Bumpy road to Baghdad - Civilian workers head to war zone

By: DARRIN MORTENSON - North County Times
Editor's note: North County Times staff writer Darrin Mortenson and photographer Hayne Palmour are in Iraq, en route to an assignment with a Camp Pendleton-based Marine unit. (View a video) | Tuesday, January 18, 2005 3:17 PM PST ∞

BAGHDAD ---- A ragtag bunch of mostly middle-aged men and women stepped off a bus in Kuwait on Sunday and nervously boarded a U.S. Air Force C-130 transport plane bound for Baghdad.

Representing every profession from accountants to cops, they were among the hundreds of civilians who leave this Kuwaiti Air Force base every week to join the ranks of the massive bureaucracy supporting the war in Iraq.

Some wore jeans instead of camouflage, and others sagged or bulged a bit more than the average fighter in the field. But they seemed to be warriors in their own right as they set off to ply their civilian trades in a combat zone, risking all to tap into the bountiful wages of war.

"This is my retirement," said 56-year-old Ken McKellar, who retired from the South Carolina Bureau of Corrections only 10 days before, leaving his home and family for a one-year assignment as a prison consultant with the U.S. Department of Justice. He's assigned to help reform the infamous Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq.

McKellar, one of the many Vietnam veterans on Sunday's flight, reflected the sentiments of some of his comrades when he said it was more than fat wages that brought him on this mission.

"I think we can make things run a lot better," he said, shaking his head in regret as he recounted some of the failures in the Iraqi jails that he hopes to correct.

"They stuck (military police) in there, so it really wasn't fair," he said. "They know how to arrest people, sure, but running a cell block is totally different. That's where I think we can help."

After waking up around dawn at a hotel in Kuwait City, the group was loaded onto buses, off again, back on, and otherwise given a crash course in classic military "hurry up and wait."

Arriving at the Kuwaiti base at noon, a tall, cranky man in his 50s ---- crew cut and ram-rod straight like a former military man ---- shouted sharp warnings and no-nonsense instructions for the flight.

Telling them that their body armor would serve them better under the seats than on their bodies ---- the fire comes from the ground, he said ---- he reminded them that this was no vacation spot they were headed for.

"Make no mistake people," he said, avoiding eye contact with anyone and talking to the ground. "You are going into a hostile area."

There are about 90,000 non-Iraqi civilian workers in the country like those on this flight, according to groups that represent contractors. More than 200 such workers from several nations have died in Iraq, according to an unofficial count based on news reports and maintained by a group called the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

In Baghdad, climbing into the plane on a small ladder, the workers clumsily found their places between the cockpit and the rear cargo of bags and a caged pack of military dogs.

The bay reeked of dog breath and wet hair.

For some, like McKellar and fellow Vietnam vet George Fowler, the whole sequence of events was a refresher course after three decades of nonmilitary life.

"We used to fly these all the time," said Fowler, 57, as he fumbled with the seat belt of his webbed paratrooper seat in the bare belly of the C-130, which was bound for the epicenter of a war.

"It gets in your blood," he said.

"This is an adventure," said one 50-something woman, not trying to hide her excitement or play as tough as some of her male peers, who strutted a bit as if they did this every day.

After a slingshot takeoff, the plane finally leveled off. Some of the passengers slept uneasily in the skeleton seats.

Others tried to gab over the roar of the propellers, muffled to a hum by earphones passed out earlier by a cheery Asian woman ---- one of the many civilians whose job it is to ensure other civilians get safely and comfortably to the war.

Fowler, an engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers on assignment to check for waste and fraud in the occupation ---- "see how our money's being spent" ---- talked of missing his dogs in Virginia.

A pretty young brunette rested her head on the shoulder of a man sitting next to her.

A silver-haired man dropped his forehead in folded hands as if in prayer.

After an hour and a half, the plane suddenly slowed, and then seemed to fall out of the sky like a roller coaster before leveling off.

The passengers grabbed for webbing as one final free-fall forced lips to peel back and flabby cheeks and double chins to contort into shocked grimaces that everyone was able to laugh about only when the plane finally set down at the Baghdad International Airport.

The rear hatch opened and the passengers shuffled off.

Before he drifted off to this war, Fowler said he is a different man than the one who got off a C-130 in Vietnam.

"I was 19 and I didn't have a heart," he said, recounting his days in the Vietnam jungle as an Army pathfinder. "My only mission was to survive ---- whatever it took.

"I have a heart now. I'm grown up. I have my own kids," he said. "I think that together we might be able to do something good here, and leave these people something worth living for. I hope so."

Contact staff writer Darrin Mortenson at dmortenson@nctimes.com.