Soldiers Take Care of Soldiers

By: Neil Buckman

I was honored when Nigel asked me to write a little something about a group of people that are increasingly being despised by us in the convoy escort business. This group, being the contracted Ugandans, who are the cheap labor force protection throughout the Iraqi bases. Friends, family, or anyone that knows me, knows I love to gripe with fervor and passion about anything that upsets me. The Ugandans do upset me. They upset a lot of people in this company. They seem to think Nigel should starve to death. But as I sat and tried to collect my thoughts about how the Ugandans do random, stupid shit, seemingly just to piss me off, more recent events crossed my mind. A bigger and more evil group was responsible for my shift in attention. This was the no-bid contract award winning company called Kellogg Brown & Root, or KBR. So with apologies, Nigel, KBR and contractors in general is where my passionate griping is aimed.

I am in charge of the lead escort vehicle in my squad. Part of my duties, as I am first in the gate to any FOB, are to draw billeting for the military members of the convoy. So after arriving at the gate, telling the Ugandan gate guard five times how many trucks I have in the convoy, as he does not understand much English, then repeating this again three times to the next Ugandan guard two hundred yards down the trail, who also does not speak English, I make my way to the billeting office. Billeting is run by KBR, who is contracted to provide logistical support throughout Iraq. Two recent events involving KBR billeting have shaped my ugly views of these contract employees, and their greedy, bloated rich employers.

The first event occurred on a base called Cedar II, in the southern portion of Iraq. We had quite a long push that particular night into morning. About seven hours was our drive time from a FOB in Taji, Iraq to here. It was 7am, and our convoy was ready for some sleep. I made my way to the KBR billeting office, and walked through the door. The room appeared empty. I waited a few minutes, until I heard a faint noise. I walk closer to the counter, and see two men with ear buds on, eyes affixed on a portable DVD player beneath the tall counter. After staring at them for a good fifteen seconds, one of them had the good manners to ask what I wanted. Gosh, what could I want in a billeting office? I asked if I could draw tents for our road weary soldiers. He simply replied, “Can’t, we’re full.” Before he could finish this short utterance, his eyes were reaffixed to the small DVD player’s screen. A tad upset, I asked jokingly if we were supposed to sleep on the ground outside. What would shock and surprise me the most is that he actually suggested we do just that, pointing to the tent assignment board. I could not believe my eyes when I saw a convoy was penciled on the board, NEXT to an existing tent. KBR made them sleep outside. After explaining this to me, he once again rejoined his coworker in what must have been a captivating movie. I wonder where he slept that night.

The second event happened at a base called Kalsu. After driving five hours to the base from Al Asad, and spending two more hours waiting to get into the gate, as the Ugandans had made a complete mess of entry control, I arrived at Kalsu’s KBR billeting office. I speak to the attendant, draw two tents for our convoy members, and return to the tents to inspect them as I typically do. This particular morning, I would for the first time be stunned by what I saw during my inspection. The first tent had only 5 cots, when they are supposed to have 12. It had trash on the floor, and a rotting meal in a Styrofoam box with a delicious looking five day old milkshake on top of a cot. The second tent was a disgrace. It only had 3 cots. The air conditioner was broken. The floor looked like someone had emptied and entire trashcan onto it. Among the various items I had to throw away were flip flops, 10 drink bottles, two of them filled with urine, and empty food wrappers. Before emptying the trash, fixing the AC, and acquiring cots from other tents to make due (all duties that KBR is responsible for accomplishing), I returned to the billeting office with fury. All the above atrocities were explained to the billeting representative in a less than calm manner. He seemed contrite. He told me how he couldn’t believe it and that “This was getting ridiculous.” Gee, I guess that wasn’t the first time this happened. How shocking. After shaking his head, he said, “Let me see what’s going on.” He strapped on his combat helmet, mounted his ATV, and rode valiantly into the heart of the tents, to what I assumed at the time was to find a solution to the problem. I was wrong. After waiting twenty minutes for his return, he simply had confirmed everything I had just told him. He literally just went over there to “see what was going on”. He removed no trash, acquired no cots, and simply told me, “I don’t even know what to say man, I’m sorry.” I stared at him blankly for an unknown amount of time. In shock, I simply turned and walked out of the office. I had no words to offer.

I returned to the tents to find my squad mates moving cots from a neighboring tent into the cot deficient tents we were assigned to. The soldiers occupying the neighboring tent were leaving Kalsu for another base, and were kind enough to allow us to use their cots to fill the two tents that we occupied. So our soldiers took the cots to our tents, cleaned up all the trash in the tents, and fixed the air conditioner, so we could actually rest for our next push to another base that evening. That got me thinking about my last deployment to Iraq in 2003. There were no contractors. We made or bought our own beds, supplied our own food, built our own showers, and made the best of our situation. But we did it our way, and put care and pride into it. Soldiers taking care of soldiers. That’s what that Kalsu morning was. In 2003, that was how every day went. KBR represents everything that is evil and wrong with contractors being involved with our military and this war. The fact that a company, that in 2008 had revenue of 11.58 billion dollars, can’t provide my soldiers with a cot to sleep on, despite that very duty being their contract responsibility, is a disgrace. An utter disgrace. It pains me now to know in my heart that, at this moment, a soldier making $40,000 a year is sleeping on the ground in the desert heat, put there by a KBR scumbag, who sleeps on a mattress in his one man, air conditioned dorm, “earning” cash somewhere in the six figures.

Oh, yeah, and the Ugandans are irritating.

- The Exodus