Between mortars and IEDS, life keeps strumming along - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Between mortars and IEDS, life keeps strumming along

Strumming Muqdadiyah, Iraq — April 5, 2006

The forward operating base here is known to the Iraqis as Failoq (fay-lock). It’s known to U.S. troops as FOB Normandy, and it’s about 65 miles northeast of Baghdad in a beautiful region of the country.

It’s expansive, pastoral in places and dotted with bunkers and observation posts from when it used to be a military corps headquarters. The weather is completely unpredictable, with high winds, thunderstorms, driving rain, humidity, heat and cold all happening within a 24-hour period.

It has now been home to U.S. and Iraqi troops for three years, and it has been developed as a premier training facility for Iraqi police and soldiers.

The U.S. Army unit that lives here now is 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry, a 1st Brigade Combat Team reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition unit of the 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Ky.

Insurgents lob indirect mortar and rocket fire at them; the U.S. troops fire some of their own, but so far no one’s been hurt and everyone wears body armor after dark, just in case.

The infantrymen, field artillerymen, scouts, military police, dog handlers and most everybody else who was issued a rifle before deploying to Iraq, go outside the relative safety of the camp in Bradley vehicles and Humvees to patrol the roads all day, every day of the week, aiming to keep the highways safe from the shadowy figures who plant bombs on the side of the road when they think no one’s looking.

They rarely get caught, actually, because they detonate the bombs remotely and escape unseen.

The pace of patrols is grueling, with soldiers getting four hours of sleep here and another two hours of sleep there. They live in low-slung cement buildings, some with individual or shared rooms, others in open bay barracks-style rooms with a mix of bunk beds, cots and twin-frame beds.

That’s how 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, lives and no one there is safe from the pranks. One soldier recounted the time he came back from a mission and his bed was tied to the ceiling, another remembered the day he found his athletic shoes filled with shaving cream, or the time another fell through his bed frame when he sat down because the springs had been removed.

One building is called “the dungeon” because the rooms are all below ground, down a dank stairway with low lighting. In one room that houses about six soldiers, two played guitars while others listened, smoked cigarettes, played video games or watched movies.

The two guitar players, Spc. Brian Ahern and Spc. Josh Somma, were playing a song they call “I eat IEDs for breakfast,” about their friend Spc. Steven Thomas, who has survived two roadside bomb incidents. Somma’s brother, Sgt. Matt Somma, is also on duty in Iraq and when they’re home at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, the three play together.

Even down in the dungeon, sand comes pouring in through the vents when the high winds come, so it is a futile effort to try to keep it clean. The rug underfoot would clog any vacuum with debris like soda can pull tops, plastic rings from juice bottles, ashes, clumped mud and general dirt tracked in from the outside.

Still, home is home, no matter what it looks like and what this base has that others don’t is a sort of town center area that makes it a little homier. Within the equivalent of a small city block is the tactical operations center, a dining room, the Internet café and phone center, the soldier-run post exchange (which is closed more than it is open, to the consternation of many), the re-enlistment office, the chapel, the post office and the human resources and logistics offices. About half a block away is the laundry team from the 506th Quartermaster Company, and in the opposite direction another block away are the medical aid station and a small Iraqi shop with DVDs, electronics and other stuff that may or may not work after you buy it.

The lucky few who have the time to go and a means to get there, retreat occasionally to a hilltop that overlooks the base and offers a breathtaking view of the mountainous region to the north. The soldiers on duty at the antenna up there said they can hear the distant “boom” when a roadside bomb goes off somewhere on the network of roads.

Were it not for that boom, for the fact that the U.S. troops are here at war, that hilltop could feel like a tourist destination.

The helipad is more like a heliport that can handle several helicopters at once, and is also a refueling point manned by a company from the 563rd Aviation Support Battalion. The medical evacuation team sits and waits a lot, which is a good thing because it means there are no casualties.

FOB Normandy is pretty far from the flagpole, which seems to be a positive aspect for many people. But at least one soldier pointed to another aspect of the FOB that he liked best.

“It has trees and grass,” he said with a big smile.