11 May 2009
Today was my second KLE (Key Leader Engagement), although the first was really a passing meet and greet with a local sheik. Today’s, however, was an impromptu that my counterpart was told about at the last minute. So, he strolls in and says to me, “grab your stuff, you have your first real KLE.” So, even though I’m not wanting to meet anyone at this point, grab my stuff and follow him to the Tea Room on the COP. In the Tea Room is a meeting room where we bring in local leaders for KLE’s. It’s a quiet place out of the way, and they serve Chai tea and other drinks if the guest so wants (of course, since the Tea Room is owned and operated by an Iraqi, we have to pay for any drinks we get...no, the Army doesn’t pay for it...yet). So, my counterpart brings me in to introduce me, and proceeds to tell this sheik, we’ll call him Sheik K, that I’m his replacement and that I’ll be handling all projects. Oh, and that he would love to stay, but he has an important meeting he has to go to (in reality, his important meeting was the gym). Thankfully for me, we already had our Human Terrain Team (HTT) member and her interpreter there talking with Sheik K. HTT is a collection of DoD employees that are a mix of cultural experts and social scientists that provide the commander with information on the culture and atmospherics that he can use to aid his planning. So anyway, this HTT member (I’ll call her HTT), was there chatting up Sheik K. She’s a chatty type and loves to talk, which is great for her job. I sit down, and have no idea what to say. I listen to him a bit and reiterate that its my wish that we continue to build on the projects and opportunities that our predecessors have started. He seems pleased with that. Damn, I’m good. But, then he keeps talking. One thing about Arabic culture is that a business meeting is typically started with lots of socializing over tea, then to business, then back to socializing. This business meeting he was here for was to meet our Command Sergeant Major (CSM), who I’m going to call Fred since he looks like Fred Flinstone. CSM Fred comes in, sits down, goes over 10 minutes of business, and has to leave. And I’m still there.
So, we shoot the breeze for a bit. Sheik K goes into his thoughts on the Sheik running the Nahia council, which are not positive, and he’s busting hard on this guy. He reminded me of Dad when he’s had a night of heavy drinking, ever the storyteller and always funny and loud. I felt an instant kinship with this guy. After an hour and a half in this room with this guy, he finally says he has to go, and our love fest ends. It was a good KLE for me and I think I started a good rapport with this guy. While not quite how I wanted to spend an hour and a half, it was valuable, as much as I’ll never get that hour and a half back.
12 May 2009
Today was a unique day in that I had two KLE’s. The first was a planned KLE. The second was a “hey you”. This time, I wasn’t abandoned by my counterpart.
As I think I’ve said before, my job involves civil military operations, which covers a broad spectrum of topics. I deal with infrastructure building as well as essential services (sewer, water, electricity, academics, trash and medical services...also known as SWEAT-MS), and employment. Essentially, anything that isn’t combat operations falls into my domain with the exception of training the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). This role is traditionally the role of Civil Affairs units and, up until 2004 when combat operations “ceased”, was a higher level role for a CA officer at the Division and higher level. We (the Army) discovered that down to the lowest levels, we were having to transition from combat ops to humanitarian aid to nation building to infrastructure building and back to combat ops on a daily basis, so they created the position of Civil Military Officer down to the Battalion level, which we call the S-9 (for 9th primary staff position...hence the “S”).
Our first meeting was with Sheik Tupac Shakur (close enough to his name) and a Non-Government Organization (NGO) guy we’ll call NGO Ala. NGO Ala is working with Sheik Tupac to get an adult learning center going in Sheik Tupac’s area. So we’re working with them to get it approved and funded through USAID (US Agency for International Development). Once USAID’s funding runs out, the program must be taken over by the GOI (Government of Iraq). This is because we don’t do projects that aren’t sustainable, and sustainability involves getting buy in, acceptance, and commitment from the GOI.
