A Soft Place to Fall: Who Is Protecting Our Soldiers While They Are Protecting Us? - Softcover

Smith, Victoria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 145672519X ISBN 13: 9781456725198

Verlag: AuthorHouse, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

For every parent/spouse/sibling/loved one of a war fighter, this book will ease your burden. For every soldier/airman/sailor/war fighter, this book is a tribute to you

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Victoria Smith is an Education Consultant and Children's Author in the UK. Loves playing squash and laughing out loud. Dislikes mushrooms and mood hoovers. Having worked in education for many years she began to create stories to share with her youngest child.....and the rest, as they say, is history! Her debut book 'Big H and Little h Dog' was written to raise awareness about the deadly disease Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). 100% of profit from sales of the first book will be donated to Harrison's Fund, a charity striving to get funds into the hands of the world's best researchers working hard to find a cure for DMD. She looks forward to sharing her heart-warming and humorous stories with you over the coming years. Follow Victoria @bongtreebooks on Instagram and Facebook.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

A Soft Place To Fall

Who is Protecting Our Soldiers While They Are Protecting Us?By Victoria Smith

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Victoria Smith
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4567-2519-8

Chapter One

There is an important story that has yet to be told about the co-existence, and yes, partnership, between the United States military members who fought in the Iraq war and the civilian contractors who stood with them. This story is not about a company or a contract. It is not about me, although the events revealed are taken from my personal experiences. It is about human-ness, if there is such a word, that existed in the midst of a war, in one of the harshest environments in the world. The following events and moments involved people, both soldiers and civilians, who came from all over the world and from multiple backgrounds, giving the overall project and experience its own unique personality. I began my journey in Kuwait on June 1, 2003. I was hired by KBR to work in Human Resources for the LOGCAP project, primarily to assist new employees as they transitioned from the U.S. to the Middle East. Briefly, LOGCAP was the logistics contract between KBR and the United States Government whereby KBR was contracted to provide base life support to the war fighter. Base life support included the construction and management of dining facilities, laundry services, morale, welfare and recreation facilities, spot generation for power and facilities maintenance, among other things. I soon realized that the true mission was not in Kuwait but in Iraq and requested to move there. Since I had never been out of the country, much less exposed to war, I will admit that I was more frightened than I cared to admit at the time. But by August 4, 2003, I was living and working in Baghdad, in an area that was then referred to as the Green Zone. In February 2004, I was assigned as the Site Manager in the Green Zone at Camp Wolfpack. The "Green Zone," as it was referred to in 2003 and 2004, was located in the middle of Baghdad and was one of the "hottest" areas in Iraq at the time and continued to be "active" for many years. It subsequently became known as the "International Zone." While working at Camp Wolfpack, there was not one day that we did not receive indirect fire of some type, which consisted mostly of mortar or rocket attacks but also include small arms fire. The attacks would come at all hours, from the middle of the day to the wee hours of the morning, awakening even the soundest of sleepers. After donning protective gear that consisted of Kevlar helmet and vest, there was a frantic run to the bunkers, while knocking on doors to make sure everyone made it to safety. This was a normal daily activity. In addition, it was necessary for soldiers and civilians alike to travel on Route Irish, which was the only road from the Green Zone to Baghdad International Airport. In 2003 and 2004, Route Irish was classified as the most dangerous road in the world. I've seen countless vehicles reduced to scrap metal abandoned along that road after encountering an IED (improvised explosive device). Our brave military made daily passes up and down that road in tanks in an effort to apprehend and/ or discourage those who would emplace such devices. During my time at Wolfpack, I met a young Sergeant. As he did not have a coffee maker available to him, his practice was to stop by my office every morning for a cup of coffee. No matter what happened the day before or in the middle of the night with regard to hostile activity, I or one of my staff members had his coffee waiting for him, bright and early. On many days he stayed to talk after he finished his coffee and told me of his concerns for his wife and their 4-year-old son. His wife was not doing well, as she was worried about his deployment in Iraq, and the pressure of suddenly becoming a single mother, along with her concern for her husband's safety, was impacting her health. He asked for my advice, "what do I say to her to let her know that everything will be okay? I told him to reassure her that he loved her; that nothing could keep him away for long; and that she should try to stay strong for their son. I departed the Green Zone in July 2004 to work in Kuwait for the next year and his unit was scheduled to depart sometime in 2005. Although his unit had taken heavy casualties in 2003 and 2004, I subsequently heard that there were no further military casualties of his unit from Camp Wolfpack in 2004.

I am not the only civilian that dedicated time, effort and passion to supporting the U.S. military in Iraq. KBR is not the only company that employed civilians for this purpose; that said, evidence would confirm that KBR was the best contractor taking care of our soldiers, as several other companies had been awarded similar contracts but were unable to perform well and their contracts were cancelled in 2004. These are facts as I understand them. I worked for KBR in the Middle East from 2003-2010. Family and friends asked at first, "why would you work in a war zone?" I had a good job in Austin prior to my departure and left behind my best friends and of course my family. My grandson James was only three years old in 2003, and the light of my life. I had been part of his daily life since his birth and it was the hardest thing I have ever done when I said good-bye to him in late May 2003. He wasn't old enough to understand that I would be gone for a long time but would be returning, and my heart broke every time I thought of him. Did he wonder where I was? Did he know I was coming back?

I'll be honest, I had no idea what I would be getting into when I departed he U.S., not really. I had been briefed about the hostile environment, including camel spiders, scorpions, relentless heat, and that I would no doubt live in a tent, at least for a while. Those things were such an insignificant part of the journey that they are hardly worth mentioning.

So why did I go and why would others choose to work in a war zone, so far away from everything and everyone they love? Is it even important to write this book? I believe that there are soldiers who served in Iraq who will want to read this book; and it may lift a burden off of their loved ones, just knowing that while their children/spouses/parents/ siblings were 8,000 miles away fighting a war without the benefit of their loved ones' support, or the ability to find comfort in almost any way, there were people supporting them who, first of all, cared. They demonstrated that over and over again not only with their actions, but by the very fact that they were also 8,000 miles away from home. For those who believe that contractors make good salaries, those people are correct. But speaking from experience, let me tell you that there is not enough money in the world to ease the stress of fearing for your life; missing family; and working 84 hours every week, week after week, month after month. As evidenced by the deaths of many of my co-workers, rockets and mortars do not discriminate between soldiers and civilians. Many good people working hard to support their families lost their lives not because they were doing anything particularly dangerous at the time, they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although they accepted, as I did, the responsibility for themselves and knew the dangers of working in a war zone before leaving home, they chose to do what they did for various reasons that they obviously felt passionate about. I cannot speak for everyone. I will share with you what I learned from my new employees at each "new hire" brief I gave when I was a project manager. Their...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: AuthorHouse
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 145672519X
• ISBN 13: 9781456725198
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 64
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland