Wednesday, April 25, 2007
AP photo
The sun sets Tuesday behind a soldier standing near a tent for transient soldiers at Forward Operating Base Stryker, not far from Baghdad International Airport.
Staff photo by Shawn Patrick Ouellette
Sgt. Paul Eubank of East Millinocket watches soldiers of the 1-121 Field Artillery Battalion prepare to join a convoy out of Camp Navistar in Kuwait.
CAMP NAVISTAR, Kuwait - It was the middle of the night inside a tent for transient soldiers at Forward Operating Base Stryker near Baghdad International Airport.
A young woman, an Army specialist, sat on a dusty, vinyl-covered couch with her elbows on her knees, her chin cupped in her hands, listening to the lady on the big-screen television promote the next cable news segment.
"The U.S. military!" the TV anchor said with all the drama she could muster. "Is it working or is it broken?"
The soldier looked down at the half-finished crossword puzzle on the table in front her.
"I vote broken," she said in a thick Southern drawl.
Or, at the very least, war-weary.
This is the third time I've traveled to Kuwait and Iraq to write about Maine soldiers serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Twice in 2004, I embedded with the Maine Army National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion as it traveled all over northern Iraq adding roads, schools and health clinics to an infrastructure decimated by decades of war and oppression.
This time, photographer Shawn Patrick Ouellette and I touched down first with the Army Reserve's 399th Combat Support Hospital at Contingency Operating Base Speicher in Tikrit. Then it was on to the Maine Army National Guard's Alpha Company, 1-121 Field Artillery Battalion, here at Camp Navistar on the Kuwait-Iraq border.
Different units with different missions, to be sure. Yet the friendly competence with which these Mainers do their jobs -- whether working in an operating room or guarding a 45-truck supply convoy as it rolls north into Iraq -- has not changed.
That said, this is not the place -- nor is it the war -- I witnessed three years ago.
These days, as you go from one military installation to another, a palpable weariness hangs over Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Where once you couldn't go an hour or two without hearing or seeing some reference to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that reminder has all but vanished.
In three weeks, I came across only two references to the terrorist attacks 5‡ long years ago.
One was a "Remember 9/11" banner hanging silently inside the chow hall at COB Speicher. Day in and day out, soldiers with full trays walked beneath it -- but nobody seemed to look up.
"That? That's been up there forever," one soldier replied when I finally asked about it one day.
The other echo from the past was the same slogan -- "Remember 911" -- written on a wall inside a latrine at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait. Scrawled in bold letters next to it was another message: "That was Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, you dummy. Not Iraq."
As the reasons for getting into this war have grown blurry, so has the sense of mission itself.
Once, Maine soldiers left no doubt that they were here to win Iraqis' "hearts and minds," to help build a vibrant democracy, to make right all that Saddam Hussein spent decades making so wrong.
Now, Saddam is long gone. And for most soldiers, the mission is to simply put in your year and get out in one piece.
"Every day is Groundhog Day," said Maj. Sherryl Kempton, 60, of New Sharon, who runs the 399th CSH's acute care clinic. The phrase, taken from the Bill Murray movie of the same name in which the same day endlessly repeats itself, has become a mantra for soldiers all over Iraq and Kuwait.
Compounding the monotony is the U.S. military's growing isolation from life outside the barbed wire.
Three years ago, Maine soldiers mingled frequently with Iraqis -- especially those in the friendly towns and villages of Kurdistan.
Now, against the ever-increasing drumbeat of insurgent attacks, impenetrable checkpoints and security barriers -- and, for units that do venture out, armor plating and thick, ballistic glass -- separate the soldiers from the "locals."
Few if any of the soldiers with whom we stayed these past three weeks said they have any meaningful contact with everyday Iraqi civilians -- except, of course, for those who come into the combat support hospital bloodied by the last roadside bomb or sniper attack.
