Story by: Pfc. Jerome Bishop
LOGISTICS SUPPORT AREA ANACONDA, Iraq - Christmas dinners are as significant as the rest of the day's events, and to contribute to the holiday atmosphere, everyone's pitching in, even the KBR Ice Plant.
This year at dining facilities here, Soldiers will be able to view the elaborate frozen gifts from the ice factory, eight different ice sculptures.
Using only power drills, knives and razor blades, a hard working team of ice plant factory workers turned eight ordinary blocks of ice from several hundred-pound chunks of frozen water into amazing works of art, said Andrew De Juan Vego, ice plant worker.
The process for sculpting ice usually only takes about eight hours. However since the weather is warmer than back in the states, the sculptures can only be worked on for a few hours at a time before they have to be refrozen to prevent them from cracking, said Paul Miller, ice factory manager.
"It gets you thinking that you have to be careful," he said. "[If] you crack one of [the sculptures], it's done for."
Preventing cracks is important because the ice can't be repaired if it were to break, Miller said.
"It works out [well] for us too because we have plenty of other work to do," said Miller.
Once the sculptures are completed, they're stored in refrigerated trailers to await their trip to one of the dining facilities to be put on display, said Miller.
Many of the workers in the factory aren't familiar with artistic sculpting. For their lack of experience they have done work exceeding any expectation, he said.
Some of the workers took a lot of initiative and have put forth even more toward the effort. De Juan Vego not only designed about half of the art pieces, but also sculpted two nearly alone, he said.
"Maybe God guides my hand to do this," said De Juan Vego. "It's really cool."
"A lot or credit goes to [the workers], I think they did a great job," said Miller.
Although ice can't get a Soldier home to be with his or her family, it can looked at as a brilliant piece of dedication and talent that the ice plant staff has poured into them, giving at least a comforting feeling that someone cares.
Related Photo:
[url]http://www.dvidshub.net/img_archives/index.php?screen=view&id=3927[/url]
| Date Taken: | 01.11.2005 |
| Date Posted: | 01.11.2005 15:04 |
| Story ID: | 835 |
| Location: | LOGISTICS SUPPORT AREA ANACONDA, IQ |
| Web Views: | 33 |
| Downloads: | 11 |
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