Jim's First Month in Iraq (Updated)

Note: I had to update this and take out everyone's names as well as unit nomenclatures. After I posted it, I reread what I wrote, and since this is a public blog, I decided to give everyone nom de pleur's to protect identities.

Jim


Hey Everyone!

I've finally managed to get to a computer to post an update from Iraq...it is midnight-thirty here, but only 5:30 there. I have been keeping a blog on Microsoft Word every few days. I don't have pictures yet, but once I get some, I'll update this post and put notification as a new post. I hope you enjoy reading this. I will make every effort to blog. I hope everyone is doing well and I miss y'all.

Jim



25 April 2009

I arrived at Camp Buehring on the 19th of April at 23:30.

We flew initially from Pope AFB in NC with a short stop in Bangor, ME for refueling, and then to Leipzig, Germany. First off, they put us on a DC-10 which can carry about 250 people, and we had something like 240. We were crammed in there like sardines. I ended up sitting next to one of the LT’s from one of our subordinate batteries...a big boy from Utah. Now, when I say this kid is a big boy, I mean it. He was at least a foot taller than me, and equally wide. Which meant that I really only had half a seat to sit in. I ended up pushing back on this kid and I think he spent most of the flight with over half of his body hanging out into the aisle. It was not a fun flight, I’m afraid to say. Not for nearly 20 hours.

At Bangor, our landing was interesting. We hit the ground, and the pilot’s taking us down the runway, then suddenly slams on the brakes and cuts a 90 degree right turn. Apparently this dope missed his right turn and decided to, instead of going to the next right turn, slam on the brakes and make his turn. Sounds like drivers on the roads, if you ask me. At the terminal, we were met by a group calling themselves the Maine Troop Greeters. A bunch of people that unconditionally support the military. They had a little shop in the airport where we could get free donuts and candy (What? No veggie tray?) and they had a display wall of military coins from all the units that had passed through there...they had to have had over 1000 of these coins, which was just fascinating to look at. I talked with a gentleman that never served due to medical reasons, but had always felt his calling was to be in the military...he’s a pastor now, go figure, but he and his entire family, from his children to his grandchildren, were there to greet us. It was nice to know that we’re still supported by some parts of this society. But, I digress. Back onto the plane after an hour and into the air. Well, into the air is a relative term. I wonder if the pilot wasn’t paying attention or just drunk. I’ve flown enough times to know when it feels like the plane is taking too long to take off. This was one of those times. We were trundling down the runway, and finally, I get this feeling that we’ve been on the ground too long. I look out the window, and just as we leave the ground, I see the end of the runway under us. So that explained why we were in a 60 degree climb...I felt like the pilot suddenly remembered to pull back on the yoke. And just like that, we’re heading across the Atlantic. Thankfully, I sleep quite well on planes.

From the air, Leipzig looked just like any American small city. It was very green and lush, with wind turbines all over the place (leave it to Europe to lead the world in using renewable energy...maybe we need to take a page out of their book there), and as we got lower, I could see the beautiful German architecture they use for their houses. Very beautiful, until we flew over the major industrial factory spewing all kinds of filth into the air. Awww, just like the States. We weren’t allowed to leave the airport, of course, and were hustled into a concourse just for the military which had TV’s all over showing CNN and a little gift shop that sold souvenirs, German Coke and all other kinds of sodas and drinks. The funny thing was that it cost $5 for a soda and $4 for a Red Bull, but only $2 for a gigantic brat with kraut. Guess import taxes are kinda high nowadays. An hour later, we were back on the plane headed to Kuwait.

When we hit Kuwait City, I was stricken when we landed by just how flat this land over here is. I mean, you can see for miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers if we want to use the proper measurements for this country since the US is the ONLY derned place that doesn’t use the metric system). On top of that, it was super smoky looking. I found out later, that’s just the sand in the air. Awww, the beautiful places you’ll see with the Army. We deplaned and boarded charter buses that had window shades pulled which we weren’t allowed to open...guess they figured if people could see in, they’d know we were American military...not as if the convoy of 12 buses didn’t give it away. We definitely weren’t some sight-seeing tour and only a moron would even think we were...I mean, who comes to visit the Middle East in such numbers that they require 12 buses? Answer: NOBODY. We were bused to a staging area where they had lots of bottled water. We sat for about 1.5 hours as we waited to link up with our brigade rep who was to escort us to Camp Buehring (CB). I knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore when they got on our bus and said, “keep the shades pulled, and we need two volunteers to come sit in the front and be shooters, just in case.” Um, yeah, okay. Thankfully, I sleep quite well on buses.