USAID is the polar opposite of the military. They’re the feel good agency of the US. They’re a small agency that is under the control of the State Department, and they go into Third World Countries and fund NGO’s to help build infrastructure and educational programs and buildings using local nationals to do the work, which helps also increase employment opportunities. If I remember correctly, they’re budget is something like $8B annually. Compare that with DoD’s $600B budget, and you see how USAID gets overlooked alot in the press, however, they have a noble, if not nearly impossible, mission and mandate.
Our meeting was to tell Sheik Tupac and NGO Ala to get a commitment in writing from the GOI. These people here are trying, but they really need to have someone help them along. Its really like helping teenagers learn to become self-sufficient adults. They know enough to get something started, but may not always understand the full implications or the intricacies of what they want to do or the consequences of their decisions. So we help them with working that through. Without the written commitment to keep the ALC going after the USAID funding runs out, it becomes a major waste of taxpayer (our taxpayers) dollars.
Let me tell you about my counterpart a bit. We’ll call him CPT Leprechaun. He’s a little guy, about 150 lbs soaking wet, and shorter than me...hell, he makes me look like a friggin giant. But he’s a smart kid. Remembers everything he reads, and knows a lot of things about obscure stuff no one would think he would know. He’s young, too. Newly promoted earlier this year, he’s 26, about the average age for an active duty captain that just got promoted. I’m 34. I’m like super old to him, as are all of us captains in the National Guard (average age is 35 for us captains). So he’s got a lot of the mid-20’s symptoms...very inflated ego, thinks very highly of himself, doesn’t like to be shown up, etc. In fact, me when I was 26, except I didn’t have the “big brain on Brett” that he does.
So, I’m prepped to have a meeting that involves a lot of the socializing first and then business then socializing that I’ve seen up to this point. Not with CPT Leprechaun in the room. He walks us into the meeting room, and is then like, “okay, let’s get down to business”. Um, okay. We get NGO Ala to finally understand what it is we need from him, although it takes us several minutes to get through him telling us over and over that the GOI has already said the ALC was a good idea. He owes us this letter this coming week. Sheik Tupac, who everyone says likes to talk, said nothing. Just sat there and twiddled his thumbs while NGO Ala did all the talking. I didn’t say much since it was really CPT Leprechaun’s meeting and I was just observing so I knew what was happening with the project.
The second meeting was impromptu and unexpected. HTT comes speed walking through the office and tells me there’s a group of Iraqis at the gate and I should come to this meeting, that it was a woman’s group wanting to discuss women’s initiatives. Great, that’s one of the key avenues that the State Dept wanted to push. So we met in the meeting room with these three Iraqi women, one of which is our local female powerhouse and very successful female entrepreneur. We meet for about 30 minutes discussing job opportunities for unemployed Iraqis, and then about what can be done for the women in the local area. It was a good meeting, but nothing concrete came of it. It did give me some in roads to the women’s groups in the area which is good considering I’m a male and the females usually prefer to work with women (HTT will be leaving with our counterpart unit and we’re not expecting any replacement).
So it was a good day with KLE’s and I’m slowly getting ensconced in the project development process from idea to, Inshallah (Arabic for “God Willing” or “hopefully”), project completion.
14 May 2009
So I see one of those big differences between the active duty guys and us National Guard guys. One, they’re alot younger than us. But, two, they use a lot of workout supplements and spend countless hours in the gym pumping iron. All these 20-somthings that go in there and work on their beach muscles, then go chug a supplement thinking they’re improving themselves as soldiers, instead of worrying about their functional muscles. It reminded me of my time on active duty as a 20-something...when I went to the gym religiously and used every supplement out there in hopes of adding massive amounts of muscle. There’s been only one guy on active duty that I’ve run across here that’s not worried about the “look good” muscles and his workouts producing them, but rather on true strength. He’s a 40-yr old Lieutenant. Funny how things change from the 20’s to the 30’s. All of us National Guardsmen that are older seem to place more emphasis on the workouts that will improve our overall systems. Just very interesting to me. Guess those priorities change as we get older.
