Publication:Chattanooga Times Free Press
Date:Thursday, February 17, 2005
Section:Front Page; Page:1

Area troops in Baghdad

By Edward Lee Pitts Military Affairs

BAGHDAD, Iraq — The bombed-out palace within sight of their headquarters here reminds Troop F soldiers daily that they are in a different world from their permanent Bristol, Tenn., home.

The more than 80 soldiers in the 278th Regimental Combat Team’s 2nd Squadron unit are in their third month stationed in the heart of the struggle for Iraq. They stand watch here 24 hours a day over some of the country’s most important people and places.

Attached to the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division, which needed more manpower, Bristol-based Troop F soldiers here say they have whole heartedly embraced their high profile assignment in Iraq’s capital city far outside the 278th’s sector in Northeastern Iraq.

"We like the mission. We take a lot of pride in being here," said troop Commander Capt. Wiley Hammer, who likes to point out the irony inherent in a bunch of guys primarily from rural Tennessee with the task of safeguarding portions of a city with more than six million people. "We feel like we are making an impact."

The troop is entrusted with the security at the entrance gate to a compound housing some of Iraq’s top officials as well as manning several observation posts along the edge of the Green Zone. The zone is the sprawling coalition command center here that encompasses several of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein’s former palaces and government buildings.

"We are the first line of defense if anybody ever decides to come across," said Spc. Jimmy Farmer, 32, of Alcoa, Tenn. "I’d rather be here where I know this is where it all started and this is where it will eventually end."

Guarding sections of the line separating the Green Zone from the Red Zone, the 278th soldiers look across the dirty Tigris River from their posts at rows of threestory buildings said to be the former barracks of Mr. Hussein’s elite Republican Guard.

The ravages of war are more evident in the unsecured Red Zone.

"Out there it is Indian territory, plain and simple," said Cpl. Michael Riggs, 27, of Coeburn, Va.

The 278th soldiers mostly watch, but some have ventured into the Red Zone, especially during the days leading up to and including the Jan. 30 elections when the troop provided quick-response teams at nearby polling sites.

SMOKE AND GUNFIRE

From their observation posts along the line, Troop F soldiers say they hear a lot of gunfire and see plumes of smoke from car and suicide bombings around the city. Spc. Kevin Ott, 36 of Johnson City, Tenn., while recently manning one of these towers, said the sights and sounds usually heat up between 7 and 9:30 p.m. each night.

"The insurgents must have day jobs and have to go to bed early," he said.

Spc. Ott said the biggest explosion occurred when a tanker truck erupted in flames, sending a fireball into the sky so high it overshadowed the sunlight. On another night, a rocket sailed between two towers but didn’t detonate.

On New Year’s Eve, celebrating Iraqis treated the 278th soldiers to a firework display unlike anything the men from Tennessee said they had ever seen before. Colored tracers lit the night sky as the Iraqis shot off AK-47 rifles into the air in unison, their preferred means of celebrating significant events such as weddings and holidays.

At one of their guard towers overlooking the Tigris, Troop F soldiers came under attack several weeks ago from small-arms fire. The Troop F guards returned fire, unleashing 150 rounds at the third-story window of a building across the river.

The incident was one of two direct attacks on observation posts held by Troop F soldiers since their arrival here in December.

And in what some soldiers call drive-by mortaring, insurgents frequently shoot hastily aimed rockets from across the Tigris. The insurgents usually pull up in trucks and fire a round before driving off in time to avoid counter attacks from U.S.-led coalition forces, soldiers said.

So far the closet mortar round hit about 150 meters away from Troop F’s home, too far to do any damage but still close enough to shake the walls, said Cpl. Leon Brimm, 29, of Bristol, Tenn.

About 58 mortar rounds landed inside the Green Zone the day before and the day of the election, according to Lt. Damon Bradford, the troop’s executive officer.

Cpl. Brimm said he has seen a couple of peaceful protests since arriving here, but more than half of the locals seem to favor the Americans.

"I was a little nervous coming down here with all you see on the news," he said. "But after you are here awhile, you become more aware of your surroundings, and the mission is not quite as scary."

Troop F spends more time on security than providing assistance to locals, but recently some members of the troop befriended an Iraqi widow. To keep out the cold, they covered the windows and doors in the house in which she is squatting with the surviving members of her family.

She repaid the kindness by fixing the soldiers tea, warming the pot over a kerosene heater that soldiers said seemed to be her most expensive possession. She told soldiers that insurgents broke into the home several months ago and killed one of her daughters because they believed she had ties with the Americans.

QUARTERS NEAR PALACE

Troop F members live within walking distance of what has quickly become a top tourist destination for Green Zone visitors. The Believers Palace was one of the first of Mr. Hussein’s massive residences hit by U.S. bombs, according to Troop F soldiers.

Its interior, devastated by two bombs, now looks like a tornado, hurricane and earthquake stuck all at once. The palace’s marble floors are buried under thick deposits of soot, twisted metal, broken bricks and burnt wood.

Underneath the palace, an underground command post bunker remains where Mr. Hussein hid during part of the war. Visitors must use flashlights to navigate such dank places as the conference room where Iraqi television stations once recorded images of Mr. Hussein and his leaders plotting how to repel the U.S.–led attack.

The palace is uninhabitable, but Troop F soldiers live in quarters once occupied by palace groundskeepers and maintenance workers.

The marble floors and stoneplaster walls here are a marked improvement over the concrete bunkers and metal containers in which most 278th soldiers live at three bases near the Iranian border. Troop F’s home even has a working marble fireplace and a broken but still decorative rectangular glass chandelier.

Across the street from the building doubling as Troop F’s headquarters and home is a soccer field where workers from around the world working inside the Green Zone often come to play. Beyond the soccer field, marine snipers scan the Baghdad skyline from atop a large tower.

The Troop F soldiers here must live, work and sleep under the constant thundering drone of helicopters coming and going from the nearby landing pad.

No one would say why Troop F was chosen for this mission.

"We miss them, but I knew they would do a good job," said 2nd Squadron commander Lt. Col. Frank McCauley. "Hopefully we will get them back. It caused us to work short handed, but it is for the greater good."

The soldiers may soon be patrolling a neighborhood in the Red Zone that is home to the sheik of the largest tribe in Iraq, two political party headquarters and a newspaper office — all potential insurgent targets.

Wherever the troop spends the rest of its months in Iraq, most 278th leaders said it will represent the regiment well.

"This troop doesn’t play," Command Sgt. Maj. James Pippin, the regiments highest ranking noncommissioned officer, said during a recent visit to Troop F. "They are serious."

E-mail Lee Pitts at lpitts@timesfreepress.com

U.S. Army Photo by Staff Sgt. Russell Lee Klika - Lt. Col. Wayne Honeycutt, executive officer of the 278th Regimental Combat Team, left; Lt. Col. Frank McCauley, 2nd Squadron commander, center; and 1st Sgt. John F. Cartwright of Troop F patrol along the Red Zone in Baghdad.

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