any substantial role in fighting the insurgents.
“The magnitude of the task [Iraq] faces is indicated by the fact that 155,000 U.S. troops failed to impose order during two years of occupation,” the study said.
The Georgia-based soldiers received virtually no training for the mission before they left for the Middle East earlier this month.
But Voso said their maturity and experience, both military and civilian, will help them in the months ahead. He expects the training mission to last throughout the 48th Brigade’s yearlong deployment.
“A lot of our people are new to this,” said Voso, 38, a full-time National Guard member from Marietta who commanded an elite Ranger training company for 18 months. “But they’ve got good people skills, they’re patient, and I’m very confident they’ll do well.”
The officers were selected for the mission based on their expertise in logistics, personnel, training and operations. Enlisted soldiers were sought out for their ability to teach street-level infantry tactics.
Voso said it was easy to find 48th Brigade soldiers willing to take on the mission.
“We haven’t gone to any unit and forced them to give us anyone,” he said. “Everyone is a volunteer.”
The Louisiana National Guard has been performing the same kinds of tasks in recent months in the Baghdad area with some success. Voso said he expects the Georgia soldiers to get similar results.
“Every great baseball player doesn’t make a great coach,” he said, “and every great soldier doesn’t make a great trainer. We’ve got a lot of great soldiers, but we’re moving into uncharted waters. Personally, I think our people will do just fine.”
Each U.S. trainer will be assigned a full-time interpreter. They will be based at Iraqi military facilities identical to the tent cities known as forward operating bases where most American soldiers in Iraq reside.
Voso downplayed the fact that the Georgia soldiers were given little specific training for the mission they are taking on. All will receive about a week of intensive language, history and cultural training before the assignment begins.
Training the Iraqi army “wasn’t part of the curriculum,” he said. “But it’s always been a possibility. Many things have changed for us since we’ve hit the ground, and I’m sure they’ll continue to change.
“Our guys will be out on the street patrolling with the Iraqis, and we hope the Iraqis are going to show patriotism toward their country by standing and fighting,” Voso said. “We expect our soldiers to react the same way.”
Most of the 48th’s 4,400 soldiers will fly to their posts in Iraq while the remainder will drive north in convoys over the next few days.
Preparing for a long ride on a dusty road
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Buehring, Kuwait — As the time for leaving Kuwait and entering Iraq approaches, soldiers are making final preparations for themselves and their equipment.
Most of the 4,400-member 48th Brigade Combat Team will travel to Baghdad by air — a 90-minute hop in the cargo hold of a C-130 Hercules transport.
The fun comes at the end of the trip with a plunging descent and corkscrew turns to avoid possible insurgent ground fire.
The rest of the brigade will head north in a weeklong series of convoys.
It’s about 400 miles from Kuwait to Baghdad by road, or roughly 15 hours driving time depending on the speed of the convoy.
Most convoys take two or three days to make the one-way trip. They refuel and spend nights at heavily defended and completely remote desert refueling stations. And they only travel by day when air support is available.
AJC photographer Curtis Compton and I are planning to go to Baghdad by road. That should make for better pictures, and I’m looking forward to getting a look at the countryside as it changes from desert, to marsh to the green farmland.
I’m not sure how much I’ll see from the thick, porthole that serves as a window on the armored vehicles the 48th Brigade is bringing, but it’s bound to be better view than from the rear of a C-130. They have no windows at all.
A soldier strongly recommended that I bring a pillow the car ride.
I told him I could stay awake for the whole trip. He gave me the look of utter exasperation I’ve become quite used to on this trip.
“You’ve obviously never ridden in a Humvee for 15 hours,” he said. “The pillow’s for your butt.”
Georgia Guard troops to train Iraqis
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Buehring, Kuwait â€â€? Just a few days before they are scheduled to depart for Iraq, about 90 soldiers from the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team have learned they will be part of a new mission that could significantly increase their risk in the war zone.
Although they have not specifically trained for it, these Georgia soldiers will be sent to live with and train units of the fledgling Iraqi army, whose members have been targeted by the largely Sunni Muslim-fueled insurgency as “collaborators” of the Shiite-dominated administration.