We hit Camp Buehring and are dropped off at our Brigade TOC (that’s Tactical Operations Center to you non-military folk...keep track of these acronyms, because I’m going to use them alot and you’ll learn something new each time you read a post). They inprocess us, force us to sit through a 45 minute snoozer briefing (just to make us more tired than we already were, no doubt), and then get your bags and claim a cot in the tent. One of our NCO’s is gracious enough to take us on a short tour of CB. First stop, naturally, the Post Exchange (PX – essentially the military’s Wal-Mart with no sales tax). We couldn’t get into the midnight meal at the dining facility (DFAC) due to our ID’s having been collected up so our Personnel Officer (S1) could get our tax-free status, hazard duty pay and hardship pay started. So it was a samich at the PX. Then to bed to try and get the jet lag taken care of...I think I was up until 4AM that first night here. Thankfully, I sleep very well on the standard Army cot.

CB is a nice camp for a “combat zone”. It has a massive PX with two smaller PX’s located throughout the base. Three DFACs although one is closed for renovations. Free laundry service (turnaround time is only three days). A USO building with free Internet (wait time averages 1.5 hours), military phones that you can connect to home IF you’re near a military base or you can use a calling card through it, as well as DVD rentals, Xbox game rentals, and buttloads of board games/dominoes/playing cards/etc. There’s a movie theater that shows movies constantly (no, I haven’t watched one there yet), as well as a massive gym. Unfortuantely, the gym is weights mostly with a bit of cardio machines and very little space for guys like me that prefer to workout without the weights. In this culture, its about the show muscles more than the functional muscles it seems. Anyways, they also have a food court that consists of a Subway, Panda Express (WHOO HOO), Burger King, Smoothie place, Green Bean Coffee, Great Steak and Potato Grill and Taco Bell. Included there is a barber shop, a Harley Davidson military sales shop, alterations shop and AT&T shop. Elsewhere, one can find a KFC and a donut shop (the SSG that hangs with my group started salivating when he found that, but it was closed...he’s a cop in the real world). Oh yeah, and probably the most fortified Starbucks one has ever seen (it’s surrounded by 10 foot high barriers and the only thing you can see of it is the big Starbucks sign just over them).

Since I’ve been here, I’ve done very little work. Most of what’s been going on has been for the soldiers in their training. I’ve gone to the range to fire my weapon once and that was very short....an hour’s drive to the range for 15 minutes of firing, and then sit on the bus for four hours as you wait for everyone else to finish. Thankfully, I sleep very well on buses, remember?

Otherwise, my routine is get up at 07:00-08:00. I tend to wake up at 05:00, look around, go back to sleep, wake up at 08:00, just in time to miss breakfast, then try and figure out what to do until lunchtime. It involves a lot of movie watching and book reading unless there’s actually work to do, at which time, we all hit it with gusto just to stave off the boredom. The temps here are reaching over 100 now, just as we roll into theater (YAY!). I know, I know, it’s a dry-heat, Jim. But, once it gets over 105, dry or not means absolutely nothing...its just oven hot. As John recounted when he went on his second tour, “welcome back to hell”. I now know what he was talking about...and its not even summer-time yet (double YAY!). I drink my weight in water every day just to ensure I don’t dehydrate and shrivel into a raisin, although I am working on my tan...well, okay, its on my hands and face/neck only, but one must look at the positive in everything, agreed? Seems to me that the natives here wouldn’t be dark skinned, but light skinned in order to bounce the sun’s rays off them...keep them cool. None of the Kuwaiti natives work the menial jobs here, so I’ve seen people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Iraq, Korea, Japan, China, all over. Just no Kuwaiti citizens. You ask, “Jim, why is that so?”, well, let me tell you. The wealth level per capita here is so high from their oil revenues, that each Kuwaiti gets a stipend from the government which allows them to live in a life of excess, materialism, and blue collar work free. Man, how do I become a Kuwaiti citizen, y’know?

