It takes the masseuse, Mila from Kyrgyzstan, an hour to commute to work by bus on this sprawling American base. Her massage parlor is one of three on the base’s 6,300 acres, and sits next to a Subway sandwich shop in a trailer, surrounded by blast walls, sand and rock.
At the Subway, workers from India and Bangladesh make sandwiches for American soldiers looking for a taste of home. When the sandwich makers’ shifts end, the journey home takes them past a power plant, an ice-making plant, a sewage treatment center, a hospital and dozens of other facilities one would expect to find in a small city.
And in more than six years, that is what Americans have created here: cities in the sand.
Thank you for posting this! I am amazed by the non-negative candor of the reporter. Balad is a terrific base and indeed about the busiest flightline in the world. The air operations there are keeping the terrorists on the run constantly!
The reporter didn’t mention that Balad is also host to one of the busiest hospitals in Iraq, serving mostly Iraqi families in the region free of charge for life-threatening conditions or serious injuries that are beyond the capability of Iraqi hospitals.
At least two-thirds of the Ugandans there are Anglicans with a strong love for the Word of God and charismatic worship. The serve for years at a time to provide for their families back home and they love our soldiers and airmen!
Security is so good these days that my biggest threat there was from gaining too much weight from the food! 🙂 They fed us VERY well, especially on Mongolian BBQ night at Dining Hall #3. I had to work out EVERY DAY for an hour to keep the weight off — uugh!
The hardest part is the family separation. Almost all of my most serious pastoral care cases involved a failed relationship. Keep praying for these warriors!
Everyone there works extremely hard, especially the local Iraqis who serve as contractors and recognize the good income and the privilege of a good job. When we are done, Balad will likely be a training base for the Iraqi Air Force with new F-16’s they are buying (according to an article from Aviation Week). We will likely have quite a few warriors there for a some time to give the training. This is a tough but worthy assignment!
FrWes – thanks for the insight and thank you for your service.