Fort Stewart mobilizes: The inside story

Answering the Call

"I was told to see Mr. Nelson," says a young Army sergeant in khaki fatigues, walking nervously up to the counter at the bustling Central Issue Facility at Fort Stewart, Ga. Albert Nelson-whom no one, not even his boss, calls by his first name-is a 73-year-old, gray-haired federal worker with five decades of military and government service. He oversees the supply center, the Army's version of Wal-Mart.

Just as at Wal-Mart, soldiers at the Central Issue Facility wait in long lines, carry lists and push around shopping carts filled with products pulled from rows and rows of metal shelves. Civilian clerks, not sales associates, review checklists and help soldiers find the more than $2,000 in clothing and personal gear that they'll need for a deployment. Central Issue is the first stop for soldiers getting ready to go to war.

In mid-January, several thousand soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade were doing just that. In late December, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered the 17,000-soldier division to the Persian Gulf as part of the largest call-up since the elder President Bush launched strikes on Baghdad in 1991. Since September, the division's Second Brigade has been in the Middle East on a regular rotation. Now the 1st Brigade and the 3rd Brigade from Fort Benning, Ga., will join them in Kuwait. The 3rd Infantry Division's three brigades' equipment includes more than 200 tanks, 250 Bradley Infantry Fighting vehicles and 18 of the Army's most deadly helicopters, Apache Longbows. Since the Gulf War 12 years ago, the division has trained extensively in the region and is considered the Army's premier unit for fighting a desert war.

But before driving a tank across the desert dunes or launching a Hellfire missile at the Iraqi Republican Guard, the 3rd Infantry Division must be outfitted for war. Each soldier get more than 41 pieces of standard equipment, from a $360 Gore-Tex sleeping bag to a $9.90 black beret. Troops deploying to the Persian Gulf also receive desert-tan camouflage uniforms and vacuum-packed chemical weapons suits. Soldiers get additional equipment depending on their jobs. Helicopter pilots will get sunglasses, while military police will cart away handcuffs and wooden batons. On a busy day, three dozen clerks will pull enough gear from the center's $35 million stockpile for about 800 soldiers.

Those with special equipment needs or problems are sent to Mr. Nelson. The septuagenarian fixes a long gaze on the anxious sergeant across the counter. Nelson, whose southern drawl is matched by his equally slow gait as he moves among the warehouse's shelves and boxes, nods at the soldier to let him know he's allowed to speak. The infantryman quietly says his unit needs 60 canteen caps. You should have already stocked those, Nelson snaps. The supply chief silently shuffles down the aisle, pulls out a box of tan plastic caps and leaves them on the countertop without looking at the soldier. "Thank you, Mr. Nelson," the soldier says, breaking into a relieved grin. Nelson doesn't seem to notice. Another soldier already is waiting.

Nobody at the Central Issue Facility has time to notice.

Since the deployment alert was issued, the supply center has become one of the busiest places on the Army's largest base east of the Mississippi River. Hours of operation run from sunrise until nearly midnight, while lines of soldiers stretch out the door. Throughout January and into early February, thousands of soldiers deploying to Kuwait got their gear at the supply warehouse, while hundreds of reservists who mobilized to fill in for the departing soldiers also paid visits lasting an average of three hours to Nelson's shop to pick up their clothing and equipment.

Supply managers, who would normally spend their days forecasting inventory shortfalls and ordering new equipment, have been pulled away from their spreadsheets to help find the right size boots (there are more than a hundred sizes) or pants (there are more than two dozen-and desert camouflage pants run about a half-size smaller than the standard green ones). Not only troops, but dozens of civilians have been mobilized for war.

"What you need?" bellows Jim Niksch, acting chief of supply services, who has become a regular on the supply lines since the deployment notice came down. A soldier stops to ponder his belt size. "Medium," Niksch says with a quick glance at the soldier's waistline. "Next," says the GS-12 manager, who these days wears a baseball cap, sweatshirt and jeans to the office instead of a shirt and tie. "Don't mark it down [on your checklist] 'til you get it," he warns another soldier. "Blanket," he says glancing at a list. "You want one or two? You're authorized two."

A few weeks on the front lines of supply and the manager has already mastered the supply clerk lingo, if not the schedule. "One night I got home at 3 and my wife says, 'If you come home this late, you can just go back,'" says Niksch-who did just that after a quick shower. Most days aren't that long, but they haven't been short since right after Christmas-the last day the center wasn't open for business. Niksch is in by 8 a.m. most days and spends most of his time pulling gear from shelves. By early evening, he heads back to his office, turns on his computer and begins poring over forecasting reports. Usually, he's doesn't get home much before midnight. On weekends, he makes it home a few hours earlier. "Normally, I sit on my ass behind a computer and supervise, but I've done lost half my support and some warehouse leaders," Niksch says as he hands out bulletproof vests.

