Tuesday, March 01, 2005

By RAIN SMITH
Reporter

Last week the 278th Regimental Combat Team rolled into Diyala. The troopers were immediately swarmed by a barrage of Iraqis.

However, no shots were fired.

Iraqi children were doing the swarming, and the only thing they were armed with was "the biggest smiles you've ever seen" and dreams of a better tomorrow.

That's the scene Elizabethton's Rick Walters painted in an e-mail to the Times-News. Walters is the 278th's public affairs officer and has served in Iraq since December.

The Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 2nd Squadron of the 278th is based in Kingsport. The unit is composed of 271 of the 278th RCT's 4,000 soldiers, 3,200 of which are members of the Tennessee National Guard. About 800 of those soldiers are from Northeast Tennessee.

Walters said the troops he is with are constantly setting good examples and spreading goodwill on their visits to the villages.

How?

One example is as simple as troopers giving some of the children new shoes.

"The children, barefoot, run over those sharp stones and hard ground as if it were carpet," Walters said.

But during the most recent visit, "the troopers opened the back of a medical vehicle and pulled from it several boxes of children's shoes that were donated by a shoe company back home. The troopers were also handing candy to the children, to the point their little hands could hold no more, as they stood in line to hold their tiny feet up to a bottom of a new pair of shoes to see if they fit."

Walters said one 3-year-old boy was mesmerized by his pair of "Power Rangers" Velcro shoes.

The boy even laid a piece of his treasured candy down while he fastened the shoe's Velcro straps.

The unattended candy was quickly snatched by a wandering goat that scampered away with the treat. Other children gave chase, but the boy paid no attention to anything but getting his new shoes on his feet.

"He began stepping around the troopers, lifting his feet as high as he could," Walters said. He was high-stepping to the point of "almost falling. It looked like he was trying to kiss them as he walked."

Walters' wife, Debbie, said she's proud of the 278th's humanitarian efforts. She said it's important to highlight such actions considering the negative slant she sees in some of the mainstream national media's coverage.

According to Walters, last week's trip into Diyala is not the 278th's first, nor will it be the last. He said the area has "experienced problems" since the fall of Saddam Hussein. However, he said, 278th soldiers will not go away.

"They come back to the villages again and again, and each time they make the children happy with clothes, books, candy or a new soccer ball," Walters wrote. "When the children are smiling, how can anyone ever be mad at the soldiers?"

Walters says Diyala is a village with dirt-floor dwellings scattered in no particular geometric order. Rusty, chain-link pens are connected to most of the homes' doors, where chickens, lambs and goats strut in and out "as if they were the keepers and not the kept."

"Farming is the only life these Iraqi families know," Walters said.

"Wires are strung loosely along crooked concrete poles that lead out into the desert to parts unknown. What is known is that no power flows through those wires to the small, single light bulbs in each of the homes."

During the last visit, a village elder greeted soldiers with a smile, handshake and then placed his hand over his heart - a sign of respect. The man tells troops the village has had no electricity for several months, and the Department of Electricity came to take their transformer a few days ago.

The patrol leader promised to check on the situation once he gets back to base.

Despite hardships, Walters said the villager has high hopes. The man points to a construction project a few hundred yards outside the village. "...when complete, it will produce concrete and employ most of the young men of the village," Walters wrote. "He was happy for that."

Iraqis are learning from U.S. soldiers, Walters said, who do what they say they are going to do.

"But, it takes time to learn to take the initiative and to do things for yourself when all your life you have not been allowed to do that."

The war-torn country will evolve, Walters said, and he believes Iraqis will be surprised at the work of U.S. troops. But it's the world, he said, that will get the biggest surprise of all - "A safe and free Iraq."

After the 278th's soldiers visit four other villages and return to their base, the officer in charge asks the command center for a phone number or e-mail address at the Department of Electricity.

What will follow is what the officer promised the village elder. It's another example of how the 278th troopers are fostering goodwill and setting good examples for the Iraqi people they deal with every day.

Rick and Debbie Walters have three children in Elizabethton who range from 7 to 9 years old.

Story Copyright to Kingsport Times News