11/27/2009 Hawkeyes help Carroll soldier show his pride
Carey Promes, an engineer tech for the City of Carroll, poses with the autographed Iowa Hawkeyes flag he recently received at his base in Kuwait, where he’s serving with an Army Reserve transportation company.
"We have Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, and I know it's going to be hard on everyone here and back home. Without everyone's support back home, I don't know if we could all go through this."
Carey Promes' second tour in Iraq hasn't been that bad.
Sure, he misses his wife and four daughters and his co-workers in the Carroll Public Works Department.
For the past seven months the Army reservist has been driving 220,000-pound rigs to haul tanks through Kuwait and Iraq on missions that can run more than 1,000 miles and last 10 days.
At his base in Kuwait Promes has a solid shelter, decent food, Internet access and even cable TV so he could follow his beloved Iowa Hawkeyes during their surprising 10-2 season.
But it wasn't all good.
There on a wall in the 443rd Transportation Company Tactical Operations Center at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait hung flags from some of the soldiers' favorite university teams. With the company's troops hailing from Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa, the Kansas Jayhawks, Nebraska Cornhuskers, even those gosh-darned Iowa State Cyclones were represented.
Not the Hawkeyes, however - a shame since they were having a much better season.
While Iowa was in the midst of a school-record winning streak and climbing to No. 5 in the BCS, Promes was wondering how he could show his Hawkeye pride.
Fortunately he had a friend with connections.
Promes phoned Jeff Cayler, the Carroll police chief, an Iowa grad whose daughters Amy and Krissy had worked in the Hawkeye Football Office while attending the university.
Cayler arranged to have Krissy buy a gold flag with black tiger hawk logo and bring it to Christina Lamaak, a Wall Lake View Auburn High grad now working at the football office. Cayler, a friend of head coach Kirk Ferentz, also asked that the Iowa coaching staff and players autograph the flag.
Lamaak and administrative assistant Karen Messier got each coach to sign the tiger hawk with silver marker. Defensive coordinator Norm Parker, suffering from a diabetic foot problem, even had the flag brought to his room at University of Iowa Hospital so he could sign.
The flag was kept at the front desk at the Hawkeye Football Office for a week so players could autograph the gold portion with black marker.
"I was very impressed," said Cayler. "I e-mailed a thank-you to the coaches and they said they appreciated the opportunity to be involved."
Cayler picked up the flag Oct. 30 while at Iowa City for the Indiana game, shipped it three days later and within a week Promes had it pinned to his Tactical Operations Center wall.
"For $37 and a little bit of time, we made a lot of guys' days," Cayler said. "That's one piece of home, one semblance of normalcy, the soldiers can have with them over there, something that shows them that no matter what else is going on they're still Hawkeye fans."
"It looks great with all the signatures on it," Promes said in an e-mail to The Times Herald. "Thanks again, Jeff! Go Hawks!."
Promes, an engineer tech for the City of Carroll, has been in the military since September 1982. He started with the Army National Guard unit at Carroll and transferred to the Army Reserve 915th Transportation Company at Council Bluffs, with which he was deployed in 1990-91 for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, hauling supplies throughout Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
In 2004 Promes was deployed to Iraq with the 443rd, which was based at Great Bend, Kan. The company's headquarters was moved to Omaha, Neb., in 2005 and it also has detachments at Lincoln, Neb., and Council Bluffs.
With the 300-member 443rd, Promes drives the Heavy Equipment Transport, the Army's largest truck. The armored vehicle with 12-foot-wide 40-tire trailer weighs over 90,000 pounds. It was de-signed to transport the M1 Abrams tank, which weighs in at more than 130,000 pounds.
Promes' company began training for this deployment in December 2008. After three weeks of in-processing at Lincoln the 443rd spent three weeks at Fort Hunter-Liggett, Calif., then trained for two months at Camp Atterbury, Ind., before moving to Kuwait.
Nicknamed The Titans with the slogan "Carry the Fight," the company has been hauling various equipment throughout Iraq, including M1 tanks, M88 Tank Recovery Vehicles, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and small pickups and trailers. Convoys frequently cover more than 1,000 miles on mis-sions lasting seven to 10 days.
"Most of the equipment that we have been hauling is going back down south due to the upcoming pullout," Promes wrote.
Of the HET, Promes says, "The speed is a little slow, at 48 mph, but with all the weight that is fast enough at times."
Since the trucks are armored and have bulletproof glass, they are equipped with air conditioning.
"It still gets hot inside them during the summer when it's over 120 degrees outside and we are in all our gear," he said.
The weather is finally cooling in Iraq, with nighttime temperatures in the 60s and the rainy season commencing.
Promes, an assistant platoon sergeant, said most of the roads he drives are paved but kidded that the contractors that built them didn't receive bonuses for smoothness.
"Life down in Arifjan is not all that bad," he said.
Members of the 443rd reside in precast concrete buildings that hold 60 soldiers. Wall lockers divide the buildings into sleeping areas of four to eight soldiers. Shower trailers and bathrooms are situ-ated between the buildings.
Promes said the troops are generally on duty from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. six days a week. The weekend day is sometimes postponed due to missions.
"The food at the dining facility is not all that bad either," he said.
The best eating day is Wednesday since steak and seafood are served.
"But most of the food is overcooked," said Promes. "When you can eat a steak with a plastic fork, it's overcooked."
Promes stays in touch with wife Maria and daughters Kenzie, Brittany, Lauren and Taylor by using a MagicJack Internet phone, Skype Internet video service and his cell phone.
"Kenzie and Brittany text me a lot because I get free incoming texts," he said. "Maria texts or calls me if she needs to get in touch with me. We try to talk to each other every other day, if possible, on Skype."
While on a mission, Promes tries to stop at a military phone center to call home.
"I will call City Hall at times to see what all new is happening in Carroll," he added.
Promes said he spends much of his free time at physical training. The company does a three- to six-mile run every Wednesday, and Promes has entered many 5- and 10-K runs.
And whenever possible, Promes has been watching his Hawkeyes.
"It's pretty late at night due to the nine-hour time difference here," he wrote. "We Hawkeye fans even have bragging rights this year. What a great season."
Being away from his family has been the most difficult part of the deployment.
"I missed Brittany's graduation, mine and Maria's 22nd wedding anniversary and all their birthdays," he said.
"We have Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, and I know it's going to be hard on everyone here and back home. Without everyone's support back home, I don't know if we could all go through this."
