Sgt. Nathan Kaminski, 24, left, and Spc. Brad Thieroff, 21, both of Toledo, Ohio, use a machine to drill holes as part of a $4 million project to repair bomb damage to the runways and taxiways at the Forward Operating Base Speicher airfield in Tikrit, Iraq. Kaminski, a salesman, and Thieroff, a student, both are members of the 216th Engineer Battalion of the Ohio National Guard. (Steve Liewer / S&S)
Sgt. Nathan Kaminski, 24, left, and Spc. Brad Thieroff, 21, both of Toledo, Ohio, use a machine to drill holes as part of a $4 million project to repair bomb damage to the runways and taxiways at the Forward Operating Base Speicher airfield in Tikrit, Iraq. Kaminski, a salesman, and Thieroff, a student, both are members of the 216th Engineer Battalion of the Ohio National Guard. (Steve Liewer / S&S)
Spc. Rico Williams, 25, of the Ohio National Guard's 216th Engineer Battalion, rakes gravel in a bomb crater under repair at the Camp Speicher airfield in Tikrit, Iraq, while a steam shovel digs nearby. (Steve Liewer / S&S)
Sgt. Stefan Macchi, 23, of Orlando, Fla., and Staff Sgt. Bennie Pringle, 33, of Vienna, Ga., helped to build the little passenger terminal headquarters on the edge of the airfield at Camp Speicher in Tikrit, Iraq, last spring. (Steve Liewer / S&S)
Capt. Tom Klump, 25, of the 1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery, reads as he waits for a C-130 outside the passenger terminal tents at the airfield at Camp Speicher, Iraq. Klump, the battalion's personnel officer, said the new passenger service at Speicher means his soldiers heading home for R&R don't have to travel in long, dangerous convoys to catch their flights nearly as often. (Steve Liewer / S&S)
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, Iraq — For 18 months, the vast airfield at Camp Speicher near Tikrit sat deserted and almost useless, its main runway and taxiways riddled with bomb craters from the U.S.-led invasion last year.
Sgt. 1st Class Floyd Gibson and his 13-man detachment of soldiers in the Aircraft Departure Airfield Command Group whiled away the hours in their lonely plywood shack at the edge of the field.
They processed 10 or so passengers a day on one of the occasional C-23 Sherpa flights that stopped at the base.
“We started off with just one airplane coming out of here,” said Gibson, 35, of the 536th Movement Control Team, an Army Reserve unit based in Orlando, Fla.
Since then, things have become much busier.
Last summer, the 1st Infantry Division consolidated its CH-47 Chinook and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter traffic at Gibson’s little terminal.
In September, C-130 cargo aircraft started flying to Kuwait and Qatar from Speicher.
Teams of National Guard combat engineers from Wisconsin and Ohio have nearly finished a four-month, $4 million runway repair project that is paving the way for much bigger operations.
“We came in with the attitude that we are going to run it like any other Department of Defense airfield,” said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jamie Haas, 45, of the 1st ID’s 4th Brigade, the airfield safety officer and architect of many of the changes.
The 4th Infantry Division, which preceded 1st ID at Speicher, flew nothing but helicopters out of the field, using the remaining good runway to store cargo.
But Brig. Gen Stephen Mundt, assistant 1st ID commander for support, had quite a different vision for Speicher.
With an eye on moving the 1st ID-led Task Force Danger headquarters to Speicher from Saddam Hussein’s showy marble-palace compound across town, he and Haas imagined the field as a major hub rivaling the huge logistical supply airfields at Balad and Mosul.
Mundt ordered the runway cleared of containers, which allowed DHL to begin cargo flights.
This fall, contractor KBR added several Quonset huts to Gibson’s plywood shack so soldiers could wait comfortably for flights.
Gibson also is working on getting a shower point and a sandwich bar installed.
The construction work to repair the 18 bomb craters will boost the field’s potential, said Chief Warrant Officer 2 John Zupancic, 58, of the Wisconsin National Guard’s 264th Engineer Group, who is supervising the project.
He expects the work to be finished by the end of November. When it’s done, the 10,260-foot runway will be sturdy enough to handle big Air Force jets such as C-5s, C-17s, and C-141s.
“Hopefully, we’ll get this rebuilt so these [1st ID] troops can fly directly home to Germany instead of going to Anaconda [Balad],” Zupancic said.
Haas isn’t sure it can happen that quickly. “It’ll be a very functional airfield in a year or so,” Haas said.
“Eventually, this has the potential to move people in and out of theater.”
Gibson said traffic already has increased to 150 or 200 soldiers a day, with C-130s carrying troops to rest-and-recuperation flights in Kuwait almost daily.
Capt. Tom Klump, 25, personnel officer of the 1st ID’s 1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery, is in charge of sending his unit’s troops home on leave.
As he waited for his own R&R flight Wednesday, he said the addition of C-130s at Speicher has drastically curtailed his need to load vacation-bound soldiers into trucks for dangerous convoy runs to Balad or Mosul from the unit’s base in Bayji, 30 miles northwest of Tikrit.
“For these guys up north, it’s obviously a lot safer,” Klump said.
“The less time you spend driving around out there, the better.”