On base, we have military from several different countries. I’ve met troops from the UK and Australia, seen troops from Romania and Latvia. There’s even one country that has ONLY four soldiers here...no one has seen them so we think its a lie. There were French Foreign Legion when we got here for one day, but they’ve split. We had a brit giving us a briefing as one of our mandatory briefings about coalition and friendly forces we can expect to see in Iraq when we move North, and he so kindly gave us some of the capabilities of those friendly forces’ equipment. Did you know that the French Infantry Fighting Vehicle has six gears? Forward and five Reverse. Hmm, go figure. Apparently, everyone here hates the French and they still refer to french fries as freedom fries. AH HAHAHAHAHA! I love the Brits and Aussies! Oh, and don’t ever say “G’day Mate” to a Brit....they absolutely hate it. But damn, its so much fun to say that to them and see their pale faces get all red. AH HAHAHAHAHAHA!

29 April 2009

Oh what a hole this place is! Or have I merely become accustomed to a life of TV, cell phones, and Internet?

I’ve been trying for days to get connected to the Internet. The only place to connect so far has been at the local USO tent where you have to put your name on the list that just happens to have a thousand other soldiers on the list. So you wait 1-2 hours to get on a computer, and they limit you to 30 minutes. I feel like a prisoner. Oh yeah, and phone calls are even worse. 2-3 hour waits for a phone for a 20 minute call. Seriously? Really? I love it when, as I’m waiting to use the computer at the USO, I hear someone arguing with the wife back home. Seriously? Really? You’re going to waste your time yelling at your wife because she’s complaining she doesn’t have enough money to keep the house up and running because you decided to not put your paycheck into the account but instead into your own separate account and you think she can run the house on $500 a month? Seriously? Really?

So, I decided to buy a internet access card. This is a card that you buy from a company called Wataniya that has wireless service utilizing mobile towers spread throughout Camp Buehring that provides you a username and password so you can log onto their service. Great. Our tent has a tower right next to it and it has a green light (it had a red light for the past week, so there wasn’t any service). But doggone it, wouldn’t you know? Even with a green light, the service sucks. You’re lucky to get a signal strong enough to get you to the Wataniya’s login page. No one said that you had to be straddling the tower in order to get a friggin strong enough signal. I literally wasted three cumulative hours one day logging in and re-logging in and re-logging in...same as about 15 other guys that bought cards. I paid $12 for a weeks worth of access, and now its wasting because the service is crap. Ah, the wonders of capitalism brought to the Middle East. I can’t imagine why anyone would think that a region stuck in the 1400’s would be able to adequately provide 21st Century technological services. But, I digress.

It’s raining today. Now, before anyone marvels that it is, in fact, raining in the Middle East, let’s look at how I see it. The entire region is sand as we get closer to the Persian Gulf, which I’m near at this time. It’s like being on the beach, with loose sand similar to a sand dune. Now, when it rains, that loose sand gets, not muddy, but the consistency of the sand at the beach one would use for building a sand castle. That thick sand gets into the treads of our boots...yup, you see where this is going. Suddenly, you’re hauling 10 pounds of sand on your feet because its still hot enough that once you lift your foot, it dries into a nice hard concrete. What a wonderful place.

Positively speaking, its not that bad a place. Could be worse. At least no one’s shooting at us here.

30 April 2009

I don’t know how many of y’all are watching or reading the news, but recently, there was an incident in Kirkuk that has drawn the Iraqi ire against the US. The US conducted a raid that netted a bunch of weapons and insurgents, however, it also resulted in the death of an innocent civilian that ran into the crossfire. The Iraqi government claimed it was an unauthorized raid, despite the fact that they had an Iraqi Army element with them. The new Security Agreement requires all operations to be jointly conducted with the IA, as well as notification to the government of the operation. As we’ve trained, the IA is supposed to notify their higher and it moves up their chain of command to the Ministry of Defense for approval. This mission apparently didn’t.

Today, the Iraqi Division commander in the area we’re moving into directed his troops to cease patrols until further notice. This, unfortunately, means that we cannot conduct patrols either once we get up there. All patrols have to be with IA counterparts, and since they’re not going to leave the FOB, neither are we. If I were an insurgent, I’d already have four bombs emplaced with another six to be emplaced before the end of the night (it’s 10:30PM here now as I write). Some of us at our battalion have a concern that we’re most definitely going to see an increase in violence now that there’s no one patrolling the streets until, as one of my CPT counterparts says, the SIF Div Commander feels he’s achieved enough political clout for his post Army career and can say he opposed the Americans and their complete disregard for Iraqi lives. SIF doesn’t mean Security Iraqi Forces...that’s actually ISF, Iraqi Security Forces. You can guess what SIF means...hint...the “I” means Iraqi.