Government officials estimate about 1,500 Iraqi police and military personnel have been killed over the past two years in these attacks.
Once embedded, the Georgia soldiers will live with the Iraqi soldiers in the same kind of tent cities U.S. forces use and provide instruction in tactics, logistics, medical, administration and personnel.
The initial plan was for the Georgia soldiers to eat the same meals as the Iraqis but there was concern a new diet might make them sick so they’ll have access to what other U.S. troops eat.
The soldiers assigned to the new mission have not been notified officially, but most of the 90 are aware their names are on the list.
They declined to comment until after they have received their new orders.
“I’m taking key people from my staff for this mission,” Brig. Gen. Stewart Rodeheaver, commander of the 48th, said Wednesday. “They are getting my best and brightest.”
Rodeheaver said all those chosen will be experienced officers or enlisted soldiers with the rank of staff sergeant or above.
The 48th Brigade soldiers will be split into three teams of about 30 soldiers each and assigned to an active duty Iraqi army brigade.
All the trainers will get special instruction when they get to Iraq and each will be assigned a translator, Rodeheaver said. The number of trainers could change depending on training needs.
Some 48th Brigade members attended a weeklong class at Fort Hood, Texas, on Arabic language and culture, but the training mission wasn’t emphasized during the unit’s five months of preparation leading up to the deployment.
Rodeheaver declined to say to which Iraqi units the Georgia troops would be assigned or where they would be located.
“We want the Iraqis to secure and control their own country â€â€? and they absolutely want to do that,” Rodeheaver said. “They’ve got some very good soldiers. All we’re doing is adding some new skills and capabilities.”
The new mission is part of a U.S. effort to embed as many as 10,000 Americans in adviser roles with the Iraqi army, even though it is widely believed the Iraqi ranks have been infiltrated by insurgents and U.S. forces could be easy targets.
The purpose is to provide training and give the Iraqis examples of military professionalism they can incorporate into their own command structure.
The Iraqi army has been plagued by poor leadership, desertions and an unwillingness to confront the insurgents.
Earlier this year, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers told a Senate committee that less than a third of Iraq’s 136,000 police and soldiers were fully trained and able to fight on their own.
Former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, now president of the World Bank, has testified that Iraqi army units have had absentee rates of up to 40 percent.
Despite that, recruiting drives for police and army jobs continue to attract thousands of applicants, some of whom served in the army under Saddam Hussein.
U.S. military officials had hoped to use the remnants of Saddam’s army as the basis for a new defense force for Iraq.
But those plans were shot down by Paul Bremer and the civilian Coalition Provisional Authority in the summer of 2003 because of a desire to rid the Iraqi forces of Baath Party members and include more Shiites and Kurds.
Many of those disgruntled veterans are believed to have been a significant factor in fueling the insurgency.
Their attacks on the security forces have also taken on the tincture of the sectarian strife plaguing the country, with the largely Sunni military veterans gunning for the mainly Shiite and Kurdish government troops.
Staff writer Ron Martz in Atlanta contributed to this article.
Herding camels easier than herding cats, or sheep
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Buehring, Kuwait — If this Army gig doesn’t work out for Sgt. Guillermo Thorne, he’s got a future in camel wrangling.
Thorne, 23, of Duluth, was driving a four-wheel drive Mitsubishi to a remote desert firing range Sunday evening when he noticed a herd of about 50 “ships of the desert” moving toward the place where machine gunners from Alabama Army National Guard’s 167th Infantry Regiment were about to erupt in a sunset target practice.
“Don’t get too close,” warned Maj. Matthew Saxton, 38, of Cedartown, who was sitting in the front passenger seat. “Those (camels) can be pretty ornery.”
Thorne put the pedal to the metal, and the baby SUV kicked up a dusty rooster tail as he maneuvered to cut the camels off, then shepherded them out of danger.
The brown and tan, two-humped camels put their heads down and trotted away, and Thorne gleefully followed. As he began to overtake them, however, one of the larger animals slowed down, raised his long neck and gave the car a disdainful glare.
