U.S. Army reservists in Iraq on the front lines, a place most thought they would

Articles: U.S. Army reservists in Iraq on the front lines, a place most thought they would

Posted by admin on Friday, July 23, 2004 - 12:42 AM

Whenever strangers walk into the recreation tent she manages, Sgt. Katherine Harper immediately shows them the quickest way to the nearest bunker in case of a mortar attack.
''I don't like this place at all,'' the U.S. Army reservist said. ''Any day we don't get mortared is a good day, but we get mortared almost every day.'' When Harper, a 32-year-old mother of two from Benton, Ark., finished three years on active duty in the Army, she joined the Army Reserve to continue serving her country in a way that allowed her to raise kids and stay home with them. Ten years later, she and hundreds of other reservists are stationed at Log Base Seitz, a logistical camp near Baghdad International Airport that comes under regular mortar fire from insurgents living in nearby Abu Ghraib town. She has been here six months, with six more months to go. ''I thought being in the Reserve meant we wouldn't go overseas until all the active duty had gone first,'' Harper said. ''Honestly, people go into the Reserve not to be sent here.'' But with the U.S. Army spread thin across Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Germany and a dozen other countries, the Pentagon relies on reservists and National Guard troops to serve in combat zones, often for longer terms than their active duty counterparts. Currently, Reserve and National Guard forces comprise 39 percent of U.S. forces in Iraq, compared with 25 percent last year. But that number will grow to 42 percent or 43 percent next year, the director of operations for the Joint Staff, Lt. Gen. Norton Schwartz, told Congress on July 7. In June, 21 of the 42 U.S. military deaths in Iraq were members of the National Guard or Reserve. In May, the breakdown was 22 out of 80, and in April it was 17 of 136. While dozens have been injured in the mortar attacks on Log Base Seitz, so far no one has been killed. The citizen soldiers on the base understand the assignment is part of their duties, but most said serving in Iraq has changed their views. Sgt. Anthony Woolever from Flora, Ill., said one of the selling points his recruiter used to enlist him was the fact that the United States hadn't sent reservists overseas since the Gulf War. He was in basic training on Sept. 11, 2001. Now 21 and a chiropractic student, he drives a forklift in the searing desert heat. ''I'll be the first to admit I didn't want to go'' to Iraq, Woolever said. ''But now I enjoy being here and knowing I'm here for a cause.'' Still, he expected to call it quits when his enlistment ends in four years. ''I figure I'm doing my part this time around.'' The Army depends on reservists like Harper and Woolever when it goes to war. In peacetime, civilians take care of logistics, maintenance, warehouse operations and delivery of equipment. In combat, though, reservists do the job on the front lines. At Log Base Seitz, men and women who are X-ray technicians, electricians, college students, professors or draftsmen in the civilian world have been ordered to give 545 days a year and a half of their lives to work in Iraq. Of these, they spend 365 days in Iraq, with a two-week leave if they're lucky not all get it. The men and women have virtually no privacy, crammed into former Iraqi Republican Guard warehouses where dissidents scratched messages to their loved ones in the pale green paint before being put to death. Faced with frequent deployments, re-enlistments and new recruits for the Reserve and National Guard are falling short of the Pentagon's needs. Troops on active duty are having their tours of duty extended and 5,600 former soldiers are being involuntarily recalled to active duty. Soldiers in Iraq call it ''the backdoor draft.'' While reservists in Iraq do their jobs professionally, the experience leaves many of the younger troops less than enthusiastic. If he'd known what he was in for when he enlisted, he said, ''I probably wouldn't have joined.''

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