Local soldier drills in Djibouti

Staff Sgt. Harold Shiell's weekend drills as an Army Reservist landed him half a world away, performing a different kind of drilling.

Shiell, from Kalispell, spoke to the Inter Lake last week from Djibouti on the horn of Africa.

"It's north of Somalia and east of Ethiopia," Shiell said.

He and the other members of the 747th Engineer Detachment work across the Red Sea from Yemen. The tiny coastal country of Djibouti juts into Ethiopia but also shares borders with Somalia and Eritrea.

"It's very close to the size of Flathead and Lincoln counties," Shiell said.

The detachment deployed to Djibouti on a mission to win hearts and minds by drilling water wells for the parched local people and livestock.

"It's extremely hard to drill," Shiell said. "Geologically, it's very hard volcanic basalt."

The detachment of American soldiers stood out in an area that sees few tourists due to the territory's history of unrest.

"This is an area where there are a lot of nomadic tribes," Shiell said.

At first, the tribesmen were leery of the detachment arriving with all its large equipment and heavy machinery. Shiell said they managed, through hand language, to explain their mission to the local chief.

"It was kind of like charades," he said with a laugh.

After the people realized the Americans had come to drill for water, the detachment became a source of great entertainment.

"They come by with their camels, goats and other livestock," Shiell.

As the tough ground took a toll on the equipment, the locals became concerned the soldiers would give up and leave, Shiell said.

To make matters more unbearable, temperatures hit 130 degrees regularly this time of year.

"It was almost a test of wills," Shiell said.

When the 747th finally hit water at 640 feet, a general celebration broke out.

"The chief was dancing around and happy," Shiell said. "It was kind of fun."

Detachment members pumped the water out on the ground for 24 hours to see how long it took to recharge the pumps. Local people jumped in to bathe and water their livestock.

Before the 747th drilled the deep, fresh-water well, local tribes used brackish, mineralized water from a well only about 6 1/2 feet deep.

"It didn't meet our standards and it wasn't good for their livestock," Shiell said.

He described the arduous process of first drilling an exploratory well with a 6-inch bit, logging soil and water samples along the way until locating a suitable aquifer.

Next, the unit drilled the exploratory hole out with a 9-inch bit and then a 12 3/4-inch bit.

"All the time, we were drilling through very hard rock," Shiell said.

Finally, the engineers dropped in 8-inch well casings and screens to create a well with dependable, potable water.

He said the Djibouti government wanted water wells drilled as an incentive to stabilize the country.

Until 1977, the area was the two French territories of Afars and Issas. The country then became Djibouti with an authoritarian, one-party government.

Unrest among the minority Afars during the 1990s led to civil war which finally ended after multiparty elections in 1999 and a peace accord in 2001.

The present leadership has close

ties to France, which maintains a strong military presence there. It has strengthened ties with the United States recently, hosting the only U.S. military base in sub-Saharan Africa.

With its strategic position at the mouth of the Red Sea, Djibouti has become a front-line state on the global war on terrorism.

Although also trained for warfare, Shiell and the other 747th soldiers spent this activation fighting their environment. At 10 degrees above the equator, the heat becomes all the more unbearable due to the coastal humidity.

"We drink a lot of water," Shiell said. "You become acclimated to it [the heat], but you don't get used to it."

When not in federal service, Shiell works as a construction survey technician for the Montana Department of Transportation. He lives with his wife, Jayne, and three of their six children at home in Kalispell.

His unit deployed to Djibouti the day after Christmas.

Since then, the soldiers have lived in two tents with a generator that runs environmental control units for escape from the heat - but not the spiders, scorpions and poisonous snakes.

Yet Shiell sounds sincere when he calls Djibouti "a fun deployment." He said 747th soldiers work hard but they have a satisfying end result.

"Everyone likes what they do," Shiell said. "It's a real gratifying experience."

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.