Air Force Staff Sgt. Darryl Guppy, of the 372nd Engineer Group, surveys a bridge on the Tigris River in Iraq in December. Air Force engineers attached to the Army were helping the Marines build the bridge and have helped build a little bit of everything, from a postal receiving site to a water water purification system. (Ron Jensen / S&S)
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq — Air Force engineers build a bit of everything in Iraq, from a blood storage area and a postal receiving site to a water purification system and security walls for helicopters.
They even designed a road from Kuwait to Baghdad.
And they’re doing it for the Army.
“[The Army] said they’ve run out. They’ve taken a heavy toll,” said Lt. Col. Kyle Hicks, commander of the 732nd Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron at Balad in December. “They’ve run short of engineers.”
“We fulfill our engineering requirement for one year and the Army takes it back for one year,” said Hicks, who is stationed at Charleston Air Force Base, S.C.
Hicks said this is newly plowed ground, attaching Air Force engineers to the Army.
“It’s never been done before,” he said.
But, he said, all services send their engineers to the same initial course at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., for four to nine weeks of basic training.
“You might have six soldiers, six airmen and six sailors all in the same class,” he said.
But then they go their separate ways. Normally, he said, the Army engineers are supporting combat troops, building bridges so they can move the fight forward. The Air Force, meanwhile, is hundreds of miles from the front establishing and maintaining bases.
Unlike many Air Force units that draw one or two people from a variety of bases to form a deployed squadron, the engineers go everywhere as a team. In Iraq, they go for a six-month tour.
“The big advantage is, we already know one another,” said the Detachment 6 commander, Maj. Tim Fuller, who is from Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.
While the groups work together, they also find themselves working with other service branches in Iraq, which brings much different rewards.
“It’s great,” said Maj. Phillip Landeros, who has designed repairs for damaged bridges in Baqouba and Beiji. “If I wasn’t attached to the Army, I wouldn’t be going outside the wire. They let me participate in the war.”
He also designed an abutment for a bridge being built by the Marines across the Tigris.
Working for the Army isn’t bad, said several airmen from Fuller’s detachment. They’ve learned the Army is not as rough and tumble as they thought and they’ve taught the soldiers that airmen aren’t as pampered as the soldiers believed.
“We’re not really that different,” said Airman Timothy Howell. “It’s a new learning experience. It’s good that we’re doing it.”
Senior Airman Michael Rambaran said his time with Marines taught him more than just lessons in bridge building.
“It’s hard work. I thought we worked hard in the Air Force ...,” he said. “I’ll go out with the Marines any day.”
Staff Sgt. Casey Treadway said working in Iraq is not much different than working at Eglin, other than not having a cold beer at the end of the day.
“It’s a little more dustier and the equipment’s not as good,” he said, adding that the loaders, dozers and dump trucks have been beaten up by the high tempo and harsh environment.
Treadway has an engineer’s solution to the dust problem.
“If we could pave [Iraq],” he said, “we’d be all right.”
