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Dirty deal

Antony Lineberger went to the war zone to drive a gas tanker, make some real money, help his country. He wanted excitement; he got excrement.

By LANE DeGREGORY
Published March 15, 2005

[Times photo: John Pendygraft]

Antony Lineberger's more at home at his job at Lancaster Oil Co. in Gulfport, delivering fuel to bay area boats.

	[Photos courtesy of Antony Lineberger]
	Lineberger poses in front of old Soviet aircraft bunkers in Afghanistan.
	Camp Stronghold Freedom in Kandahar, Afghanistan, is occupied by 3,000 people, mostly American soldiers and the workers who support them. Lineberger shared this eight-man tent with other KBR employees.
	Pictures from home accompanied Antony Lineberger to his small digs in Afghanistan.
	Lineberger expected to drive a fuel tanker; instead, he operated this "honey dipper," cleaning out portable toilets on base.
	Detour to danger Antony Lineberger, a fuel truck driver for years, has a new route - halfway around the world in Afghanistan, where the money is good but life is cheap. (Jan. 23, 2005)

TREASURE ISLAND - On his first day at work, they issued him body armor. They taught him how to duct-tape his helmet to keep out deadly gas. They told him about pit vipers and poisonous spiders, warned him about microscopic sand fleas whose bite could kill him.

They made him choose a code word in case he got captured.

But no one told him about the toilets.

Antony Lineberger left Treasure Island six weeks ago to drive fuel tankers across Afghanistan. He had been trying to get a job with Halliburton for more than nine months.

After 14 years of hauling fuel to boats around Tampa Bay, he longed to see the Middle East, have a little adventure, make some real money, help out his country.

The 42-year-old registered Libertarian had cut off his waist-length ponytail, given up his apartment, stored his furniture, sold his share of the family business and left his old dog with a friend.

He even married a former roommate so someone would get the death benefits if the worst happened.

On Jan. 23, the St. Petersburg Times ran a story about Lineberger, "Detour to Danger."

He planned to stay in Afghanistan for at least a year.

Camp Stronghold Freedom is a U.S. military base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. A former Taliban outpost, it is now a tent city occupied by 3,000 people, mostly American soldiers and the workers who support them. KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, has shipped hundreds of employees to the 8 square miles of sand.

While American troops flush out insurgents, KBR workers cook the soldiers' meals, wash their uniforms and transport whatever they need.

Lineberger had signed up to be a heavy truck driver, ferrying gas between military bases. He agreed to work 12-hour days, seven-day weeks. He figured he could make $85,000 a year, about four times what he earned in Florida.

He knew it would be hard. He thought he could hack it.

He arrived in Kandahar with seven other civilian recruits on Saturday, Jan. 29, one of the coldest days anyone can remember. The 30 mph winds sliced through his new orange parka, slapped sand against his tan face. He shielded his eyes and shouldered his sleeping bag, following the others out of the supply shed.

The roads were rocks. The air was brown. Fine sand, like baby powder, blew in thick clouds. "So dusty I can only compare it to living inside a vacuum cleaner bag," Lineberger e-mailed his sister. "My eight-man tent leaks so much wind you could fly a freaking kite in it."

The smell, he said, was the worst part. The guys who had been there a while had a name for it. "Feces breeze."

It wafts in off the lake.

On his second day at work, they showed him his bunker. A cargo container, buried in the sand, rimmed with sand bags and what looked like worn mattresses.

"Don't worry," they told him, "we only get rocket attacks here every six months."

They told him he would be working the overnight shift: 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. He showed up for his shift a half-hour early. He wanted to check out his truck, look at his map and learn his route. He found his name on the list, under Services Department. "Antony Lineberger: Driver - SST."

He didn't know what that meant, so the guys who had been there for a while enlightened him. SST: S-- Sucking Truck.

More than 400 portable toilets rim Camp Stronghold Freedom. Every night, two 1,000-gallon tankers drive around, sucking out the waste. Then, two men have to hose down the toilets and restock the toilet paper.

Before that night, Lineberger had never even been inside a portable toilet. At RibFest, in St. Pete, he used to hike a mile to find a proper bathroom.

Now here he was, wearing yellow dishwashing gloves and goggles, trying to keep the waste from splashing his face.

And since he was the new guy, Lineberger had an extra responsibility. He was supposed to drop in the urinal cakes.

That was a treat compared to what they flung at him the next night.

On his third day at work, they took him to the brown lake. The honey dippers unload there, pumping their waste into a sand pit the size of a football field. Except for the urinal cakes, no one chemically treats the liquid.

He told them he was supposed to be driving fuel tankers. That's what he signed up for. His recruiter had promised.

Well, see, said the guys who had been there a while, those recruiters aren't really a part of Halliburton, or even KBR. They're just headhunters, paid by the number of people they enlist. Nobody in Afghanistan has to honor their promises.

Didn't Lineberger read Page One, Section One, of the Foreign Service Employment Agreement?

Yes, he said. He was sure he had. He had read a 3-inch binder full of information, signed dozens of forms.

