SUVs are Status Symbols Here

Most of the thousands of soldiers on Tallil Ali Air Base walk or take buses or ride in the back of 5-ton trucks to get where they are going on a post that stretches across dozens of square miles of sand and rock. A few hundred soldiers and airmen ride bicycles. Senior maintenance soldiers get 'Gators: four-wheel-drive golf carts made by John Deere and other manufacturers.

Senior officers, sergeant majors, commanders, and many garrison staff soldiers get SUVs. For Explorers, Chevy Suburbans, GMC Yukons as well as full-size crew-cab pickup trucks by the big three American automakers. The SUVs are the real status symbols around post. SUVs fill the parking lot of the DFAC for each meal near the end of the dining hours when the senior officers eat.

The SUVs are either light silver or white--colors that reflect rather than absorb the heat of the Iraq summer. Hybrids and high-mileage cars may be the cars to own back at home--at least for those of us who live in cities, but here a white or silver SUV is the vehicle to drive.

KBR is Much More Than What is on the News

Before I was here in Iraq, my association with the initials KBR was with whatever bad news was reported about insider contract deals and some sort of shady arrangement that had Dick Cheney in the background like the Emperor in "Star Wars."

But here in Iraq, KBR are the initials on the red ID tag lanyards of the people that are behind all the good stuff for soldiers here at Tallil Ali Air Base. KBR people run the 24-hour House of Pain gym and make sure it is clean, cold water is available and all the various soldier-led classes are scheduled and supported. They run the weekly 5k race, they staff the cyber cafes, the free-phone rooms, the library, the rec centers, the DFACs, they fix the air conditioners, and now they are starting to leave.

In the month I have been here Brook, Jelena, and Steve among many other KBR people have helped me to find the people who run every activity the soldiers in my unit have asked about or wanted to do. The KBR folks are cheerful, helpful and really interested in making things as good as possible for soldiers. But as the KBR contracts expire and others come in to replace them, some of my favorite people are worried about their jobs. It will be a shame if the folks who most want to help soldiers are replaced and cut instead of retained. In the future I will not think of the contract lawyers at KBR, but the smiling faces who serve me food and set up Spin class.

The Silent Guitar Player on the Bridge

On the path between my trailer park home and the gym a 20-foot long wooden foot bridge spans a dry, rock-filled stream bed. The long-timers (who were here last year) say that during the fall rains, the dry stream beds actually fill with water. I've never seen it.

The last four nights as I cross the bridge coming back from the gym or coffee shop a tall (6-foot, 5-inch) soldier in PT uniform (gym clothes) has been standing on the bridge strumming a 12-string electric bass. He has no amplifier, he is just picking the strings.

Last night, curiosity got the better of me and I asked him why he was on the bridge. It turns out that his massive guitar weighs almost as much as body armor (35 pounds) and he supports the guitar on the bridge while he practices for a return to the stage in the fall.

One of our mechanics, a specialist, was the lead singer (if that's the right word) in a metal band before we deployed. He is a huge, bald guy in his late 20s who also kickboxes when he is not singing about eating dead babies or whatever metal songs are about.

But the big, bald dude on the bridge is a 45-year-old captain. He is also a disciple of Metallica, but it seems somehow stranger to me that a middle-aged officer in an active Army armor unit would be a metal performer, than a 27-year-old mechanic. When I wrote about the Gospel Rock Band yesterday, I did not mention that two of the five members will be gone in mid August. The Captain told me one of the chaplains asked him about playing in the Gospel rock band. The captain won't be singing Gospel. He told me he has a residence in Hell.

One of the things I like about being around soldiers is that they tend toward extremes. In a place like this, people don't equivocate. The soldiers that go to Church are there because they want to be. And the soldiers who hope for a home in Hell are ready to tell anyone who asks.

Choir Update--Home in a Week

To the list of choirs I wrote of earlier, I have to add the choir at today's contemporary service at Adder Chapel (from Anthrax to Adder--what's next?). Actually, it's no a choir, but a rock group in camouflage. The two lead singers play amplified acoustic guitars, they are backed up by an electric guitar, an electric bass and a full drum set. These guys really rocked too, they are from units all over the base. One of the singers is an infantry captain, the other is an engineer sergeant. All but the bass player are big guys, over six feet tall and 200 pounds. These are not skinny teenagers with a garage band. They sang contemporary hymns then a completely rock arrangement of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" that had me singing along at the top of my lungs.

The Chaplain, whom I met the day before at the DFAC, is a very straightforward evangelical who admires Billy Graham and has an altar call at the end of the service. He had his hands in the air while the band played--unusual at Chapel services except the Gospel service.

