CAMP WOLF, Kuwait -- Sitting in a yellow tent, on the edge of an airport runway in the middle of the Kuwaiti desert, Pfc. Brandon Delaune cannot remember what day it is.
In less than 48 hours, the new recruit with the Army's 4th Infantry Division has flown from Texas to Maine to Germany to Kuwait and now to Iraq.
In a few hours, Delaune will join his military police company in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town. He finished basic training five weeks ago.
"Am I scared?," he says. "I don't know about scared, but nervous, yeah. It's just starting to sink in."
Delaune and three other recruits are waiting at the Camp Wolf airbase in Kuwait for a flight to Iraq. They sip water through straws attached to a bladder on their backs, called camel packs.
Some recruits glance at a movie on a flat-screen television; others stare at the ground.
Sgt. Gary Brimmer, the MPs' rear detachment commander, escorted the newly minted MPs from Fort Hood.
"I tell them that they are going to be OK," says Brimmer, 38. "I told them to pay attention to their team leader and to quit watching CNN. All they show is bad news."
In the makeshift terminal, with a wooden floor and dim fluorescent lights, Brimmer sits at the edge of a plastic seat, waiting for the plane. A 16-year Army veteran, Brimmer stayed at Fort Hood while his MP unit deployed to Iraq in March.
"I complained enough and they let me come forward," he says. "It's something I have to do."
The 4th Infantry is part of a task force of soldiers from 11 different U.S. Army installations.
The task force, which includes 16,000 soldiers from the 4th Infantry, patrols an area that stretches from Baghdad to Kirkuk in the north and most of the volatile Sunni Triangle in the west.
The 4th Infantry arrived in Iraq during the initial combat operations this spring. The division is expected to remain in Iraq for one year, until next March or April, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, a public affairs officer for the 4th Infantry.
As of Saturday night, 21 soldiers in the task force have been killed in combat in Iraq, Aberle said.
The recruits will join the 4th Infantry in conducting raids and patrols, as well as training the local Iraqi police.
Pfc. Zac Bodle, 21, of Phoenix, Ariz.; Pvt. Timothy Kelley, 21, of Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Pvt. Cheryl McCaffrey of Auburn, Maine, sit in silence in the air station tent.
These recruits watch a handful of soldiers standing in line near a plywood sign that reads; "Sign up for Iraq."
When McCaffrey reported to basic training at Fort Leonardwood, in Missouri, it was her first time out of Maine.
After high school, McCaffrey, 21, worked at McDonald's and Wal-Mart. She joined the Army because she wanted to see the world and formulate her own opinions about people from different countries, she says.
"I didn't want to be watching it on the news," says McCaffrey. "I wanted to find out how other people are like. In Maine, you don't have that many different people"
Delaune says he was the youngest fire captain in the state of Louisiana, but decided to leave his hometown of Houma, when the oil fields shut down and the economy soured.
"I wanted to make sure my daughter was squared away," says Delaune. His 2-year-old daughter and fiance have moved to San Antonio during his deployment. He joined the Army for financial reasons, but also out of a sense of duty.
After Sept. 11, Delaune tried to reach ground zero in New York City to help with the recovery effort, but they were turning back volunteers. "I came here to help in a different way," he says.
A beefy airman wearing a tan T-shirt and camouflage pants walks into the terminal and shuts off the movie. "This is my favorite part," says Senior Airman Jerome Slatterwhite.
He calls out the names of the five recruits headed on the flight to Balad, a city in northern Iraq.
"Let's roll," Slatterwhite says.
The group files out of the tent and into the scorching afternoon sun. They step onto the bus, clutching their camel packs and Kevlar helmets. The bus drives them to the runway, where a C-130, a hulking gray military transport plane, awaits them.
The airman listens to his Walkman in the front seat. Three recruits look straight ahead. Delaune peers out the window.
A balding 4th Infantry soldier, sitting in the back seat, asks Brimmer where the group is headed.
Tikrit, Brimmer says.
"Oh, they'll have something to write to momma about," the soldier says.