“You better back off,” said Saxton, operations officer for the 108th Armor Regiment. Saxton had warned about the chiggers, ticks, lice and other bloodsuckers known to attach themselves to camels.
“That is, unless you want to clean up a bunch of nasty camel spit off the windshield,” Saxton added.
Thorne complied. But minutes later he came upon a herd of about 100 sheep.
Unlike the camels, which went in a fairly straight line, the sheep darted one way, then another, as Thorne sought to herd them with the car.
Finally, he used a trick any Border Collie would envy. He honked the horn. It wasn’t much of a blast, hardly enough to get an Atlanta driver’s attention. But the sheep seemed impressed and quickly cleared the area.
Bedouins clear desert of used shell casings
The herds are owned and managed by nomadic Bedouins who reside in and among an eclectic mix of vehicles that travel the desert.
There are trucks, trailers and even a 1972 Chevy Impala crusing the vast area that surrounds Camp Buehring. They say the nomads gather at firing ranges to collect expended brass shell casings — and there are no shortage of shells to collect.
The soldiers of Georgia’s 48th Brigade Combat Team have fired tens of thousands of rounds in recent days as they calibrate weapons ranging from carbines and machine guns to tanks and artillery.
What do the Bedouins do with the brass?
They pound it and shape it into jewelry and art forms to sell in shops. From time to time the base PX, a sort of general store, even sells their handiwork.
After the Alabama infantry unit finished its firing, a Bedouin man in loose-fitting white clothes and a red scarf paced the beachlike sand where the soldiers had been blasting away at paper silhouettes. He gathered up hundreds of casings expelled from M-16 rifles and SAW machine guns and put them in the upturned tail of his long shirt.
He smiled at the soldiers and waved amicably. Then he walked to a small, dark donkey tethered nearby. He poured the items into a saddlebags that hung nearly to the desert floor, and led it off into the night.
Iraq is a four-letter word around these parts
The word “Iraq” is seldom heard around here. Soldiers speak euphamistically about “going north” or “crossing the berm,” but Iraq isn’t part of the everyday vocabulary.
Soldiers turn Kuwaiti desert into small-town America
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Buehring, Kuwait — At night, this desert base takes on some of the look and feel of a rural Georgia town.
Young soldiers, some of them barely out of high school, mill around a town square of sorts that contains a Subway, Pizza Inn and internet cafe. The PX, or post exchange — the busiest enterprise of all — takes on the role of an old-fashioned general store.
Male and female soldiers aren’t allowed in the same sleeping quarters, so they gather outside in mixed groups to watch movies in makeshift theaters consisting of computers or DVD players stacked on crates or card tables. Others stroll up and down Eisenhower Street where the former president’s name contributes to the sense of Americana.
The scene is like a Norman Rockwell portrait — except virtually everyone is armed and the male-female ratio is about 10-to-one.
“If not for the fact they don’t have cars, this would probably seem like just about any other Saturday night at home,” said Capt. Phil Botwinik, an Atlanta lawyer in civilian life who works on the 48th Brigade’s legal staff. “It hardly seems like another country at all.”
Soldiers are required to wear their uniforms and carry weapons whenever they’re outside. But they’ve been making the most of the one exception they’re allowed. If they’re going to exercise, they can wear standard black shorts and gray Army T-shirts.
The camp is illuminated with stadium-style lights. But in this desolate, blistering desert, there are no moths or other insects buzzing around them. A group of six sparrows are the only animal life I’ve seen inside the camp, although they say it’s not uncommon for camels to pass by outside the gates.
The base is staffed with workers from India, Bangladesh and the Philippines, but it’s rare to hear conversation in any language other than English. Chamblee is far more exotic than this place could ever be.
The last group of Georgia soldiers arrived Friday morning, so the entire 48th Brigade is now overseas.
Most of the bleary-eyed soldiers spend their first day or two resting in air-conditioned tents, unpacking their personal gear and adjusting to the seven-hour time difference. Now, they’re beginning to act sleepy at night and energetic in the daytime, just like they should.
