?Rufus? makes a lasting impression in Kuwait

[thedrifter]

?Rufus? makes a lasting impression in Kuwait

CAMP FOX, Kuwait ? There are three sergeants major in the Marine Corps with the last name of Hawkins, but only one carries the big stick.

Sgt. Maj. Richard Hawkins and his mallet named ?Rufus? are easy to spot.

He?s a mountain of a man, ramrod straight with huge shoulders and chest, and he looks how textbook Marines are supposed to appear.

And then there?s the mallet. ?I?ve had Rufus since 1994. I picked up Rufus down in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when we were down there for Operation Sea Signal. It was part of the Air Force?s kit for their expandable air-conditioned tents and it was on the side of the road, and I decided if it was still there at (2 p.m.), it was meant to be mine ? it was and it is.

Rufus has a 3-foot-long handle and a wooden head just smaller than a coffee can.

Hawkins says it is designed to make an impression.

?It?s got a Kodak (picture) of the chaplain on one side, that way if somebody needs to see the chaplain, they don?t have to wait in line, and it?s got an Eagle, Globe and Anchor on the other side in case the Marine Corps needs to make a lasting impression on somebody. I can take care of that, too.?

Hawkins was born in Charleston, W.Va., and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He moved in October to Swansboro, where his wife and children remain while he does his duty in Kuwait.

?I will have been in the Marine Corps 25 years in July,? he said.

?I?ve done six deployments with the infantry, so this is kind of a unique experience for me. It?s not bad. I think we all have a case of the Kuwait Crud.

?I think it?s a combination of the sand, the smallpox shots and the eight-hour lag traveling over here. You get kind of exhausted. Once you establish a routine, everything will be fine.?


HONEYMOON IN KUWAIT

CAMP FOX, Kuwait ? Pfc. Amanda Collazo is a wife and a Marine. She?s still learning how to be both.

Collazo just graduated from boot camp on Oct. 11. She followed that up with supply school at Camp Johnson.

On Jan. 14, she got married and a few weeks later was in Kuwait with Camp Lejeune?s 2nd Service Support Group. Her husband, a cook, is also in Kuwait but working in administration. Today will mark her two-week anniversary at Camp Fox. ?It?s not too bad here,? Collazo said. ?There is no sand in Connecticut where I am from. As long as we have the basics, being able to shower, it?s not bad, just a little difficult. I miss being home. I just got married, and I haven?t had a chance to live my life with my husband, so that?s a little different.?

On April 19, Collazo will mark her 20th birthday. She remains stoic about all of it.

?I?ve wanted to be a Marine since I was 11. I wanted to do something different with my life, something that few other people have done,? she said while sitting outside a tent cleaning her weapon. ?I wanted something that is a little bit more honorable. I wanted to say I am satisfied in my life knowing that I made a difference.?

She met her husband during classes with a recruiter before she reported to boot camp. He?s from Connecticut, too.

?I miss all my family and my friends. I miss just being able to relax and not have to worry about what is coming next. In the past month and a half, it?s been really crazy. We didn?t know if we were leaving or not.?

WARRANT OFFICERS BRING YEARS

OF EXPERIENCE TO DESERT LIFE


CAMP FOX, Kuwait ? In the middle of the desert, they stood on top of a concrete and steel bunker, looked straight ahead and smiled for a photographer.

They were 37 men and women, but combined they represented hundreds and hundreds of years of military experience. They are warrant officers.

The picture was the idea of Chief Warrant Officer 2 Allen Mayfield. He?s been in the service for 21 years total, 18 on active duty. He wanted a photo to capture all the warrant officers at Camp Fox, including some from the nearby British Army camp.

Warrant officers wear collar devices with stripes of red, black or brown. They get to be what they are by having a technical expertise that is prized by the military and the maturity to know what to do with it.

?When you are selected for the warrant officer program, you go to the basic school in Quantico (Va.) and the average person there has 13 years experience,? said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Mark Valdov. ?But I?d say in this group, you?ve got a lot more than that.?

For example, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Dusty Cooper has 27 years in the Marine Corps.

?As a CWO 5 I would like to think I am in a leadership role for all the warrant officers and a mentor,? Cooper said. ?It?s my position to tell them when they?re doing the right thing and to tell them when they?re doing the wrong thing as well. I don?t have to tell them most of the times when they are doing wrong. That?s because some of the brightest, most aggressive, most professional Marines I know are warrant officers.?

