Current History....

Jere Dennison

While most of us have been preparing for the 2006 sailing season and tuning up our boats for a summer of fun and frolic, a segment of our club has been courageously serving our country in foreign lands under trying conditions, far from the tranquil waters of Fishing Bay. Recently Rob Bagley returned from Iraq and Kuwait after a deployment as a member of the U.S. Navy Reserves. He has graciously given us permission to publish a summary of his activities that he originally wrote for his daughter’s journalism class this spring before arriving stateside.

Greetings from sunny Kuwait! If I had written this email a couple of months ago, I could have started out with greetings from beautiful downtown Baghdad. I have been in this part of the world for the last nine months. I write this letter the last week of April and I have less than four weeks remaining on my active duty tour. I will be glad to get out of here just before the really hot months; the daily high temperature is 100F now and by mid-summer the daily temperature will be 120 to 130F.

As some of you know, I am in the Navy Reserve and volunteered to be recalled to active duty in July. I am assigned to the Defense Logistics Agency, which is the parent organization to the Defense Supply Center Richmond off Chippenham Parkway.

For six months, I was attached to an organization called Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq. Its basic mission is to establish and equip the Iraqi army and police. My job was to help buy and transport uniforms and equipment for several hundred thousand people. Whereas we were dealing with the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, and the perils of transporting things in Iraq, it was definitely an unusual experience.

Baghdad was surreal. I spent most of my time working in front of a computer, no different than being at home, just every now and then there were loud booms. Our building was about half a mile from the checkpoint known as Assassin’s Gate, one of the favorite car bomb locations. About a half mile in the other direction was the Palestine Hotel, another favorite target. I lived in a trailer complex on the grounds of the former Republican Palace, which now serves as the American Embassy. I had breakfast every morning in the marble-covered former ballroom of the palace and then walked about a mile to work pass numerous concrete barriers, concertina wire, and foreign security guards armed with AK-47 rifles.

Whenever you left the compound you had to have on your helmet, body armor, and weapon. Wearing 30 pounds of gear in 130 degree heat is a good incentive to skip going to lunch. I lived and worked for six months in the so-called Cradle of Civilization, just a quarter of a mile from the Tigris River and never saw it, except from a helicopter, because of all the concrete walls.

You get used to life and times in Baghdad. The workers on base are from a multitude of countries including Iraq, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Chile. When I first arrived, the guards at the Embassy were Gurkhas from Nepal. They were replaced by Chileans, so the usual greetings at the security checkpoint of the American Embassy compound in Baghdad were in Spanish. The guards at our compound were from Fiji. Next door to work was the compound for the troops who guard United Nations facilities. Periodically, they had award ceremonies and the music and marching were all British style. We regularly heard gunfire coming out of the neighborhood known as Sadr City. The primary threat in the IZ is random mortar fire. The insurgents especially like special days such as elections and American holidays. Christmas morning started with a couple of mortar rounds landing in the embassy grounds. Shortly before midnight of New Year’s Eve, I put on my gear and headed to a concrete bunker. Sure enough, two mortar rounds landed within a couple hundred yards about 10 seconds after midnight. Meantime, civilian workers and State Department employees, who are not covered by the US military’s strict no-alcohol policy, continued their New Year’s celebration at the embassy pool.

One of my more interesting experiences occurred in early December. Some of us were still in our office at about 9 PM when gunfire started all over the city. We looked outside and it appeared that the whole International Zone was under attack.

The sky was full of tracers from machine gun fire and spent bullets were coming down. We put on our gear and stayed inside. Some people kept working at their desks while wearing their body armor and helmet. At one point, our own Fijian security guards starting firing. After an hour it stopped. Then we found out that all the shooting was “celebratory fire.” Iraq had beat Syria 1-0 in soccer to qualify for the World Cup and the whole country had erupted into spontaneous gunfire. Very different people.

I am now at Camp Arifjan, outside of Kuwait City, and life is very tame. I still work for DLA but the environment is more like an army garrison in the US. The helmet, body armor, and 9mm stay under the bed except when I travel off base. I should be home in Richmond right around Memorial Day. I will have missed Laura’s eleventh grade year and Daniel’s seventh grade year. In anticipation of my recall, I sold the company that I operated for thirteen years, so will have to turn my attention to a new endeavor or a new job. I look forward to getting home and catching up with life there. I will be happy just to see trees, green grass, mountains, and water. Junior Week is on the list for Daniel and I am looking forward to getting our boat in order (no different than any other year, I will be doing this in June) and spending a week or two in Deltaville.

There are other members who have placed themselves in harms way to defend our nation. Scott Berg is an F18 naval aviator serving aboard the carrier Ronald Reagon and Parker Garrett a naval nuclear engineer in the submarine service. Three others are ground troops with the U. S. Marines in Iraq: brothers, Allen & Walker Potts, and Parke Smith. I had the privilege of crewing with Parke aboard the Schooner Virginia last summer and can unhesitatingly assure everyone that our country’s defense is in competent hands with people like Parke serving in the front ranks of our armed services.

Rives Potts reports about his two sons:
They are both Recon Marines (Marine Special Forces) and are doing well. Walker and his unit are back over in Fallujah and Ramadi for his 2nd tour and Allen's unit is ramping up to deploy again in the next few months. I was delighted to get sat phone call from Walker this morning (they are 8 hrs ahead)wishing us well as we are starting the Bermuda Race in just a few hours. It is still amazing to me that he can even think of making a nice call like that when he and his buddies are in he throws of fereting out the bad guys from the lists that they got last week from the Zarqawi kill. I guess this proves that a Fishing Bay upbringing is healthy!

Our hearts and prayers go out to all the young men and women who are over there defending our right to enjoy the simple pleasures and freedoms in life like sailing.

Parke Smith’s father, Preston, helped organize a private tax-exempt foundation to accept donations for supplies and equipment to make life as comfortable as possible for our combat personnel in the Middle East. Check out their website at www.suppliedtosurvive.org to see how you can help our guys and gals on the front lines. In the list of donors, you will find the names of many Richmond and FBYC families that have contributed to this effort.

I hope I have not overlooked any other of our members in the military, but, if so, let me know and I will make amends. Also, we would love to publish more stories and photos from the front lines if those serving will send me an email.