Spc. Anthony Turner, left, of 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, gets a plate of food from Spc. William Blasingame of Guymon, Okla., and 1st Battalion, 10th Field Artillery Regiment, at one of the dining facilities at Forward Operating Base Gabe in Baqouba, Iraq. In the background is Spc. Dustin Chaney of Cocoa Beach, Fla. Chow halls and their all-you-can eat offerings help some soldiers pack on the pounds. (Charlie Coon / S&S)
Three times a day, Johnny Jameson puts out piles of meat, potatoes, eggs, cereal, pasta, vegetables, salads, donuts, fruit, cookies, cakes, ice cream, soda, juice and milk.
To those who take the words “all you can eat” seriously, he warns: “Don’t blame it on us if you get fat.”
Jameson, the food service supervisor at Forward Operating Base Warhorse in Baqouba, Iraq, knows of what he speaks. A soldier for 21 years, the retired sergeant first class now works for KBR, which contracts with the U.S. military for food and other services on many downrange bases.
His dining facility serves about 850 soldiers per meal, but puts out enough food to serve twice as many.
He sees some soldiers help themselves at breakfast to bacon, sausage and ham, plus eggs, pancakes and cereal, juice, milk and coffee, while also scooping up a few “health” bars and an ice cream cone on the way out.
Others, for dinner, pile onto their trays a cheeseburger, hot dog, slice of pizza and tacos. Maybe a salad, too, for their conscience.
“We’re here to take care of the soldier,” Jameson said. “We don’t have a limit on how much they can eat. If they want five pieces of bacon, we give them five. If they want 10, we give them 10.”
For soldiers who spend long hours outside the gate, lumbering around in gear under a hot sun and burning calories, God bless ’em, he says. For those who gorge three times a day, he says choose your variety and portions wisely, and offers this advice: “If you miss one meal a day, it’s good for you,” Jameson said. “If you go to the gym, and keep knocking it off, you’ll be OK.”
No more lowriders
Before leaving Fort Bragg, N.C., for a yearlong deployment to Camp Taji, Iraq, officials with the 3rd Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division discovered a problem with their 13 Humvees. All that extra armor tacked onto the vehicles — designed to protect soldiers from the dangers of Baghdad — was wearing down their 15-year-old suspension systems.
“All the weight is compressing the springs, making the Humvees ride real low,” said Army Staff Sgt. Benjamin Bink of Pataskala, Ohio, shop foreman for the 3rd ARB. “So we’re replacing the main suspension components. We ordered new ball joints, springs and shocks and brought them with us.
“It’s something we’re doing to prevent breakdowns in the future.”
Ground maintenance personnel will upgrade all 13 Humvees, he added, hoping to finish one a week.
Staff Sgt. Malcolm Knight of Charleston, S.C., a squad leader with the maintenance platoon, said 95 percent of the 3rd ARB’s entire fleet is operational.
“Our job is to keep them rolling out of the motor pool,” he said. “We make sure that if somebody goes out, they come back home. We don’t want anybody stuck in the middle of gunfire because they’re broke down.”
Taji, minus 2 cobras
When the 39th Brigade Combat Team arrived at Camp Taji, Iraq, last April, the Little Rock, Ark.-based National Guard unit found a pretty dismal sight.
There were no paved roads, few living pods, the office buildings were dilapidated, there were huge piles of metal debris and stray dogs roaming everywhere on a post set up to support 2,000 soldiers. Officials had to move quickly to refine the infrastructure and provide suitable accommodations for 8,000 more.
“I thought this place was the world’s largest salvage dump,” said Brig. Gen. Ronald S. Chastain, the 39th BCT commander. “The place was a wreck when we first got here.”
Dozens of garbage-filled warehouses also sat on the camp, located about 30 miles north of Baghdad. The trash had to be hauled off before soldiers could set up work stations, so the command hired Iraqi nationals to begin the process.
Inside one structure, however, they discovered more than just plain old rubbish.
“The Iraqis found two live cobras in there. That was definitely a shock,” said Army Col. Mike Ross, the unit’s deputy commander who also served as the Taji garrison head before a March 9 transfer of authority to the 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division.
“But they killed the snakes and got rid of them. We haven’t seen any more since.”
