Hanau engineers equiped for missions great, small

CAMP VIRGINIA, Kuwait — After a few weeks of mix-and-match efforts to put together full units, combat engineer battalions based out of Germany are getting all their heavy pieces together.

And it’s just in time — several units from the 130th Engineer Brigade from Hanau, Germany, expect to move farther north in the Kuwaiti desert as they prepare for support roles in a possible ground invasion of Iraq.

“Right now, we are doing what is called building combat power,” said Capt. Ben Gardner, commander of the headquarters company of the 94th Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy), based in Vilsek.

“When we first deployed here, we had parts of our units and some of the force package was borrowed from other battalions. Our Alpha Company had just returned from Kosovo, so they weren’t ready to come out. But they’re here now.”

As the battalions’ heavy equipment is rolled off ships and is trucked west of Kuwait City, the engineers are busy with maintenance and adapting from the snows of Germany to the sands of the desert.

“Nothing fell off the ship, so that was good,” joked Gardner. “But since offloading, the soldiers have been doing land navigation training and working to get integrated with the 3rd Infantry Division, which we don’t normally work with.”

In the case of an invasion, the engineer units will likely be used to create and keep open supply lines from the rear bases to frontline troops. Other combat engineers would clear minefields and destroy obstacles placed in the path of oncoming troops.

To accomplish their likely mission, the 94th Engineers brought a variety of heavy equipment — tractors, forklifts and armored, blast-resistant D7 and D9 bulldozers.

They even brought two mobile pavers, capable of laying down asphalt on dirt roads carved from the desert.

“We brought a little bit of everything, because you never know what you’ll need,” Gardner said. “We’re preparing ourselves to do everything in our capabilities.”

The 94th Engineers, known as the Wolverines, are capable of what the military calls horizontal and vertical missions. Horizontal tasks include building roads and supply routes; vertical tasks include constructing and improving base camps.

“Since we got here, we did things like building fuel birms and doing a lot of maintenance,” said Sgt. First Class Judith Mears, a recent addition to the 94th.

“But now we’re getting ready to roll, like everyone else.”

Until they move forward, the engineer units are taking care of some important business. Many of the units deployed before preventive vaccinations were available at their home bases.

The Camp Virginia Morale, Welfare and Recreation tent is normally packed with soldiers watching a big-screen TV or playing ping-pong. This week, though, flocks of soldiers came with shot records and rolled-up sleeves.

Medical personnel from the engineer battalions ran two tables: one for anthrax vaccinations and one for smallpox.

“Just this morning, we had about 300 people come through already,” said Spc. Michael Fox, a 30-year-old medic from Springville, Utah, deployed with the 94th Engineers. “We'll probably get another hundred or so after lunch.”

In addition to the painful injections, the vaccination program had another disappointing consequence for the troops: no access to the freezers stocked with ice cream, normally free for the taking.

Instead, they were taped shut, festooned with signs reading “No ice cream while vaccine is administered.”