CAMP VIPER, Iraq - With truck tires and helicopter blades kicking up sand, Camp Viper is seemingly in a never-ending dust storm.
For the unforeseeable future, this base in the American-controlled territory deep in southern Iraq will be the home of the 319th Transportation Company.
Right now, it's not much of a home.
Camp Viper is still in its set-up phase. It does not have showers, bathrooms or a chow hall. Pre-packaged "meals ready to eat" make for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The air smells of gasoline and burning trash.
Soldiers will be sleeping outside under makeshift tents from tarps attached to tanks and trucks until tents are set up. The camp is mostly made up of fleets of cargo trucks, Humvees and tankers, some part of the Marines' 6th Motors Transport Battalion, which sent vehicles to Viper from Camp Coyote in Kuwait in the same convoy as the 319th.
Getting to Camp Viper was an exhausting process for the Augusta-based Army Reserve unit. The men and women were unexpectedly rustled out of their beds at Camp Coyote at 4:30 a.m. Saturday and told to pack up. In a consummate example of the Army mantra "Hurry up and wait," the convoy didn't pull out until 4 p.m. because of delays in determining a route. The morning saw a wicked sandstorm as the soldiers and marines waited by their vehicles to depart.
On the trip north, at least 14 trucks stopped for mechanical problems. Four were 319th trucks. The others were the so-called hajis, civilian trucks contracted out by Arabs to the marines. They aren't built for rough terrain and got stuck or broke down repeatedly.
Because of the stops, the convoy broke apart, forcing some of the 319th trucks and humvees to travel without their Marine escorts.
Daylight had broken as the smaller group crossed the southern Iraqi desert, making their way toward Viper. In some places the land was completely barren, with nothing to see but an ocean of sand. They passed abandoned buildings, a pack of feral dogs and an oil refinery. At one, the troops raised their rifles when they saw a civilian jeep approaching.
Riding inside was a group of turban-wearing Arabs, who passed giving the soldiers the thumbs-up sign.
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Lt. Daniel Perugini, 30, of Augusta, and 2nd Lt. Richard Kennedy, 33, of North Augusta, discuss moving a groups of trucks.
JOHNNY EDWARDS/STAFF
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Sgt. 1st Class Jonathan Fields, of Hephzibah, said that with all the American military at the camp, he felt very safe.
"I drive around out here, and I don't even feel threatened," he said.
However, a Scud missile alert forced the camp into its highest readiness level, prompting soldiers to put on for the first time their entire chemical protection outfit. The alert lasted for about 45 minutes.
Spc. Paula Linkenhoker, 32, of Stapleton, Ala., part of a group from a Mobile-based unit attached to the 319th, said she feels safer here than she did at Camp Coyote. She said while driving during the day, she saw people on the side of the road, apparently civilians, trying to surrender.
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Sgt. 1st Class Jonathan Fields, 39, of Hephzibah, watches as fuel is pumped out of a tank and into the fuel farm behind him.
JOHNNY EDWARDS/STAFF
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"Now I feel like I'm actually doing something, instead of sitting around all day," Spc. Linkenhoker said.