War never comes at a good time, but the call-up could not have come at a worse time for Fort Stewart's logisticians.

Royce Kennedy, the installation's director of logistics and Nelson's boss, says that in the Gulf War, Central Issue outfitted about the same number of soldiers, but had about twice the number of civilian workers. Year-end retirements have left the base 40 workers short of the 230 civilians authorized to help troops move out. Additionally, 95 logistics positions were eliminated last year as the organization streamlined its operations to win a public-private competition against a contractor. On top of that, the base just finished consolidating 24 World War II-era warehouses into a single, new 178,000-square-foot facility that employees are still learning their way around.

Kennedy says he has no choice but to pull managers, budget analysts and even administrative personnel from office jobs to work the supply chain. Kennedy, a GS-14 who is one of the most senior civilians on the base, splits his time between attending meetings with the base's garrison commander, reordering and tracking a multimillion-dollar inventory, and finding the right socks for 20-year-old privates. "It's just required," he says when asked about the strain of working both the back office and the front lines of the supply operation from 6:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. every day but Sunday.

One mid-January morning, Kennedy's tie flaps behind him as he hustles from the supply line to a warehouse in the rear to retrieve a box of black berets. He makes it back just as the supply runs out, opens the box and begins stacking some on a shelf and handing others to his secretary. She, too, has been called up for Central Issue duty. A visitor wonders who's answering the phones back in the office. "They ring and we've got voice mail," laughs Kennedy, just before his secretary interrupts and sends him back to the warehouse to get another box.

Critical Cargo

"Let's go, the clock is ticking," shouts Army Chief Warrant Officer Butch Zirpolo, whose name, booming voice and stocky frame make him seem more like a football coach than an aviation maintenance officer. But Zirpolo, the senior maintenance man for the Army's 603rd Aviation Support Battalion at Hunter Army Airfield, in Savannah, Ga., knows just about every technical detail about helicopters. He knows, for example, that Apache helicopters weigh about 16,000 pounds and their rotor blades measure 15 feet, 6 inches long. That knowledge is critical as he oversees the loading of nearly three dozen of the birds onto a hulking military cargo ship bound for the Middle East in less than 24 hours.

The helicopters are part of the 3rd Infantry Division's aviation brigade, which will join the thousands of troops deploying from Fort Stewart to Kuwait in January and early February. While the soldiers flew over on Air Force cargo planes and chartered commercial airliners, much of their equipment is being shipped to Southwest Asia by sea.

By mid-January, much of that gear-which includes, in addition to the helicopters, Humvees, tractor-trailers, tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and 20-foot-long storage containers-has made it to the pier alongside the Georgia Ports Authority's Ocean Terminal in Savannah, the nation's sixth busiest port. Soldiers drove most of the equipment up the East Coast's busiest thoroughfare, I-95, from the base about 40 miles south in Hinesville, Ga. In some cases, tracked vehicles and other gear too heavy or dangerous for public roads arrived by rail car. Now, the equipment must be packed and shipped overseas in two Navy cargo ships that measure more than three football fields in length and have enough space, over seven decks, to hold the equivalent of 3,000 sports utility vehicles. For the military's purpose, the two ships will carry enough equipment for a combat brigade of soldiers. A ship usually can be filled in 48 hours.

The Defense Department has significantly upgraded its sealift capabilities over the past decade. The Navy now owns 19 of the largest cargo ships in the world-including the two carrying the 3rd Infantry Division's gear. The ships are floating parking garages, with multiple decks that can be raised or lowered to meet military needs. They are maintained and operated by contractor crews. A trip to the Middle East requires a 30-member crew and takes about three weeks. Usually, about 15 service members travel on board to make sure the equipment is properly maintained.

On a cold Georgia night in January, mist rises from the Savannah River at the Ocean Terminal, where one of the Navy's newest cargo ships, the 950-foot USS Mendonca is docked. "Tonight, we're the only game going," says Zirpolo a few minutes after midnight. Other crews have been loading gear on board for a day and a half. Now the aviators are ready to begin their work.

