thedrifter
11-29-02, 01:01 PM
Associated Press
November 28, 2002
CAMP COMMANDO, Kuwait - Last Thanksgiving, they were in South Korea, or East Timor, or, if they were lucky, maybe even stayed home. This year, they stay in a new U.S. Marine base in the Kuwaiti desert, a couple of hours from the border with Iraq.
They've got actual turkey here," Lt. Col. Kirk Bruno said at a noontime formation where some 100 men stood at attention before an American flag. "I'm not sure how good it's going to be."
The turkey was actually pretty good, and came with all the trimmings in a crowded meal tent for the several hundred soldiers and sailors at this base, the Marines' command headquarters. But it wasn't home. "I was all stoked to come out here, be a part of all this, but my heart is there," said Sgt. Edward Moore, a 26-year-old from Las Vegas whose wife, he just found out, is pregnant with their first child.
"She keeps asking 'When are you going to come home?' But I don't know," he said. "We're pretty much all the other has - each other."
As the United States prepares for a possible war with Iraq, the Marines have created Camp Commando from scratch, building it on the edge of a Kuwaiti military base of the same name, to act as their command headquarters.
To the constant rumble of dozens of generators, they have worked around the clock putting up long rows of sand-colored tents, connecting equipment and preparing for a possible war with Iraq.
From here, they will be able to command and stay in contact with the tens of thousands of Marines who could end up fighting a war with Iraq.
A few weeks ago, it was pretty much nothing but sand.
"Look around you and see what we've done," the base commander, Col. John Cunnings told the noontime formation, which began with the recorded sound of bagpipes wailing martial music, watched over by soldiers manning heavy machine-guns.
"We've built a whole city," Cunnings said.
Then he lectured them briefly, his tone more than a little fatherly, about the need to work safely, to watch out for fires, and to stay on guard.
It is a young group, many of them in their late teens, not old enough to remember much about the 1991 Gulf War.
It was some soldiers' first Thanksgiving away from home. For others, it was just one in a long line of missed holidays.
"It's a sacrifice," said 1st Lt. Travis Knight, of Chattanooga, Tenn., who left two daughters and a pregnant wife back in the United States. But "it's keeping people more safe at home." Knight also spent last Thanksgiving in Kuwait - along with Christmas and New Year.
"This is what the Marine Corps is all about - preparing for missions and doing missions," Knight said.
Being so far from home, the soldiers, most of them from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, based in Camp Pendleton, Calif., have to find their own way to celebrate the holidays. Some did it here with a day off, a leisurely Thanksgiving meal and a touch football game in the sand just inside the barbed wire perimeter.
It was a similar scene at other bases in Kuwait.
"I guess if you can't spend it with your family, you can spend it in the camaraderie of your fellow soldiers," said Maj. Rick Nussio, 37, of Detroit, Mich., who is stationed at the U.S. Army's Camp New York base.
At the Marine compound, the day off was possibly the best part. Many left the United States less than two weeks ago, but they've been working 12 hours shifts setting up the base since touching down in Kuwait.
Asked what he wanted to see happen in the coming months, Lance Corp. Cade Hines of Auburn, Nebraska, had a quick answer.
"Peace," he said, sitting in the meal tent, his rifle at his side. "Peace suddenly breaking out."
Sempers,
Roger
November 28, 2002
CAMP COMMANDO, Kuwait - Last Thanksgiving, they were in South Korea, or East Timor, or, if they were lucky, maybe even stayed home. This year, they stay in a new U.S. Marine base in the Kuwaiti desert, a couple of hours from the border with Iraq.
They've got actual turkey here," Lt. Col. Kirk Bruno said at a noontime formation where some 100 men stood at attention before an American flag. "I'm not sure how good it's going to be."
The turkey was actually pretty good, and came with all the trimmings in a crowded meal tent for the several hundred soldiers and sailors at this base, the Marines' command headquarters. But it wasn't home. "I was all stoked to come out here, be a part of all this, but my heart is there," said Sgt. Edward Moore, a 26-year-old from Las Vegas whose wife, he just found out, is pregnant with their first child.
"She keeps asking 'When are you going to come home?' But I don't know," he said. "We're pretty much all the other has - each other."
As the United States prepares for a possible war with Iraq, the Marines have created Camp Commando from scratch, building it on the edge of a Kuwaiti military base of the same name, to act as their command headquarters.
To the constant rumble of dozens of generators, they have worked around the clock putting up long rows of sand-colored tents, connecting equipment and preparing for a possible war with Iraq.
From here, they will be able to command and stay in contact with the tens of thousands of Marines who could end up fighting a war with Iraq.
A few weeks ago, it was pretty much nothing but sand.
"Look around you and see what we've done," the base commander, Col. John Cunnings told the noontime formation, which began with the recorded sound of bagpipes wailing martial music, watched over by soldiers manning heavy machine-guns.
"We've built a whole city," Cunnings said.
Then he lectured them briefly, his tone more than a little fatherly, about the need to work safely, to watch out for fires, and to stay on guard.
It is a young group, many of them in their late teens, not old enough to remember much about the 1991 Gulf War.
It was some soldiers' first Thanksgiving away from home. For others, it was just one in a long line of missed holidays.
"It's a sacrifice," said 1st Lt. Travis Knight, of Chattanooga, Tenn., who left two daughters and a pregnant wife back in the United States. But "it's keeping people more safe at home." Knight also spent last Thanksgiving in Kuwait - along with Christmas and New Year.
"This is what the Marine Corps is all about - preparing for missions and doing missions," Knight said.
Being so far from home, the soldiers, most of them from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, based in Camp Pendleton, Calif., have to find their own way to celebrate the holidays. Some did it here with a day off, a leisurely Thanksgiving meal and a touch football game in the sand just inside the barbed wire perimeter.
It was a similar scene at other bases in Kuwait.
"I guess if you can't spend it with your family, you can spend it in the camaraderie of your fellow soldiers," said Maj. Rick Nussio, 37, of Detroit, Mich., who is stationed at the U.S. Army's Camp New York base.
At the Marine compound, the day off was possibly the best part. Many left the United States less than two weeks ago, but they've been working 12 hours shifts setting up the base since touching down in Kuwait.
Asked what he wanted to see happen in the coming months, Lance Corp. Cade Hines of Auburn, Nebraska, had a quick answer.
"Peace," he said, sitting in the meal tent, his rifle at his side. "Peace suddenly breaking out."
Sempers,
Roger