CAMP VIPER, Iraq - Troops moving through Iraq are leaving behind a not-so-pretty touch of home.
Where Americans go, the desert landscape once littered only with bush weeds becomes littered with, well, litter.
Marines and soldiers are dropping water bottles, cardboard boxes and empty Meals Ready to Eat packages, which they live off of. It happens more in remote areas or at campsites still in their setup phase.
As convoys travel and park, some truckers would rather litter than go long distances with trash at their feet. If they keep the trash with them, they can't dispose of it until they stop at a camp with trash bags or a burn pit.
"There aren't any trash cans," said Marine Cpl. Damein McCullough, 25, of Memphis, Tenn., a member of the 2nd Supply Battalion who passed through Camp Viper in southern Iraq in a convoy Thursday.
"If we leave the trash in our truck, flies will get up in here, then if we have to shoot, we'll be swatting away flies. I think if there were trash cans around, people would use them," he said.
Marine Cpl. Sherman Player, 24, of Asheville, N.C., a member of the 8th Engineer Support Battalion who came through on the same convoy, said he keeps his trash in a metal bucket inside his cab, despite the flies. Cpl. Tyler Parker, 22, of Tampa, Fla., from the 2nd Maintenance Battalion, said he learned not to drop trash outside in boot camp.
"We're trained not to do that," Cpl. Parker said. "It leaves a trail, and the enemy can tell how low on water you are by how many bottles are thrown out."
The Transportation Support Group, the supply-moving and transportation component of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, has had tents and dividing sand berms set up in its area of Camp Viper for more than a week. Soldiers and Marines now put trash in bags or cardboard boxes outside tents. Later they wet it with diesel fuel and burn it in holes dug in the sand.
Before the camp became so organized, it was made up of fleets of trucks parked in the desert. Left in their wake are specks of white all over the brown terrain - tissue paper, plastic bottles and wads of plastic wrapping. Pieces of Meals Ready to Eat, both empty boxes and empty food containers, are everywhere, along with crushed soda cans and tire treads.
Some of the same trash can be found along dirt roads and highways leading to other camps and fuel points. Stray dogs and local children pick through empty meal packages looking for scraps.
Transportation Support Group commanding officer Col. Dave Reist said Marines aren't supposed to be littering, and he would correct any man or woman he saw doing so. But landscape trash is an inevitability of war, he said.
"We're here to get Saddam Hussein out," the colonel said. "It's like when your wife just finished cleaning the carpet, and you've got to walk across it to get something. It's going to leave marks, but it just has to be done."
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Read previous stories by Johnny Edwards in our "Conflict with Iraq" special section.
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When the war is over, Col. Reist said his unit will be responsible for cleaning up his area of Camp Viper and Camps Guam and Siapan back in Camp Coyote in northern Kuwait, where the transportation group stayed before moving forward. But the unit won't worry about the mess in the desert around them, and the colonel said he isn't worried about it now.
"The desert will consume it eventually," Col. Reist said, referring to sandstorms. "Right now I've got bigger fish to fry. I can't afford to put people out there with trash bags when I need them on the road."
Col. Reist said the reality is, the units assembled in camps are reflections of American society.
"It's less than professional behavior," the colonel said. "The guy who throws trash out is probably the same guy who doesn't have his flak vest on, doesn't have his helmet on, and a lot of things."
Cpl. Parnell Cooper, 33, of Hephzibah, a member of the 319th Transportation Company, an Augusta-based Army Reserve unit attached to the Marines, burned a bag full of trash and water bottles outside the 319th's camp Thursday night. He said that, when he drives, he doesn't throw trash out the window because he doesn't want the food to spoil or become tainted, and an Iraqi child who eats it to fall ill.
"Why make a bad situation even worse?" Cpl. Cooper said.