And in somewhat related news, if my flights go well, I should be listening to the Wheatland Presbyterian Church Choir one week from today. I get 15 days leave which for me starts when I land in Atlanta after leaving Tallil. This also means if it takes extra time to get back, it is not charged to me as leave. I will have at least 13 days at home, since the first and last day include getting to and from Atlanta.

We Get a Combat patch

As of 0900 yesterday morning, all the soldiers in our unit are authorized to wear a combat patch. This is a patch worn on the right sleeve and is the unit you served in combat with. The left sleeve is the patch for the unit to which you are currently assigned. So I and many of my fellow soldiers have the same patch on our left and right sleeves. If a soldier has been in combat with more than one unit, he or she can pick which unit is on the right sleeve.

Many people have multiple deployments and tend to put the coolest patch or their favorite unit on their right sleeve. A few of the mechanics in our unit have been deployed with 82nd or 101st Airborne and wear those patches instead of the our Keystone patch. When I went to my most recent Army training school, one of the instructors was a female generator mechanic who was taken from her unit in Afghanistan and deployed to another country which she could not even name with a Special Forces unit. She is entitled to wear a Green Beret patch--and did.


How proud are some soldiers of their combat patch. One of my teammates when I was on Green Mountain Cyclery of Ephrata was a soldier who had served in the 2nd Armored Division during the first Gulf War. He had a scale replica of the "Hell on Wheels" patch (Patton's division) tattooed on his right shoulder in exactly the spot where the combat patch would be on his uniform.


Our Keystone patch is all red when it is on the dress uniform. Because 28th Division units had so many casualties in previous wars, the red Keystone is also called the Bloody Bucket. It is only a historical reference now.

Riding in the Running Race

Photo by Jelena Bozic, Tallil Ali Air Base

Every Wednesday at 0600 is the “First Light 5k” race at the “House of Pain” gym. For almost a month now I have not been allowed to run because of a bone spur in my right heel. So while I can’t run, I have volunteered to be the “Pace Bike” for the weekly event. The course has six right turns and two lefts on double oval so every week for the first few weeks, someone would get lost. One new racer who claimed to be able to run under 18 minutes for the 5k got off course while in the lead, so the pace bike is actually useful. I also like being at the race since almost forty of Echo Company’s hundred soldiers run every week. The top runners in the company are training for the Army 10-miler in October. We will have a team. But the majority are training for a passing time or a better time on their two-mile run. In any case Echo Company is about 1/3 of the field most weeks, but is out of the prize categories.

The organizers—the base Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) office—give medals to first and second place in 10-year age groups from under 30 to 50+ and medals to the overall male and female winners. I got a medal in the only race I ran because that week the usual winner was on leave. The overall winner for the last three weeks is a 55-year-old warrant officer who runs between an 18-flat and 18:30 5k. So my medal was a matter of good timing. There is supposed to be a lieutenant who is currently on leave who runs a 17-minute 5k, but for now the old guy rules.

In Chapel Choirs Men are the Majority

SOME MEMBERS OF THE TALLIL GOSPEL CHOIR AND DANCE CHOIR

At first glance, chapel choirs look and sound like their civilian counterparts—except they are several octaves lower. Women are the majority in churches and choirs everywhere reflect that. But in the chapel choirs, we see all the variety of the civilian world, with men doing most of the singing.

At Fort Sill, the choir in the Anthrax Chapel for the protestant service was one young lieutenant with a guitar who sang a solo every week and provided the music for the hymns.

In Tallil, every faith community has a choir and they are as different as the denominations they represent. At the Sunday evening Catholic service, the choir was three men, one with a guitar, leading the singing for a service with almost 100 soldiers. At the contemporary Protestant service in the Air Force area, they had a 6-member choir with a keyboard and several other instruments and PowerPoint Hymns for a congregation of 25.

The traditional Protestant service in the Army chapel had a keyboard player and three singers and also had hymns on PowerPoint on a screen. The Sunday afternoon and evening Gospel services are the choir showstoppers. They have 30 men and 10 women backed up by a half-dozen drums and other instruments in front of a congregation of more than 100. A mostly male Gospel choir sounds like any other Gospel choir until they crescendo at the end of a song. Thirty male voices almost shouting shakes the walls of low, concrete Adder Chapel. In addition to the drums, clapping and singing of the main Gospel choir, the same group has a dance choir that performs at the beginning of the service. This choir is mostly women in black costumes with white gloves dancing to Gospel music and performing passages of Scripture.

One other thing that happens to those who attend multiple services at the Chapel is that all services are held in the same rooms at different times. So one week I heard the Gospel choir raise the roof and the next week listened to the three-man choir at the Catholic service in the very same room. It would certainly save Churches in America a lot of money of they had every Church in the neighborhood meet in one building at different times.

I hadn’t thought until this moment that I have gone from Anthrax to Adder, a deadly disease to a deadly snake. Army chapels may have good choirs, but they need help with their names.