Soldiers are filling many different jobs at Camp Taji

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Soldiers reorient a M-777 howitzer at Camp Taji, Iraq, during a firing drill. But just as war has changed, so have the jobs of artillerymen. Some find themselves spending more time on unrelated jobs.


Soldiers are filling many different jobs at Camp Taji
By James Warden, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, April 8, 2008

TAJI, Iraq — There’s a small square in a corner of Camp Taji where America’s newest cannons await the order to fire. Soldiers with the 2nd Battalion, 11th Artillery Regiment stay by these guns 24 hours a day, ready to support units closer to the front. When they at last move into action, they do so with a fluidity and grace that can only come from months of training on these howitzers.

Artillerymen — after all — are cannoneers.

Gunner’s Gate sits in the southwest corner of Camp Taji. About 90 percent of all civilian traffic that enters the base passes through this gate — in all, about 250 people and 100 vehicles daily. All must undergo extensive security checks to get inside. A truck making a delivery to the base, for example, is inspected and X-rayed. The driver himself is then searched.

The American soldiers manning these guard towers, checking the trucks and running the X-ray machines are all 2nd Battalion artillerymen, although they have help from a handful of Macedonian soldiers and several private contractors from Africa. The gunners form the meeting point between the base and the community that surrounds it.

“I thought we were going to sit in the back and support everyone else. Now we’re in the front line,” said Staff Sgt. Anthony Mayfield, a 22-year-old from Aiken, S.C.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=53899