Loca as U. Kevin Braam is a private in U.S. Army By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN A FORMER basketball player from Caledonia Se- _nior Secondary is on a very different kind of team these days. ‘Private First Class Kevin Braam, 20, landed .in Kuwait last week with the 11th Engineering Bat- talion of the Third Infantry Division of the U.S. Army. “Jt may seem odd that a ' Canadian would be gear- ing up with the U.S. armed forces but Braam is a dual citizen - his mother is ori- ginally from Iowa. “Coming out of high school I. chose to go to college in Iowa,” Braam ‘says. “I played basketball for a year down there.” But after a year of fur-- ther studies he decided to look into enlisting with the army. “As a kid every little boy likes to play army,” he recalls, adding he has -always enjoyed the out- doors, going hunting with his father and fishing. He saw elements of the rugged outdoor life in the army and paid a visit to a. . local recruiting office. ‘ After making sure he “didn't have a criminal re-’ cord, any involvement’ . with drugs and a high‘ school diploma, he was! signed up. That was a year and a half ago. Last week he left " ” Fort Stewart, Georgia, his current posting, to go to’ one of the world’s potitical‘ hot spots. “If you think about it, this many troops haven’t ‘been deployed to one spot .since the Gulf war,” said’ ‘jer with a distinct Yankee accent. Is he nervous? | boy now in the Gulf . gears up f SHOWN HERE training with a Russian sniper rifle, Kevin Braam is from Terrace but holds duat Canadian-American citizenship. He's in a U.S. Army combat en- gineering unit which has now been sent to the Gulf. “A litde bit, yeah,” he conceded. “I’m not the sort of hyped-up nervous like you are before a basketball game. It’s a different kind of mental preparation you go through.” Part of that preparation includes facing the poss- - ibility that he may be in- volved in a war on his first overseas deployment. While he said his unit’s function in the Gulf is to continue “training exer- 1 cises,” he’s well aware of what the future may hold if the U.S. declares war on Iraq. “Hey, it’s what we train for,” he said. “The main ( reason you are in the army is ta prepare to go to war.” That includes preparing himself for a unique kind of warfare, _ “Germ warfare and che- ‘mical weapons — that’s something we have to be prepared for.” He believes ‘strongly’ ‘the six-foot-one-inch sold-* Ahat-“!Saddam * ‘Hussein, " Ieaq’s president, is con- cealing nuclear weapons. “[Hussein’s] had so much time to hide stuff,” Braam said. “The U.S. knows he has the stuff but we have to prove he does. Until we can prove that, we are sort of hanging tight right now.” Before leaving, Braam said he wasn’l expecting cushy living conditions like his peacekeeping counterparts in places such as Bosnia have. While peacekeepers there enjoy satellite TV, hot showers and decent food, Kuwait’s comfort le- vels promise to be some- what more crude. “In Kuwait - the base camp there that the U.S. will kind of be staged out of — there is basically nothing there,” Braam said. “It’s going to be quite a bit poorer than Bosnia or Kosovo.” As a combat engineer, Braam is involved with es- , tablishing and maintaining “bases” and: camps in the efield. “sory lone iy “Basically my job i is to set up the battlefield,” he explained. ALL SALES FINAL! CASH &. CARRY ONLY! TOO MANY INSTORE SAVINGS TO LIST... ALL SALES FIRST COME FIRST SOLD! OPEN MON. 10 SAT. 8AM TO 5: 3OPM _ 2815. ‘KAL mM. STREET, TER BESTHUY _— Anyone i nterested in me =6obeing a team captain za, «OOF participating in the For more in Lynda o or Cecilia 638- 8583 Phone/Fax _ formation, contact =+ May 11th, 2003 Please attencl the kick-off meeting Monday, February 17th at 8:00 p.m. Coast Inn Of The West (Room 330) ed behind Tin Hogtat drive thrbigh ti ancl, Aiallable io adian Cancer Se Society's aA Socisse Canarlian Cancer canadienne | du cancer Society cg hh Relay For Life Relals pour That includes filling sand bags and setting them up to protect bunkers, es- tablishing perimeter fences around bases and main- taining those areas. Braam’s also trained in deactivating mine fields and has training in demoli- tion and explosives. His «unit is a mech- anized unit which means he may travel in or operate specialized vehicles and machinery. That includes armoured tanks, Hummers and vehicles like the Ace — a specially designed armoured combat bulldo- Zer. There is no doubt Braam feels like a Cana- dian, having grown up and living in Terrace most of his life. But as a dual citi- zen he also feels a certain connection to the United States. But whether he feels he is serving his country by (being: ‘in’ the U.S. army ‘pives’ him a moment: rof pause. “My mom’s whole fa- mily lives in Iowa - in a wait Or Walk Kevin Braam way, that’s my second home,” he says after a long pause. “In a way, | would say I'm serving my country.” Braam is committed to a three-year contract and halfway through this en- listment he thinks he’s found his niche. In fact he’s already thinking of re-enlisting for another three years. Braam will be in Ku- safely, to Terrace this fall to visit his family and friends. The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, January 2%, 2003 - A3 News In Brief | for between 6-9... ‘months and plans to return,’ Roofs crushed TERRACE RCMP are asking for information rela- ted to some serious damage to vehicles parked outside a local hotel Dec. 28, 2002. Unknown culprits caved in the roofs of two vehi- cles by jumping on them as they sat parked outside the Best Western Terrace Inn on Greig Ave., po- lice say. Police are asking anyone with information about this incident to contact them at 638-7400 or call Crimestoppers at 635-8477. The damage occurred in the early morning hours of Dec. 28. U.S. mayors lobbied A KITIMAT councillor was part of a Canadian de- legation to Washington last week to push for a fair end (o the softwood lumber dispute. Joanne Monaghan was part of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities task force that lobbied U.S. mayors for support. She and others said it’s in their interest to work to eliminate the tariffs that inflate the price of lumber and housing in the U.S. “We told the mayors that the 27 per cent U.S. tariff on our lumber is harming our communities and that we need to find a fair and yuick end to the dispute,” Monaghan said. The task force is to tour U.S. cities next month to try to drum up more support for an end to the dis- pute which has hit B.C. hard. Company lauded THE FEDERAL government has recognized Tri- umph Timber Ltd. of Terrace for how it is protect- ing fish and fish habitat by presenting it with an award from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. This award is the first of its type to be presented on the west coast. “The federal government commends the employ- ees of Triumph Timber, who have gone beyond Standard practices and have developed creative and effective methods to protect fish and fish habi- tat,” said fisheries official John Lubar. “The company's close cooperation with the De- partment's habitat staff in the North Coast area has resulted in dual benefits - for fish and for forest operations. Triumph Timber stands as a model for how the needs of the environment and industry can both be achieved.” During the past two years, Triumph Timber’s ef- forts have included building a portable log slide at a log storage yard that reduces woody debris which can damage aquatic areas, developing a first-ever debris management plan and building a prototype sea rake to collect and remove fioating woody de- bris from aquatic habitat. At Tuck Inlet, the company logged using heli- copters to avoid booming the logs by water, elimi- nating. potential impacts on the aquatic environ- | ment. >‘: Instead; logs were transported’ by helicopter and ‘ lowered directly onto ‘an offshore barge. * - ok ¥ Many things have taken place in the last year and the Terrace & District Chamber of Commerce has several ideas and plans for the coming year. The Terrace Standard is publishing the Chamber's Annual Supplement February 12, 2003. Book or reserve your space now. Limited space available. s O86 7288 .