"Army divers come out of the Euphrates River after a two-hour dive to locate debris in the path of the new Saqlawiya bridge being built north of Taqaddum, Iraq, Oct. 5, 2009. The 'umbilical cord' on shore includes the air supply and communications for the divers, who are assigned to the 86th Engineer Dive Team."
SAQLAWIYA, Iraq (Oct. 14, 2009) -- On a floating bridge beside the stump of a modern concrete highway span under construction here, two middle-aged men talk through an interpreter about the job before them.One is Najee Hamed, shift supervisor for the Iraqi police who are manning traffic control points and providing security for the bridge and new construction. A large, heavyset man, Hamed is a former first sergeant of an Iraq army artillery battery who was wounded by rocket fire in the Iraq-Iran War.The other is U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Scott Thomas, a paratrooper on his fifth deployment, whose family's military service dates back to the U.S. Revolution. Thomas, with the 82nd Airborne Division's 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, is providing security for an Army dive team that is removing debris from a destroyed bridge so that Iraqi contractors may finish a new bridge project.The 504th was the first infantry regiment in the Army to be designated airborne; now it is part of the newest tool in the Army's arsenal developed for this kind of mission: the advise-and-assist brigade. More
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