BY MATTHEW LAKIN
Bristol Herald Courier
Sept 19,2004 12:00 AM EDT

CAMP SHELBY, Miss. – The days of the week don’t matter here.

Soldiers of the 278th Regimental Combat Team work on a seven-day, round-the-clock schedule. No one talks about Monday, Tuesday, the weekend – just yesterday, today and tomorrow.

The days all blend together after a while.

"You lose track," said Staff Sgt. Rob Holdway of Fall Branch, Tenn. "You’re going wide open all the time."

Most days follow a similar pattern.

On a typical day last week, sunlight began to spill over the horizon by about 6 a.m. It crept across the concertina wire, the guard towers and the cluster of concrete buildings that Troop F, 2nd Squadron, has called home for three months, ever since they left Bristol Tennessee on Father’s Day.

Reveille sounded, and everything stopped as soldiers turned and snapped to attention.

In the orderly room, Staff Sgt. Robert Duff of Bluff City, Tenn., the troop’s quartermaster, went through his morning ritual – a cigarette, a cup of coffee and the local news.

He glanced out the window.

"That big sun ball’s coming up," he said. "It’s going to get hot today."

A news anchor on the small portable television talked about whether Hurricane Ivan might hit the Mississippi coast. A Bible bound in desert camouflage sat nearby, beneath a photo of Duff’s wife.

Duff never strays far from the supply room, where he eats, sleeps and makes sure the soldiers have everything they need, whatever the hour.

"They can smell a new toy when it comes in here," he said, chuckling. "Everybody comes running."

Boxes – packed, empty and half-empty – filled the room. Duff spent all week packing, checking supplies and preparing them for shipment to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. – and, later, Iraq.

Everything has to go, from the weapons and ammunition to the first sergeant’s "Roll Tide" poster to the boxes labeled "Radios – Old – Big."

First Sgt. John Cartwright of Bristol Tennessee walked in and helped himself to a cup of coffee.

"This is what I live on," he said. "Cigarettes and coffee."

Like Duff, the sergeant wore the troop’s new desert camouflage fatigues, issued Sept. 11. Not everyone was used to them.

"Reality’s sinking in when you put these on," Duff said.

Duff, Cartwright and Staff Sgt. William Riffey of Bristol Tennessee, all in their 50s, make up the troop’s "Over the Hill Gang." The three look after the troop’s younger men, sometimes offering advice, sometimes swapping stories of the old days.

Riffey, the troop’s only Vietnam veteran, went through heart surgery less than a year ago but never considered staying behind.

"I’m all cleaned out," he said. "Now I’m ready to go. This’ll be my sixth trip across the pond."

Outside, No. 10, a spotted hunting dog, trotted past. The dog turned up the week Troop F arrived at the base, probably after wandering off from a hunt in the nearby DeSoto National Forest. The soldiers began feeding it and named it after the number spray-painted on its side.

"That dog’s gained 20 pounds since we got here," Cartwright said.

The dog wasn’t the only pet the soldiers adopted. Duff tamed a skunk, Bob, that snuffles around the barracks, sometimes startling soldiers. So far it hadn’t sprayed anyone.

The two barracks were dark, filled with sleeping soldiers. Some got off duty just a few hours earlier, while others were resting up for later.

Sleeping arrangements were more comfortable than when the troop first arrived and had to cram more than 60 men into a single barracks. But most of the soldiers hadn’t gotten used to the irregular hours of the base’s three shifts – 4 a.m. to noon, noon to 8 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 4 a.m.

They get an average of about five hours of sleep. The lack of rest, along with the Mississippi humidity and the clouds of dust kicked up by men and vehicles, left nearly everyone sniffling, coughing and hoarse at times.

"If you can make it through here for three months, you can survive anything," Riffey said.

Not everyone was asleep. Staff Sgt. Stacey Farley of Abingdon, Va., lay on his bed, listening to a tape made by his daughter Taylor.

"I love you, Daddy," her voice echoed in the stillness.

