Bartlesville soldier to receive the Bronze Star

An Oklahoman receives rewards for his efforts in Iraq. They give medals for fighting in war and rightly so! But there's a lot of difficult and sometimes dangerous work to do after war, and they

Thursday, May 20th 2004, 10:22 am

By: News On 6

An Oklahoman receives rewards for his efforts in Iraq. They give medals for fighting in war and rightly so! But there's a lot of difficult and sometimes dangerous work to do after war, and they give medals for that too.

News on 6 reporter Steve Berg says an engineer from Bartlesville is getting the Bronze Star for his work in rebuilding the Iraqi oil fields.

You could say Bryan Hanes is one of the unsung heroes in Iraq. After the country was torn apart by war, he's helping put it back together. War is hell, but the aftermath is pretty ugly too. "And we got into the cities and we found there was no power, there was no water, we were about to have a humanitarian crisis."

Brad Haynes works for Schlumberger in Bartlesville, a longtime oil industry supplier. "I've worked in the oil field basically all my life." But he also has 30 years experience in the US Army Reserve, which made him the perfect candidate to get the southern Iraqi oilfields up and running again. Almost everybody knows Iraq exports oil. But you might not realize how cities like Basra rely on their neighborhood oil wells for almost everything. "Ran the generators, it ran the electricity, powered the water pumps, the diesel for cars, gasoline for cars."

Without the nearby oil wells and refineries, Basra was on the verge of widespread famine and disease. Hanes will be awarded the bronze star for his role in getting the wells going again. "When you're over there working, you don't think about getting an awards or anything, you're there to do a job."

Hanes and his crews had to overcome many hurdles, including 1960's era equipment with no replacement parts, but they got it done. And though the official war is over, anyone who's seen the news knows Iraq is still a hostile environment. "We took a lot of care on planning our routes, planning our convoys, keeping vehicles close together, and moving. It's a dangerous place."