"You agree to perform services of the job classification shown," the first paragraph states, "and other services within your capability as requested by Employer."

Camp Stronghold Freedom didn't need any fuel truck drivers just then. What we need, they told Lineberger, is laborers.

They were laughing.

"Tonight," they informed him, "we're taking you on another route."

The tanker truck bumped around the rocky rim of the base, past the PX, by the portable Wendy's, behind the mess hall where 100 men were shivering, waiting in line for dinner.

Lineberger watched a bombed-out building slide by the passenger door. He saw more metal shipping containers, bigger bunkers. He had never been to this part of the encampment before.

A half-mile past the last lines of tents, rows of barbed wire fencing appeared, rolling across the desert. The truck stopped outside a chained gate. "You go on inside," Lineberger said the guys told him. "We'll hand you the hose."

Bewildered, Lineberger climbed out of the tanker. A military police officer appeared and unlocked a tall gate. He stepped aside so Lineberger could slide through with the hose. Lineberger followed the guard along the fence, through another locked door.

When the guard opened the enclosure, dozens of dark eyes swiveled to stare. A room full of bearded men in orange jumpsuits were squatting on the floor, scowling.

This was a Taliban POW camp. More than 60 prisoners are held at Camp Stronghold Freedom.

For every two dozen men, there is a portable toilet. But no one uses it.

Out of protest, out of custom, out of disrespect for their captors - for whatever reason - the Taliban men refuse to sit on the camp toilets. "They squat over them and miss the hole with about half of it," Lineberger e-mailed his sister.

Six inches of human waste was caked around the seat, smeared on the bowl and walls. Lineberger stood there, pointing his hose at it, trying not to puke.

"After I would suck it, I had to spray it and would get covered in poop," he e-mailed his sister. "After the first time I did it, I was in shock and didn't talk the rest of the night. Didn't eat after that either.

"It was like being on Fear Factor for a 12-hour shift, 7 days a week."

Or it would have been, if he had lasted that long.

On his fourth day at work, he went to Human Resources and begged for another job. Any job. "I came here to drive," he said again.

They told him to be patient. Check the postings on the bulletin board; new slots are opening every day. Maybe when a driver goes on vacation, we can use you, they told him.

Lineberger asked around. No truck drivers were due to head home for months.

"I started going into shock. I got shaky and sweaty," he said.

In Iraq and other war zones, Halliburton hires local workers to do service jobs, like cleaning the bathrooms. But Afghanistan is too unstable; no one is sure whom to trust. So the dirty work goes to whoever is available.

"We operate in a war zone where things are constantly changing, so KBR cannot guarantee that an employee will perform the duties for which they were originally hired," KBR spokeswoman Jennifer Dellinger said in an e-mail to the Times.

That fourth night, after being refused by Human Resources, Lineberger threw up on his way to his shift. He threw up again outside the POW camp. He made himself go in.

Pale and nauseated, he uncoiled the hose, threaded it through the barbed wire, followed the guard past the crouched prisoners. He stood there, staring at the throne he was supposed to hose down, trying to hold back what was left in his stomach.

"I went to college," he kept thinking as human waste misted his goggles. "I did well on my SATs.

"I'm in MENSA."

He walked off his shift that night. Hiked back to his tent, threw his gloves into the trash. On the edge of his cot, by the beam of a flashlight, Lineberger finally did what he probably should have done before he left home: math.

He was earning $2,700 a month, plus a 5 percent foreign service bonus, plus 25 percent danger pay, minus insurance and travel advancements, divided by 84 hours a week . . .

"You only make $15 to $20 per hour," he wrote his sister just after dawn. "No way I am taking a bath in Taliban poop every night for that."

On his fifth day at work, he turned in his body armor. He gave back the duct tape. Shredded the pamphlets about deadly sand fleas.

On his sixth day, he boarded a cargo plane.

He had survived in Afghanistan almost a week.

"It's embarrassing to be back here, to have to explain to everyone what happened," Lineberger said last week. "I wanted to see the world. At least Afghanistan. Part of a village, even beggars. Something besides porta-potties."

He's back on his old route, delivering fuel to boats along the gulf beaches. He has moved back into his dad's Treasure Island bungalow, retrieved his old dog, Prince, from his friend. ("Prince" was his code word.)

As for his wife, well, he's not sure what's going to happen. She didn't expect him to come home so soon. She married him, mostly, in case he died.

He might not stick around here anyway.

"There's a 17,000-acre tree farm in Honduras, and a friend of mine is looking for someone to run it," Lineberger said, his green eyes gleaming. He'd have a company car, a house in the shade, plenty of waves to ride. No body armor or code words. Just a little adventure.

He wants to go somewhere without tents or prisoners or barbed wire. Somewhere without cold or blowing sand. Somewhere with forests and plants and sparkling water all around.

Somewhere that isn't brown.

-- Lane DeGregory can be reached at 727 893-8825 or degregory@sptimes.com

To read our Jan. 23 article about Antony Lineberger, please click on http://www.sptimes.com/links

[Last modified March 14, 2005, 16:42:03]