Don’t worry, Abbie, I’m still going to work some of those beach muscles for you. I still intend on coming home a Hunk, not a Chunk. :-)
15 May 2009
Whenever we travel outside the wire, each vehicle commander has a call sign. I have a call sign that’s used throughout the battalion when they want to contact me. I’m not going to give it here since it may be a OPSEC issue. But we also have what we call Hollywood call signs. A Hollywood call sign is an unofficial call sign. Maverick and Goose from “Top Gun”, Hoot from “Black Hawk Down”, SnakeSh** from “We Were Soldiers”, etc. Hollywood call signs are flashy, and usually easier to say than the official call sign. We use them amongst our vehicles in a convoy. I’ve been struggling to figure out my Hollywood call sign. I finally got it. Let me give you some background before I tell you.
My officer buddies like to joke me because I’m half Chinese but don’t look a thing like it. Plus I laugh and play along with the jokes since it doesn’t bother me a bit. They like to say things like, “oooh, are you going to use that tae kwon do on me?” and my response always is (in Chinese accent, think the Chinese dude from Ocean’s Eleven) “That’s F***ing Korean! I’m Chinese, you racist bastard!” They’ll always throw out different styles of martial arts to see if I can name where they’re actually from. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve had to resort to Wikipedia to research where some of them come from. It’s actually a fun game for all of us. They’ll tease me about the food when we have “Chinese” food, or “Japanese” food and tell me that my people did good on dinner tonight, to which my response is (especially if its Yakisoba night), “That’s F***ing Japanese! I’m Chinese, you racist bastard!” For a while they switched it up and started in on the Irish side (most of these guys have Irish in their heritage somewhere, which makes it even funnier). I once told them that with my three nationalities, Chinese, Irish & Italian, my McDonald’s sandwich would be a McWopChink. My friend, WO1 Chicken (I’ll call him that b/c he works at a Perdue plant in NC and is allergic to chicken) who was the first person I met when I joined the Guard from this unit, tells me that he’s so glad that I’m such a good sport about it b/c it would suck if I wasn’t. He says that the funny thing is they don’t joke about it behind my back, only to my face. Guess that’s a good sign.
So, after 10 days, I came up with my Hollywood call sign. I thought about Kato, from the Green Hornet (nobly played by Bruce Lee). I thought about Bruce Lee, but that would’ve been disrespectful to him. Ninja didn’t work. Samurai didn’t work, and Jedi (the Sci-Fi Samurai) was taken. I wanted to make it something fun, relating to my Chinese heritage so everyone could have fun with it, but something tough enough. Jackie Chan wouldn’t work, he’s too much a caricature of himself. Kung Fu I didn’t like...not really tough enough...evokes images of David Carradine roaming the countryside. I bumped different ideas off of the guys, and we all settled on this as my Hollywood call sign.
Crouching Tiger.
(If I had a flight helmet, I’d paint tiger stripes on it, just like Maverick’s flag helmet in “Top Gun”).
21 May 2009
My Health In Iraq
Oh man, my health is hurting here. The environment is dusty, which presents its own problems. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been eaten alive, sore throat, dehydrated, and downright sick with a cough.
Eaten Alive: The mattresses here have been here for Lord only knows how long. In the desert, there are things called sand fleas. They live in the sand. AND in the mattresses. So for the first four days, I was a buffet for these mattress sand fleas. My entire right arm and my entire right leg were covered in flea bites. Even today, they still itch. At one point, I was literally pouring calamine lotion on my arm and leg. I had to spray the mattress two times with bug spray to stop them. Thankfully, they stopped.
