Graduation Day at Camp Atterbury

Camp Atterbury, Ind., opened its gates Tuesday for carloads of folks, civilians coming for a long, last look at sons, daughters, husbands and wives for the next nine months. Another in a series of road-choking snowfalls, as predictable as the freight schedule, did little to curb the tide of traffic easing its way across slick roads to the base south of Indianapolis.

In a warehouse-sized building of sheetmetal and concrete flooring, members of 13 Provincial Reconstruction Teams formed up, along with a portion of a South Carolina National Guard battalion of field artillery. Facing them across the room were maybe 1,000 friends and family who had arrived during the previous day, many of them during a snowfall that practically closed the state. Roads were a hazard, schools were closed, as were many businesses, including restaurants. They filled up the motels clustered around the outlet mall on U.S. 31 about 15 minutes south of the base. Travelers forced off the highways by the weather were turned away for lack of rooms.

The base, built in World War II as a training camp, hospital and POW camp, in its winter mantle bears the aspect of post-industrial functionality. Modern buildings of quickly erected sheet metal combine with older wooden barracks, concrete block and portables. The streets now are clogged by the uniformed inmates, who have no other place to walk and who walk everywhere, and lined with hip-high berms of plowed snow. The core of the place has a feel of hastily-built, make-do to it.

The military folk live little better than prisoners. Liberty to leave the base arrived with the conclusion of training; soldiers, sailors and airmen were allowed eight hours Tuesday and eight hours Wednesday to spend with visiting family and friends.

J. Michael Bednarek, major general, commander of 1st Army Division East, delivered a stirring speech, praising the gathered trainees as America's best and exhorting the audience to stand and applaud. He left out "wives," however, when he described the military people as sons, daughters and husbands. Of course, Kelley was there, in the back rank, with PRT Paktya.

Her team, commanded by Lt. Col. Charles Douglass, USAF, includes 78 members, 11 of them women, from the Army and Air Force. A Pennsylvania National Guard company from Connellsville is their security force. The women live in one barracks in a cluster of those metal buildings. The men occupy an adjacent building. Inside the barracks the living quarters are reminiscent of a prison. Seven-foot-high steel lockers lined up together form a wall between bunks. A sheet hung across the space between them affords some privacy. Downtime is spent in The House all ranks club. The bar there sees little commerce since General Order 1 is in effect, the ban on alcohol, although the pool table gets exercised. A restaurant and coffee bar are options to the base chow hall. The USO operates a break room with a room full of computers, TV and gameroom. On my visit, it looked like a student union, a crowded room full of coffee drinkers and game players, some watching television, others dozing in comfy sofas with laptops open in their laps. It's impossible to find a private moment in warmth to make a phone call, short of standing in the cold and snow.

 We are together for 1 1/2 days, Kelley and I, spending her days on liberty watching TV in my Best Western motel room, catching a movie or two at the Columbus, Ind., theaterplex and having dinner. We find the same tan-and-green camouflage uniforms everywhere; this is the farewell week for everyone heading with the PRTs to Afghanistan. Kelley and her group departs via a charter flight with her team from the Indianapolis airport on her birthday. Some present!