Soldiers adjust to new 'crate homes'
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
KIRKUK AIR BASE, Iraq — Saddam Hussein, sporting aviator sunglasses and a black beret, smiles upon Pfc. Patricia Rodriguez every day on her way to work with the 25th Infantry Division (Light).
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Graffiti by hundreds of occupying U.S troops cover the billboard-sized visage of Saddam, a mural that wouldn't have been touched a year ago.
1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment cooks Pfc. Jonathan Dowdy of Hampton, Va., foreground, and Spc. Brian Stark of Tempe, Ariz., are reminded of an ousted Saddam Hussein, whose mural is covered by occupying troops' graffiti.
"At first it was kinda scary because you see his picture," said Rodriguez, 20, who works with records in a former Iraqi command building. "But at the same time you know he's not here anymore."
A local worker putting up lights says Saddam launched planes from here in 1988 with chemical weapons for use on the Kurds.
There's still that incongruity at Kirkuk Air Base, which was outside the long-standing northern "no-fly" zone established by the United States following the first Gulf War.
Reminders of an ousted Saddam are everywhere, with American troops filling the void.
Just off one runway, Schofield Barracks cooks wash hot meal containers next to a camouflaged old Soviet MiG fighter jet, its canopy perforated by bullet holes.
Less than a year after the March 20 invasion, the base on the west side of Kirkuk city remains a jarring reminder of what used to be. Schofield soldiers are now trying to turn it into home.
Medical facilities that look like big plywood crates are built into some open-ended concrete hangars, and an administrative area of the sprawling base is a jumble of old Iraqi buildings, electrical and razor wire, tents, Humvees and sandbags.
Mud is everywhere, and it rains about every three days. The occasional incoming mortar round, although infrequent for the past two weeks, still thuds somewhere on the two-runway base.
"I'm going to miss my family, but it's doable for a year," said Spc. Amanda Redford, 22, who works in supply with the 225th Forward Support Battalion. "I hope what we're doing does something very, very good for the Iraqi people."
Many at the base, including Schofield soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry, and engineer, artillery and support units, live in 20-foot heated and lighted shipping crates in "Container City."
Other 25th soldiers are at "safe houses" in the city, to the north near Irbil, to the west about 30 miles in Al Huwijah, to the east as far as the Iranian border, and south in Balad.
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At Kirkuk Air Base, where the 2nd Brigade is headquartered, it's a half-mile walk to a cafeteria-style dining facility opened several months ago. There's seating for more than a thousand troops.
Sgt. Rick Davis of Oklahoma City works on his golf swing outside his "container home" as a fellow anti-tank platoon member, Spc. Jose Montero of Reno, looks on.
It's another quarter-mile walk from there to the base exchange in an area with a Burger King, Pizza Hut, Internet cafe, AT&T phone center trailers, and a "Clamtina" recreation tent with karaoke on Thursday and "Bingo blowout" on Saturday.
Buses make the rounds on base every 20 minutes.
"I'm not used to the climate. The first night I got here, I stepped in the mud and my body was like half covered in mud," said Rodriguez, who's from San Diego.
"That was my first big battle," she said, laughing.
Temperatures swing from the high 60s on sunny days to low 40s when it rains, turning dirt streets to muck. Vivid sunsets give way to the surreal glow of oil fires outside of town where crude bubbles to the surface.
Schofield soldiers are just happy to be in buildings or the containers that continue to be added at the airport, considered to be an "enduring" U.S. facility in Iraq, and which may be opened at some point for commercial passenger flights.
The 173rd Airborne Brigade out of Italy, which the 2nd Brigade officially relieved yesterday, parachuted into Kirkuk on March 26.
The Army and Air Force, which has A-10 attack aircraft at Kirkuk Air Base and runs C-130 and C-17 transport flights through the facility, are still moving troops from tents that can sleep dozens, to the prefabricated containers.
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Air Force Col. Daniel L. Peabody, commander of the 506th Air Expeditionary Group, said the Army has close to 400 of the living quarters, which house four soldiers each.
