DISPATCHES FROM IRAQ
Schofield soldiers turn to luxury items for comfort
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
At Kirkuk Air Base in Iraq, Pfc. Cameron Taylor and his three roommates live in a 20-foot shipping container and have a new 29-inch color TV.
It's just the start.
"The guys who drink coffee plan to get a coffee maker, definitely," said Taylor, 19, a supply clerk with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment.
Taylor also plans on getting a heating plate, "and I guarantee you if they (the base exchange) had a little refrigerator, I would have bought one."
Others have bought camp chairs, and are talking about satellite service.
With a year ahead of them in Iraq, Schofield Barracks soldiers are doing what they can to turn the two-windows-and-a-door metal boxes into home. Outfitted with two bunk beds and a heater/air conditioner, the containers are set in long rows on gravel on the big air base.
Taylor said he and his roommates chipped in $75 apiece for the TV for their PlayStation 2, but want to hook up with satellite service.
One unit had a satellite feed that cost them about $1,400 every three months, but they split the bill among approximately 40 soldiers.
"Sports. I can't miss no sports," Taylor said. "The NBA season is going to be good this year."
With their PlayStation 2 still locked away in a shipping container sent up from Kuwait, Taylor and soldiers living with him took to watching the single Iraqi channel that came in over the air.
"There was a fashion show on. We watched it," he said. "We couldn't understand, but with this big TV, we watched it."
Schofield soldiers plan to have other items mailed to them.
"We're going to be here for a while. We want to be comfortable while we're here," Taylor said.
• • •
They call them dirt pigs, grunts and crunchies. They're otherwise known as infantry, and they revel in austere conditions.
The 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment from Schofield Barracks got to wallow in the dirt on the 3 1/2-day convoy trip from Kuwait to Iraq, sleeping on the ground twice in sleeping bags next to their vehicles, or on the roofs and hoods of Humvees in 40- and 50-degree temperatures.
Soldiers swapped stories about the joys of sleeping on the ground in the Kahukus during training, and getting a good night's sleep in an Army Gore-Tex bivvy sack in the pouring rain. Crunchies, by the way, is the term armored units use for the sound made when they run over infantry.
• • •
The BX/PX at Kirkuk Air Base and some satellite shops and food stands are a daily civilian-life fix for a lot of service members, who don't leave the high-security facility except for assignments, and have to wear helmets on base.
The BX sells everything from Red Man and other brands of chewing tobacco (a must-have for many soldiers), books, shampoo and soda, to CD and DVD players, non-alcoholic beer and wine and Persian rugs.
A Burger King stand sells Whoppers with cheese for $2.50, onion rings for $1.50 and apple pie for $1. There's also a Pizza Hut stand, AT&T phone center, Internet cafe, haircuts for $3, a gift shop that sells old Saddam Hussein dinars for $5 for about 10 bills, and an alteration shop.
• • •
At Camp Virginia in Kuwait, where Schofield Barracks soldiers spent more than a week before heading into Iraq, there was always a long line out the door of the embroidery shop.
The big attraction? Words embroidered in exotic Arabic, which service members put on their desert camouflage jackets, pants, "floppy" hats, backpacks, helmet covers and anything else they could think of. Many got their names in English and Arabic for just a few dollars.
No special significance. "It's memorabilia, that's all," said Spc. Brian Recoma, 27, from South Carolina, a radio telephone operator with A Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment.
Advertiser reporter William Cole is in Iraq with troops from Hawai'i. He will file periodic reporter's notebooks about the day-to-day life of our troops.
