From:  Edward Lee Pitts
           Military Affairs

Sent:   Thursday, January 06, 2005 9:36 AM

Home is where the steel is
By Edward Lee Pitts
Military Affairs

CAMP CALDWELL, Iraq -- The 278th Regimental Combat Team soldiers stationed here recently got the best gift for their holiday season short of a one-way ticket home.

During the past week, the more than 2,000 soldiers here moved into their living quarters for the next year. They now can call the base entirely their own with the removal of the last elements of the 30th Brigade Combat Team.

For most of the soldiers this meant moving into 20-by-8-foot storage boxes made out of sheet metal wrapped around steel frames. The rectangular Containerized Housing Units, or CHUs (pronounced chews) consist of a door framed by a window on each side. Green sandbags reaching to about waist level surround each unit. The nearly 500 such units on the base are equipped with heating and air conditioning.

Many of the housing units are a work in progress. But soldiers agree the studio apartments represent the best living conditions for the 278th since the regiment activated last June.

"We actually can put out our stuff now instead of keeping it wadded up in a duffel bag so nobody would steal it," said Sgt. John Cavanaugh, 30, of Knoxville. "We don't have anybody telling us when to go to bed and when to wake up."

The departed 30th soldiers spent their last days here unloading onto the 278th the luxury items gathered during their 10-month deployment. For negotiable prices the 278th members bought refrigerators, micro-waves, coffeemakers and television sets to make their year here more comfortable.

"It's not home, but it will work," Staff Sgt. Kerry Marchal, 40, of Gatlinburg, Tenn., said as he lugged a refrigerator to his new doorstep. "You do what you can to give it all the comforts of home."

Soldiers now are spending much of their free time personalizing their housing units much as college students do their dormitory rooms.

The wall around the bed of Spc. Nathan Vincent, 45, of Cleveland, Tenn., is covered with all the cards he has received from family since he became a full-time soldier six months ago. Other soldiers are using the female photo spreads from the latest Maxim magazine as wallpaper.

Private first class Brandon Welch, 20, of Newport, Tenn., used his job as a gate guard here to befriend an Iraqi merchant, who went to Baghdad to secure some carpet for Pfc. Welch's housing unit.

Putting a little creativity into a tight space, Staff Sgt. Douglas McCord, with the 386th Engineer Battalion from Texas, used his skills as a builder of Sonic drive-ins to construct a plywood dividing wall down the middle of his unit.

"A lot of guys in these CHUs have no choice but to look at the other guy," he said.

Soldiers also are using plywood to craft bookshelves, chests of drawers, bedside tables, desks and television stands.

Sgt. Mike Lovelady of Oak Ridge, Tenn., is building double post beds with storage room on the top and the bottom and a built-in television stand at the foot. He already has a waiting list of 278th customers.

While most soldiers must share space with a roommate, a few lucky officers got one housing unit to themselves, and a few unlucky enlisted men are living three to a housing unit.

Each unit of the 278th has separate housing arrangements. Some have chosen to place enlisted men in the CHUs and officers inside the camp's buildings. Other officers are putting their lower ranking soldiers inside the buildings and officers in the housing units.

The two- and three-story buildings here, built as a military base by a Yugoslavian company before the Persian Gulf War, were left abandoned for more than a decade as United Nations' sanctions stifled former dictator Saddam Hussein's army. The interiors of these buildings are designed much like a school with tile floors.

The CHUs don't include bathrooms. Soldiers still must walk outside to go to the bathroom or take a shower. Only officers with the rank of major or above get a closet-sized personal bathroom in their rooms.

The added privacy has some soldiers disoriented after months of communal living in large concrete pads while training at Camp Shelby, Miss., and in circus-sized tents in both California and Kuwait.

"It is a little weird, actually, having to knock on people's doors now," said Staff Sgt. Allen Cooper, 37, of Resaca, Ga. "I'm used to just yelling out the person's name when I want to talk to somebody."

Rows upon rows of the housing units are spread out in two portions of Camp Caldwell.

The separate neighborhoods already are developing their own characteristics.

Some soldiers have chosen a military theme for their housing unit "streets" by placing camouflaged netting over the gravel-covered ground. Others have used the abundant plywood to craft front decks and covered porches complete with benches and tables. When the weather warms these soldiers hope to have cookouts and play cards on their extended living spaces.

One row of housing units has an outdoor wooden gym. There is an angled bench for sit-ups, a pull-up bar and a punching bag made of Kevlar blankets wrapped in duct tape.

As the new CHU residents get to know their neighbors, those near one unit already have been warned not to get too friendly by a sign on the door stating: "Danger! Day sleeper with live ammo and a bad attitude."

Spc. Sloan Drouillard, 31, of Dunlap, Tenn., has turned his housing unit into a business. A licensed beautician back home, Spc. Drouillard, a dismount infantryman on a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, has hung a barber's pole and a sign stating "Dru's Barber Shop Operation Enduring Freedom III" outside his unit. Inside a customer will find shelves filled with hair tonics and various scissors and electric razors. A barber chair is in the mail, Spc. Drouillard said.

"I am combat infantry, so business hours are kind of weird," he said. "I am a terrorist fighter by day and a barber by night. That's kind of Jekyll-and-Hyde-like."

His roommate, Spc. Josh Newman, 18, of Nashville, said he has resisted Spc. Drouillard's attempts to teach him how to give pedicures. But Spc. Newman said he doesn't mind living with the barber shop smell and the traces of hair on the floor.

"It's good as long as I get free haircuts whenever I need them," he said.

E-mail Lee Pitts at lpitts@timesfreepress.com