Reporting from Iraq

Talk about a change of plans.

While preparing to return to Alaska from Iraq in August, most of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s personnel had packed up equipment and supplies to be shipped home or had turned them over to an incoming unit. Most of the items were en route to Kuwait or already waiting there for the brigade.

Then came word that the brigade’s tour had not only been extended for up to 120 days but also that it was being moved to Baghdad.

It was the Brigade Support Battalion that bore much of the responsibility for carrying out that move.

All equipment heading from western and northern Iraq to Kuwait had to be rerouted to Baghdad. Think of it as a family of 4,000 moving from Fairbanks to Seattle but having all the household goods and vehicles in transit somewhere in between.

The support battalion is responsible for nearly everything that’s not infantry-related, including moving equipment and material between bases in Iraq, providing medical staff and treatment for soldiers, and maintaining Strykers and other vehicles, weapons and radios. Since arriving in Baghdad, the battalion has also provided security for civil affairs projects, helped install barriers around traffic control points and transported items from weapons caches back to base to be destroyed.

Capt. Matthew Arbogast said the toughest part of the move from Baghdad was finding and accounting for all the equipment the brigade needed–and doing it on short notice. The battalion was told the 172nd had to be ready for patrols and operation within seven days of arriving in Baghdad.

“When we got to Baghdad, we basically started from scratch,” he said.

Arbogast had already signed over most of the brigade’s vehicles–except for the Strykers–to a Fort Lewis, Wash., brigade that was replacing the 172nd in Mosul, but he was able to reacquire a few of them. Still, many of the vehicles, like wreckers and transportation trucks, that the 172nd needed remained in Mosul.

So the support battalion had to get resourceful.

“We had to scrounge,” said Capt. Jason Shropshire, speaking from behind his desk, handmade by a soldier from plywood scraps.

Lt. Col. Bill Keyes, talking over dinner about the challenges of the move, said there’s more competition for supplies in Baghdad because of the number of soldiers now in the city. Baghdad contains six brigades, Keyes said, all needing similar equipment and supplies. It’s different than in Mosul, where there 172nd was the only brigade in the area and had personal contacts with most of the contractors.

“In Mosul, we were the only game in town,” Keyes said.

The scrounging for equipment and vehicles included some pleading with other units around Baghdad and doing a little bartering here and there to get some of the needed materiel. Shropshire said he recovered many items–like tables, desks and chairs–from the trash and a sort of transfer site for units on base in Baghdad.

The battalion eventually scrounged up more than 300 support vehicles, most of them of the second-hand variety that the other units weren’t interested in fixing up themselves. The brigade’s mechanics spent weeks patching up those vehicles and bringing them up to working condition.

And where did they fix up these run-down vehicles? What facilities did they have to bring radios and weapons back to life? In a makeshift motor pool and repair yard that doesn’t compare to the repair operation in Mosul, where buildings, sheds and work areas were already established.

In Baghdad, the support battalion was offered a gravel lot containing a few concrete pads for vehicle repairs. They soon transformed it into a well-stocked motor pool and repair shop, complete with the sound of generators humming, socket wrenches cranking and welders’ torches crackling.

They turned mobile units into a tool shed and used old car seats and a shade tent for a common area.

The battalion’s mechanics and four welders have been doing more than bringing hand-me-down vehicles back to life. They’ve also been busy equipping Strykers with new add-ons for adaptation to the reality of wartime Baghdad.

One of those add-ons is a sniper blind for the soldiers who stand in the hatches. The mechanics and welders fabricated rebar frames that can be covered with camouflage netting to conceal the soldiers from snipers, who have become prevalent in Baghdad. Stryker mechanics have been helped by General Dynamics contractors, many of whom also extended their stay in Iraq to accompany the brigade to Baghdad.

The support battalion also helps maintain the brigade’s people.

Each platoon has a medic from the support battalion on each patrol. The support battalion medics also staff the aid stations on base. The ripples of the full brigade’s sudden shift to Baghdad reached into the medical component as well–aid station personnel had packed up all medical supplies for the expected trip home, so they had to reorder supplies such as medicine and bandages, said Maj. Mary Reed, with the medical company.

“We might have had a Band-Aid left,” she said. “Somewhere.”

Reed said the medical company prepared for an increase in the need for mental health services after the extension was announced but that the services weren’t needed much. She mostly attributed the outcome to the work of others, like commanders and chaplains, who made sure a variety of resources were available after the extension was announced.

Reed said the medical company did see an increase in heat-related dehydrations once the brigade moved to Baghdad as soldiers acclimated to temperatures that reach into the 120-degree range. But she said those cases dropped off after two weeks as soldiers learned to keep hydrated and leaders shortened patrols during the hottest part of the day.

Not all of the needed gear qualifies as brigade gear. Some of the items that needed rounding up were of the personal variety.

Capt. Jeff Dayton said that, by the time the extension was announced, most soldiers were down to a rucksack’s worth of personal gear that included a few changes of clothing.

Most of their belongings were found and rerouted to Baghdad, but Dayton said few soldiers have unpacked the extra gear. Mostly it’s so they won’t establish a sense of permanency in Baghdad, he said.

“The more stuff you put up, the longer you stay.”