Roughly half of the patients receiving any kind of treatment at the 399th CSH are U.S. soldiers -- most are stationed at COB Speicher and come in with a variety of relatively minor maladies.
But the worst cases -- those that come in by medevac helicopter and require emergency surgery -- skew much more heavily toward the ongoing civil war among the Iraqis.
"I thought we'd be working on more American soldiers" inside the operating room, Staff Sgt. Derek Bisson, 24, a surgical technician from Hollis, said during a lull two weeks ago. "But instead it seems like 90 percent Iraqis, 10 percent Americans. It's like, why are we here again?"
To be sure, many soldiers still believe -- some fervently -- that Iraq would descend into even bloodier chaos without the U.S. military's presence.
Alpha Company's Sgt. Gary Jandreau, 45, of Fort Kent, nicknamed "The IED Magnet" because he's survived so many insurgent attacks, figures it "would be 100 times worse if we weren't here."
But in the next breath, Jandreau says, "These people are crazy. They've been fighting among themselves for thousands and thousands of years -- and I don't think that's going to change."
Jandreau volunteered for his first overseas deployment because after 27 years with the Maine Army National Guard, "I really wanted to see it. I really wanted to see what the Middle East was all about. I wanted to be part of this whole thing."
And now, as he counts the days to his late-July homecoming?
"After being here and seeing it," he said, "I don't want to ever come back here again."
Jandreau's buddy, Sgt. Lenny Hanson of Calais, served with the Maine Army National Guard's 152nd Field Artillery Battalion at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad in 2003 and 2004.
Hanson, 31, volunteered for this second tour because, "I thought coming back again might help put away some of what I brought back from that deployment."
Be careful what you wish for?
"Oh, yeah!" said Hanson, who along with Jandreau barely escaped with his life during a four-hour firefight in Baghdad last October. "Oh, yeah."
Still, despite their ambivalence toward a war that never was supposed to last this long, these men and women from Maine serve with honor, with humor and, when necessary, with unfathomable courage.
And wherever they go in this dusty theater, they carry an unparalleled pride in the place they call home.
Last week, as he prepared for a five-day trip to Baghdad in his state-of-the-art armored security vehicle, Sgt. Michael Harrington, 30, of Randolph looked up and asked, "Hey, are you going to do a write-up on us guys?"
"That I am," I replied.
"You want to send back a message?"
"Start talking."
Harrington paused to collect his thoughts.
"Ah just thank you -- to all the Maine people," he said. "Because since we've been over here -- and a lot of us have noticed it -- they've given us an opportunity to see them at their best. Every holiday, every chance, all the time, we are constantly getting care packages from people we don't even know. Girl Scouts, kids in school, just random strangers and people who just really care about us. And it kind of warms all of our hearts to see Maine people at their best like that."
It works both ways, sergeant.
To you and all of your comrades who shared your stories and your lives with us these past three weeks, stay safe.
And come home soon.
Staff Columnist Bill Nemitz can be contacted at 791-6323 or at:
Questions/Comments
Reader comments
Sort by: Oldest first | Newest First
Our Portland paper could be groundbreaking in the nation by regularly investigating the war. It could lead the way for the nation to break the denial about the war. It could bring about a "watergate" break where people read the truth.report abuse
Our Portland paper could be groundbreaking in the nation by regularly investigating the war. It could lead the way for the nation to break the denial about the war. It could bring about a "watergate" break where people read the truth.report abuse
If we are losing this war it's because wars were never won politicly. Viet-Nam is a fine example of a politicly fought war.
So while Congress tries to cut our funding remember we don't have the military we could have had because the already were cutting spending on the military and closing bases and thinning out the number of troops we had.
Also remember most of us over here are willing to fight and die if neccesary for you to think and say what you want.
Stop the fighting at home and support us.We will do our best to make you proud.
report abuse
Tim of Oregon,
You have an interesting definition of 'lucky'report abuse
Show all 69 comments
You must be a registered user of MaineToday.com to post a comment. Register or log in.