Reflections on the 1140th in New Orleans

Editor's note: Southeast Missourian reporter Scott Moyers and photographer Don Frazier returned to Cape Girardeau last week after covering the cleanup efforts of the 1140th Engineer Battalion in New Orleans.

Our olive-drab military truck was sloshing its way through New Orleans -- the parts where the tourists don't go -- when we saw him. He was black and old, ancient. He was hobbling along an otherwise abandoned street, trying his best to avoid the toxic soup and endless debris left behind by Katrina.

Two things struck me about the man -- that it looked like he was whistling and that he was carrying a giant jug of what appeared to be glass cleaner.

I couldn't hear over the roar of the truck's engine, so I tried to imagine what he was whistling. In the city that gave us Fats Domino and Louis Armstong, it could have been anything. I hoped that it was jazz.

But I wondered what he was toting in his tired old hands.

Window cleaner? I thought. What good does he think he can possibly do by polishing up a few pieces of framed glass?

I made a snide joke to that effect to the others in the truck and immediately wished I hadn't, ashamed of myself. You've got to start somewhere. I saw enough people who were doing nothing, sitting along the curbs, giving up, defeated.

At least he's doing something.

So were my traveling companions, the men and women of the 1140th Engineer Battalion, which was activated for a 30-day cleanup mission. The National Guard's powers-that-be in Jefferson City had invited the Southeast Missourian along, so when the soldiers left earlier this month, photographer Don Frazier and I were there, packed and ready to become embedded journalists for the first time.

The first two days weren't bad, just boring. That's almost worse. Along with a few dozen other guardsmen, Don and I were traveling by bus, bringing up the rear of a 27-vehicle convoy. The average travel speed was about 45 mph.

But I met several great people on that Blue Bird school bus. My favorite was a woman from St. Louis named Cassaundra, quick-witted, sweet and a veteran of the Iraq war. She made the trip go by faster as we swapped jokes and shared stories of our children.

She and her husband, both prior full-time Army, had wanted to go to help out. But because they had kids, only one could go. The guard asked her first. For her and others I spoke to, it wasn't about the money. Cassaundra is from Alabama and considers Louisiana a sister state of the South.

"I was going to come down here to help no matter what," she said. "These are my people. It just made more sense to come down with the guard. More organized that way."

Not everyone was so altruistic. Some soldiers admitted to me that they volunteered because they could make more in military pay than they could in their civilian jobs. Nothing wrong with that, though. Civilian contractors can't get to Louisiana and those high-paying jobs fast enough. It doesn't matter why people help out. Just that they do.

I spent six years in the 1140th. Six and out, as they say. Still, I was reminded how quickly the guardsmen can set up their lives on the fly. I guess I shouldn't have been. That's what they do.

Once in New Orleans, the guard quickly and efficiently set up a camp. They erected circus tents and lined them with cots. Not as good as being in my own bed next to my warm wife, but I slept well enough. They even piped in air conditioning, which made the days bearable and the nights chilly.

As soon as the tent was up, clotheslines were strung so they could dry their clothes. They set up neat footlockers at the base of the cots. Eventually, they had electricity. Some had electric fans and battery-operated TVs.

More lessons from Iraq, I suppose.

They also set up makeshift showers from a contamination tent. The drawback was that we had to take showers with other men. (Insert your own joke here.) The soldiers all had shower shoes to protect them from passing around foot fungus. I forgot mine. I'll be watching my tootsies for the next few days.

The men shaved using truck mirrors and brushed their teeth using bottled water. At first they ate MREs (meals ready to eat). I did, too. The taste wasn't bad, but the meals had a slowing effect on my digestive tract. I found the port-a-potties a tad distasteful.

Later there were hot meals cooked and served by the American Red Cross and a local church. Never had beef stew and pears tasted so good.

In the evening, music played from radios. Some played cards. A good number of the troops spent the evening with the newest Harry Potter book.

One guy, who was surprisingly good, would strum the chaplain's guitar for music that wouldn't be allowed in most churches. On Sunday night, the guitar was used for a church service, where a small tent filled up for those who don't forget God when they put on their uniforms.

Some made time for exercise, doing laps around the sporting complex's gravel track.

There were other ways to wind down. The day before they moved into the city, soldiers of the 1140th were told that a beer tent had been set up in the camp they would be moving into. On the day they got there, they learned it wasn't going to open because two soldiers from another unit had gotten into a fight.

"Sorry, boys," one of the sergeants said to his dejected men. "Looks like it's a dry camp from here on out."

Undeterred, soldiers from another unit "liberated" some beer from an unwatched beer truck and shared freely. Don't judge them too harshly. The beer was there for the guard guys anyway. And no one should begrudge the soldiers a drink after 12-hour-a-day shifts of helping repair a hurricane-crushed city.

If you read our series last week, you know that the guard also helped a few weary people who refused to leave their homes. They didn't judge them, just handed out bottled water and MREs.

"God bless you guys," one soldier said. "Y'all take care of yourself."

Their hearts went out to the starving pets that had been left behind. I wondered about the animals' chance of surviving. They all had been drinking that deadly water that was all around.

When I left, the guard was just getting into its so-called "battle rhythm," meaning it had its mission figured out and was getting into a routine. Guardsmen would be spending the next three weeks there. Don and I left them to more privately go about their lives and work. I know some sighed in relief when we left.

Others shook our hands and clapped us on the back. We'd made a few battle buddies, it seemed.

There's more stories I could tell, but those are between me and my new friends of the 1140th Engineer Battalion.

Know this, though: The guard's presence is being felt, from the French Quarter to the Garden District to that narrow crescent of relatively high ground near the Mississippi River.

Someone wrote in the days following the hurricane that cities aren't forever. That New Orleans will never return to its glorious former self.

Maybe not. But don't tell that to our Southeast Missouri men and women in uniform.

They don't believe it.