The World According To Chris Brewer

So I’m back in the IZ and I realize I actually don’t want to be here for too long at a time. Ever since I went and shot video at Scania and Tallil over the past few days, I’ve realized life outside the IZ is so much better than life inside it. Which really shouldn’t be the case, but it is thanks to the immaturity of many of the folks I’m deployed with, and the politics of our job. I’ve already talked about the immaturity of the people here before (basically, if people around here would act their age, which is at least twenty-something, their unit’s morale wouldn’t be down and it wouldn’t be affecting people like me)…but shoot, the folks around here entangle you in so much red tape that the times you feel like you’ve something worthwhile in this office are few and far between.

This week was one of those times, thankfully. I got to go down to CSC Scania and Tallil Air Base, as you may have read in my prior articles. I was hanging with the Coalition Press Information Center’s first sergeant and some members of the 48th Brigade Combat Team from the Georgia National Guard. Not only did I gain a lot of respect for the first sergeant, but I also went out and saw Iraq firsthand and shot five news stories.

Monday was a cold day and our trip had already been backed up a day…Military Supply Route (MSR) Tampa was “red” as they called it, which means IEDs had been spotted and the road was too dangerous to travel. Monday night it was “green,” which meant everything was a go…after spending Monday searching for a convoy to take us to Tallil, we found ourselves riding in the back seats of a cramped Humvee. Convoys don’t travel during the day…they go out at night for obvious reasons. It turned out I had accidentally forgotten my polar fleece and my body got walloped by the fierce cold, which was worsened by the fact the door to my left was hanging crooked, and the Humvee we were in had a gunner as well. Poor gunners…they have to sit on this big leather thing that resembles a playground swing more than a chair, and they’re the most vulnerable to possible dangers outside. I really didn’t have much room to complain, but it was at the least very interesting trying to sleep with less leg room than the economy cabin in an airplane and the cold hitting me like crazy. I’ll remember to check my bag for my fleece next time.

MSR Tampa from Tallil to Scania is especially interesting, and is a prime example of the United States and Iraqi reconstruction effort of the country. The highway is a two-lane unmarked road with horrible potholes that would ruin almost any civilian vehicle traveling at a high speed. Off to one side, you can see a graded roadbed that will soon become another two-lane portion of the highway, and they will fully open it to civilian vehicles. Think of MSR Tampa as being the opposite of your typical American two-lane highway, with jersey barriers on the side spray painted with warnings and instructions such as “ROAD WORK AHEAD: DO NOT INTERFERE WITH OPERATIONS” and “DO NOT GIVE ANYTHING TO LOCALS ON THE ROADWAY.” May I also add that some of their bridges don’t even have barricades on the sides.

There aren’t really any communities nearby, but at nighttime you can see distant lights and in the daytime you might even encounter people who seem to be waving to you from a distance. Drive closer and you’ll see each one is an Iraqi kid whose family lives in a tent by the road, putting his hand to his mouth in a gesture to beg for food. It really makes you think and you begin to thank God for how good you have it. We were riding in one of the convoys with a photographer from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and he asked “What do these people do out here?” The driver simply responded, “They exist.”

How true.

Most of the vehicles you pass are other convoys, and you tend to pass a lot of them. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, the monotonous sound of the vehicles passing by. A humvee. Another humvee. Semi truck. Another semi. Yet another semi. A few more. Maybe ten more after that. Another humvee. The last one. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. If nothing else, the sound serves as blessed assurance that other people are traveling the same barren road as you.

We convoyed at least four times over the week. Monday was Baghdad to Tallil, and we got some rack time at about 7 AM and it was up and at ‘em at about noon on Tuesday. Then we caught another convoy ride, back to Scania this time…and we checked out the facilities and threw our stuff in a heated transient tent (a huge circus tent with bunks for about 30 people). Tuesday night I slept from about 10 PM to 6:30 AM so I got some decent sleep, then Wednesday was the big day.

We shot footage at a trailer (read: the kind you see being hauled by semi trucks down the freeway) which served as a free medical clinic for local Iraqi villagers. It mainly served burn victims, and you had to feel bad seeing all the children going in for treatment for their burns. Especially heartbreaking was a baby who couldn’t stop crying as the medical technicians changed their wound dressing.

I came to find out through some chit-chat that one of the medical techs had been seriously injured when his convoy took a direct hit from an IED. After being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for burns, shrapnel wounds and major internal organ injuries….he begged the Army to come back to Iraq and finish the tour with his unit. I was blessed enough to take video of the young Specialist doing his job and also to get an interview. He was a great guy….down to earth and really sincere. God bless him for wanting to come back and still doing his job when he had every legitimate reason to stay home and relax.

Later that day, we had the great fortune of convoying out with a civil affairs team from Scania to check reconstruction projects in local villages. We stopped at a school that was nearing completion, checked out a water treatment plant that would give a village potable water for the first time, and checked out another school in a village that was undergoing a major overhaul. The schools helped me realize how fortunate we are as Americans to enjoy classes with heat, A/C, lights and other amenities…the Iraqis here were thankful to just have new windows put in their classrooms. The locals took great pride in what we Americans would consider hand-me-down equipment…the desks, the chalkboards, etc. were theirs and they were proud of them.

We ended up handing cartoons and toys to some very grateful children. Again my heart broke as I saw kids who didn’t even own a proper pair of shoes, pleading for us to throw them something as simple as a Tootsie pop. It made me feel great just to be able to give some kids something they would enjoy. We were repaid by local sheiks at one of the villages as one man I would think to be the mayor personally handed each one of us troops a Pepsi (in an old Pepsi bottle, I might add).

Heading on the road back to Scania, the topic of conversation was how wonderful we have it in America. A lot of the people in Iraq are poorer than the dirt they walk on, thanks to a ruthless dictator who only cared about himself. One man I talked to who spoke both English and Arabic summed it up best when I asked him how he felt about Saddam being tried for his crimes:

“He does not deserve a trial. I would be very happy to see him dead. He killed my uncle in a prison.”

Folks, we’ve got it great in America. I never truly realized that until Wednesday’s visit to the villages outside of Scania.

I’ll detail Thursday, Friday and Saturday tomorrow. For now, I gotta run….God bless and remember to continually thank the Lord for what we have and enjoy in America. We live in the greatest country in the world.

Photos from my journeys are available in my PhotoCenter, by the way.