“What’s there to do for fun over there?”

This is one of the most-asked questions I get from friends and family members when I talk to them via e-mail or over the phone. I assume they have visions – as I did, before arriving here – of shoddy, makeshift tents crammed with dozens of soldiers sitting in a circle and using a cot for a table as they play Texas Hold ‘Em by flashlight. Contrary to their initial beliefs, I tell them there are actually much more activities available to us than there is time to participate in them all.

Starting first thing in the morning, early risers can go to the indoor gym and play floor hockey or a fiercely competitive game of dodgeball. Directly across the street is a 24-hour weight room packed with a plethora of Nautilus equipment, free weights, yoga mats, punching bags, stationary bikes and treadmills. Next to the fitness center are two basketball courts, three volleyball courts and a pair of horseshoe pits. (Picture at left: Spc. Jimmy Gartin dunks a basketball during a pick-up game with Sgt. Stephen Bantle outside the "House of Pain" gym at the 7th Transportation Company's organizational day at Camp Adder, Iraq.)

In addition to that, there are classes offered seven days a week for almost any specialty you can imagine. I’m quite partial to the abdominal class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The instructor is a petite female soldier and former gymnast who successfully manages to make muscle-bound grown men cry for mercy and clutch their guts in masochistic agony by the end of the class – and she barely breaks a sweat. Not to toot my own horn, but I’ve been going there for three months now and have been getting pretty good at it. About three-quarters through each class, I reach what I like to call “abdominal nirvana,” where my stomach muscles are exercised to their peak and everything after that is just excess, like sharpening a pencil and seeing no more shavings fall away.

A military organization known as Morale, Welfare and Recreation is responsible for coordinating a wide array of on-post clubs and extracurricular activities. There are groups that meet weekly to play Dungeons & Dragons or Halo 2, watch Japanese animation, sing karaoke, practice Salsa dancing and listen to hip-hop, among others. Marathons, relay races and fundraising 5Ks are held with impressive regularity.

The USO, known best for Bob Hope’s appearances several decades ago, has sent several big-name bands, musicians and stand-up comedians to perform at our base – among them Grammy and American Idol winner Carried Underwood (whom I had the privilege to meet and interview). (Picture: Carrie Underwood performs a concert for soldiers Nov. 16 at Camp Adder, Iraq.)

There is a “lounge room” filled to the rafters with donated paperback books, magazines, board games and movies – and accompanying couches, tables and chairs on which to relax and enjoy these amenities.

Internet access and reasonably-priced phone services are available at several cafés throughout the base where soldiers can call home, check their MySpace pages and order stuff online (or e-mail blog entries to their hometown newspapers).

If I’m in my room, I usually spend my time watching DVDs, listening to music, playing my Nintendo DS or reading. I’m running low on 80-cent Air Mail stamps, but I also write letters to my wife or draw pictures for my daughter when I have the time. And sometimes I clean up (sorry, roomie).

I think it’s pretty obvious why there’s such an abundance of stuff for us to do during our off-duty hours. Probably more than anything, soldiers in a war zone need access to leisurely hobbies and certain creature comforts to take their minds off the stresses of the day.

Sgts. Derek Fry, left, and Cory Howland, both National Guard soldiers with the Brainerd, Minn.-based 1st Combined Arms Battalion, 194th Armor Regiment, take an afternoon break hitting golf balls at a makeshift driving range nicknamed "The Caddy Shack" March 14 at Camp Adder, Iraq.

Posted by · March 29, 2007 4:01 PM · Comments (0)

Within five days of arriving to my unit in Nasiriyah last October, my first story assignment was one that involved venturing outside the safety of our base’s perimeter – “the wire,” as we call it – and riding in a convoy to the nearby town of Al Batha.

In my five years as an active-duty servicemember I was never deployed, despite being there at the cusp of both Sept. 11 and the Iraq War. Therefore, my only viewpoint of the conflict was what I saw on the news. And what I saw wasn’t good.

I’d watch a SPECIAL REPORT! on TV about a suicide bomber who walked into the heart of a crowded marketplace and detonated himself, or I’d read a front-page story in my local newspaper about improvised explosive devices that were being placed along the roads and left there until a line of Army Humvees passed by, when an unseen trigger man would then set off the blasts. Basically, Iraqi highways and urban areas were not where you wanted to be.

And yet, here I was: once again in uniform and now a bona fide wartime journalist about to embark on his first mission after a short but comfortable break as the civilian editor of an Army newspaper, two years removed from my former existence as a soldier.

