Iowa Guardsman talks about his life in Iraq during year-long mission

A 44-year-old Strawberry Point man who’s a commander in the Iowa National Guard is leading about six-hundred-40 troops on a year-long mission in Iraq. His soldiers provide security escorts to convoys which ship food, fuel and water to U.S. troops in the western portion of Iraq. Lieutenant Colonel Ben Corell (kor-EL) called back to Iowa last week and told Iowa reporters on a conference call that his typical day starts at four a-m. Corell goes for a run and by a little after five o’clock in the morning Corell’s in his office. The headquarters building is about a mile and a half from his bunk, and he walks to work. Other soldiers in the area ride bicycles. His “battle desk” operates 24 hours a day and Corell gets a briefing from the soldiers who’ve been monitoring operations overnight when he walks in the door of his office. He works on his computer, reviewing plans and checking email, then at nine o’clock every morning there’s a staff briefing. “That lasts about 40 minutes,” Corell says. “On a normal day, I’m back either doing administrative issues or I’m out checking soldiers.” He often goes through the motor pool, where the two-hundred vehicles used by the unit are maintained. “Our maintenance effort within our motor pool will make us be successful in this mission or if it’s not running efficiently, it could cause us to fail,” Corell say. “The motor pool is a key stop of mine and I get down there, if I can, every day just to see how things are going.” He communicates a couple of times a week with his bosses at a base in southern Iraq. Corell says he also goes out and talks to soldiers he knows are heading out on missions. He is usually in his office until eight o’clock at night. “Sometimes a little later,” Corell says. “Every once in a while I’ve got a little DVD player and I try to watch an episode of ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ and usually I’m asleep before the first one is done,” Corell says. The commander sometimes climbs aboard one of the convoys. “I try to go on missions at least every week with my soldiers to see what they’re seeing, feel what they’re feeling, capture any issues and then check leaders to see that we’re doing the right things out there,” Corell says. “So that’s kind of my day in a nutshell, anyway. Did that kind of paint the picture for you?”