Airmen work with Soldiers to help Iraqi communities

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Melissa Phillips
  • 407th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs
TALLIL AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  The public works directorate here, comprising Air Force and Army civil engineers, work on everything from constructing new facilities to designing waste-water treatment facilities to installing electric power nodes.

“In short, if you need a construction project done, we do it all,” said Maj. Thomas Niichel, 732nd Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron’s Detachment 2 deputy commander here. He is deployed from the Colorado Air National Guard’s 240th Civil Engineer Flight at Buckley Air Force Base.

Besides being part of the Army directorate, the Airmen are also assigned to the 732nd ECES, which is a squadron with its headquarters at Balad Air Base, Iraq. It has more than 325 Airmen spread out over 12 detachments throughout U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility.

Airmen in the squadron augment Army or Marine units and provide civil engineering expertise and support in Iraq.

“The Air Force brings a unique engineering capability not usually found in the Army,” said Col. Mike Flood, who is also deployed from the 240th CES. “Our team here is truly joint with 10 (Airmen) and five (Soldiers).

“We work as one team,” he said. “Every Airman and Soldier is focused on building a small city while ensuring we ... take care of each other.”

Working outside the normal Air Force environment has been an eye-opener for Senior Airman Larry Washington, who is deployed from Ellsworth AFB, S.D.

The Soldiers the Airmen help sometimes do not have hot meals regularly, he said. They live in rough conditions at rural posts helping the Iraqi people rebuild their lives.

Although not as realistic as living in the field, the Airmen got a small taste of what life is like in the Army before their deployments.

The Air Force engineers must attend three weeks of combat skills training in the U.S. where they learn convoy techniques, weapons operations and close-quarters fighting skills before deploying to Southwest Asia for another week of training.

All the time spent away from their families does not count toward their deployment time. The Air Force engineers here have been in country since January.

Part engineer and humanitarian enthusiast, the seamless crew had worked off base on more than 50 missions in the past three months. They have installed water supply pumps and electricity, paved roads and helped Iraqis maintain their water canals.

And they helped deliver tents to Iraqis and coordinate medical attention for injured Iraqi children.

Airman Washington said a memorable job for him was installing electricity in an Army-sponsored doctor’s office in a small Iraqi town.

Before their visit, the doctor was examining and providing health care to local children without lighting and with temperatures soaring above 100 degrees. The Soldiers stationed there did not have a washer, and their bathroom facilities were outhouses.

After the job was finished, the Army doctor thanked them, Airman Washington said. “It felt good, because I knew I made a difference to him.”

Airman 1st Class Mitchell Zipprich, also deployed from Ellsworth AFB, said he knows he is making a difference when he looks outside the Humvee window driving to remote locations.

“The news portrays us as the bad guys, and that we are treating Iraqis wrong,” said Airman Zipprich, who has been in the military for less than two years. “That’s not true. We’re building it back up to turn the country over to them.

“They live in old abandoned tents,” he said. “We are over here doing something; it’s not just all for the American people.”

The engineers currently have 162 projects in various stages of design or funding and 25 projects in execution. Although some of the projects do not directly affect the Airmen stationed here, they do immediately affect the quality of life for the Soldiers.

“The ... crew does an outstanding job providing construction support and service to the (Soldiers),” said Army 1st Lt. Robert McElhaney. “They’ve become so good at speaking the Army language, most of the time, we don’t even notice they are (Airmen).”

Engineers recently renovated six buildings including a mosque, installed morale call trailers and several other morale, welfare and recreation projects.

Often taking on unglamorous jobs, the crew also built new waste-water treatment lagoons and repaired water supply canals to benefit people here.

“It may not look as good as some of the other bases in theater, but in spite of the looting that took place (before Operation Iraqi Freedom), this base is quickly developing into a very capable logistics base,” Colonel Flood said. (1st Lt. Keith Boyea, Multinational Task Force-Iraq and Staff Sgt. Ryan Hansen, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing public affairs, contributed to this article.)