Fishing - "GIs Angle For Quiet Time At Baghdad School Of Fly Fishing"

Chicago Tribune
May 17, 2006
Pg. 1

GIs Angle For Quiet Time At Baghdad School Of Fly Fishing

By Aamer Madhani, Tribune staff reporter

CAMP VICTORY, Iraq -- Like many of his fellow anglers in the Baghdad
School of Fly Fishing, Navy Lt. Joel Stewart thought an afternoon of
casting on one of Saddam Hussein's lakes could make him feel as though
he had escaped the war and was back in his native Montana, fishing for
trout.

But sometimes he couldn't pretend.

"There was one time when I was casting and a rocket landed in the lake
about 400 meters from me," said Stewart, an avid angler and founder of
the club dedicated to introducing U.S. soldiers in Iraq to what is
known as the "quiet sport."

Other fishing excursions have been interrupted by gun battles and
roadside bombs exploding within earshot. "I wasn't in any real danger,
but it was a real reminder of where we're at," Stewart said.

For many soldiers, the war in Iraq is about enduring painfully long
stretches of boredom punctuated by brief flashes of terror. Even the
most battle-seasoned of infantrymen can weather months of humdrum
patrols without firing a shot or being fired at.

Finding ways to maintain sanity during the valleys of the fight can
sometimes be as daunting as the peaks of battle, the soldiers say.

On U.S. bases, video games are perhaps the most popular downtime
distractions, particularly games that mimic war, such as Halo and
Mortal Kombat. The U.S. military has also built state-of-the-art gyms
and rock-climbing walls, and it screens movies to offer troops
temporary reprieves from the stress of their work.

There is no bar scene, such as the one U.S. troops enjoyed in Saigon,
and there have been few stories of GIs meeting their future brides, as
many American troops did during World War II. But the variety of
diversions and creature comforts available to troops in Iraq is
astounding compared with previous wars.

At some of the military post exchanges soldiers can purchase
flat-screen televisions, DVDs, Maxim magazine and other comforts of
home. The Internet and the availability of cellular phones have made
keeping in touch with loved ones back home easy and relatively
inexpensive.

Some U.S. troops use their downtime to take correspondence courses,
hundreds blog on the Internet and a few have even formed rock bands.

But the Baghdad School of Fly Fishing based at Camp Victory is unique.

"I can't tell you the number of times I have come out with a fly rod
and solved the world's problems," said U.S. Army Maj. Vance Sperry, a
club director, on a recent afternoon as he took an hourlong break to
cast a line.

Stewart, a Montana native whose yearlong tour ended in February,
founded the club to help fellow service members clear their minds while
teaching them a sport they could enjoy back home. When Stewart went
home, Lt. Col. William Jones and Sperry took over.

"There is nothing better than spending a day fly fishing," said Jones,
taking time recently from his job in the planning and policy unit of
the Multi-National Corps-Iraq to lead a class. "Here, we're lucky to
get free for an hour twice a week, but I'll take it. It's good to get
your mind off things for a little while. Everybody out here has to find
a way. This is mine."

This spring, during the chaos that consumed Iraq after the bombing of
the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, Jones and his colleagues worked 20
hours a day. When things slowed down to the more normal 14-hour
workday, the first thing Jones did was head to one of the lakes on base
with his fly rod, he said.

Stewart said he started fly fishing at Camp Victory whenever he could
find a free hour. The manmade lakes still teem with carp and other fish
stocked during Hussein's regime.

"Some guys do PT [physical training] to unwind," Stewart said in a
telephone interview from his new base in Rhode Island. "I do PT because
you have to. Fly fishing allows me to decompress. When you're deployed
you have to have something to let your mind escape for a little while."

Inevitably, service members who saw Stewart fishing would stop to
inquire about it. Some of them asked if they could join him. Stewart,
an ambassador of the sport, would always oblige.

With all the interest from soldiers and sailors who wanted to learn how
to fly fish, Stewart got the idea to start an eight-week course. The
class focuses on teaching the basics of the sport and is open to
service members at Camp Victory.

He started posting notes on a fly fishing bulletin board on the
Internet, writing about fishing in Iraq and his desire to teach other
service members to fly fish. Soon, enthusiasts in the United States
were mailing him flies, reels, rods and other equipment to run his
class.

Stewart also started a Web site to post his war zone fishing tales (all
true, he insists) and updates on the classes.

In one entry from August, he described an hourlong battle with a
behemoth fish called a mangar, a species found in the Tigris River.

"He turned towards the brush pile and I strained the connection between
us, trying to turn his massive head out of the danger zone," Stewart
wrote. "That proved to be too much for my weary tippet and it gave up
the fight. Just like that it was over. I had been in the fight for an
hour and felt every minute of it. The moment of defeat-induced despair
was quickly overcome with the euphoria fed by adrenaline. I had fought
the fish of a lifetime for an hour."

Stewart graduated 34 anglers from the Baghdad School of Fly Fishing
before returning to the U.S. Jones hopes to graduate dozens more before
he heads home early next year.

"My hope was to get some guys out of their hooches and out of the MWR
[Morale, Welfare and Recreation centers], teach them to fly fish and
find something that would give them a little distraction," Stewart
said. "It's gone way better than I thought it would."