Soldiers' City Building Efforts Culminate in City Hall Opening
released by CJTF-7 Public Affairs
MOSUL, Iraq – A ribbon cutting ceremony was held Monday in the town of Tal Kayf, honoring the opening of its new city hall.
Soldiers from Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), attended the ceremony, along with the 502nd Infantry Regiment, including the 2nd Brigade commander, Col. Joe Anderson.
The ceremony marked the culmination of effort the soldiers of Bravo Company put into building the town up and helping it grow, said Capt. Kevin Williams, the company commander.
Since arriving in May, the soldiers have spent $100,000 on projects around the town. Among the projects, they funded the repair of six schools, the police station, and sewer system, worked on water projects to bring fresh water to the population of 20,000, and began to refurbish existing medical clinics.
Their original mission didn’t include anything beyond security patrols in the town, but the need to help the local governing body quickly became apparent. The soldiers of Bravo Company had a chance to help the town residents and they took it, Williams said.
“We came out here initially to provide security,” Williams said. “Now, basically we’re trying to make sure their government and infrastructure can stand on its own. This city hall symbolizes the final step. It’s a capstone to all we’ve done here.”
Besides helping repair buildings in Tal Kayf, the soldiers also helped with town elections. They organized the process as well as the weekly meetings held by the city council and leaders of Bravo Company, said 2nd Lt. Jacob Moulin, the company’s civil military operations officer.
“This town has come a long way,” he said.
After helping organize the town council, the soldiers took the final step of setting up a place for the council to operate out of.
Using $25,000 supplied by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the soldiers helped turn an old fire truck parking garage into the city hall in two months.
“It was really just an abandoned building, we basically built it from the ground up,” Williams said.
“It was pretty much gutted, torn up and useless,” agreed Moulin.
The walls were unfinished, the windows were broken, and there was no furniture, water or electricity, Williams said.
A local contractor was hired by the 101st Civil Military Operations Center to work on the project. The workers added windows, tiles for the floor, finished the walls, built a garage and added furniture.
The contractor worked with the soldiers and the local government to facilitate the project and make sure that everything ran smoothly, even when conditions such as weather and on-site problems affected the operation.
“It was a good working relationship,” he said. “I’m definitely satisfied, especially considering all the obstacles (the contractor) had to defeat.”
The next project for the soldiers of Bravo Company is to focus more on the town’s medical clinics. They want to get more beds and medicine, and provide better conditions for the patients and workers, Moulin said.
MOSUL, Iraq – A ribbon cutting ceremony was held Monday in the town of Tal Kayf, honoring the opening of its new city hall. Besides helping repair buildings in Tal Kayf, the soldiers also helped with town elections. They organized the process as well as the weekly meetings held by the city council and leaders of Bravo Company, said 2nd Lt. Jacob Moulin, the company’s civil military operations officer.
“This town has come a long way”
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101st Airborne Division, progress, ping!
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Oh yes, I saw all this on 60 Minutes this last week, or was it PrimeTime, or Dateline?