I won’t say I had forgotten everything the Army taught me – my writing and photography skills were obviously still fresh in my mind, and I had faint recollections of how to march in formation and properly fire a rifle – but I had, for the most part, moved on from that chapter of my life after proudly fulfilling my duty. So you can understand what a jarring ordeal it was for me to be suddenly thrust back into a military mindset and lifestyle – and in the middle of a war, no less.

A mere eight weeks earlier I had been at the Airport Hilton in El Paso, enjoying the last few days with my wife and daughter before they flew to Japan to stay with her parents for the duration of my deployment. As for me, I traveled to two Army bases in four weeks for “refresher” training before heading back to El Paso in order to be shipped overseas. Needless to say, it was a lot to take in.

I was still taking it in on the morning of Oct. 5, 2006, while preparing to hit the road for the aforementioned assignment. Members of our command were going to attend the unveiling of a new reverse-osmosis water treatment plant and a renovated playground, both of them built with the help of Army engineers and American civil affairs dollars. It would be my job to chronicle this event.

After hoisting 60-pound protective vests over our shoulders and onto our backs, we headed out on the road. Every cardboard box we passed, which looked like they had just been simply discarded on the side of the highway, was a potential explosive device in my mind. Every random pile of dirt or piece of trash seemed like a big boom waiting to happen. I didn’t know what to expect, so I just sucked in a deep breath and held it each time we drove by something that was even remotely out of the ordinary.

We arrived to our destination without incident, and the grand openings of the water plant and playground went off without a hitch. I saw children who were ecstatic to have a source of clean water in their town and a place to play together after school. The entire experience was nothing like I expected and was one of my most memorable assignments, considering it was just a simple ribbon-cutting.

And so we returned to base. I had successfully and safely completed coverage of my first wartime assignment.

It felt good.

A group of Iraqi children dance and laugh in the town of Al Batha, Iraq. They and several others had gathered to witness the grand opening of a new playground and reverse-osmosis water treatment plant that had been renovated with the help of U.S. Army engineers.

Posted by · March 25, 2007 9:57 PM · Comments (0)

So I suppose introductions are in order.

My name is Dustin Perry, I am 25 years old, and I am currently serving in Iraq as a photojournalist for the U.S. Army. I got my start in this line of work almost 12 years ago when I took Journalism as a freshman at Cooper High School. Need more of my ties to Abilene? I worked at H-E-B for two years and logged more than 900 hours as a junior volunteer at then-named Hendrick Medical Center.

I joined the Army after graduation (Class of ‘99!) and following a grueling nine weeks of basic training in Oklahoma, I was sent to the Defense Information School in Fort Meade, Md., to hone my craft as a news writer and photographer.

In May 2000, I arrived at my first duty station – Camp Zama, Japan – and subsequently fell in love with the place (seriously, ask anyone who knows me.) For three years I was a staff writer and part-time editor of the Torii. It is also here where I met my wife Noriko, to whom I’ve been married for five unbelievably amazing years. Our daughter Rachel was born there in 2003. In July of that same year, I received orders sending me to Fort Bliss in El Paso.

I served there as the sole public affairs specialist of the 31st Air Defense Artillery Brigade for a little more than a year. In September 2004, I had fulfilled my five-year enlistment contract and was honorably discharged from the military.

Right around that time, the Army’s Public Affairs Offices – more pertinently, their newspaper staffs – were in the middle of a branch-wide transition from soldiers to civilians. I jumped at the chance to land a job as editor of The Monitor, Fort Bliss’ official news publication. I got the job in December and had been enjoying it immensely for about 16 months – then, almost a year ago to the day, I got a sucker punch to the gut in the form of reactivation orders.

You see, a little-known stipulation to Army contracts is one that states no matter how long you initially enlist – be it three, four, five, six or however many years – you are actually obligated for eight years. After serving out your term, you have four typical options: reenlist, join the Reserve, join the National Guard, or join the Inactive Ready Reserve.

Everyone knows what the first three options mean, so I’ll break down that last one for the uninitiated. The Inactive Ready Reserve, or IRR, is a way to finish the rest of an eight-year contract without actually having to do the “one weekend a month, two weeks a year” gig. Those who join the IRR are still technically “soldiers,” they just don’t get paid for it and they never have to put on a uniform. This is the option I chose.

If at any time (say, during a war) the Army decides it further requires an IRR soldier’s services before their eight-year-free-and-clear date, an order can be sent to them reinstating them to active duty, most often for a deployment. I received these very orders in March 2006, a mere five months before I was to be free of my obligation.

And so, the journey began that eventually led me to being attached to the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, a Minnesota National Guard unit based in Camp Adder near Nasiriyah.

Posted by · March 21, 2007 2:36 PM · Comments (0)