Dehydrated: As I’ve said before, anyone that knows me on long trips knows that I don’t drink a bunch on because it goes right through me to my little tic-tac sized bladder. Well, here, its hot. Damn hot. So its necessary to continue to drink water. Not Gatorade, not soda, not juice, not milk...water. When I go outside the wire, I travel in an up-armored humvee. It has A/C, but when its over 100 degrees outside, all the humvee becomes is a big old oven. Add about 15-20 degrees inside the vehicle. About day seven, I was on a long day outside the wire, starting at 07:00 until 19:00. We traveled all over our OE. By that afternoon, temps inside the humvee was about 120 degrees. I had only had 3 bottles of water up to that point, which is only 3 litres. Not much when you sweat like I do. So I started getting a headache, and feeling dizzy. Clear indications of dehydration. So I started drinking more and more quickly to replenish fluids. Naturally, I had to pee within 15 minutes. That sucked, because when we travel, we don’t stop. I was about to start using the empty bottles to pee in, but managed to hold off until we got to our next destination. Just like a night of heavy drinking, once I break the seal, its like opening a dam and I usually need to pee and pee and pee...about every 15 minutes. Not this time. After the seal breakage, my body started taking all the fluids and holding onto it. I recovered and didn’t have to drain the bladder for another couple of hours. Disaster averted.
Sore Throat: With the hot conditions, even at night, we run the A/C in our CHU’s day and night. Night time is even 70 degrees (we’re over 110 degrees consistently now). The dust is so fine here that its all over the place, especially in the A/C units. After six days here, I started developing a sore throat each morning that would go away in the day. Around day 10, it wouldn’t go away. Each day, it got worse and worse, until it finally felt like a gigantic knot in my throat. That’s when the coughing started, which brought me to...
Downright sick: I’m still sick currently and have been for about six days now. The cough is a dry hacking cough with a constant tickle and a coughing fit strikes me at any time. Its so bad that sometimes I gag so strongly that I have to run outside to throw up. Everyone says its just the crud, and that several people have had it already. I don’t care, I just want to get better. It’s keeping me up at night so much so that I can barely get up in the morning. I haven’t worked out in the morning yet because of it. Quite annoying. I know my body can heal it. I even tried some EFT to relieve it and it worked for one night, but the next morning, it was back. Stay tuned...we’ll see how this works out.
21 May 2009
Today, we’re in an Internet and phone line blackout. One of our sister battalions had an attack on them as they were leaving a KLE. Some soldiers died as well as a bunch of wounded. It was a suicide vest attack after a regularly scheduled meeting. It was a reminder to all of us that this OE is not completely safe. What kind of mindset must you be in to be willing to blow yourself up? So many questions, yet very little answers.
I feel for the families of those soldiers as they’ll be very grief stricken. We take solace in knowing that those individuals are now in a better place. For me, I didn’t know anyone in that unit, so its been easier for me to distance my emotions from it, but many people here know soldiers in that unit, and until the next of kin is notified, names won’t be released. We’re less than 20 days into it, and our brigade already has three dead.
Pray for the families of the deceased. Pray for them to be strong in their moment of loss.
21 May 2009
23:08. Late at night...well, late for me.
It’s been a rough day for all of us. Trying to keep our heads in the game and not get down about our fellow soldiers. After I wrote the previous post, I finally pulled out the well wishes that everyone gave me at my going away party (which, by the way, was so much fun). I have to say that it lifted my spirits a lot and was exactly what I needed tonight. I love all of you, and I’m grateful that you’re all in my life in some way. Your love and friendship fills me with all that I need to get through this deployment. I’ll be back before everyone knows it.
24 May 2009
I just saw the names of the deceased soldiers from the attack the other day. I guess I was wrong in thinking I wouldn’t know anyone. One of the murdered was a major from the IRR. I’d met him quite a few times while at NTC and worked with him in getting our battalions out of California. He was a funny guy, always being lighthearted about all the suck we were enduring. I saw his name and immediately went to see CPT IRR Recall, as he and this major were buddies while at Camp Shelby going through their training for deployment. I checked with him to see if he was okay. He said he had gotten a call two days earlier from another IRR recall friend that knew about his death. All I could think was, how awful that this man, called involuntarily back to active duty, was murdered within the first month of being in Iraq, doing a job that was to help the citizens of this country.
Rest in Peace, Major Jason George, 38, from Tehachapi, California
26 May 2009
If you haven’t gotten my address yet, here it is.
CPT James Monihan
COP Meade, 30th HBCT
HHB/ TF 1-113 FA
APO, AE 09361
