| Posted on: Thursday, February 5, 2004 |
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Task Force 1-21 quietly enters Iraq |
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For the Hawai'i soldiers of Task Force 1-21 rolling through the desert by convoy, the 600-mile trip to northern Iraq began in Kuwait with an historic send-off and a night spent under the stars only hundreds of yards from the no-man’s land that marks the border. |
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| Posted on: Tuesday, February 3, 2004 |
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'Ministry of presence' in demand |
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Chaplain Everett Franklin is one of the most traveled soldiers in camp. If soldiers don't go to him, he goes to them. The 41-year-old captain, a Pentecostal who ministers to the 600 soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment from Schofield Barracks, pops into tents and meets and greets soldiers wherever he finds them. He calls it "ministry of presence." |
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| Posted on: Sunday, February 1, 2004 |
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Safety is priority for convoy |
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When 4,000 Schofield Barracks soldiers take up duty in northern Iraq, it will be the first time since the Vietnam War that a brigade-sized unit of the 25th Infantry Division (Light) has gone into a combat zone. First, they have to arrive safely. |
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Convoy security force prepared to 'unleash hell' |
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Fourteen thousand U.S. vehicles a week travel routes between Kuwait and Kirkuk, facing an average of five roadside bomb, rocket or direct-fire attacks. The soldiers of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment are locked and loaded and more than ready for it if it happens on the convoy north. |
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| Posted on: Thursday, January 29, 2004 |
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Tent city is home on the road to Iraq |
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Big rectangular tents with plywood floors house up to 70 soldiers who sleep within an arm's distance of one another on cots. Bathrooms amount to portable toilets in rows, shower trailers sometimes run out of water, and hundreds of Humvees and 5-ton trucks constantly rumble across this sprawling desert base. Welcome to the temporary home for most of the 4,000 Schofield Barracks soldiers heading to Iraq. |
