Eastern Europe understands opression, the evils of communism, and now understand freedom. Funny, all this while Western Europe spirals closer and closer to socialism. Go figure.
June 06, 2005
New frontiers
After generations of waiting, Romanians eager to welcome Uncle Sam to ‘new Europe’
By Vince Crawley
Times staff writer
BUCHAREST, Romania — The Americans are coming to Eastern Europe. And more than a half-century after World War II, the Eastern Europeans couldn’t be happier.
Near the Black Sea coast, the Bulgarian and Romanian militaries are gearing up for summer training exercises they hope will result in a permanent — or at least rotating — presence of U.S. troops in their countries for years to come.
The U.S. government is close to a final decision on whether to use one or both nations as a forward-basing area for its future Eastern European Task Force, which would have about 100 personnel in its permanent headquarters and would be run by a two-star officer.
The task force would coordinate the rotation of as many as several thousand troops on short tours to strategic former Warsaw Pact bases that U.S. forces already use as staging areas for Iraq and Afghanistan operations.
Romania and Bulgaria have participated in both operations, and their close cooperation led President Bush to press for their swift admission into NATO, which took place a year ago.
When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of “new Europe,” he had countries such as Bulgaria and Romania in mind. Last year, he paid quick visits to military facilities in both locations.
In Romania, the Romex ’05 exercise slated for this summer will involve more than 1,000 soldiers from the Texas National Guard’s 36th Infantry Division, plus hundreds of support troops. They will conduct live-fire drills and maneuvers at the Babadag range and other locations near the Black Sea while providing insight for U.S. military leaders on how rotational forces might operate in the region.
In Bulgaria, a similar exercise took place a year ago at the Novo-Selo maneuver area, near the town of Sliven. This July, a follow-on exercise at Novo-Selo will involve the deployment of members of the 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment of the Germany-based 1st Armored Division. U.S. officials say the exercise, Immediate Response, will test Americans’ ability to rapidly deploy a strategic reserve force to the area.
These exercises are hardly unique. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops already have passed through bases in Bulgaria and Romania for training exercises or while transiting to Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo. American troops have been in Romania long enough to start marrying locals, and the coastal city of Constanta — being offered as a potential site for the Eastern Europe Task Force headquarters — often hosts small groups of U.S. troops for a wide variety of training and coordination missions.
For example, in May, a small U.S. signal team deployed to a base outside Constanta for the Combined Endeavor exercise that tests the ability of multinational coalitions to communicate.
At least every other year, the Marines schedule an amphibious operation on the Black Sea and have repeatedly practiced beach landings in Romania.
Bulgaria and Romania want these temporary visits to evolve into a more permanent presence, but U.S. officials are trying to curtail overly optimistic hopes, saying they’ll keep their troop numbers small and, for the most part, transitory.
“There are a lot of countries that would really like us to be there,” Air Force Gen. Charles Wald, deputy chief of U.S. European Command, said in an interview at his headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, in late April. “It’s ultimately an encouraging … message to the United States that they believe we’re doing the right thing and want to be associated with us.”
‘Our grandfathers waited’
The Romanians definitely are hot for Uncle Sam — and they’ve been waiting a long time.
“World War II was a disaster from a cultural and political point of view,” said Ion Mircea Plangu, the second-ranking official in Romania’s Ministry of National Defense.
“Our grandfathers were waiting for the Americans to come after World War II,” the soft-spoken Plangu said in his top-floor office, adorned by maps of Iraq and Afghanistan, where his troops serve.
Standing before the maps, he explained that he recently attended a somber homecoming for a Romanian service member who died in Afghanistan. Asked what his nation can offer the United States, he replied, “We have given much already.”
Romanians have considered themselves Europeans for nearly 2,000 years, ever since the Roman legions made their way to the shores of the Black Sea, then the edge of the known world.
Bucharest, the capital, has been called the Paris of the East. A huge digital calendar downtown ticks off the days until Romanians hope to join the European Union, less than two years hence.
