A few days after we arrived at Camp Monteith in Kosovo, myself and SPC Broussard were sent to Camp Bondsteel for a month to work with the battalion SYSCON. The SYSCON monitors the communications voice and data network and helps troubleshoot any problems that come up. At the time (December 1999) the SYSCON was on a *very* windy, and muddy, hilltop about in the middle of Camp Bondsteel. When we first arrived there, the SYSCON was still in a pair of air assault tents with a wooden floor and five foot wooden walls. Still, at night (when I worked) the wind would be blowing so hard and it would be so cold, we'd be just about standing on top of the stove with it on high to try and keep warm. It was *cold* there. Anyway, I didn't have my digital camera at this time, so the pictures with the snow were taken using a friend's digital camera and the non-snow ones were taken later in the deployment during convoy's to Camp Bondsteel.
There are a lot of pictures, be patient they will load!
Here is the sign they put up at the front "gate" to Camp Bondsteel.
This is a sign someone made outside the SYSCON. In the
background, you can see the tents which made up the SYSCON.
Here is a picture of some of the seahut's they were building when
we arrived. We moved right into some when we got there, but
they hadn't finished the bathroom part of them so we still showered
in the old shower tents. I didn't mind, we had it a *lot*
better than the guys and girls in the first rotation!
Picture of a Blackhawk somewhere over Camp Bondsteel.
Looking from the SYSCON site towards "Downtown" Camp Bondsteel.
Bondsteel was so big, they had named parts of it "Downtown", "Uptown",
and "Midtown". On the far right you can make out the shower tents and
behind that is the old dining facility in the winterized tents.
Another picture from the SYSCON looking over Camp Bondsteel as the sun
begins to set. Those fuel cans would often be completely covered when
it would snow and you'd have to just head for the big mound in the
snow when it came time to change over fuel cans on the stove.
Looking from the SYSCON towards part of the "airfield" on Camp Bondsteel.
You can see the mountain in the background with a still being built
helicopter hanger in the foreground. At the bottom of the picture are the
shower tents and the dining facility tent before they tore them down.
The shower tents are at the bottom of the picture. They were just GP medium
tents with raised wooden floors, wooden walls, and cheap fiberglass shower
stalls installed inside them. Each tent had a single water heater to supply
the hot water, but more often than not, it was empty by the time more then
five people took a shower. Still, as any soldier can tell you, a shower is
a shower and cold or not, it always felt good to be clean. :-)
Here is one of the gate guards. ;-) It's an M109 Paladin from 1/7 Field Artillery.
Part of the Bravo Company, 121st Signal Battalion motorpool on Camp Bondsteel.
And here are the motorpool "offices".
Looking from one of the Bravo Company seahut's towards the new dining facility
that the Brown & Root local national employees were hard at work building.
Stairs heading up to the "Gunfighters" territory. That is the aviation
unit (I think it was 2/1 Aviation but I'm not sure) that flew the
Apache's all around Kosovo and up along the border with Serbia.
The medevac unit's headquarters. Not sure which unit it was.
Here is the entrance to the AAFES PX on Camp Bondsteel. It was just
a big fest tent like they use in Germany with raised wooden floors.
The entrance to the Burger King AAFES brought to Camp Bondsteel.
And here it is inside the building. Basically, they created a mobile Burger
King so it could roll anywhere and had it brought to Camp Bondsteel. When they
first started operating, it wasn't uncommon to see a sign outside that read,
"Yes! We Have Fries!" It also wasn't uncommon for them to run out of whopper
meat so we'd be eating double cheeseburgers on whopper bread, but I don't think
anyone really cared. It was great to every so often get a good double whopper
with cheese, pickle and ketchup only. Plus, the military members from other
countries were always seen lining up there when they stopped by Bondsteel.
The entrance to the Bravo Company orderly room.
Inside the orderly room. Looking at the camera is SSG Buchannen
and behind him is SPC Scholl working for SGT Schofield in supply.
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