For R.I. guardsmen, danger at every turn
Long days in Iraq for a military police company based in Rhode Island end with a briefing about improvised explosive devices.
09:38 AM EDT on Tuesday, October 14, 2003
BY MICHAEL CORKERY
Journal Staff Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Just after dark, Specialist Brian Savoie and Sgt.
Justin Pelissey unload a mounted machine gun from their Humvee and pack
up rounds of ammunition. Another day of patrol has ended for the members
of the 4th Platoon of the 119th Military Police Company.
Savoie, of Attleboro, and Pelissey, of Warwick, return to their tent,
where inside soldiers gather around a TV set, watching baseball on a
cool October night. The Red Sox and Yankees are playing -- well, sort of.
The platoon has a new video-game system. The guardsmen sit in folding
chairs in Army-issued shorts and T-shirts, yelling at a computer image
of Nomar Garciaparra at bat.
The 4th Platoon spent the morning sweeping an important military supply
route around Baghdad, looking for improvised explosive devices, which
are killing Americans regularly.
In the afternoon, the MPs stopped traffic and collected evidence at a
motor-vehicle accident involving members of the 82nd Airborne Division.
A sand truck jackknifed onto the roof of a Humvee, crushing it.
The morning began with a briefing at 4:30, and ended just after dark
with another briefing about the threats of roadside explosions and
suicide bombers. By 10 p.m., most of the MPs are asleep. They will do it
again today.
|
A LESSON IN VIGILANCE: Guardsmen attend a class on explosive devices that have been detonated fromremote locations to attack U.S. soldiers. From left are Sgt. Justin Pelissey, of Warwick, Capt. Bob Martin, of Lincoln, and Specialist Don Wiitaca, of Coventry.
|
"I've pretty much accepted this as the way it is for right now," says
Pelissey, a correctional officer at the ACI in Cranston. "It's getting
to be a routine, but I'm happy to be helping out."
WELCOME TO Camp Cavalaro, the home of the Rhode Island National Guard's
119th Military Police Company and headquarters of the 118th Military
Police Battalion.
The Rhode Island National Guard occupies an area at the northern edge of
Baghdad International Airport. It's a patch of gravel and sand, dotted
by one-story concrete buildings and a lone palm tree, which appears cut
in half. Across the yard is an expanse of more dirt, stretching for
miles and ringed by a chain-link fence. In the distance stands a white
air-traffic control tower.
The Guard has been at the airport since April 29, when they moved north
from Kuwait. The camp is named after Specialist Salvatore Cavalaro from
the 119th MP Company, who was seriously injured unloading equipment
before the unit got to Iraq.
Except for the occasional mortar round, Camp Cavalaro has become a sort
of oasis from the dangers outside the gates. There are two stores,
selling everything from DVD players to Dunkin' Donuts coffee. The
battalion provides complimentary candy corn for Halloween. By the end of
the month, Sgt. Jay Caetano, of Seekonk, hopes to have ice cream at the
battalion store, imported from Jordan.
Before the Guard arrived, the Iraqis used the camp as an air-defense
position. It took more than a dozen truckloads to haul away all of the
antiaircraft rounds.
The Iraqi army had two antiaircraft batteries perched atop a
sand-covered cistern. One battery is now filled with a 3,000-gallon
water bladder that feeds the showers and the mess tent for the Rhode
Island Guard.
"It went from shooting us to washing us," says the battalion's sergeant
major, Teddy Hebert, of Pascoag.
Soldiers jog around the airport at night for exercise. At the camp, the
Rhode Island soldiers lift weights on a Nautilus machine under a small
grove of trees. At night, cargo planes are heard -- but not seen --
taking off and landing in the dark. Helicopters chop across the airfield
constantly. Outside the gates, it's a different world. The 118th patrols
more than 130 miles of military supply routes around Baghdad. The
battalion is responsible for some of the neighborhoods on both sides of
the road.
Lt. Col. James E. Keighley, a Fall River police officer, commands the
118th MP battalion. It includes two Rhode Island units and military
police companies from Alabama, West Virginia and California -- a
mishmash of accents, with a common mission and shared sense of danger.
The 118th's MPs ride in Humvees along roads rife with the improvised
explosives. The devices are hard to detect and they kill at random. The
pavement along the supply route is blackened by their explosions. The
battalion lost two Rhode Island guardsmen in an attack last month.
Sgt. James Resendes, of Johnston, settles into his green tent after the
day's mission. The tent is fitted with a wooden floor, a fan and a TV
with a small pumpkin on top. In the corner hangs a calendar with the
days crossed off. The 119th's mission could last until April 2004.
Resendes shares the tent with a Providence police officer and the
assistant director of public works in Seekonk, among other members of
the 4th Platoon.
On patrol, Resendes says the IEDs are the biggest threat. "Sniper fire,
you can see where it's coming from," he says. "IEDs, you don't know
where they come from."
On patrol, platoon members have heard explosions go off near their
vehicles. Earlier this week, one blew up in a metal bridge trestle.
Resendes's greatest fear before the war started was a biological or
chemical attack.
"I thought it would be a lot worse," he says of his mission in Iraq.
AN ORANGE moon rises over Baghdad, as the 4th Platoon joins the rest of
the 119th for the briefing.
The company's 114 soldiers sit on plastic chairs under a tent. Someone
turns off two TVs with satellite links broadcasting from the United
States, where it's just before noon.
An explosives expert from the Air Force lays out his collection of the
Iraqis' most deadly weapon -- the IED.
"There isn't a thing out there on the road that hasn't been made into an
IED," Senior Airman Bob Cook tells the MPs. "Nothing."
The Iraqi insurgents have planted bombs in dead dogs and horses and in
piles of trash. They have buried them in curbs, guardrails and concrete
blocks.
They wait for the military vehicle to pass and then detonate the bombs
from afar, using a remote control fashioned out of a car alarm remote, a
cell phone or a pager.
The bomber can be five miles away when he detonates the device or
lurking nearby.
"The mad bomber is only limited by his imagination," says Cook.
The MPs listen silently. The only sound is the crackle of mosquitoes
flying into an electric blue light.
On a laptop computer, Cook flashes images of crumpled Humvees and
roadside craters.
The next threat, he says, are suicide bombers, wearing "suicide vests,"
modeled after the Palestinian bombers.
The MPs are told to look for anything suspicious as they patrol the
roads. It's a daunting task. Their 130-mile route is littered with trash
and debris.
Cook, a tall blond airman, said Iraqis have been found carrying bags of
plastic explosives with them. One Iraqi claimed it was holy mud.
AFTER THE BRIEFING, the virtual baseball game resumes. The 4th Platoon
is back in its tent, swatting singles and catching fly balls on
television.
A few diehards will get up to watch the actual Red Sox game, which
starts at 3:30 a.m., Baghdad time. Most will go to bed early. In the
morning, the platoon heads out for another patrol.