Cooper, a native of Weber Falls, Okla., was in the Middle East during Desert Storm with a tank battalion. Now he?s with a maintenance battalion and closing out his career in the Marine Corps.

?I have three more years, and then I have to go. When they tell me I have to go home, I will go home and I will enjoy my family ... every minute of it.

?I have a 15-year-old son back in Jacksonville. He?s a good boy. He actually took this deployment in a more mature manner then I would have. He and I sat down in the garage and had a long conversation. I told him what my job as a Marine was and what America?s position was in the world. He understood and shockingly he announced that should the draft come back, he?d stand in line and join. Like I said. He?s a good boy.

?The thing is some of America?s brightest Americans are at Camp Fox. I have no second-guessing of America?s youth because these kids are awesome. They work and work and work They may ***** and they may complain, but when the bugle calls, every one of them is running out of their hootch with a gas mask and a weapon. I am very, very proud of them.?

EVERY MARINE DOES SECURITY?

CAMP FOX, Kuwait ? The slogan is ?Every Marine is a rifleman.?

At Camp Fox it might be ?Every Marine does security.? A lot of Marines who may be trained as cooks or clerks find themselves manning a guard post.

Marines like Mike Hassler from Camp Lejeune. The lance corporal joined the Marine Corps hoping to become an air traffic controller, but when that didn?t work he was trained in legal. On Friday evening he was manning the guard post at headquarters and support battalion at this base in the Kuwaiti desert near the border with Iraq. He was clean- ing sand out of the hand-cranked siren used to warn of gas attacks.

A guard post here is something you stand in. There?s no sitting. A sandbag and wood frame about the size of a phone booth is about all the protection from the elements that can be found.

There are levels of security across Camp Fox. The first is a manned guard tower at the entrance to the base. Other measures follow.

On Friday Hassler was manning his post with Lance Cpl. Louis Guthrie from Tampa, Fla.

Hassler?s cloth helmet cover over his Kevlar has ?Camel Stalker? written on the front with a black marker. The words ?Mess with the best, die like the rest? are written on the back. ?I made it up on the plane ride over,? the Lexington, S.C. native said.

Teams stand guard 24 hours a day, and each team has six hours on and six hours off. Even when they are off they are on, because they can be called out of the sack to supplement guards on the outer perimeter.

Some of it can be boring, like making sure vehicles that enter the compound have a ?ground guide? to walk in front of them for safety. But all of the guard duty is critical in this country where once in a while Marines still get shot at.

?The best thing about the Marines is making new friends, going around the world,? Hassler said. ?This is my first time overseas, but I have been to Rhode Island and Florida so I got to travel up and down the East Coast.

?It kind of worked out because now I am back at Lejeune and closer to home.?

NAVY VET RETURNS TO THE DESERT

CAMP FOX, Kuwait ? Hanmish Taplin saw the lightning of Operation Desert Storm for himself. Sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he can still see it.

During the allied war with Iraq in 1991, he was a corpsman and part of the Marine Corps offensive designed to seize the Kuwaiti airport from occupying Iraqi troops.

Now, with 19 years in the Navy, he?s a hospitalman 1, almost ready to retire and facing Iraqi troops again. This time, he?s serving at Camp Fox with other members of 2nd Force Service Support Group from Camp Lejeune.

?I was a field medical corpsman back then,? he said. ?I was one of the guys up front with the infantry units, First Battalion, 3rd Marines, out of Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. We were Task Force Ripper back then, so I know what they are going through up at the front now. Our mission was to seize the airfield and part of the city.?

Marines then and now are ?cocky,? he said. He admits he might have been a little cocky, too, in the Gulf War.

?There are some of us coming back (from Desert Storm), but many of us have gotten out. There is a lot of fresh breed out here, fresh blood, and they are looking to get something under their belt. They are probably a lot like me the first time. I didn?t realize how real it was until the night the sky lit up. ?Then you realize that this is really happening,? he said. ?This isn?t a routine deployment, this is not a routine field operation ? this is really happening.

?For me it was the night the sky lit up, but I think it will take something like that to let them know that there is life and death involved out here.?

