Publication:Chattanooga Times Free Press
Date:Sunday, May 22, 2005
Section:Front Page; Page:1

DISPATCH Iraq

By Edward Lee Pitts Military Affairs

CAMP CALDWELL, Iraq — Phones ring, paper spews off printers and workers banter during visits to the break room.

Despite these trappings of ordinary office space, the business conducted here is anything but ordinary. The uniformed employees inside the 278 th Regimental Combat Team’s Tactical Operations Center are conducting a war.

"We are here to back the guys up on the ground, and a lot of those guys don’t even know we exist," said Capt. Andrew Grubb, 39, of Murfreesboro, Tenn. "Thousands of soldiers here depend on us."

The Tactical Operations Center is the three-room information hub for the regiment, designed to serve as the "combat multiplier" in a fight by directing everything from attack helicopters to artillery fire to more reinforcements to troops on the ground.

"This is the brains of the regiment," said Maj. Mark Davanport, chief of operations for the Tennessee-based regiment now into its sixth month in Iraq.

Capt. Grubb, as the center’s battle captain, is here to "oversee the insanity."

SERIOUS BUSINESS

About 20 mostly high-ranking officers who work here in 12-hour shifts must be able to go from office routine to crisis mode at a finger snap, performing multiple duties where no detail can be overlooked because lives are on the line.

With the regiment having to track more than 10,000 combat patrols and nearly 90 raids so far, center commanders said the area under their control, roughly the size of West Virginia, has at times felt like a traffic jam.

"This is like a traffic light at a major intersection," said Lt. Col. Wayne Honeycutt, who, as the regiment’s executive officer, oversees the center. "Think about a heavily trafficked area. If you lose that light, there are going to be collisions and conflict."

Capt. Grubb said soldiers manning the computer and mapdominated rooms at the center process up to 300 separate pieces of information daily.

The center’s hub is a room furnished with a tiered wooden platform with built-in desks facing four big-screen televisions showing everything from a 24-hour news channel to a real-time map of the area using the military version of a Global Positioning System.

Detailed, jumbo-sized maps showing the 278 th’s area of operations along the Iranian border flank the televisions. Three mounted wall clocks give the time in various zones, and a scrolling digital scoreboard flashes data such as how many prisoners are in each of the regiment’s three bases, the current weather and the status of a major oil pipeline running through the area.

The two wall maps represent just a portion of the cartography in the center. Maps, colored charts and graphs here are used like wallpaper. Some show the entire 278 th’s sector, while others focus on specific areas or cities within the region.

"A ll of this is designed to give the commander a current and future picture of the battlefield so he can make informed decisions," said Lt. Col. Honeycutt.

White sheets are rolled up above most maps and wall screens, ready to be dropped to cover sensitive classified information when people without security clearance enter the center.

TIME OF CONFLICT

Nearly 200 aircraft have backed up 278 th missions the last four months, providing added muscle or better eyes in the sky. In addition, the regiment has conducted almost 170 artillery and mortar missions.

"When you have troops in contact, you get about everything you ask for," said Lt. Col. Honeycutt.

A red light sits on a wooden stand in the back of the center and flashes whenever troops are under enemy fire. Maj. Davanport, 41, of Old Hickory, Tenn., said the flashing beam has lit up about 20 times since the regiment arrived here in December. He said the two most hectic days here occurred in February and April.

A February car bomb explosion killed 14 Iraqis in the nearby city of Balad Ruz, and last month a close-quarters firefight south of Balad Ruz took the life of 278 th Sgt. 1 st Class Stephen Kennedy.

Maj. Davanport said the center is an orderly, quiet place 95 percent of the time. But during a recent shift, officers arrived to learn that masked attackers in the city of As Sa’diyah had assassinated an Iraqi police captain and one of his relatives.

The officers monitored the aftermath of the event throughout the day as the Iraqi police detained suspects. Digital maps showed red dots around areas under attack as 278 th quick-reaction forces were dispatched to investigate and offer support.

The report of a possible roadside bomb forced commanders to shut down a main route, causing delays for numerous convoys and combat patrols. Before the day ended, 278 th forces also dealt with a gas station shooting during a dispute between an Iraqi border patrol officer and a ministry of oil guard.

The main link to the units on the ground are radio frequencies. Colored icons on the maps represent danger areas as well as the current location of patrol units. Digital maps give officers the ability to zoom in on a specific grid by pointing and clicking.

"We should, at all times, have eyes on where every unit is," said Sgt. 1 st Class Michael Miller, 41, of Knoxville.

But this detailed tracking does not mean the front-line soldiers are merely pawns in a game of chess conducted by the officers. "We capture the who, what, when, where and why," said Sgt. 1 st Class Miller, who is on the center’s battle staff. "Then we leave them alone and let the commander on the ground develop the situation and keep us informed."

Three times a week the afternoon ends with a detailed commander’s briefing where staff officers from all departments give presentations on everything from the most recent intelligence on the most-wanted suspected insurgents in the area to the status of the anti-lock braking system on the unit’s 5–ton trucks.

Conducted around a table with a flag commemorating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the briefings end with all officers standing up, saluting and shouting, "I volunteer, sir."

Then it is back to the Operations Center.

E-mail Lee Pitts at lpitts@timesfreepress.com

U.S. Army Photo by Staff Sgt. Russell Lee Klika - Lt. Col. Wayne Honeycutt, left foreground, and Maj. Mark Davanport, looking at the laptop on the right, are among 278 th Regimental Combat Team members manning the unit’s Tactical Operations Center.

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