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Reservists say they remain in Iraq with no mission
By BILL BURKE
Members of a Fort Eustis reserve unit say they were sent to fly perilous missions over Iraq with outdated night vision goggles, old missile-avoidance systems and communications equipment they were unable to use.
They had to secretly borrow higher-quality night-vision goggles from a Navy source who ``probably put his career on the line to do something that our chain of command was unwilling to do,'' they say.
In a letter to Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-1st District, the soldiers say they were treated like second-class citizens when compared with active-duty military, even though they were involved in the search for weapons of mass destruction during combat.
``Our air crews asked, `Why are the active units getting the extra protection and we are not, are we not as valuable? Is our mission not as important?' '' the letter asks.
It points out that some of the soldiers were issued bulletproof vests without the insertable ceramic plates that make them bulletproof and mittens with wool inserts -- ``knowing that the average temperature from April through October is 120 degrees.''
And though their mission ended June 24, they say they are being kept at a tented compound in Camp Udairi, Kuwait, ``without a purpose,'' a deployment the Army said probably will not end until next year.
The letter was written by Chief Warrant Officer Bill Basabilbaso of Newport News, a pilot and flight instructor in the unit. It echoes concerns raised by many other reservists, whose call-ups have increased dramatically since the United States launched its war on terrorism in 2001.
Basabilbaso said he sent the letter to Davis ``for her eyes only, not for public consumption.''
He said he wrote to Davis ``hoping she could initiate an investigation that will result in better funding and better training for the reserve soldier and better management of the reserve soldier once deployed.''
``This is a serious situation,'' Chris Connelly, Davis' chief of staff, said Friday. He said Davis will ask the secretary of the Army to review the issues raised in the letter.
Friends and family members of the 45-man Army aviation detachment said the letter expresses concerns shared by unit members and their families.
``It is disturbing to know that our men and women in uniform are being sent to fight a war without the proper equipment,'' said Kerry Bannon, a Norfolk resident whose fiance, Spc. Gregory Robinette, is a member of the unit.
Bannon said she supports the president, but the letter's questions need to be answered. She sent a version of the letter to Virginia's two U.S. senators, John Warner, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and George Allen; and Rep. Ed Schrock, who represents the 2nd District.
In response, Schrock is ``drafting a letter to go to Army legislative affairs to try to find out what the problems are,'' said Tom Gordy, Schrock's chief of staff, on Friday. ``We often see that active-duty components have more modern equipment, and the reserve components sometimes have equipment that does not meet standards. A lot of times the reserves get the hand-me-downs.''
The disparity between equipment used by reserve and active-duty components ``is an issue we're going to have to address to reduce friendly-fire incidents and make sure we do things most efficiently,'' Gordy said.
Allen responded to Bannon on Sept. 5, saying he was sending a copy of the letter to the Department of the Army ``for their consideration, and I have asked them to keep me informed of their progress.''
Warner spokesman John Ullyot said Friday that the senator ``is looking into the matter.''
The reserve unit -- Detachment 1, B Company, 5th Battalion, 159th Aviation Regiment -- is made up of pilots who fly Chinook CH-47D helicopters and their support crew, including flight engineers, technicians and mechanics.
Most of the unit's members live in Virginia. They include college students, policemen, medical evacuation pilots, business owners and current and former airline pilots.
The part-time soldiers were mobilized Feb. 2 and arrived in Kuwait March 7, accompanied by four disassembled Chinooks the men reassembled at Camp Udairi, a U.S. air base in Kuwait, about 15 miles south of the Iraqi border.
The unit's battalion commander said last week that their deployment has been extended to a year under a new Pentagon policy that will mean longer duty assignments for Army reservists and National Guardsmen in Iraq and Kuwait. The unit's activation orders called for the members to spend no more than 179 days overseas.
The unit's aviators logged about 400 hours of daytime and nighttime flying during their mission, which was supporting the 75th Exploitation Task Force in the unsuccessful search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the letter said. Much of the mission was conducted under combat conditions after the March 20 Iraqi invasion. The unit suffered no casualties.
These are among the issues addressed in the letter:
Night-vision goggles
The unit unsuccessfully lobbied superiors to buy upgraded goggles long before deployment to Kuwait because the goggles that had been issued, called Type 1, are obsolete, the letter said.
``The Type 1 style were responsible for the many losses of aircraft and crews during Desert Storm,'' the letter said.
During a 10-year period starting in the mid-1980s, more than 183 aviators were killed and hundreds were injured in 88 crashes in which night-vision goggles were used, according to news reports. Flyers were wearing Type 1 goggles when some of those crashes occurred, according to those reports.
The head of the Army's aviation night-vision program said it would be an oversimplification to blame crashes and deaths solely on goggles. But he said the Army does not encourage the use of Type 1 goggles in combat.
Few Type 1 goggles remain in the Army's inventory, and most of them probably belong to reserve units, said Master Warrant Officer Dennis J. McIntire, who heads the Army's Aviation Night Vision Devices Branch at Fort Rucker, Ala.
