Navy secretary’s visit marks Thanksgiving for sailors, Marines
COMBAT OUTPOST RAWAH, Iraq — You would not have known it was Thanksgiving in western Iraq. It was just another day. But Marines and sailors at the sprawling Al Asad Air Base might have had a clue when they entered the chow hall.
http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2379940.php
November 24, 2006
By Andrew Scutro
Staff writer
Towering above the lines waiting for supper stood a gigantic turkey carved out of butter. It looked as big as a pony. Propped up against a far wall was a sheet cake the size of a king-size mattress, festooned with seasonal designs in colorful icing.
The other way to tell was the visit by the Navy Secretary Donald Winter. While Vice President Dick Cheney went to Baghdad for the holiday, Winter came out to Anbar province, now under the purview of the I Marine Expeditionary Force and its attached units. Winter had an all-hands call in Al Asad that filled a Saddam-era auditorium. He said he really just came out to see the troops and thank them for being here. He also made stops in Fallujah and the Haditha dam, where he rode one of the Marine river patrol boats on the Euphrates.
Despite some news reports declaring the mission in Iraq a grand disaster, he assured the crowd that America and government leadership stands behind the effort here. He pointed out that the Senate’s 98-0 vote approving the current defense spending bill was better then the legislative consensus after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.
“You have all our support,” he said. Winter, who also served supper to sailors and Marines, told them to expect grateful citizens at home and he urged them to explain what they’ve done here, when people ask.
“They want to know. They want to understand,” he said.
Remote combat outposts are spread out across Anbar. From there, detachments of Marines are spread out even further into towns and villages. They use the outposts as home base for re-supply and headquarters. In the hard desert at combat outpost Rawah, Thanksgiving for the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion based here meant a feast of ham and steak and a short visit from Gen. George Casey, commander Multinational Forces-Iraq. (For the Seabees here, it meant the building supplies they devour were slow in coming.)
“It was mixed blessing because we had a bunch of equipment coming in for our jobsite,” said Chief Equipment Operator John Salguero. “It got bumped for the turkeys.”
A detachment of 30 Seabees from Mobile Construction Battalion 18 based at Fort Lewis, Washington, has been here for a month building hooches for the combat units based at the outpost. So far, they have finished 24 of 49 SWA, or Southwest Asia, huts within a ringed maze of blastproof barriers. The huts are built in parts at Al Asad and assembled in Rawah. Each has room for 16 racks. They’re heated, lit, electrified and rodent-proofed. It takes the Seabees two days to stand one up.
But Seabees are the ones with the tools, and they get lots of requests for home improvements such as tables, chairs, desks, signs, electricity, plumbing, air conditioning and heaters. Builder 1st Class Paul Chacon said, “A lot times when we get out here, we get a lot of requests. And we’re more than happy to help.”
The Seabees in Rawah are also flood-proofing the roads on the outpost. The chalky dust that covers the ground here turns into an impassable paste when it rains. In fact, the dust is so useless here, the Seabees had to import beach sand from the U.S. to line one of the outpost’s wells.
Right beside the American outpost sits a Seabees-built post for an Iraqi army battalion. Off in the distance is the small town of Rawah. While they were working the day after Thanksgiving, the Seabees looked up to see a sky-high plume of smoke coming from the Iraqi compound. The mess hall the Seabees built for the Iraqis last year was engulfed in flames. The warehouse, galley and chow hall burned through the morning.
Seabees, Marines and soldiers from Rawah watched the fire from an overlooking hill. The fire, likely sparked by an electrical malfunction, was one thing but hundreds of gallons of precious well water was dumped on the fire, which kept burning, flames licking out from under the roof.
“No showers till January. Lovely,” lamented one Marine. It means the Seabees will probably have something else to build in Rawah before the leave. But it also means they don’t eat normal food for a while.
“I feel sorry for those guys,” Salguero said, watching the fire.