Few frills for soldiers’ last months in Iraq - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Few frills for soldiers’ last months in Iraq

JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq — American soldiers in Iraq will be back to eating MREs and sleeping in tents in the last few months the Army is deployed there.

Bases in Iraq, such as Balad, now feature dining halls lined with smoothie stands and omelet bars. Food courts including Subway, Green Beans coffee and McDonald’s sit near the air-conditioned huts many soldiers live in.

“This generation of soldiers is used to some pretty high living,” said Brig. Gen. Mark Corson, head of the 103rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command. “This is the best-fed Army on the planet. I don’t eat this well at home.”

But the comforts are all on the way out. Corson said soldiers will be exclusively eating Meals, Ready to Eat by November.

Many of the “chus,” or white trailers that feature personal showers for high-ranking officers, will also start disappearing. Corson said most soldiers, even on bases like Balad, will go back to living in tents their last few months in Iraq.

“They will have everything they need, but they won’t necessarily have everything they want. ... At the end, it will be an austere environment,” Corson said. “It will be no more Subway ... but there will be a PX so you’ll still be able to get toothpaste and there will still be the mail and you will still be paid and you will still be fed.”

Methodically, the smaller U.S. coalition bases will fold into the larger ones in what Corson called a “hub and spoke” system. Rumors among soldiers in small outposts such as the patrol bases north of Mosul have already spread about potentially going home early once their bases shut down.

Corson acknowledged the logic that space will run out as bases close, but he said U.S. military officials have not made any final decisions about who might go home early.

Before U.S. soldiers can leave, the one-star said the focus must remain on leaving “responsibly.” Corson wants to avoid what he called those “embarrassing moments.”

He is especially worried about disposing of fuel and batteries. The U.S. has awarded contracts to Iraqi companies to do the job, but he’s committed to ensuring his soldiers monitor where the fuel and batteries get disposed. Corson said it’s expensive but vital to make sure these contaminates don’t seep into the surrounding areas.

“We’ve gone to those great lengths to make sure the oil is disposed of properly,” he said.

Eight years of gear

Staff Sgt. Valarie Cockridge could only shake her head when she opened a shipping container full of nothing but beepers. She said she has seen it all at Balad’s fixed mobile redistribution center — ground zero for the Army’s pack-up in Iraq.

Once a week, the noncommissioned officer and her soldiers open their gates for “Amnesty Day” and accept any unaccounted gear that has built up here since the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Soldiers have dropped off everything from tank treads to 1990-era printers. Cockridge’s soldiers sort the gear and either pitch it or ship it home.

Soldiers like Cockridge still serving in Iraq have a unique task: Rather than pass the buck to the next unit replacing them, these soldiers must pack up eight years’ worth of gear before heading home.

“The soldiers here can’t just hand it off to the next unit. They have to throw it out, pack it up or figure out if we are giving it to the Iraqis,” said Lt. Col. Brian Formy-Duval, head of 3rd Sustainment Brigade’s support operations.

The process started in earnest last year as the Army worked to reduce America’s troop count to 50,000 to usher in Operation New Dawn and the end of America’s combat operations in Iraq. Now, the Army is working to draw that number down to zero to meet the deadline set in an agreement signed by the Iraqi and U.S. governments to have U.S. troops out of Iraq by Dec. 31.

The soldiers here know not everyone can leave on New Year’s Eve, though.

“We all gotta leave and not everyone is going to be able to be on that last plane or that last truck,” Formy-Duval said.

Corson admits the U.S. Army left Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War without checking out everything it had left behind. Thousands of connexes went unchecked, and in some cases, units still have no idea what populates these shipping containers that litter bases.

This time, he wants everything accounted, mostly to make sure Iraq’s army gets the supplies it needs to succeed when the U.S. leaves.

The mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles will go home with U.S. soldiers, but many of the Humvees and white Ford pickup trucks that the soldiers drive will stay with the Iraqis.

“I get asked: ‘Why do you give that stuff to the Iraqis?’ Well, it’s very expensive to ship things across the planet and it’s not economically viable,” Corson said. “It benefits them and it saves the taxpayers some money.”

It’s not always safe, either. Soldiers such as Staff Sgt. Kevin Scott and Pfc. Warren Webb with the 3-116 Cavalry Regiment’s Alpha Company provide security to convoys sometimes as long as 30 trucks carrying supplies on Iraq’s open roads. The number of improvised explosive devices has gone down, but the threat is still out there, Webb and Scott said.

Keys to the castle

Many U.S. installations will be handed over directly to the Iraqis. Capt. Eric Barton is in charge of handing the keys to Contingency Operating Base Delta near Al Kut, Iraq, to Iraq’s air force.

Barton works with Iraqi Col. Faris Turky, chief of staff of Iraq’s Technical Wing Command, to make sure the Iraqis know how to use and maintain the gear the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment will leave behind.

As Barton and Turky lean over a map, the Iraqi colonel continually asks the American captain if the U.S. can move up the date of the handover. He’s obviously eager to allow his Iraqi troops to take control.

While Barton said he wouldn’t mind going home early, he tells the Iraqi colonel the importance of training the Iraqis to operate the water treatment plants and the fuel farms before U.S. soldiers leave.

Friction in their conversation comes up when Turky asks if the U.S. is going to install a generator on base. Barton said that responsibility will fall to the Iraqis as he no longer has the budget to make improvements like that. Accustomed to open pocketbooks, U.S. officers here said the Army’s tightening budget in Iraq has made their relationships harder.

However, Barton is quick to add that he can send a mechanic over to help Iraqi mechanics install the generator themselves.

“All this new equipment won’t help if the Iraqis don’t know how to maintain it,” Barton said.