He said the Fort Eustis unit should have upgraded to newer goggles before deployment. ``We want the guys who are on the front to have the best stuff,'' he said.
The detachment's commanders ``made every attempt'' to acquire upgraded goggles before deployment but were unsuccessful, said Lt. Col. Mark C. Smith, who commands the 5th Battalion, 159th Aviation Regiment. Smith responded from Kuwait to a series of written questions.
About a week before deployment, the reservists borrowed higher-quality goggles to use in the Middle East from a man who works for the Navy's night-vision goggles branch.
The special goggles amplify tiny particles of light and heat images, affording aviators a green-hued view of nocturnal landscapes that are virtually indiscernible to the unaided eye.
Still, flying in a low-light desert environment at night, especially under hostile conditions, ``is incredibly dangerous, the most dangerous helicopter flying you can do,'' said Tim Brown, a senior fellow with the Washington think tank GlobalSecurity.org.
There's little room for error when a pilot is traveling at more than 100 mph, Brown said, hugging the ground under radar at an altitude of 50 feet or less. ``You want the best equipment there is for that,'' he said.
Outmoded communications and safety equipment.
The unit's helicopters are equipped with outdated missile-avoidance systems, and commanders turned down aviators' requests for newer ones, the letter said.
It added that the latest equipment can help aviators avoid heat-seeking missiles used by Iraqi soldiers. The aging systems still installed on the unit's Chinooks were designed to combat missiles used in the 1970s and early 1980s, according to the letter.
Those systems are effective ``only under the best conditions, i.e. seeing the missile when it is launched and then being able to fly the helicopter behind something that will mask our huge heat signature such as a large sand dune or building (unlikely).''
The new systems cost about $80,000 each. Unit members said they were told that the Army provided only active-duty units with the systems.
Smith said the battalion asked to be moved up on the Army's ``Force Modernization Plan'' to obtain the systems but was unable to get them before deployment.
However, Smith said, the current equipment ``is an effective system and provides adequate protection for our helicopters.''
Most of the soldiers in the unit deployed without desert flight suits and flight boots, the letter said. Many of the soldiers, including ground crewmen, were not given protective inserts for their bulletproof vests, though flight crews were provided with the proper vests before taking part in the search for weapons of mass destruction, a member of the unit said.
``We even had to take money out of our own pockets to get oil and oil filters for the military vehicles we were taking with us,'' the letter said.
The unit members also complained that they were not properly trained to use on-board radios and other communications equipment that could help distinguish friend from foe in combat conditions.
``Since we operated out of Kuwait far into Iraq,'' the letter said, ``we had no way to relay problems, or get changes to our mission as they arose.''
More importantly, ``we had no way to relay a message if we had problems, or forced landings, unless we were in a location where we could contact the patrolling AWACS,'' or reconnaissance aircraft, the letter said.
Smith responded that the detachment was without a communications officer for more than a year before mobilization. Shortly before the unit was mobilized, it was assigned a replacement officer ``who has done an outstanding job'' providing training on high-frequency radios and other communications equipment, he said.
Unfortunately, he said, some of the training was provided after Detatchment 1 had departed.
Defense analyst Brown said he is not surprised when he hears that reserve units are not as well-equipped or highly trained as active components of the armed forces.
``Generally the Guard and reserve are the last to get the new stuff,'' he said. ``The active-duty guys . . . they always get the new stuff.''
Stuck in Kuwait
In Kuwait, the men in Detachment 1 spend their nights sleeping in air-conditioned tents and their days battling boredom, relatives and friends said. They kill time hanging out at the morale welfare center, watching football games on TV, playing video games on an Xbox and making day trips to Camp Doha, family members said.
Families and friends of the unit's members said earlier this month that they were issued orders to be sent home in September, but those orders were revoked without explanation.
Smith said he requested that the detachment be extended ``to assist this battalion in accomplishing this mission.'' He did not describe that mission.
Now the men are part of the Pentagon's new policy, which means that Army reservists will spend one year in the Middle East unless the U.S. Central Command decides to send them home early, Smith said.
Smith said he understands the soldiers' disappointment. ``But I consider them vital to the success of this unit's mission in support of the global war on terrorism.''
The Virginian-Pilot recently contacted more than a dozen family members and friends of the men in the unit, but most were reluctant to talk, saying they feared reprisals from the military.
One who did talk is Amanda Harris of Wise. She is the wife of a helicopter mechanic in the unit, Spc. Brian Harris. The two wed on Jan. 30, three days before he left Southwest Virginia for Fort Eustis.
``Neither one of us would be so frustrated if he had a mission there, but their mission is over,'' said Amanda Harris, 21.
In their letter, the unit members noted that their continued deployment in Kuwait without a mission ``will damage the retention of good experienced soldiers in the unit.''
The letter concludes: ``We did our mission; it is time for us to return to our lives, because we know that soon enough, we will be called again to serve for an extended period of time.''
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© Copyright 2003 HamptonRoads.com
Edited by - ViperTTB on Sep 17 2003 3:42 PM
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