The camp is filling with a scores of heavy military vehicles in preparation for a series of convoys that soon will carry the soldiers into Iraq.
Soldiers have begun driving the heavy guns and tanks to remote firing ranges and recalibrating the weapons.
The camp hums and chugs with the constant sound of diesel engines. That’s not from trucks as much as the generators that supply electrical power to the sprawling facility.
The weather has been less oppressive in the last couple of days, but mid-day temperatures usually climb well above 100 degrees. It was 110 Sunday with no trees and precious little shade.
Sgt. Errol Tripp of Decatur describes the mid-day heat this way: “Take a blow dryer, put it on high, and point it towards your face,” he said. “Then throw in some sand and you’ve got it. Kuwait.”
Despite the relative safety and restfulness of their stay at Camp Buehring, many of the soldiers say they’re looking forward to getting on with their mission in Iraq.
“I want to get on with it already,” said Sgt. 1st Class Ronnie Perryman of Rincon, a surveyor by trade. “Even if we’re getting shot at in Iraq, at least we won’t be bored.”
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Soldiers never far from combat videos
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Buehring, Kuwait — During their time off, soldiers like to watch movies on computers and DVD players.
They seek refuge in tents where they lie on cots on their backs with a portable electronic device of choice on their bellies. Some soldiers choose movies that allow them to mentally escape their surroundings, but others have more martial tastes.
Sgt. George “Britt” Smith, 47, for example, brought the following:
“Patton,” “The Longest Day,” “Twelve O’clock High,” “Combat!,” “A Company of Soldiers,” “A Bridge Too Far,” “Apocalypse Now,” “Full Metal Jacket” and “We Were Soldiers Once.”
“I’m missing ‘Blackhawk Down,’” said Smith, a friendly, soft-spoken broadcaster from Dublin, whose son, Pvt. Greg Smith, 19, is an infantry soldier in the 48th Brigade.
“Don’t worry,” another soldier chimed in. “I’ve got that one.
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Jarheads and doggies can coexist
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Buehring, Kuwait — The military base here is nearly equally split between the soldiers from the 48th Brigade Combat Team out of Georgia and Marines from Camp Lejune, N.C.
Although they are both American military units, and the two groups are easy to tell apart.
The Marines look like baby-faced high school kids who somehow came upon an arsenal of oversized weapons. While most of the Georgia soldiers carry M-16 or M-4 rifles, the Marines lug machine guns and grenade launchers everywhere they go and many of them keep pistols strapped to their thighs as well.
The Marines flew here on ship-based helicopters and it looks like they’ll be leaving that way, too. They’ve been told they’re not going to Iraq, and they seem genuinely distressed to be headed back to the coast.
“I can’t believe we got this close and they’re not going to use us,” said Lance Cpl. Rodrigo Santos, of Yonkers, N.Y. “What was the point of all the training we’ve been doing? WeÕve been getting ready for this for six months.”
There’s been remarkably little tension between the soldiers and Marines here. Both groups tend to stick to themselves, and the strutting and swagger so common at home seems totally absent.
Also, the extreme desert environment, adjustment to the eight-hour time change and seriousness of the mission has cut down on the most extracurriculur frivolity.
The heat and wind relented somewhat late last week. It was barely 100 degrees and the wind was less than 20 knots. But the sky and ground are the same filthy brown and there’s no horizon at all.
They say Baghdad is greener.
Different points of view
I was talking with a 48th Brigade soldier about the differences between the U.S. military and the insurgents they’ll face in Iraq.
I brought up the fact that none of the Americans I talk to expect to die in Iraq while, to my understanding, few, if any of the insurgents or foreign fighters there expect to live.
After thinking about it for a moment, the soldier pointed out that “Those two viewpoints aren’t necessarily incompatible, you know.”
The young and the foolish
Some of the 48th Brigade soldiers, particularly the young ones in the infantry, talk a brave game. They say that when they get to Baghdad they can’t wait to go “beyond the wire.” They want to seek out the enemy and they’re spoiling for a fight.
Others, particularly the older soldiers in support roles, hope never to fire their guns in anger. “If I can qualify with my M-16 using (the minimum) 18 rounds,” a career sergeant said, “that’s all the shooting I want to do.”