I don’t know how this will effect my mission with projects and civil affairs, but I’m sure it will have some negative effect. I’m not worried about it, but I am concerned that we’ve witnessed one hell of a setback in this entire endeavor. I don’t get any news other than the Stars and Stripes, and Internet, as you can tell from previous posts, sucks, so I don’t know what our outstandingly liberal media is putting out about it if anything at all. I go North from Kuwait to our Operational Environment (OE) in the next few days and will hopefully get a chance to update everyone with what I see and hear once I get on the ground...Operational Security (OPSEC) being observed, of course.

2 May 2009

Holy Smokes! So, today, we came North from Kuwait to Iraq, specifically, to Baghdad. What a goat rope. Humor me and let me tell you this trek.

It all started on the 1st. The 39 of us from our battalion going North were tracking that we were going to fly on the 2nd. Okay, no problem. I hadn’t packed my stuff yet since I needed most of it through the evening. I hadn’t pulled out my flame retardant uniform yet which we were required to travel in (notwithstanding the fact that if our plane gets shot out of the air, we’re all going to incinerate from the jet fuel...but our uniforms would be safe). I spend the day trying to complete some online courses I have to have for a finance class I’m going to on the 8th. No luck getting onto the websites or logging in to get them done. That was a bust, and after I walked 30 minutes in the 100 degree heat to get to a computer that had a good connection and no time limit.

Every night at 17:30 (that’s 5:30 for you non-military speak folks), we have a CUB (Commander’s Update Brief). the CUB on 1 May is a short one, but with one important piece of information...we’re going to have to manifest at 22:00 (10PM) and we’re flying earlier than expected. Oh great, now I have to hurry up my dinner (45 minutes instead of 1.5 hours), and I have to change and pack...and oh yeah, we have a briefing at 20:00 (what time is that boys and girls?) to go over a new emerging threat tactic in Iraq. That leaves me only a cumulative 1 hour to change and pack, essentially.

So we finish the briefing and I run to the tent to change and pack. I get done in 20 minutes (I’ve never packed that quickly in my life...just ask my wife...I’m usually the last to pack for a trip in the family...which isn’t fair considering we always pack the boys stuff first). Grab my gear (all 150 lbs of it), throw it on my back, and stumble to the meeting place. We do a quick inspection of our gear to ensure we’re in proper uniform, have our weapons, eye protection, helmet, and ammunition. Then we grab our gear, and trudge ourselves over to Brigade HQ to meet the buses. We get there just before 22:00.......and wait. No one else from the other battalions show up. Brigade isn’t ready for us. Our chalk leader (they call groups in a flight a chalk...haven’t ever figured out why), MAJ (that’s a Major in case you didn’t know) SIGO (I’ll use SIGO instead of his name...that’s his duty position) checks in with Brigade, and they tell us that we weren’t manifesting until 00:30, or midnight-thirty. Huh? But both he and I heard the Air Liaison Officer (ALO) put out earlier in the day that the meet time was 22:00. This ALO, MAJ Goober Smooch (you’ll learn why later), is adamant that he didn’t put that out. Yet, in the XO’s (Executive Officer) meeting, he was also told 22:00. Something smells in Denmark here, and it ain’t me this time (I hadn’t showered in three days, I’m afraid). Okay, fine, we’re here early, we’re releasing our people to go get midnight meal and all back at 00:30. 00:30 rolls around, and we’re all back. Two other battalions arrive, one is missing. Then we find out that it was put out that we weren’t manifesting until 01:30. Huh? Seriously, Dude, are you really going to look us in the eye and say this? MAJ Goober Smooch and MAJ SIGO almost come to blows over it. MAJ Goober Smooch is an aviator and MAJ SIGO is a signal officer, and I think SIGO could’ve beat the dogsnot out of MAJ Goober Smooch.