That education sometimes seems slow, and Taplin hopes Marines catch on quickly that this isn?t a game, even if 2nd FSSG isn?t near the front.

?It?s amazing the difference. If you take two 19-year-olds, and put one in the rear and one in the front, when it?s over the one in the front is going to be 26 years old and the one in the back is still going to be 19. It?s a whole different development, with whole different situations. You have to endure them and grow from it. When you get through it, it changes you. There is nothing that can stop that.

?I grew up watching World War II movies, but when things started happening in Desert Storm, it was different.

Taplin remains optimistic that if war with Iraq comes, it will be just as quick as the last one and few Americans will be hurt.

?I personally feel the attitude is about the same as it was back then. I think our military forces feel that it will be over in a short period of time, and I think they believe we can carry the same momentum.?

While it?s all work at Camp Fox, he has time to think of his family back in Jacksonville and his life outside the Navy. He and wife Valerie have three children, ages 16, 14 and 10.

?I?ve done medical work and clinical work and I?ve been with the Marines off and on now for 10 full years. The Marine Corps is a different organization, and you get to do a lot more as a corpsman. For us, it means getting the most hands-on experience.?

Taplin said he plans to stay in Jacksonville when he retires and remain in the health care field.

?(Jacksonville) is low key. For me, that?s nice,? Taplin said. ?We?ve lived in the big cities, my wife and I, and we?re not looking for that. Valerie is a school teacher at Stone Street Elementary and my kids like Jacksonville, so I want to stay.?

Some of the Marines and sailors at Camp Fox are only slightly older than his oldest child.

He hopes that the wake-up call for the young Marines and sailors comes without the loss of life.

?It?s going to take something dramatic, maybe when the war actually happens there could be a false alarm that jolts them so they realize that I could have been real,? Taplin said.

ONE MAN?S TRASH ...

CAMP FOX, Kuwait _ Back home it would be junk. But what Navy HM2 Bryan Grosvenor saw were shelves for a dresser.

Wood, in the form of packing crates and pallets, never makes it close to the scrap pile at Camp Fox. It?s carted away and recycled.

Grosvenor started with the most basic tools until his friends could find him something better.

He started sawing the boards with a pocket Gerber multi- tool favored by many Marines and sailors. The 3-inch long saw blade took 30 minutes to cut through one board. A friend found him a circular saw which did the same job in seconds. Nails were another story.

Each nail from the pallet had to be extracted, then ham- mered straight. His only hand tool was a sledgehammer. He replaced the claw on a claw hammer was one round portion of one of the metal tent spikes.

?I can?t stand living out of my seabags, and I like to have things where I can find them when I?m in the dark since I?m working the night shift now and I hate waking people up at night by turning on the light,? Grosvenor said.

The actual drawers are going to be made of cardboard boxes that MREs come in.

?This was a pallet, but in the future it will be shelving and whatever else I can come up with. I?ve managed to build a couple of chairs in there (he said pointing to his tent), a table in there and another person?s end table. Hopefully if I have enough left over, I will build some more stuff for myself,? he said.

Asked if he was a handyman at home, Grosvenor said, ?My wife Liza would say no, I would say yes.?

It took him four hours to disassemble the pallet, straighten the nails and cut the wood into the correct size. If he were back home in Jacksonville, Grosvenor said he could have probably built the entire thing in an hour with store-bought lumber and nails.

?There will probably be nothing that goes to waste. Even the four-by-four blocks are collected to build legs when they can get enough of them.?

Wood isn?t the only thing that gets recycled. Grosvenor and his friends found two big plastic barrels out in the desert and they were cut in half with a hand-saw.

?One is a wash bucket, two are now sets and the other one is a trash bag holder. We definitely are doing what the Marines do, we adapt, we improvise and we overcome,? he said.

?It?s enjoyable and it keeps my mind occupied and it keeps me from thinking about all the things I don?t want to think about,? he said. ?But having this on my side (he gestures to his pistol) and having this on the other side (he gestures to his gas mask) reminds me what I am here for.?

Liberty editor Peter Williams was on assignment with Camp Lejeune-based troops deployed to the Persian Gulf region. He has filed columns about life with troops from the 2nd Force Service Support Group, now in Kuwait.


Sempers,

Roger