Most of the troop’s training was over, but one week remained. The exercise, known as Camp Hit, focused on defending the base from such threats as mortar attacks, snipers and hostile Iraqi protests.

Sgt. Chris Wood of Blountville, Tenn., sat listening to the radio, working by the green light of a glow stick. Soldiers’ voices occasionally crossed the airwaves, checking in and joking.

"This is terrible," Wood muttered. "Eight hours of nothing. I hope it’s this boring over there."

The radio squawked and beeped. Soldiers stirred in their beds until Cartwright’s voice growled across the waves.

"Can somebody learn how to use the radio without hitting the call button?" he demanded.

Silence followed.

More soldiers rose, heading outside to jog, exercise and eat breakfast at the chow hall. The food there – sausage, biscuits, scrambled eggs, oatmeal – isn’t bad. But it never changes.

"The running joke is, what’s for breakfast?" said Sgt. Gene McCoy of Bristol Tennessee. "Because it’s been the same thing since we got here."

Lunch and dinner aren’t much better. Most soldiers order pizza or head to the restaurants just outside the base – Three Pigs Barbecue or Donanelle’s Bar & Grill.

"If you had a station wagon with hot dogs in the back, you could make enough to retire," Cartwright said.

Staff Sgt. Matt Cousins of Kingsport, Tenn., and Cpl. John Grayson of Bristol Virginia stood guard in the nearest watch tower, one of three used by the troop. They had six hours left on duty.

Climbing up and down the tower’s ladder wasn’t easy – not in the more than 80 pounds of gear and body armor the soldiers wear. But the load was easier to bear than this summer, when the heat index reached 120 degrees in the shade.

"The easy part’s hitting the ground," Cousins said. "The hard part’s getting back up."

The men watched the road below, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. Soldiers at a series of barricades, simulating a military checkpoint in Iraq, checked passing vehicles for homemade bombs or other weapons as part of the training exercise.

A van tried to pass through the day before with a grenade taped to its bumper.

The checkpoint was hit about an hour earlier by a simulated mortar attack.

"This is where a lot of the action is in Iraq," Grayson said. "Most of the bombs are at entry control points."

For the next few hours, nothing happened. Cars, trucks and vans passed, all waved through with cries of "Vehicle green!"

That’s guard duty. For Cousins, a Kingsport police officer, it was nothing new.

"You just watch, keep the perimeter secure and try to stay awake," he said. "A lot of the stuff we do is just like patrolling the streets back home."

He shifted uncomfortably. The armor plates tend to move and pinch flesh.

"If you stand up, your back gets sore," Cousins said. "If you sit down, your butt gets sore. You can’t win."

A red pickup passed for the third time, and Cousins wondered why.

The driver could be scouting the barricades or relaying information to others.

"They keep telling us complacency is the biggest danger," Cousins said.

Four hours left on duty. Grayson’s shift ended early, and Sgt. Gary Whiteside of Bluff City replaced him.

He brought a bag of the troop’s official snack, sunflower seeds.

"We eat them plain, salted, jalapeno-flavored," he said. "And you can spit the hulls at people. When you have this much time on your hands, you can come up with a lot."

A van passed, the kind with a sliding side door that could open to reveal a gunman or a bomber. The soldiers watched. They saw the words "We Love Our Soldiers" painted on the side. They lost interest.

Three hours left on duty. The men spat seeds, talked about their jobs and families, made fun of passing drivers and joked with other soldiers over the radio.

"Right now is as quiet as it gets," Whiteside said. "I should have brought a slingshot."

Two hours left on duty. The soldiers looked for anything, even passing birds, just to stay alert.

"I’m almost wishing something would happen now," Cousins said.

One hour left on duty. The men saw the next shift lining up outside the barracks. Just donning the gear and going through inspection take about an hour.

"Seven down and one to go," another soldier said over the radio. Whiteside answered with a joke about the soldier’s thinning hair.

Relief arrived at about 11:30 a.m., and the men headed back to the barracks as their replacements settled in for a long afternoon.

Most soldiers were awake, trying to make the time pass.

