Staff Sgt. Angela Amundsen, non-commissioned officer in charge of awards for the 34th Red Bull Infantry Division, flies to Forward Operating Base Adder on a UH-60 Black Hawk, June 10. Amundsen and members of the personnel section of the 34th Inf. Div. flew to FOB Adder and FOB Kalsu to meet with the units under them. Photo by J.P. Lawrence

Pfc. Angelica Medrano always was scared of flying. As she got off the UH-60 Black Hawk and entered the Talil airport, she was still shaking off the effects.

“You look like you just did a 10-mile road march,” said Spc. Dusti Fetters, Medrano’s coworker in the personnel section of the 34th Red Bull Infantry Division.

“I do?” said Medrano.

“Yeah,” said Fetters.

“I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe through my mouth,” said Medrano. “And my eyelashes were being inflated – like balloons. The wind was getting them.”

Medrano and members of the personnel section of the 34th Red Bull Infantry Division were on a mission to Forward Operating Base Adder to meet with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division and then to Forward Operating Base Kalsu to check in on the 172nd Inf. Bde.

The goal of the mission, said Maj. Donald Warner, an Elk River, Minn. native and deputy personnel officer of the 34th Inf. Div., was to have face-to-face interactions to build good working relationships and to synchronize procedures between the division and the brigades.

In addition, Warner said traveling to outlying locations would give young Soldiers like Medrano and Fetters, who have only worked at the division level, a better understanding of how brigades and battalions work with division headquarters.

Much of the personnel sections’ work involves keeping track and taking care of Soldiers, said Warner. When personnel sections at the corps level need information, they call their counterparts at the division level, who call down to the brigade level, who call down to the battalion level. The division’s job is to streamline the process so information gets to where it needs to be as quickly as possible.

The first stop was FOB Adder, where Warner met with the leadership of the 4th BCT, 1st Inf. Div.’s personnel department, who welcomed the opportunity to meet the Soldiers they had previously only known through phone calls and emails.

“It helps to give a face to names,” said Master Sgt. Christian Walker, a Dallas native and non-commissioned officer in charge of the 4th BCT’s personnel section. “Most of my guys are on their first deployment, and it helps to learn the ins and outs of their system from people who have already been here.”

“We talked about current issues. We talked about the different perspectives that brigade and divisions have. We talked about how we’re not used to having a division,” said Maj. Naomi Mercer, a Lovelock, Nev. native and the 4th BCT’s personnel officer, adding that the talks helped build “a better working relationship between the brigade and the division and the roles that Maj. Warner and I fill within our respective organizations.”

“After you’ve met and you know somebody and you talk to them on the phone, it’s easier,” said Warner. “So now, having met, when we talk to each other on the phone, we’ll have this bond, so when I call Master Sgt. Walker, automatically he’ll know who I am; he can put a face with the voice on the other end, and there’s just that common bond right there.”

After saying goodbye to the Soldiers in FOB Adder, the Red Bulls traveled by CH-47 Chinook to visit the 172nd Inf. Bde. at FOB Kalsu.

It was a study in contrasts. Where FOB Adder was sprawling, FOB Kalsu was snug, and the two units were at wholly different points in their deployment. While the Soldiers at FOB Adder were new, fresh off their transfer of authority ceremony, the Soldiers of the 172nd Inf. Bde. were more than halfway done with their deployment and were getting ready to do end of tour awards. “I’m pretty set in my ways,” said Maj. John Lawrence, a Madison, Maine., native and battalion personnel officer for the 172nd Inf. Bde.

The Red Bulls sat in the battalion personnel office and listened to the effusive Lawrence discuss awards, morale, welfare and recreation bonfires and other tasks given to him. “I talk a lot. It’s part of my job. Seems like every time I turn around you get put in charge of something,” said Lawrence. “If it involves people, we get it.”

“A lot of times it’s more our learning curve,” said Warner. Now was the time to listen, and the Red Bulls took notes of the 172nd Inf. Bde. operations.

“If you’ve got something going good, you don’t want to change,” said Spc. Michael Sanmarcos, a Los Angeles native and a human resources specialist with the 172nd Inf. Bde. “So getting with your counterparts at division and talking lets them know that ‘this part is going good, we don’t need to change it.’”

The 172nd Inf. Bde. Soldiers told the Red Bulls what resources they needed, gaps that the division, with its greater resource pool, was able to fill. In addition, the Soldiers discussed how to streamline communication between units.

“It helps to work with division. That way we can communicate with the units that are equivalent with us,” said Sanmarcos. “We can use division as a mediator between them and us; that way information is getting passed along correctly and accurately.”

Throughout the trip Warner had been quizzing Fetters and Medrano on what they had learned. Now, the trip was almost over, and the Red Bulls were gathered around a picnic table, discussing what they had learned.

“The difference between division and brigade is that they do everything, and we’re divided into sections and we specialize,” Medrano said. “They don’t even have a dedicated awards person.”

“Are you going to be more comfortable calling down to brigade now?” asked Warner.

“Before, I was nervous,” said Fetters, “and I wouldn’t want to call them. But now, yeah.”

Warner smiled. The young Soldiers were learning. A few more meetings in the afternoon, and it would be time to go back to Basra.

And all that was left was the flight back.

DVIDS
Story by J.P. Lawrence

172nd Infantry Brigade Soldiers from Forward Operating Base Kalsu engaged in a patrol to the central Euphrates farmers market and to a fish farm in Khdir, recently.

The patrol, led by 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment Soldiers, began at FOB Kalsu and travelled to the central Euphrates farmer’s market in Selah. Here, Provincial Reconstruction Team members and Soldiers were involved in the first board meeting held at the farmer’s market. The previous meetings were held at FOB Kalsu.

The central Euphrates farmer’s market is a market that represents approximately 4,900 farmers from the northern part of the Babil province. The next closest farmer’s market is 70 kilometers away in Karbala.

“This farmer’s market is closer to the farmer’s fields,” said Sheik Umran Hashim, the head of Alwaha Agricultural Association. “By spending less money traveling, the farmers keep more money in their pocket.”

The purpose of the meeting was to familiarize the 1st Bn., 2nd Inf. Regt. leadership with the PRT, Civilian Affairs and local Iraqi leadership. The board meeting was also to showcase the progress of the market. The topics discussed here included funding, the cold storage facility, auction price for the market stalls and security plans for the market.

Khdir is a predominately shiite town that was overtaken by al-Qaida and the area was used as a staging area to train and attack surrounding areas. Al-Qaida prevented the farmers in the area from harvesting fish, thus harming the area.

Sheikh Jaffer Hussin Dandal, the owner of the fish farms in this part of the province, is one of the first sheiks to work with coalition forces here. By working with the CF, Dandal is able to harvest fish without al-Qaida interference. The fish farms also help bring the people back into the area, after they were forced out.

The fish farm assistance is one of the projects that the PRT has helped to boost the local economy in Iraq.

DVIDS
By Pfc. Bethany L. Little and Spc. Dawn Van Horn
Multi-National Division – Center