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Easter: Another day on duty in Kuwait

March 23, 2008 12:15 am

By RUSTY DENNEN

CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait

While families back home go to church and hide decorated eggs in the backyard, soldiers here are manning guard shacks, checking IDs or patrolling in Humvees in perpetual dust and 90-degree heat.

More than 300 soldiers assigned to the Fredericksburg Armory have been in Kuwait since last September.

"The routine is somewhat different on holidays," said Spc. Brian Britton of Montross, who serves with Delta Company, 3rd Battalion of the 116th Infantry's Second Platoon.

Those who are off duty can attend Easter services in nondescript, brown military chapels situated around the base near Kuwait City.

In a land where Islam is the state-sanctioned religion and mosques dominate the skyline, Christians are corralled in the confines of military bases--out of sight of the native population.

At Christmas, officers relieved some of the men at their posts, Britton says. "And at New Year's, they had a party" at the Morale, Welfare and Recreation center. "Otherwise it's pretty much normal."

"Normal" is a matter of perspective for the men and women who spend their days protecting the Seaport of Debarkation and another base known as Camp Patriot on the Persian Gulf. Some are up long before the sun rises above the barren landscape. Others work though the night on lonely outposts where burn-off flares from oil refineries cast a hellish glow.

A CRITICAL MISSION

Their mission is critical to the coalition war effort. Nearly all of the war material going into Iraq and Afghanistan comes through checkpoints manned by Delta Company. Two other units attached to the Fredericksburg Armory, Headquarters Company and Fox Company, do logistics, security and supply work at the port and Camp Patriot.

"A lot of guys look down on this mission" because it's not where the action is in Iraq or Afghanistan, said Spc. Robert Eastwood during a day shift at Delta Company's Hollywood checkpoint. "But I'm all right with it. It's safer and it's an important mission."

A fair number of Guard soldiers aren't complaining because they've already done tours in combat zones. Still, they don't let their guard down in Kuwait.

In the Guard's first week here, two men were arrested for having an explosives-training device in their car. Another time, a truck with wires protruding from a compartment was blown up as a precaution.

The soldiers regularly see convoys carrying wrecked vehicles returning from Iraq that were hit by roadside bombs.

They routinely raise and lower metal gates between concrete barriers, checking all vehicles for explosives, weapons and IDs.

Usually it's busy with workers and military convoys going to and from the port. At slack times the soldiers joke, talk, and watch enormous spiny-tailed lizards that inhabit nearby fields.

Eastwood, who lives in Partlow in Spotsylvania County, joined the National Guard in 2001, and works for a Dominion power contractor back home. His wife, Lakishia, and two boys Dakota, 3 and Tehan, 2, anxiously await his return.

Eastwood's buddy, Sgt. Edwin Boxley of Fredericksburg sat at the butt of an M249 machine gun nearby in a guard tower.

Boxley, 24, who joined the guard at age 17 to get money for college, didn't know what to expect when he arrived in Kuwait on his first overseas deployment.

"You step off the plane and say, 'Damn, I'm here,'" he recalled. He soon discovered, "It's not all hoo-ah and hard charging."

He has met some Kuwaitis--the privileged class--and the far more numerous third-country nationals who come for service jobs.

"What it has taught me is that not everyone here is bad," Boxley said.

DOWN TO BUSINESS

After six months together, he and the roughly 40 other soldiers who make up Second Platoon have the routine down.

"We're very tight. We have fun and joke, but when time comes for business, we get the job done," he said.

Spc. Ryan White of Stafford County said serving in Kuwait has been an adjustment.

"My first reaction when I got here was, 'Where are the bad guys?' It's nothing like that at all."

No one is shooting at American soldiers here. There are no roadside bombs. The biggest danger is the bus trip to and from the duty station on Kuwait's notoriously deadly highways where speed limits are ignored by the locals.

"There's no preparing for here. You just have to do it step by step," White said.

He joined the Guard three years ago. "I wanted to do something good to help people out," he said. It's his first deployment.

White misses his family. His parents, Lewis and Joan White, both served in the military, so they understand what he's going through.

At times, White's thoughts drift to things he misses back home "like grass [and] taking a shower in your own house."

PASTORAL LINK

Army Maj. Buddy Hammil, a chaplain, says holidays such as Easter can be tough on the troops because they are intense and personal reminders of home.

Hammil was composing his Easter message recently in the small trailer he occupies along the main drag on base.

"I always try to address something relevant, whether it's here or at home," he says. Hammil is stationed in Vicenza, Italy, and has been in Kuwait since June.

Troops often stop by Hammil's office to talk.

"We do have combat- stress-type issues, people who've been shot at, or experienced an IED [improvised explosive device]. They're fearful of that happening, getting wounded or had a buddy die."

Rusty Dennen: 540/374-5431
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com