Changes in the wind

February 09, 2005

It takes time to make your mark.

Although not as much time as you may think.

The 3rd Infantry Division has arrived at Camp Taji.

My first clue?

Well, things are getting crowded.

But the real sign came earlier this week when the main helipad for Blackhawk flights was moved. We used to wait on the flight line near a huge painting of the 1st Cavalry Division patch. It features a horse head and a diagonal line on a yellow background.

I arrived there the other day and stood all alone. That’s odd. You’re never alone on a flight. There’s always someone who has to go the same place you’re headed.

My gaze turned to the north, where I heard the distant toot of a humvee horn and a flash of headlights. I walked to the waiting humvee, which held the guy in charge of the flight manifest.

When I arrived, I found it had parked next to a huge replica of the 3rd Infantry Division patch painted on the concrete runway.

I told them I didn’t know the helipad had moved.

The manifest guys told me it was news to them, too.

They had been told to work from that location just a few hours earlier.

When the helicopters came in, they landed smoothly on the helipad by the painted horse’s head, just as they have for the last year.

When they noticed the humvee and me up the runway a piece, they rolled forward.

I suppose the helipad move was news to them, too.

The best example of new blood on camp is at the chow hall, however.

Yesterday, I walked in for lunch and found the trays, plates and utensils missing.

For months now, they’ve been neatly stacked in the middle of the building where everyone entering either entrance could reach them. Instead, there were round tables there.

Round tables?

We’ve never had round tables here.

So I wandered down the center aisle, looking with envy at the hundreds of people eating lunch on plastic trays, plastic plates and plastic silverware. A couple of soldiers wandered past me looking as confused as I felt.

Where is everything? one asked.

Finally we had to stop one of the chow hall monitors. Their job is to keep peace and order in the chow hall and correct any uniform violations they see.

The monitor pointed to each of the two side walls.

There, at the far end near the beginning of the serving lines, were the trays, plates and utensils.

And there was a long line behind them. I think the new system was creating a backlog.

“Well, 3rd I.D. is here,” a soldier behind me in line said. “They have to change things to make it their own.”

Today, I walked into the chow hall and headed down the far wall to where the trays and stuff had been the day before.

Nothing.

And once again I’m confused.

“It’s back where it had been before,” said one soldier who clearly saw my agony. “I wonder where they’ll put it tomorrow?”

But it’s not just physical differences everyone is feeling around here. There’s a mental change as well.

Everyone is down-sizing, getting rid of the junk they’ve acquired over the last year. And mentally, I think we’re all getting ready to leave.

I was eating lunch with two of the brigade’s military lawyers — judge advocates — the other day and one of them said Camp Taji is beginning to feel temporary.

I know what you’re thinking: Of course it’s temporary, the brigade was only scheduled to stay in Iraq for a year.

But while the brigade was here, the soldiers made it as much a home as possible. Now, familiar faces we’ve seen across camp are beginning to disappear and head home.

We’re being flooded with new faces and new unit patches everywhere we look. It’s like we don’t belong here anymore, we’re just passing through.

And that’s not bad.

It means it’s time to go home.

Posted by Amy at February 9, 2005 05:42 AM