MAJ Goober Smooch and I have a history from NTC. When we finished NTC, he was the Brigade OIC (office in charge) of the regeneration process, where we pull out of the field, clean and repair equipment and turn it in. I moved over to the Logistics (S4) shop in our battalion to assist. Me and the assistant S4, CPT (Captain) IRR Recall, went to all the meetings together so there were two captains that had the info and could keep the battalion on track with its regen process. CPT IRR Recall is an IRR recall, so his attitude is that he doesn’t give a f***, but he gets the job done. So he and I are always laughing and joking and having a good time because, to be honest, regen is a painful process and if we didn’t make it fun, we’d turn into MAJ Goober Smooch. MAJ Goober Smooch and I came to shouts, well, actually, he was shouting at me, and I was laughing in his face. I couldn’t help it...I just couldn’t stop. I just wasn’t going to take myself THAT seriously. The job was going to get done. He and I had two “altercations”, after which, CPT Stephens kept suggesting that maybe we shouldn’t make him so mad. Okay, IRR, got it. Of course, all bets were off once we watched MAJ Goober Smooch, in the middle of a meeting with all the battalions, tear up an Engineer captain because she had already packed up her battalion’s construction tools for transport home and MAJ Goober Smooch needed construction tools for cutting wood to use as bracing materials for the connexes that we loaded our gear into for transport to Iraq. CPT IRR Recall’s words were, “Oh, its on now. It’s on like Donkey Kong.” And so we did everything we could from that point on to 1-get the job done for our battalion to ensure a smooth regen and 2-irk MAJ Goober Smooch. We were successful in both, quite frankly.

So, back to the story. MAJ SIGO has now ired MAJ Goober Smooch and MAJ Goober Smooch’s blood pressure is boiling. Heheheheh....and it wasn’t me this time. We finally get all the battalions together at 01:30, for a 03:00 bus load, to catch a flight at 05:00. I’ve been up since 04:00 the previous morning without even a nap (which was part of my regular Kuwait routine). Buses show at 02:30, we load at 03:00, and are on our way to Ali-As-Saleem, the Air Force base in Kuwait. We get there at 05:00, which isn’t a problem since apparently, our flight doesn’t leave until 07:30. This just gets better and better.

As we wait, because quite frankly, there was a 5 minute brief when we got there, and that was it...”stay in the area and be back at 06:30. So me and WO1 (Warrant Officer 1) Muy Thai, our Battalion Maintenance Tech (BMT) decide to go searching for a latrine and food (I call him that because he’s a Muy Thai and MMA student). We hit the jackpot...a McDonalds. So he treats me to breakfast of a Quarter Pounder with cheese since I had packed my wallet. Now, if you haven’t been to Ali-As-Saleem, they have an indigenous creature that we have in the States....mosquitos. These mosquitos swarmed us once we hit the outdoor McDonalds. When I say swarm, I mean we swatted at them constantly, and even then, over 100 would collect on you trying to get to you through your uniform. A couple of the little bastards got me, one on the neck and one on the cheek. I think one got through my uniform, persistent sucker. It was so bad, that we got our food, and literally ran out of the food court area just to get away from them. We were still swatting them off each other’s backs 15 minutes after we had left. It was disgusting. I honestly felt that if I let them swarm and suck my blood, I’d have been an empty shell within 30 minutes of skin and bones. They were like the fire ants of mosquitoes. And Lord knows what nasty disease they carry, especially considering there’s fecal matter floating in the air, and by just breathing, in everyone’s bloodstream. Nasty nasty nasty.

We finally get on our plane. A big Air Force plane...either a C4 or C17, I’m not sure. All I know is that it was huge, we walked on through the rear ramp, and I sat on a canvas strap seat attached to the bulkhead (that’s the inner hull for you non-military types). There were no windows that I could see out of. We taxi down the runway for at least 15 minutes, and once we started taking off, I realized why. We had to have gone down the longest runway ever, which makes sense since this behemoth has to get enough speed to get its big butt off the ground. The pilot pulls up, and starts to climb at what feels like an 80 degree pitch. I mean, the g-forces were so strong, I thought I was going to fall out of my seat and tumble to the rear of the plane. We get to cruising altitude and let me tell you this...in the back of an Air Force plane, its loud and cold. They don’t have insulation like a commercial flight, and the heat wasn’t on because, quite frankly, we were in the Middle East and you’d have to be a madman to turn on the heat for any reason. I throw in my iPod, and blam, I fall asleep. Mind you, I’m in full battle rattle (full body armor and helmet), and its uncomfortable, but I needed to sleep, so my head went back, and I was out like a light. I wake up an hour and a half later, groggy as hell, fighting going back to sleep. We’re ready to make our descent to Baghdad International Airport (BIAP).

