Close quarters once again

February 28, 2005

It’s beginning to smell in here.

I know this stench. One whiff launches me back a year to the 100-man tents at Fort Polk, La., and Camp New York, Kuwait.

It’s the smell of the infantry. The odor is like a combination of week-old underwear, dirty socks and a wet dog. And it clings to everything that enters its airspace.

I’m afraid that includes me.

I’m at surge housing at Camp Taji in a warehouse packed with more than 130 bunk beds. They’re not all full yet, but by tomorrow, there will be more than 260 of us living in this open bay tin shack.

I’m here with 3rd Battalion’s Bravo and Charlie companies and a smattering of Headquarters Company.

My duffel bags are under my bunk, my coffee cup slung by a carabiner from one of the bed’s metal braces.

Sgt. John Szakalski walked by a couple of minutes ago and said shampoo didn’t work as well on his socks as he thought it would.

“The good news is, they’ll never have dandruff,” he said with his usual half grin. “But they’re all crunchy, crusty now. I should have used conditioner, too.”

Living out of duffel bags with as much as a week to wait before leaving Iraq, these soldiers are finding creative ways to do laundry.

Last night, Szakalski walked past my bunk holding his two Army green socks. They were dripping wet, fresh from the shower.

The socks still held the shape of his feet. Seriously, you could tell the left from the right sock.

And one was about two inches longer than the other.

I pointed that out as he walked by.

His answer: “Genetics.”

This is going to be a funny week, I can tell.

A short time later, Staff Sgt. Larry Fitzgibbons smelled his once white socks and declared, “Yep, they’ve still got one more day in them.”

This warehouse was filled with activity last night. There’s been a game of gin rummy going over at a Charlie Company bunk for two days. Music played over in the Bravo Company area and laughter was constant.

Everyone slept in a little today.

Someone in Charlie Company got up around 8 a.m. and turned on the lights in our big house, generating hateful shouts that echoed from almost every bunk. Half of the lights turned back off. It was close to 10 a.m. when people finally started moving.

The last two weeks have been filled with triple duty for most of these men. They’ve been packing a year’s worth of stuff into the two impossibly small duffel bags they’re allowed to carry home, while continuing combat missions and orienting the incoming unit to the region.

Everyone is tired.

There was just a big boom outside. And another. And another.

Surge housing is in an area of camp that tends to see more mortars and rockets lately. It’s also very close to the field artillery firebase.

Incoming, outgoing, no one even hesitates.

When the first boom hit, Spc. Lee Lawson of Beebe was in the middle of one of his famed stories about a major who briefed him on what to do as a surge housing resident if the camp is attacked. He didn’t even blink.

This has been our lives for a year. Boom.

Lawson said the major called his briefing the “Oh S*** Taji Plan.”

He told it in the funniest of southern drawls I’ve ever heard — Lawson had to take a few moments to get into character. I’m not going to waste your time with the details of the wacky plan, but it’s pretty funny.

There’s another boom.

Lawson moved on to his other project: Coming up with pickup lines to drive the guy two bunks over nuts. Moments after lights out every night, Lawson yells at his buddy “Squirrel” with a bad pickup line.

Last night’s was, “Hey Squirrel. Buy me some flip flops because you knock my socks off!”

Squirrel covers his ears and yells, “NO!”

Yep, it’s going to be a fun week.

Posted by Amy at February 28, 2005 06:11 PM