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Engineers Improve Posts for Iraqi Army

by Lance Cpl. Bryan Eberly

Combat engineers assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 helped make Iraqi soldiers' jobs a little easier Dec. 3.

Marines with C Company, 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, RCT 5 set concrete "Texas" and "Jersey" barriers in a section of Fallujah to ease the dangers of heavy traffic and deny areas for insurgents to place improvised explosive devices.

Sgt. II, a 26-year-old heavy equipment operator, from Del Rio, Texas, assigned to C Company, 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, Regimental Combat Team 5, guides a tram as it backs out of an alleyway in Fallujah Dec. 3. The tram had just laid a 'Texas' concrete barrier to block off the alleyway from the main road. The roads were blocked to help Iraqi soldiers keep track of the vehicles entering and leaving Fallujah. (photo by Lance Cpl. Bryan Eberly)

"There was too much traffic going in and out," said Lance Cpl. Chance N. Geizer, a 22-year-old heavy equipment operator from Broken Arrow, Okla. "People were getting congested and possibly too many people were getting in and out of there and running IEDs and laying possible weapons caches."

The first project engineers took on was blocking off back alleyways and access roads from the main road. They used two 644E John Deere trams to carry the car-sized slabs of concrete from just outside Fallujah to the streets inside the city. Blocking off the roads will help police keep a closer eye on people moving through the area.

"We blocked off traffic so that traffic's channeled into one main stream," said Sgt. Arnold J. Nass II, a heavy equipment operator from Del Rio, Texas. "It's going to help the Iraqis keep police on them, so they don't have to go up and down roads, and they can keep better tabs."

Once the main road was secured, Marines moved in with their trams carrying barriers to replace concertina wire that separated the road into two lanes. The split allows the Iraqi soldiers an easier time controlling and checking the vehicles leaving and entering the city, Nass said.

The engineers also provided a little extra help for the Iraqi soldiers, Nass said.

"We reinforced their guard post so they have better protection against the insurgents around here," he said.

Sgt. Robert J. Stroud, a 23-year-old supply chief, from Houston, Texas, said the improvements to the entry control point were needed.

"It's giving them a little bit more structure at the ECP," he said.

The more structure and control the Iraqis have, the more they can monitor vehicles, and the less they need the help of Marines.

The project took the entire day to complete. At the end of the day, the Marines felt glad to have helped out the Iraqis.

"I hope I helped out to cut down on the amount of weapons and artillery shells and things like that from being driven in and out and placed," Geizer said.

"Hopefully, the citizens understand the reason we are here and why it is being done," Nass said. "To help them out so they can have their country back someday."

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