If you’ve ever flown, usually, a pilot will take a gradual descent so as to keep the flight comfortable. Not here in a combat zone. This pilot, as part of force protection measures, turns into a friggin acrobat. He pushes down on the yoke, and we are now in a 60 degree descent. I mean, screaming towards the ground. Remember, I can’t see anything since there’s no windows. All this is on feel, so you know he was being extreme. The descent goes kinda like this...down at 60 degrees, bank right, bank left, down at 60 degrees, pull up hard (I felt like my head was squishing into butt the g-forces were so strong), crest and start dropping straight down (kinda felt like the zero gravity training that NASA pilots go through), bank left, bank right, corkscrew down to the right, pull up, corkscrew down to the left, fly backwards (okay, it seemed like that was the next step), then level off and land. Its very disconcerting when you can’t see the ground coming up to know when to expect the bumps of landing. This landing was remarkably smooth. As we’re taxiing down the runway to our point of debarkation, they open the rear ramp, and I get my first glimpse of Iraq and BIAP. Looks just like any other regular airport throughout the world. It takes us a good 20 minutes to taxi to the military side of BIAP...and this airport is HUGE. We get off the plane and walk along the tarmac between two Air Force planes that have their huge engines running...AHHHH, the smell of jet fuel...I can feel the tumor starting in my lungs. We get all of our bags off the airplane and transferred on to a truck, and they bus us over to one of the many FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) within the BIAP complex.

FOB Striker is where we’re staying now, and this place is gigantic and we’ve only seen a small portion of it. We got ourselves into transient housing, and then went to the DFAC...a sprawling building that’s about the size of Fed Ex field (Hail To The Redskins!). They have everything in this DFAC...makes Camp Buehring look like a friggin field kitchen. This is a KBR DFAC at its finest. You name it, they have it. I’m glad I’m not staying here for this deployment because I’m certain I’d come back at least 30 pounds fatter. Had lunch, came back to the tent, had a formation to account for everyone and to try to figure out where everyone is supposed to follow on to, and then to dinner. Man, I feel like I’m 10 pounds heavier already...worst (or best) part is they have an actual Baskin Robbins in the DFAC. What a morale booster that is. Pralines and Cream really tastes great in a combat zone. :-)

So that was my day. How was your’s? I took a nice hot shower finally, and then settled in to write this post. I hope my posts, although posted much later than the date they happened, give you a sense as to what this, ahem, war is like up to this point for me. Quite frankly, this ain’t war, this is summer camp with live ammunition. Talk soon.

4 May 2009

Last night around midnight-thirty, I was awoken to a tap tap on my foot. I bleary eyed opened one peeper, and there stood SFC Rob (another alias), our Battalion S4 NCO. He tells me that we need to be ready to go for a convoy at 10:00 and a list of the folks that need to go with. Oh, okay, guess that means I actually have to get up before 10AM the next day.

So, today, I get up and peer at my watch. It says, 08:45. Oh, man, I need to get up and get packed! So I jump up, and wake the other guys, and we get dressed and packing. 10:00 rolls around, and SFC Rob comes in, tells us to be ready to go by 13:00. So we finish packing, then head to lunch. Our “final” meal of a super DFAC for some time.

At 13:00, an SUV rolls up and there’s two soldiers from the unit we’re replacing. So they throw our gear into their vehicle, and they whisk us away to the motor pool to wait for our convoy to come get us. We wait in the motor pool, without shade, in the sweltering heat, in our body armor, for about 30 minutes. They improved on the body armor’s wearability comfort, but not the heat factor...it still increases your body temp by about 15 degrees. Then this convoy comes screaming into the motor pool, three up-armored humvees and this behemoth MRAP. Me and the six others traveling on this convoy are like, “alright, we’re riding in an MRAP”. WRONG! We throw our gear into the MRAP, the most protected vehicle in the convoy, and we all get into the humvees. We get to the gate of FOB Stryker, and lock and load our weapons. We now have live rounds in our weapons and the reality factor sets in that we’re not in a training environment. We ain’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.

And we’re on our way.

We jump on the main road leading from the airport area heading South, what we call Main Supply Route (MSR) Tampa. Tampa used to be one of the most IED’d (that means Improvised Explosive Device or bomb) routes in all of Iraq. Since this isn’t a patrol, just a convoy, we hit the MSR, and next thing I know, we’re screaming along at 70MPH. We change lanes frequently, jumping left to right and back, then we switch roads and start moving towards oncoming traffic. What? Are you kidding me? I mean, we don’t even miss a beat, still moving along at 70MPH. The entire time, each vehicle is blasting a siren to warn oncoming cars that we’re coming through and for them to move out of the way, which they do very quickly. Seems the residents of Iraq have gotten used to our fast movers on the highways. We drive for about 30 minutes, and then suddenly take a sharp left turn onto some side road. Here, we have to go a bit slower since its not a main highway and there are people on the sides of the roads. We passed all kinds of people hanging out on the sides of the roads. One guy even had stopped on the side of the road to wash his car...I mean, in the middle of nowhere, he stopped and washed his car.

