by Bea Peterson
Jim Sutton of Hoosick is a specialist E-4 serving in Army Aviation. He is home on leave for 18 days. He recently completed 16 months in Baghdad repairing Blackhawk helicopters. This was his second tour in Iraq. He was stationed in Taji for a year in 2005.
Jim hasn’t been home since Christmas time 2006. He has spent some of his leave just driving around town. “You feel like you to have to catch up,” he said, noting it took him a couple of days to realize the Mechanic St. Bridge was finished.
In Bagdad he lived in a 20 man tent. It didn’t allow for much privacy. “Everybody is just one big family,” said Jim. “I made a lot of friends.” He believes the tours are harder on the families at home than they are on the soldiers. “All in all they take care of us,” he said. “We had a gym and basketball and organized events.” He missed everything from home, television, food, cell phones…
“We were constantly building stuff,” he added, “like schools and water mains. We did a lot of infrastructure work.”
Based near the airport Jim said the noise pollution was bad. “There were always generators running or airplanes coming in and taking off. And there was dust everywhere!”
Weather-wise, he said it was cold in the winter, getting down into the thirties. “They had snow last year for the first time in years,” he said. In the summer the temperature climbs into the 120s. “Whenever we go out we have to wear body armor and that adds 15 degrees to the outside temperature.”
Jim didn’t feel he and his unit were in a lot of danger. They had a couple of close calls though, and bombings were frequent. He said it was subjective if conditions were better or worse than during his first tour. “We’re just a giant police force. We’ve been here a long time, and it’s been a huge financial burden on our country,” he said.
“The country [Iraq] is very slowly starting to come around. They have no middle class and a high unemployment rate.” He believes Iraq will be an autonomous country in the next decade or so, once they settle some of their differences among themselves. “It will be fun to go back for a visit ten years from now,” he said.
While in Iraq Jim toured Saddam Hussein’s palace in Al-Faw. It contains the second largest chandelier in the world. It’s still intact, he said. He saw other palaces, too. One has a picture of President Bush on the floor with the phrase Victory Over America written near it. A leftover from the Gulf War. Jim said Saddam loved the Flintstones and had a Bedrock Village built that was impressive.
Besides serving twice in Iraq, Jim spent a year in South Korea in a city north of Seoul. He has visited Kuwait, and another time spent 18 days traveling by train from Germany to Greece.
Jim’s company is now based in Savannah, GA, where they are resetting and overhauling or replacing all their equipment to be ready for their next assignment.
Returning home from a war zone has its effects. Jim finds it a little difficult meeting new people. Big groups of people, especially in airports and train stations are intimidating. “We always traveled in small groups in Iraq,” he said.
Jim joined the Army, he said, “to do something interesting while I was young.” He enjoys repairing Blackhawks. He has met people he never would have met otherwise. He expects to leave the Army in a year and a half. He’ll go for a college degree under the new GI bill. “There’s been a lot of support for the troops, and it’s really appreciated,” he said. His military experience hasn’t given him any more than he bargained for… not yet, he said.