"It’s a science once you become this isolated," said Spc. Adam Bain of Johnson City, Tenn.

Some talked about their plans for October and November, when the soldiers are to visit their families just before deployment.

"It’ll be the first time I’ve seen my wife since I left," Riffey said. "I’d like to go home and cut the grass and weed-eat one more time, because I know I won’t see it again for a while."

Sgt. 1st Class John Hawkins of Elkin, N.C., showed off ultrasound photos of his son Zachariah Allen Hawkins, due to be born in February. He won’t be able to come back for the birth, but he hopes to return in time for the boy’s first birthday.

"I never thought I’d say I was looking forward to going to Death Valley (site of the National Training Center), but I’m ready to get out of Mississippi," Hawkins said. "I’m ready to get this over with."

He looked at the photos above his bed of his other children, Dillon, 12, and Jetta, 9.

"They’re good kids," Hawkins said. "But they miss their daddy."

Other soldiers read, played video games or watched movies on DVD.

Popular books range from Sun Tzu’s "The Art of War" to Dan Brown’s "The DaVinci Code." Favorite films include "Platoon," "We Were Soldiers," "The Matrix," and "Blazing Saddles."

"The big thing used to be war movies, but we got tired of hearing the guns after a while," said Spc. Jeremy Duncan of Bristol Tennessee. "So we went to comedies."

Soldiers keep up with the news by watching Fox News Channel, listening to talk radio or reading the paper from back home, the Bristol Herald Courier.

The newspaper’s Sept. 8 issue had just arrived.

"They get here and everybody grabs them," Cartwright said. "Some get reread three or four times."

Most soldiers said they’re glad to see anything that reminds them of home.

"It doesn’t matter how old it is," Riffey said. "News is news. It’s like watching a week-old football game on tape-delay."

Back in the orderly room, Duff kept packing. Others helped, but the quartermaster had his own idea of how it should be done.

"I do my own packing," he said. "Nobody packs my stuff but me."

Outside, what soldiers call the "cell phone dance" started. It gets worse throughout the day as more than 4,000 soldiers try to call their loved ones at once.

Some squat, twist, stand in the middle of the road or walk miles across the base just to get a signal.

After 9 p.m. when calls become free, "it’s a cell phone frenzy," Bain said. "It’s hilarious."

Those without their own phones line up at the noncommissioned officer’s club to use a pay phone – one of three on the base. Sgt. Clay Beaudet of Kingsport tries to be the first one there each morning.

"As soon as we’re off duty, I’m up there," he said.

Beaudet was playing his afternoon game of horseshoes with Cpl. Anthony Madison of Bristol Tennessee.

"Oh, what a pretty shot!" Madison shouted.

Beaudet shrugged.

"I’m a glutton for punishment," he said. "But when we play the other guys as a team, we’re unstoppable."

Reveille sounded again just before sunset, and soldiers snapped to attention once more. Some headed to the chow hall for dinner, while others tried to find a ride into town with the few who had their own vehicles.

Shouts rang out as a crowd of mock Iraqi protesters tried to swarm the barricade at the nearest checkpoint.

"Oh, they’re starting early," said Sgt. Bill Musick of Meadowview, Va., glancing at his watch.

The men have heard the protesters’ chants – "Bush, Bush, Ali Baba (Arabic slang for thief)" – so many times they know the words by heart. Some mutter the chants in their sleep.

"I hope we don’t get hit tonight," one soldier said with a sigh.

Sgt. 1st Class Marty Baker of Chuckey, Tenn., chased a bug down its hole and argued with Cartwright about the best way to drive it out – poking it with a blade of grass or dousing it with lighter fluid. A crowd gathered to watch.

Neither plan worked, although Cartwright’s drew the most applause.

"It doesn’t take much to amuse some people," the first sergeant said, laughing.

The final shift assembled in the light of the setting sun. Cartwright and the others fell silent.

They watched and listened as the men prepared for duty, alternately serious and joking.

"We’re trained to do a job," Cartwright said. "That’s the main thing. And we’re going to bring them all back."

Story Copyright to TriCities.Com