About 7 miles later, we finally pull up to home sweet home, Combat Outpost (COP) Meade. This base is nothing like what we’ve had up to this point (Camp Buehring and FOB Stryker). Everything is surrounded by 12 foot high jersey barriers and hesco barriers. A hesco barrier is essentially a big 4 foot high cardboard box with no top or bottom and filled with dirt. Its a good barrier, to be honest, especially when stacked two or three high. On our COP, all of our buildings are made of metal connexes or reinforced trailers. The connexes are what we call Containerized Housing Units or CHUs, and they hold two people. The trailers hold four people. These are our living quarters. Our workspace is built from large trailers and is covered in plywood inside and outside. Thankfully, everything has air conditioning.

At the center of the FOB is a sand volleyball court (naturally), and surrounding it are the CHU’s. We have a small PX, just for the essentials. We’ve got a pretty good sized MWR (Morale, Welfare & Recreation) center with over 20 computers and phones, three large screen TVs hooked up to X-Boxes and PS3’s, and a ping pong table. A ping pong table? The gym has brand new equipment and rivals any small weight room in any of the gyms I’ve seen stateside. The cardio room is small, but houses five treadmills, some versaclimbers, a rower and ellipticals. Outside the cardio room are 24” boxes, a speedbag, pull up bars and dip bars, not to mention pads for sparring.

We share this COP with an Iraqi Army (IA) battalion and there are numerous TCNs (Third Country Nationals) that are interpreters, kitchen help, and gate security. And that’s about it.

Home sweet home for the next 9-10 months.

Hope all is well on the homefront, folks.

6 May 2009

Today I went outside the wire for the first time since driving into COP Meade from Baghdad.

Our OE (Operational Environment...we don’t use AO-area of operations anymore because that denotes occupation of land and, ahem, we’re not occupiers) is relatively safe considering other areas of the country. The population is majority neutral or friendly to us. That’s a good news story...but they’re only this way as long as our dollars keep pouring in. I wasn’t too stressed about riding around our OE. I’ve quickly gotten used to the lock and load aspect of this deployment. Today, we went out to draw money for some business micro grants. Micro grants are small grants (up to $5000) for a business to start or to make improvements. We secured funds for 25 micro grants, which is a lot to pay, but the unit we’re replacing really wants to get these paid before they leave so the people that applied aren’t left in the dust and pissed off at the Americans. YAY, thanks be to our counterparts!

I got to see just how agrarian our OE is. Lots of farms. Everyone seems to have a herd of sheep, and one cow. One sickly looking cow...I’m assuming just for milk. Obviously, the beef we’re eating is being imported. I’m actually curious to try the veggies here simply because the majority of farmers locally don’t use pesticides or herbicides. Although, people have told me that the raw veggies have given them the runs. I’m willing to chance it.

There’s alot of canals running around here, which is obviously how people get their water. Both for irrigation and drinking. I was surprised to hear that one considering how unsanitary conditions are around here and the large amount of dust and sand and fecal matter in the air. Hey, to each their own, I reckon. Our counterparts did hand out a bunch of water filters previously, so hopefully that will help quell some disease in the OE. These canals are usually about six to eight feet wide, and sit three to five feet below the road surface. Each side of a canal has a road, one way each. The threat of a rollover is stupendous considering the width of roads here are made for Opals, not humvees. Standard US road width is eight feet, I believe...the standard donkey or camel cart width is four feet. You do the math. It’s very harrowing, to say the least. Alot of our projects in the OE have to do with canal road improvements are agriculture.