Night is the preferred time to load helicopters. Not only is the tide lower, which makes the ship's loading ramp easier to climb, but there are few workers on the docks and no traffic bottlenecks to navigate at the loading ramp. Army aviators like it this way. They view themselves, and their aircraft, as a breed apart from the rest of the service. Civilian longshoremen and merchant mariners load most of the division's other gear. (The other exception is tanks, which only soldiers can drive.) But aviators do not want anyone else handling their aircraft, which can cost as much as $30 million and whose thin airframes could be damaged even by a misplaced hand. Only Army aviation maintenance personnel and contractors, who run the neighboring Hunter Army Air Field, where the aircraft are based, are allowed to touch the helicopters.

Five days earlier, a group of Apache Longbows, the Army's most costly and lethal helicopters, had made the quick flight to Savannah from the Hunter airfield. After they landed, mechanics spent two hours taking off the helicopters' sweeping rotor blades and placing them in narrow, coffin-shaped boxes, which were then stacked in pallets for easier shipping. Next, foam padding was placed over sensitive areas, such as windows and antennas. Then employees from contractor Lockheed Martin wrapped each aircraft in white plastic protective sheeting and sealed them with heat guns. This shrink-wrapping process took four hours per aircraft, leaving the Apaches looking more like Star Wars space fighters than helicopters. They will stay wrapped in their protective cocoons-save for small openings cut for a crew member to enter each one-until they arrive in Kuwait three weeks later.

Factoring in maintenance checks done a week earlier at the airfield, it has taken nearly two weeks to ready all the 3rd Infantry Division's helicopters for shipping. In addition to the Apaches, the fleet includes UH-60 Blackhawk utility helicopters and OH-58 Kiowa Warrior scout/attack helicopters.

Now that they are finally ready, Zirpolo's job is to move the helicopters onto the Mendonca's B Deck (the second from the top) and park them from nose to tail. He's not sure why they are stowed that way, but learned long ago not to ask questions. "All I know is one time we tried [parking them side-by-side] and we damn near had to unload everything. The first mate was really annoyed," he recalls.

Zirpolo isn't the only one who wants to keep the Mendonca's first mate happy. The Army's Military Traffic Management Command is responsible for making sure that not only the helicopters, but all of the other gear loaded on the ship is properly stowed and secured.

Several hundred yards back from the docks, in a renovated cruise ship passenger waiting area, MTMC has set up an operations center. About a dozen MTMC Army reservists sit at folding tables crunching numbers on laptop computers and occasionally consulting diagrams of the Mendonca on the wall. The diagrams show all the ship's levels, with symbols indicating where each piece of cargo will be stowed. Before the heavy lifting is done along the docks, the hard thinking is done here. MTMC planners determine when and where equipment should be loaded, so helicopters don't bang into low ceilings and 60-ton Abrams tanks don't cause the ship to tip. If the ship leaves late, it will be MTMC's fault, and if it's on time, the Army agency will have done its job.

Army Reserve Col. Peter Lennon, commander of the 1189th Terminal Transportation Brigade in Charleston, S.C., and MTMC's top man on the docks in Savannah, worries about keeping track of the roughly 2,000 pieces of equipment that must go aboard the ship. Every item has a bar code that is checked as it rolls onto the vessel and then checked again as it is lashed to the ship's deck with thick metal chains. In theory, the Army should know exactly where every piece of equipment is at all times. But a faulty bar code or an incorrect diagram could undermine the system. "You want the folks to know what is coming to them," Lennon says.

Back on the docks, Zirpolo and his crew wear red hard hats and orange safety vests with yellow reflective stripes over their camouflage uniforms. Desert-tan Humvees drive portside to where more than two dozen helicopters, worth a combined $400 million and providing more than two-thirds of the division's aviation firepower, are parked.

An Apache is first in line to be loaded. The crew attaches a bright yellow tow bar to the rear of a Humvee and then to the tail of the Apache helicopter. Zirpolo warns the Humvee driver not to go more than 5 mph. An Apache crew member sits inside the helicopter to put on the brakes if the tow bar breaks, while eight ground guides walk alongside using shouts and hand signals to direct the driver to go forward, slow down, and steer right or left. They keep a lookout for other vehicles and clear debris in the Humvee's path as the precious cargo creeps a few hundred yards toward the ship's loading ramp. "Keep coming!" Zirpolo shouts.

"Hold up, stop!" he yells, waving his arms over his head as he studies the underbelly of the Apache. The helicopter has made it to the ship's loading ramp, but it cannot maneuver over the entryway's small lip without scraping its bottom. The Humvee and the Apache back up off the ramp. Zirpolo's crew lugs 4-by-4-foot pieces of one-quarter-inch plywood and wood posts portside and, in a few minutes, builds a makeshift ramp over the ship's lip. "Go again," Zirpolo commands. The Humvee moves up the ramp, but the helicopter is not properly aligned with the ramp and its wheels fall to one side. Again, the Humvee has to back up.

