Backtalk: Hope and reform

[unhappycamper]

Hope and reform
By Command Sgt. Maj. Edgar W. Dahl

Hundreds of miles from Baghdad, tucked in the southeast corner of Iraq near the deep-water port of Umm Qasr and only half a mile from the border of Kuwait, is Forward Operating Base Bucca. Within this one mile-by-two mile expanse of desert is the world’s largest military detention camp.

Ten thousand soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, other Coalition Force members and civilians call it home. Inside the wire, the 19,000 detainees call it other things. For them, Bucca is the place they ended up after CF captured them in operations across Iraq.

For those who have not been here, it cannot be easily explained. One thing this place is not, however, is Abu Ghraib circa 2003 — far from it, literally and figuratively.

During the day, the steady wind tugs at tent ropes, swirls dust and blows trash into the miles of concertina wire that enclose the dozens of compounds that make up the Theater Internment Facility. At night, thousands of lights wash the area in a fluorescent and halogen glow. Generators hum and add to the sterile, all-business ambience of the enclosure.

Flying over the “city blocks” of the TIF at night by helicopter is something better seen than described. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, hundreds of tower scouts surround the compounds in their high perches and roving guards enforce compliance with rules, keep watch over the place and log hundreds of miles walking in rectangular beats around their guard post. It is work that is hot, dusty, physically and mentally draining, and monotonous — most of the time.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/community/opinion/army_backtalk_bucca_062308/