A cook was even more cautious.
“I intend to stay inside the wire the entire time we’re there,” he said. “I don’t care if I never go out. There’s nothing in Iraq I care about. I’ve got a wife and kids at home, and I promised them before I left that I wouldn’t step out at all if I didn’t have to.”
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This isn’t a bag, it’s my weapon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Buehring, Kuwait — Clintonian word parsing, as practiced by former President Bill Clinton, has worked wonders with military bureaucracy on this trip.
It’s also helped avoid a couple of potential obstacles.
The first came while attempting to board the flight to Kuwait. Passengers were strictly limited to one carry-on item. I had two: a computer bag with delicate electronic equipment that I wasn’t about to trust to rough baggage handlers and a rucksack with personal gear.
Instead of arguing that I should be allowed an exception, however, I sought to avoid conflict through redefinition.
I parsed.
The computer bag wasn’t a bag, I said. It was a weapon. All the soldiers were required to bring their weapons on the plane. The personal computer and satellite phone were mine.
To my surprise, it worked.
The soldier in charge seemed too tired to argue. He just chuckled knowingly and waved me through with my two bags.
That small success led to another here in Kuwait. AJC photographer Curtis Compton was hefting his camera gear in a small pack with a built-in “camelback” drinking pouch when we attempted to enter the cafeteria.
Cafeteria rules specifically bar backpacks and taking Compton’s gear back to our tent would have involved a long, dusty walk and missing meal time.
The situation called for an artful redefinition.
The backpack wasn’t a backpack, I said. It was a canteen, a vital piece of safety gear in this punishing desert.
The soldier in charge thoroughly searched Compton’s bag, then, extracting a promise from us not to repeat the dodge, kindly allowed us to enter.
Thanks Bill!
Unarmed but forewarned
Soldiers frequently ask about what kind of weapons we journalists plan to take with us to Iraq. When I tell them we’re unarmed and intend to stay that way, most shake their heads in disbelief.
“You’re going to a war zone without a weapon? Are you nuts?” they invariably ask.
I tell them that my faith in their marksmanship is total, that journalists „ like military chaplains „ are non-combatants, and that I’d probably be a greater liability to them armed than unarmed.
A few reporters have made a show of carrying weapons „ Fox’s Geraldo Rivera comes to mind. But I’m convinced it does more harm to our image than good.
“Would you pick up a weapon and fire it if you had to?” a soldier wanted to know.
I tell them I’d do just about anything to avoid wearing an orange jumpsuit on Al-Jazeera TV.
“How about coming to the range with us this week?” the soldier offered. “Even if you don’t shoot, we want to know that, in a pinch, you can reload our M-16 rifles for us.”
Drop those nose hair clippers, soldier!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Airline flight attendants wouldn’t be ignored during their pre-flight safety briefings if they could perform like Lt. Col. John King — or at least use his stage props.
Speaking to 280 fellow soldiers before they boarded a chartered DC-10 at the start of their marathon flight from Savannah to Kuwait City earlier this week, King was thunderous, blunt and well armed with an M-16 rifle slung over his shoulder.
“Interfering with a flight crew is a serious crime,” he told them. “Don’t be stupid. Don’t be a moron. Don’t even joke about going to Havana. That’s not where we’re headed today.”
King, who in civilian life is the Doraville police chief, rolled his eyes at the FAA regulation that requires soldiers — all of whom were armed with an arsenal of assault rifles, shotguns and pistols — to surrender pocket knives, nose hair scissors and cigarette lighters.
“If you have any of those things,” he said, almost apologetically, “put them in this box now.”
Nearly every seat on the all-coach Omni Air International plane was full.
The few seats that weren’t were crammed with backpacks, helmets and other bulky equipment that wouldn’t fit in the already jam-packed overhead bins.
A few dozen mostly low-ranking soldiers were promised first-class accommodations for volunteering to load the belly of the plane with a couple of truckloads of heavy equipment.
When they got onboard, they saw they had been hoodwinked.
There was no first class.
If anything, their 10-abreast seats were even more confining because they were packed into an even narrower space.
“I can’t believe I volunteered for baggage detail,” one sweaty soldier said.
“You didn’t volunteer,” another told him.
“Good.”
Timely tips to combat the heat and sand
Combat veterans talk about the war some.
But with newcomers, they mostly talk about personal hygiene.
Baby wipes and anti-fungal powder are essential to surviving the war.
A few other helpful hints:
Wear face covers like the locals to protect the head and neck from wind-driven dust bombardments. Even the good guys wear masks around here.
Drink warm drinks, not cold ones.
The cold ones fool your body into thinking it’s cool. It’s not. There’s a reason the Arabs drink hot tea year-around.
Wear long sleeves to protect from wind and sun burn.
Helmets and body armor even in Kuwait
Once plane began its descent into Kuwait, the mood aboard turned somber.
There was no cheering, only silence, as the plane swept over the hazy gulf and past the skyline of beachfront hotels and towering minarets that mark the oil-rich gulf state.
The ramp resembled a U.S. military base with hulking C-5 Galaxy transports, bulbous C-17 Globemasters and numerous prop-driven C-130 Hercules aircraft.
There was no official greeting from Kuwait. An American contractor instructed the soldiers to wear their helmets and body armor, get into the waiting buses and keep the shades drawn.
The war in Iraq is quite controversial here, and the unarmored buses were vulnerable to attack — even in a country some of these same soldiers helped rescue from an Iraqi takeover 14 years ago.
Poor accommodations standard for Guard
National Guard soldiers say they’re accustomed to second-class treatment, and that’s good, because they’re getting it.
Unlike the relatively plush accommodations at Camp Doha or the larger American facilities here, the 48th Brigade took up residence in Camp Buehring. It’s a sprawling tent city of about 10,000. But it seems smaller due to the vastness of the desert that surrounds it.
It’s a moonscape of rocks, sand, and a ubiquitous chalky dirt that clogs noses and eyes and paints everyone and everything in a filthy tan film.
That doesn’t mean there are no luxuries. The soldiers can take showers (hot water is easy to get due to the constant heat but cold water is harder to come by), the cafeteria serves four meals a day (the last one at midnight), and there’s a Burger King, Subway, Pizza Inn, doughnut shop, laundry and a post office, although the Georgia soldiers expect to be gone by the time a letter mailed today would arrive.
Soldiers exercise at night because running in the heat of the day would be suicidal.
The temperature this time of the year commonly reaches 110, and yes, it’s a dry heat. But the number doesn’t tell the story of how miserable it is to be a mammal in this environment. Blowing sand stings any exposed skin. Dust fills eyes with tears and penetrates through collars and sleeves. Skin dries and cracks. It’s oppressive — and it’s only May. June, July and August are much worse.
Yodeling all over the Kuwaiti desert
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Buehring, Kuwait — We arrived Tuesday night at this lovely camp about a two-hour bus ride from Kuwait City.
It’s blistering hot and windy outside — over 100 degrees at 10 a.m. They say this is spring, though, and it only gets hotter.
This camp is a strange place: good chow (they say they had steak and lobster yesterday), a Burger King, Subway, 31 Flavors (only four currently in stock) and a PX. But there’s absolutely nothing around here for miles except sand and a vanilla sky.
The soldiers were given Wednesday off to adjust to the time change and local conditions. They’re doing lots of lounging in the tents, watching DVDs and stocking up on kitsch.
During a brief stop in Germany, someone bought a yodeling beer stein — and it’s been yodeling all over the desert. I don’t think it will last long.
The entrepreneurial locals have been hawking all sorts of Operation Iraqi Freedom memorabilia — mostly kid-sized cammo backbacks with images of Sponge Bob, Winnie the Pooh, Elmo, etc. I’m sure Muppets founder Jim Henson would be rolling in his grave if he knew about it.
As you’d expect, Curtis (Compton, AJC photographer) is fitting in quite well with his fellow Georgians.
We got a couple of high-and-tight haircuts (low-and-tight in my case) before leaving Fort Stewart.
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