Pfc. Cameron Taylor of Marin City, Calif., thumbs through his Army-issue Bible on a recent Sunday afternoon. Between duties, the Charlie Company soldier tries to read the book of Proverbs at least once a day.
The Air Force has new modular dorms with space for 1,500 personnel. About 4,500 Army and Air Force personnel are on base or live nearby.
Peabody, an A-10 pilot, said a draft of a five-year plan calls for making permanent infrastructure improvements, including paving roads and upgrading electricity.
Redford, of the 225th Forward Support Battalion, said it's a long walk to get to the dining facility or base exchange.
"But once you get there, it's not that bad because everything is there that you need," the Pennsylvanian said.
Redford, who's on her first deployment, thought she'd be living in a tent for a year under field conditions — no shower facilities and lots of pre-packaged Meals Ready-To-Eat, or MREs.
"Here, we're eating hot meals three times a day, and it's pretty good," she said.
With their mission just starting, the fact that it's at least a year of duty — and possibly more if they are extended — is something soldiers are trying not to dwell on.
Many will not be able to leave the base, which is big enough that runners can make at least a six-mile loop around the perimeter. Two-story concrete guard houses watch over remote sections.
"Right now it's not too bad, but I'm sure once we're here for a while, it'll kick in," Redford said.
Spc. Robert Kava, 32, from American Samoa, a driver with the 2nd Brigade Headquarters and Headquarters Company, said he hopes he makes it outside the razor wire.
"I'd like to go out there and experience what my friends on the line are experiencing — patrolling," said Kava, who has a wife and four children at Fort Shafter Flats.
For fun, Kava hits the gym. One of the facilities, a leftover Iraqi building with jet fighters and Arabic stenciled on the wall, has bleachers, a basketball court, and dozens of exercise machines.
"Gotta get my mind off missing everyone," Kava said. "I'm doing pretty good. I hear a couple of guys whine about (being gone for a year). But this is the Army, you've got to face it."
Soldiers are customizing their "hooches," and there are plans for decks and barbecues.
The Black Widows, an anti-tank platoon with 1-21 Headquarters and Headquarters Company, filled sandbags to make rock garden planters in front of their containers.
A couple of soldiers spelled out their home states — South Dakota and Oregon — in rocks.
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A mini weight room was made by stringing a tarp over two adjacent containers. Underneath is a weight bench and 500 pounds of weights.
Staff Sgt. Christian Foster of Vincent, Ohio, touches up a newly painted Tropic Lightning shield at 2nd Brigade headquarters at Kirkuk Air Base.
Pfc. Mark Furtado, 20, a Humvee gunner, said the regular weight room is "a nice set up, but too far of a drive."
A few feet away, Sgt. Rick Davis, 25, from Oklahoma, was swinging a sand wedge in the gravel spread around the containers to keep down the mud.
"Wal-Mart $6 special I brought over here to bang up," he said. "I actually heard engineers (in Iraq) steamrolled a par-3, nine-hole for somebody."
Even this far inside the base, occasional attacks are still a worry, and engineers were standing up 15-foot-high, foot-thick concrete sections on one side of the containers to act as a barrier to small-arms fire.
The Air Force's Peabody, who works in a meeting room carpeted in Persian rugs where the Iraqi base commander was felled by a sniper bullet, said attacks have tapered off in the past few weeks after an increase in December and January.
Around that time, the base was being fired on from a mortar or rocket-propelled grenade about every third night.
Pvt. Angelica Ramos, 20, who's with the 225th Forward Support Battalion and picks up mail, worries about the mortar attacks.
"It's scary," said Ramos, who's from Compton, Calif. "You try to adjust, and you hear it and it reminds you of where you are at."
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Humvee gunner Mark Anthony Furtado, left, of Placentia, Calif., and Pfc. Jason Frank of Rochester, N.Y., members of the Black Widows anti-tank platoon, set up weights in the makeshift gym at Kirkuk Air Base.
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Some soldiers got creative when filling sandbags to make planters in front of their living containers — spelling out their home state in rocks.
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