REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK
Iraqi base fortifications unnerving but effective
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
The first troubling thing you notice upon arrival at Forward Operating Base McHenry, about 40 miles southwest of Kirkuk, is the green sand bags.
Lots of them. Tens of thousands, probably. Piled 3 feet high around every conex (a shipping container-like living quarters), around the big tent dining facility, around the chapel and workout tents.
The second troubling thing is the number of 8-foot-square wooden bunkers that are completely sandbagged, sides and top.
The sandbags are for mortar and rocket attacks, which sometimes happen nightly, but more often come arching over every other day.
The good news for Schofield Barracks soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment is that enemy forces that fire the bombs — sometimes from neighboring Al Huwijah, two or three miles away — are usually far off the mark.
In an information letter home to families, battalion commander Lt. Col. Scott Leith said, "I don't mean to alarm anyone ... (but) there are a couple of mad mortar-men who interrupt our day with mortars or rockets who thankfully are not very accurate. We will eventually put them out of business."
Radar tracks the trajectory of the incoming bombs, and artillery from Camp McHenry fires back toward the point of origin. At the sound of a mortar, a horn is sounded, "Incoming!" is shouted, and soldiers move to one of the bunkers until three horn blasts give the all clear.
Usually, one or two mortars are fired, and whoever launches them quickly moves on. A quick reaction force often is sent out to the firing point to check the location.
At McHenry, soldiers take cover when the alarm is sounded, but don't worry about stray shots. A several-hundred-yard buffer zone of open land surrounded by earthen walls rings the living area.
The mortar fire aimed at McHenry — in a Sunni sector where anti-American feeling still runs strong — is greater than at Kirkuk Air Base, which houses some of Schofield's 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry.
Both spots do take fire. Recently, a 107 mm rocket knifed through a conex at Kirkuk Air Base. No one was inside. As is often the case, the rocket did not explode, but burrowed into the ground.
Soldier tastes Hawai'i
Staff Sgt. Romel Olipas, 29, is one of the Hawai'i boys at Forward Operating Base McHenry, and his family on O'ahu has been sending him a chunk of home.
"I got, like, four boxes in the past two days," said Olipas, of 'Ewa Beach. "One big box and, like, four mid-size boxes, so my wife has been taking care of me — my wife and sister-in-law. It's a good thing having family back home in one place."
Son R.J., 8, and daughter Shelby, 5, wrote letters to their dad on the packages. Among the items: Kaua'i cookies, mochi crunch and cuttlefish.
"All the stuff that only locals would eat," said Olipas, an intelligence analyst with the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment Headquarters and Headquarters Company. "The other guys would smell cuttlefish and be like, 'Ooh! What was that?'
"(My wife) just said she sent me, like, three more boxes with Campbell's soup and Chunky soup so I don't starve out here — I don't like MREs (Meals Ready to Eat)."