I wasn’t stricken by the smell of the country like I was told. Yeah, it smells like dookie, that’s fer sure (probably because they burn their poo since there’s no working sewage system in the countryside...Abbie, talk about being a city girl in the country....you don’t even know). What I was struck by was how friggin hot it was in the humvee. Mind you, with the amount of Remote Control IED countermeasures we put into our humvees, we need to keep the electronics cool, so the new humvees have air conditioning units. The only problem is that you’re trying to cool the inside of a metal box out in the blazing sun. It was only 90 degrees outside temp, but inside the humvee, it was well over 100. I mean, I got in and immediately started sweating (I sweat worse than Cool Hand Luke on a chain gang). It was literally dripping off me. I had a bottle of water that I was sipping on, and I ended up drinking it in the first 10 minutes of the ride. I had to get water at the two stops we had and those were gone in record time, too. If you know me, and have driven any length of time with me, you know I have a rice kernel sized bladder and have to pee very quickly. I was losing water so quickly, I didn’t have to pee except for once at the middle of the day and when we got back to COP Meade. My uniform was soaked. The pads inside my helmet were drenched. AND, remember what I told you about our body armor...it increases the core body temp by 15 degrees. I was so whipped by the end of the day.

And that was my first day outside the wire. I have a trip tomorrow and the next day outside the wire. YAY!

9 May 2009

I’ve been here for five days now, and I’ve been outside the wire three of those days. Today we made two trips outside the wire. The first time we headed out to an IA (Iraqi Army) patrol base to pay out 90,000,000 ID (Iraqi Dinar) for microgrants. That’s about $9000 to three small businesses. This was my first trip through some of the small villages we have in our OE. We were rolling through just as kids were going to school. All the children here walk to school, and schools aren’t close to home, because we passed some of them on our way back out an hour later...that or they decided to just not go to school. Its not like the IP (Iraqi Police) have truancy officers watching these young ‘uns to make sure they get to school. By and large, we got lots of waves and smiles, especially from the kids. I think I saw a icey glare here or there. CPT Redneck (he calls himself that and embraces it wholeheartedly), our Fire Direction Officer and Information Operations Officer, told me yesterday about his experience with walking through the southern portion of our OE’s villages, and how the kids essentially swarmed them and how the patrol he was with would toss MREs to them and these kids would jump on it like a pack of wild animals fighting each other for food. He said it broke his heart. So today’s trip out gave me a view of these children, and I was seeing that many of them are probably neglected by their parents, allowed to run the streets or are up early working in the fields and not going to school. There just doesn’t seem to be any desire on the rural families to make a better life for their kids. We all want our children to do better than we do/did, but it doesn’t seem that way here. All these adults are out for themselves...mostly the males. I was also struck by the subjugation of the females. EVERY adult female I saw today was covered from head to toe. Now, back in the States, you see pictures of this, but until you see these women up close, see the fear of men in their eyes, see the sun-beaten weathering on their faces, see the condition of their hands because they’ve done manual labor their entire lives, you just don’t ever realize how different it is in our country and how lucky our children and women are to have a country where we place priority on education and women’s rights and equality, etc. CPT Redneck said he would compare it to early 1900’s West Virginia or dust bowl areas. I would agree.

9 May 2009

Our second trip out today was to inspect a school that our Counterparts built. This was their third “final” inspection. The school was a beautiful school, what these guys are saying is probably one of the nicest in all of Iraq. What I saw was beautiful. I mean, it wouldn’t pass muster in the US nowadays, but I would equate it to comparable to a 1930’s community elementary school designed to service maybe 100 students. It was well constructed, although it uses generators for power since the power grid here in Southern Baghdad Province is only strong enough to provide about 8 hours of consistent power daily. There’s no central A/C, just a bunch of window units that tend to disappear and reappear in the local Sheik’s house or in other schools that don’t have A/C. It also has no true plumbing, just a pump that pulls water from the canal running about 50 feet in front of the school and a water filtration system (they don’t use sit down toilets here, just a hole in the ground...its actually kinda nasty from a Western standpoint, but completely normal for all Third World Countries). I met the second in command of the Nahia Council today. The Nahia equates to counties in the US. He spoke relatively good English, and seemed to understand it better than he spoke it. I’ll be working with him quite a bit, I’m sure.

I was given my first official project to pursue tonight by our Battalion Commander...a youth center in our Northern OE. I’m excited about it since its the first I’ll be doing on my own and not being handed over by our Counterparts. We also hashed out my Civil Military team. For the past five months, I’ve been a one man show in the Civil Military Operations (CMO) for our battalion. Once we got here and saw that what I do is our main effort, I suddenly was told to start putting together a team. CMO went from one man to a team of 15, to include a security element so I can roll out of the wire at will and a Civil Affairs Team (CAT). It’s going to be a fun and interesting year over here for me.