EDITOR's NOTE

Airman First Sergeant Darrell Pinckney, a professional archaeologist, was mobilised for deployment to Iraq and assigned to the US Regional Airbase at Kirkuk (KRAB). Kirkuk is an installation that was first established by Saddam Hussein and is not the only Iraqi military installation to have been constructed in an archaeologically sensitive property during the Hussein regime. When First Sergeant Pinckney arrived, archaeological challenges at Kirkuk had been outlined in Archaeology Magazine (April/May 2006) and additional infrastructure projects were continuing to unearth pottery, raising concerns about archaeological features. At this point in time Central Command had organised a Historical/Cultural Advisory Group, the members of which had added the challenges at Kirkuk to their agenda. Airman Pinckney graciously agreed to serve as a forward advisory group member. Not only did he add cultural resources management activities to his assigned duties as First Sergeant, but he also agreed to correspond regularly with the advisory group members in order to help them develop an appreciation of the challenges of attempting to implement US cultural resources ethics and methods in a war zone. Airman Pinckney's careful documentation of the sites he found at Kirkuk Regional Air Base provided the baseline map for later State Department evaluation of the installation's heritage assets prior to US draw down and transition to Iraqi control.

Until First Sergeant Pinckney's deployment, even though some of the advisory group members had experience in war zones, no one on the advisory group had any experience of attempting to work on archaeological issues in the combat or contingency operation setting. First Sergeant Pinckney's willingness to work with us was invaluable in terms of moving the In-Theater project forward. Lessons learned ranged from the logistical challenges of sending equipment to a war zone to the diplomacy required to establish collegial relationships between serving military members in stressful situations and academic subject matter experts who were providing reach-back expertise from home. Most importantly, First Sergeant Pinckney provided the advisory group members with the perspective from the front line. His correspondence and recommendations have helped the advisory group focus in a realistic way on projects that can genuinely make a difference in the forward setting.