Once more, the Humvee's diesel engine revs up and pulls the Apache toward the ramp. The ground crew guides it in. This time the wheels are aligned dead center. With a final tug from the Humvee, the Apache clears the lip with only inches to spare and is pulled onto the ship's ramp. Zirpolo sighs, knowing many helicopters remain, and waves the Humvee up into the mouth of the ship. Within a few seconds, it disappears into the vessel. Nearly 40 minutes have passed since the helicopter was first hitched to the vehicle.

The process gets easier as more aircraft are loaded. Six hours later, just before dawn, Zirpolo's crew will finish its work. By the end of the day, the Mendonca, its belly full of Army cargo, will slip its moorings in Savannah and begin moving, with a Coast Guard escort, toward the Atlantic Ocean-and on to war.

The Long Goodbye

Soldiers in the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade started hearing the rumors just before Christmas. First, word was they'd be in Kuwait for the holidays. Then they heard they might not go until April. By mid-January, infantrymen are trying to tune out the chatter. The soldiers are certain of only one thing: Within a few weeks they'll get 48, at most 72, hours notice to pack their rucksacks, take their children to the park one last time, kiss their spouses goodbye, and board a bus for the Hunter Army Airfield and a flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

Before that happens, the troops will depend heavily on Susan Wilder. Her title is mobilization deployment program manager, but she's really Fort Stewart's den mother. She doesn't reveal deployment dates, but she does her best to dispel the anxiety that surrounds troops shipping out.

The Army wants it that way. All Army units hold pre-deployment briefings for soldiers. Family Readiness Groups, mainly staffed by soldiers' spouses, coordinate support for those left behind. The theory is that a soldier cannot do a good job on foreign soil unless he knows his family is being taken care of back home. Wilder knows all about that. Her husband, a senior enlisted engineer in the 3rd Infantry Division, has been in Kuwait since September.

On a January evening, about 75 soldiers and their spouses, most of whom appear to be no older than 25 and a little worn out from long days spent packing up gear and wondering about war, gather on folding chairs at Fort Stewart's Family Readiness Center for their pre-deployment briefing. They barely glance at the deployment handbooks and emergency telephone lists handed out before the meeting. Couples hold hands, while single soldiers in baggy jeans and sweatshirts rest their heads on their hands. Nobody wants to sit through another Army meeting.

"Have any of you been fighting with your spouses lately?" Wilder asks. A few heads nod. "That's OK. We call this PMS-or pre-maneuver syndrome." Laughter fills the room. She tells couples it's normal to argue before shipping out because it's easier to say goodbye when you're angry with someone. Talk about your feelings, she says. Soldiers are told it's OK to cry. No tears flow, but Wilder has the attention of the room.

Once the troops are overseas, e-mails and telephone calls will be limited, she warns. "This is not Kosovo," she says, where Army peacekeepers can call or e-mail home almost daily. Care packages can be sent to Kuwait, but can't weigh more than 70 pounds. Wilder says mailings cannot contain any material contrary to the teachings of Islam-from pork to pornography. That includes Victoria's Secret lingerie catalogs and the racy Maxim magazine. She suggests packing pre-stamped envelopes for letter writing and adds that she puts birthday cards for her children in her husband's gear. But there are limits, Wilder says. "I don't do my own anniversary cards."

Next, Wilder introduces Staff Sgt. Richard Clark, a financial customer service representative for the division's soldier support battalion, who tells the troops what they already know. They'll receive extra money ($150 per month hostile fire pay, $50 per month foreign duty pay, and $100 per month if they leave a spouse or child behind) and will not be taxed on their income while deployed overseas. What they probably don't know is to take along a checkbook if they want money for the base exchange. There are only two ATMs at Camp Doha, Kuwait-one of which is usually broken, Clark says-and none in the Kabals, the desert training outposts about 50 miles from the Iraqi border in Kuwait. A chaplain and an Army lawyer speak next about the legal and emotional aspects of separation-and even death. All soldiers are told to make out wills.

"Too many goddamn rules," moans one enlisted soldier as the meeting ends.

In addition to learning the rules, many of the troops need to get in some last-minute training. So Capt. Rob Smith, who oversees about 140 soldiers in one of the 1st Brigade's infantry companies, spends one January morning tossing grenades with his troops at a small arms training range deep in Fort Stewart's endless acres of Georgia pines and marshlands.