“We take pride in the fact that we are able to transport ourselves to and from Iraq,” says Delia Anghelescu, a spokeswoman for the Romanian defense ministry. U.S. and NATO military officials consider airlift to be an essential asset for modern operations.
Plangu said his country never felt much kinship with the Russians who swept in during World War II and held the country in its communist orbit until 1989.
During the long years of Soviet domination, he said, “there was a sort of tradition, waiting for the Americans to come. ... During this long interlude, America was really seen as a symbol of freedom and as a hope.”
“It took some time,” he said with a melancholy air, but the Americans finally have come.
A town called Babadag
The stately minaret of a 16th- century mosque towers over Babadag near the Black Sea. It’s no accident that the name of the town sounds like Baghdad. The Ottoman Turks ruled the region for centuries, and the town once briefly served as the seat of that empire.
Babadag, with its horse-drawn carts and dusty tile-roofed farmhouses, would look familiar to anyone who has spent time in Bosnia or Kosovo.
The town and its adjacent training area are in a relatively poor region known as Dorbroje, with windswept hills and rolling, rocky pastures leading down to Lake Razilm, a shallow body of water on the edge of the Black Sea.
In his Romanian ARO 243 military SUV, Lt. Col. Petre Dudau drives along the rim of the barren training area, occupied by low scrub and a herd of cows.
The range can accommodate both maneuver units and live-fire exercises, he said.
It is about nine miles long and two miles wide, but Romanian authorities have talked with the Americans about expanding it sixfold, to 20 miles by six miles — not huge by U.S. standards, but on par with the Grafenwoehr/Hohenfels training areas in Germany, which the U.S. military considers world-class.
“The population won’t be affected in any way. There is a lot of land here,” Dudau said of the proposed expansion.
“Americans envision that they can use two battalions,” he said of the training site. “One to maneuver and one to fire.”
Lake Razilm, visible in the distance, allows amphibious landings, as well as coordinated live-fire actions with aircraft and ships offshore.
The area is windy, dusty and dry. Summer temperatures hover in the mid-90s, and during icy winters often dip into the 20s or below.
Dudau is making initial preparations for Romex ’05, when the bulk of deploying Americans will set up a tent city on the edge of the training area.
Concrete platforms already are in place, and the training area is wired for phones and digital electronics.
An hour to the south, a modern live-fire range on Cape Midia accommodates artillery and air-defense systems that target unmanned drones while firing out into the Black Sea, though oil terminals and ship traffic restrict the directions and distances weapons can shoot.
Cape Midia also has a state-of-the-art, indoor air-defense simulator on which troops can try their hand at using shoulder-fired weapons to take out helicopters and jets against projected backdrops of Middle Eastern cities and deserts.
M-K in your future?
Just north of Constanta, adjacent to the city’s civilian airport, is Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, a tongue twister that even the locals simply call “M-K.”
The U.S. military has poured millions of construction dollars into the base, which even has a street named George Washington Boulevard.
Two years ago, thousands of Americans converged on M-K. The air base served as the launch point for the 2003 airborne invasion into northern Iraq after nearby Turkey blocked a land approach into the country.
M-K has also been used as a staging area for numerous rotations into Kosovo, and the Navy has used it for surveillance aircraft operations. In 2004, some U.S. troops spent six months at M-K for an exercise called Cornerstone — long enough for some to meet and marry local women.
This summer, M-K will be the “nerve center” of the command portion of Romex ’05, says Romanian air force Capt. Alexandru Ionescu, who flies Puma helicopters.
Ionescu conducted a brief tour of the now-quiet base that can accommodate 300 troops.
“Not at the luxury end,” he said, “but for troops, pretty good.”
A nearby infantry barracks can house another 300 or so U.S. troops.
Ionescu walked in the afternoon sun among silent Soviet-made MiG-29s parked near the taxiway, their tires flat, engines covered, unlikely to ever fly again — relics from a bygone era.
“It’s amazing,” Ionescu told an American visitor.
“Something like 17 years ago, I’d have to kill you. Now, I invite you to take pictures.”
