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Reporter Rusty Dennen rides in a Humvee with Guard soldiers on patrol at the Port of Shuaiba in Kuwait. |
THEY HAVE opin-
Like soldiers immemorial, they're more
Mostly, these Virginia Army National Guard soldiers try to stay focused--protecting a crucial port in Kuwait, and their buddies--as best they can. And count the days until they head back home.
Last month, Free Lance-Star photographer Mike Morones and I spent two weeks embedded with Delta Company, 3rd Battalion of the 116th Infantry, out of the Fredericksburg Armory, in the Persian Gulf.
I'm an Army brat. I never served in the military, but I now have a better understanding
We bunked with the unit, ate in the chow hall, showered in the prefab buildings at Camp Arifjan outside Kuwait City. While they were on duty at a seaport nearby, we hung out with them at checkpoints and patrolled in Humvees.
We had gotten to know some of the soldiers last summer during their pre-deployment training at Camp Shelby, Miss. This time, we spent time with a lot more.
The closest they've been to Iraq on this mission was a military outpost near the border where some of them attended a concert by pop stars Jessica Simpson and the Pussycat Dolls.
Still, each one of them knows that, if not for the supply routes they are guarding in Kuwait, combat in Iraq and Afghanistan would soon grind to a halt.
One National Guard soldier who lives in Fredericksburg put it this way: "We don't pick the mission. We joke and have fun, but when the time comes for business, we get the job done."
Their duty--at checkpoints and on patrol at sprawling industrial ports--is often numbingly boring. They smoke cigarettes and pound down Monster energy drinks and coffee to stay alert.
They are truly strangers in a strange land populated by Arabic speakers, herds of camels and sheep, ubiquitous mosques, vast stretches of desert and oil refineries. All that in the midst of the fabulous wealth of native Kuwaitis and the relative poverty of the hordes of third-country nationals who work for them.
The National Guard is a cross section of America. Its members are part-timers in the military--at least that's what many of them thought until they were deployed--and they come from all walks of life.
I met a truck driver, a building contractor, a police officer, entrepreneurs, college students, a housewife, a defense consultant. Some are young, in their early 20s; one guardsman was 57.
Some joined the Guard for college tuition; some had been on active duty in the Army or another branch of the service and wanted to be weekend warriors long enough to get military retirement benefits.
For others, joining up was for purely patriotic reasons in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Some were on their first deployment overseas, while others had dodged bullets and IEDs in the mean streets of Baghdad and had sad pictures and videos to prove it.
Like a storm on the horizon, the war is always in the back of their minds. Daily they see convoys of horribly damaged tanks and Humvees returning from the battle zone, and brand-new ones heading north to Iraq.
It struck me, as I stepped onto the plane for the flight home, how different it is for me, and for most Americans, whose worries tend to be more along the lines of everyday matters such as gas prices, college tuition, carpooling the kids and paying the mortgage.
I suspect the soldiers would say that's why they're there.
Rusty Dennen has worked as a reporter and editor for The Free Lance-Star for 31 years.