"Anytime you can blow something up, it's a good day," says Smith, 33, who jokes that his arm has grown a bit limp from tossing about 20 live grenades that morning. His battlefield job will be to monitor his company's movements from just behind the front lines in a command-and-control vehicle. He's eager to get that live-fire experience. "No one wants war, but this is why most of these guys joined the infantry. As a company commander, this is the position you want to be in," he says.

The training range is Smith's respite from the seemingly endless preparations of the past few weeks. About 90 percent of his company's gear-including about 300 VHS movies and weight-training equipment-has been packed for shipping. "Right now, we are hoping we don't forget something. It's like before you go on vacation, you don't want to leave the iron on," Smith says. The captain is a counselor too, reminding his troops to get their bills paid on time, have their financial records up to date and leave contact information behind with loved ones. But he can't answer the most common question-the one his wife, who just found out she is pregnant, is also asking. "Honestly, I don't know when we leave," says Smith. He'd like enough notice to give his soldiers 72 hours off.

One of Smith's men, Pvt. Charles Jones, says he could use the leave. Since the deployment orders came, Jones has been working weekends driving Army equipment to the docks in Savannah and logging overtime on the training ranges. Jones, a 20-year-old Mississippian, says he signed up for the Army when he was 17 with plans to stay only long enough to earn a free college education. "I never thought I'd be in a situation like this. As much as everybody talks, nobody wants to go to war," he says.

Back behind the grenade bunkers and ranges, where brownish-gray clouds of Georgia soil erupt every few minutes as grenades are tossed, soldiers only a few years out of high school mill about. One sits on a wooden bench in a bunker, quietly reading Guns magazine. Others exchange dirty jokes that only those barely past puberty can appreciate. A young private tells Smith he can't wait to change into his desert camouflage uniform because the tan leather boots don't require polishing like the black ones do. Smith laughs, perhaps recalling his days as a private in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Smith knows that many of his troops were not even in high school during the last war. "Attitude is everything," he says. "I know these guys can do the job." A visitor wishes the company commander good luck. Without a pause, he replies, "We don't need it."

Still, the reality of war doesn't sink in until the soldiers are about to board a plane headed overseas. Some handle the knowledge better than others. At Hunter Army Airfield, the service's busiest deployment terminal, an Army National Guardsman once claimed he had his congressmen's backing and didn't have to go on a deployment. The Guardsman ended up getting on the plane with the help of military policemen, who escorted him to his seat in handcuffs. Another soldier went AWOL from his unit and checked into a motel the night before he was slated to leave Hunter. A police bulletin and an alert desk clerk helped commanders track him down. He changed back into his uniform in the terminal before boarding the plane. "Everything becomes real when they see that plane sitting out there," says Rick Patrick, air facilities manager at the airfield.

The vast majority of soldiers, though, board the planes without incident. As with loading ships, the Army has made a science out of deploying soldiers for war. In mid-January, as many as six chartered airliners per day took off from Hunter for Kuwait, each with about 200 soldiers from the 3rd Division's 1st Brigade and all of their personal gear.

The 3rd Division's kiss-and-cry area is not at Hunter, but at Fort Stewart, where soldiers say goodbye to their families at a base gymnasium before boarding white school buses for the 50-minute ride to the Savannah base. Upon arrival, they quietly file into a terminal that looks like an oversized high school gym. A huge American flag is draped at one end of the hall, and the division's tri-colored logo is at the other.As many as 1,500 soldiers can occupy the terminal, but for most operations only a few hundred at a time will leave. If a plane breaks down, the terminal becomes a barracks, with enough showers, cots and blankets for 400 soldiers.

Soldiers play cards, make small talk and paw through goodie bags handed out to them by volunteers from the USO, the Red Cross, and other local civic organizations. As their units are called to two small counters for check-in, soldiers are weighed on digital scales with all their carry-on items, including gas masks and weapons. Bar-coded military photo identification cards are matched against the plane's passenger list, and soldiers are cleared to go to the other end of the building for a hot meal. After eating, their IDs are checked again. They file into a narrow "sterile room" to sit on a single bank of bleachers, where they must remain until boarding. They get a final briefing about what to do in the unlikely event of a hijacking. Fifteen minutes go by, and the soldiers are called to the plane in groups of 10 or 20. In full battle dress, with rifles slung over their shoulders and small duffel bags in their hands, they move one by one across the runway, up a row of white stairs and into their seats on the chartered plane.

Weeks of waiting, wondering, planning and packing are finally over. Now the soldiers can start thinking about when-or if-they'll be ordered into battle.