Back to Iraq: Soldiers warming slowly to Camp Taji

BAGHDAD - The cold showers were the worst, soldiers living in the warehouses said.

A long day on missions in Iraq was rewarded by a stream of bone-chilling water for Fort Carson soldiers cleaning up back at Camp Taji, where hundreds from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team are living during the unit’s third war tour.

Commanders are rushing to upgrade the place dubbed “surge city” by its inhabitants and make it more livable for troops, who moved here from Colorado last month. For soldiers who dreamed of better conditions, though, the grumbling continues, even as the water is getting warmer.

“We’re surrounded by a Dumpster here,” said Spc. Amanda Gallant as she worked out in the brigade’s new gym facilities, fixed up in the last three weeks as the unit moved into Iraq.

Much of the large Army encampment at Taji is centered on the base’s more civilized south side, where paved streets lead to an elaborate dining hall and the largest post-exchange store in Iraq.

The Fort Carson troops moved into a former Iraqi military warehouse area on the north side, where rain and a brief and extremely rare snowshower quickly turned most of the thoroughfares to boot-sucking mud on Friday.

Subunits from the brigade are deployed throughout Iraq, from downtown Baghdad to Mosul in the north, but most of its soldiers — three of its six battalions — live at Taji.

First Sgt. Walter Trotter, who has spent weeks upgrading the camp’s shortcomings, said the push is on from the top in the 3rd Brigade to fix things because the soldiers’ morale can help determine the outcome of battles.

The troops at Taji are responsible for the northern suburbs of Baghdad, a mixed area of about 600,000 Sunni and Shiite Muslims that leaders say is at a tipping point where citizens are beginning to shun the insurgency and back the Iraqi government.

The brigade’s soldiers wound up at Taji because having more troops just north of Baghdad was deemed crucial to crushing insurgents who moved there after an American offensive forced them out of Baghdad.

“We’re the Army. We don’t go where the best living conditions are. We go where the enemy lives,” explained Lt. Col. Bob Hatcher, whose 64th Brigade Support Battalion is fighting for everything from easier Internet access to the new kingsize water heaters that have been installed for the showers.

All the work is being done because happy soldiers can focus more on their mission and less on their living conditions, Trotter and Hatcher said.

“There’s nothing worse than being cold while out on a mission then coming home and taking a cold shower,” Trotter said.

Their efforts are starting to pay off.

Soldiers include a few points of praise with their griping these days.

The gym is in better shape, and the chow hall is fixed up and open longer hours.

There are more computers and phones for soldiers to use to communicate with home.

“They’re trying,” Cpl. Chad Smith said.

Part of the griping comes from veterans in the brigade who fought in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, on the unit’s last war tour, which ended in 2006, Smith said.

The soldiers there had containerized housing units, a barracks room built by dividing up a shipping container and called “CHUs” by troops.

Now they live in plywooddivided bays in large warehouses that were once used by the Iraqi military.

In the containerized housing units, the soldiers had one roommate, compared with the 19 they have now, and were afforded a degree of privacy by a lockable door.

Hatcher and other commanders said the plan is to have the containerized housing units for soldiers at Taji as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the base is a hive of activity as contractors working for the Army hammer away at the brigade’s camp.

They’ll keep working, too, improving the camp for all 15 months of the deployment, Hatcher said.

And soldiers, while they’re not jumping with glee, say they welcome the progress.

“It’s getting better,” Gallant said. “Slowly, but surely.”

Tom Roeder can be reached by e-mail while reporting from Iraq.

His e-mail address is tom.roeder@gazette.com