BACK TO IRAQ: Traffic, bomb danger slow troops’ weekly drive

BAGHDAD — On a map, the route driven today by a group of Fort Carson soldiers doesn’t appear that long — about the same as driving from Colorado Springs to Denver and back.

But bombing dangers, Shiite pilgrims marching for a holy day and Baghdad’s always snarled traffic make the miles drag by at school-zone speeds.

It’s a weekly trip for soldiers here from the 3rd Battalion, 29th Field Artillery who escort 18-wheelers full of food, fuel and supplies to a State Department embassy annex in Hillah, near the site of ancient Babylon.

“Round trip it comes to 130 or 140 miles,” 1st Lt. Craig Boswell of Berlin, Wisc., said after he briefed his soldiers, some leaning against the remnants of two statues of Saddam Hussein removed from the palace that now houses the battalion’s headquarters at Forward Operating Base Prosperity in Baghdad’s Green Zone. “You look at 52 runs in a year and you’re looking at a lot of miles.”

The artillery battalion, backed up by a company of infantry from another unit in Fort Carson’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team guards the seat of Iraqi government and protects and supplies U.S. diplomats. That’s how it inherited the weekly jaunt south.

It’s unglamorous but necessary work.

Some soldiers here gripe about the job, which includes searching countless cars that enter the government complex and running patrols to and from the airport to ensure Green Zone workers get where they are going safely.

Some say they yearn for the battle they trained to fight.

“Escorting convoys is not our real job,” said Spc. David Ingram, an infantry soldier itching to see the kind of fighting the other battalions in the brigade are seeing north of Baghdad and in Mosul. “We want to do our real job.”

The Army, though, isn’t known for filling wishes. Soldiers have to make the best of the job at hand.

“It may not be what we want, but soldiers adapt,” said Sgt. 1st Class Dennis Tripp, of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

As the convoy droned south, gunners scanned the roadside for bombs as their trucks and Humvees rumbled down the highway past a sea of black-draped women and flag-waving men walking to the southern city of Karbala for the pilgrimage.

Iraqi drivers, known for their adventurous techniques, rebelled at the convoy’s methodical pace and passed it by crossing the median to a chorus of horns from oncoming cars that swerved out of the way.

“At the slower speed, you can see what’s in front of you,” Staff Sgt. Jimmy Martinez of Orosi, Calif., explained. “You want to find the bomb, not have the bomb find you.”

The 70 miles of driving through Baghdad suburbs and farmland took nearly three hours.

During the two-hour wait for the embassy supplies to be unloaded, Spc. Max Devlin of Kent, Wash., said some soldiers enjoy the long drive that takes them far from the palaces and palm trees of the Green Zone.

“This is our best mission because it’s our longest mission,” he said during a break from sharing stories with his friends to pass the waiting time.

Nearby, other soldiers replaced the brake lines of a Humvee that had developed an alarming leak on the highway.

“It happens,” said a smiling but grimy Spc. Cyrus Simmons of Reedley, Calif., as he rechecked the brake fluid level.

The trip home for the soldiers was three hours and as uneventful as the trip out.

Sgt. Devin Chouinard of Sacramento, Calif., a three-tour Iraq-war veteran who has seen plenty of infantry combat, said the slow drive is a good change.

“The young ones are eager to get into fighting,” he said. “For me this is kind of a break.”

Back at Forward Operating Base Prosperity, soldiers stretched and rubbed their backsides after hours of abuse from the bricklike Humvee seats.

Martinez said the trip was a welcome kind of boring for his third tour of Iraq service.

“If it’s boring, everything went right and everyone’s OK,” he said.

CONTACT THE WRITER: tom.roeder@gazette.com