On Patrol

I went on a presence patrol into Kirkuk. After a little stutter-step getting going, we got off, though a bit late. That’s okay as we try to vary our routine anyway, so being late works toward that end. It was bad news for our interpreter, though. He just got married, in June, and his bride was expecting him by a set time. Well, our late start caused him to miss his deadline, and pretty soon his cell phone started ringing. Contrition and explanation looks the same in any language, it seems.

We stopped at a police precinct for a brief visit. We sat down with the head policemen, not in the city but in the precinct. He had a clean office, painted blue on the lower half, and light blue on the upper, with a small window in the corner. His desk was clear except for inbox, pencils, and office utensils, and had recently been wiped off. He had a desk and return, his chair, a tiny refrigerator, two sofas and two love seats, all matching, and a TV on a stand.

Within a couple of minutes a policeman wearing a blue shirt and new black body armor came in with a tray and several little glasses of dark Chai. About two inches tall, the bottom half inch was all sugar. I stirred it with tiny spoon and drank most of it. If you drink it all, you get a refill, so it’s important to leave a bit. I was a bit leery about the water source, but took the risk. After a few minutes of chatting, and listening to our interpreter make excuses, we left to drive around the streets, accompanied by some Iraqi Police (IP).

We stopped and talked to a shopkeeper who was sitting in a little windowless stall, about 8 by 15. The front was painted pink, and inside colored lights (Christmas lights) helped the feminine presentation. I saw deodorants, shampoos, hair coloring, lipsticks, eye liners, pretty much most of what you’d see in a normal grocery store, with a couple of exceptions.

He had a variety of products, but no variety among products. That is, he had several different scents of deodorant, for example, but only one brand. The products were not lined up by type, but more by symmetry. I saw a row of various round containers, deodorants, lipsticks, eyeliners, etc, all lined up in a symmetrical pattern. Lipsticks were all over the shop, as they made nice colorful counterpoints to larger items. His biggest seller; shampoo. He had a few articles of clothing, including to my surprise, a negligee. And what looked like a moo-moo.

We took off after a few minutes and continued the patrol. Saw several mosques, some sheep, some goats, lots of trash, and some absolutely beautiful children dressed in bright cothing. After a while the IP had to return to their station for another mission.

Looking for progress? The soldiers I was with told me they have seen a great deal of progress in the IP since we arrived several months ago. They are getting better equipped; the body armor was brand new, which might explain why the guy delivering the tea was wearing it. The IP set up good security when stopped, and generally looked pretty good. Coming along nicely.

Honoring a fallen soldier

We held a ceremony today for a fallen soldier. He was 29 years old. Most of our large company was able to attend, along with a couple of generals, all the battalion commanders and their sergeants major, and even some Air Force representatives.

After an invocation and the national anthem, the soldier’s company commander spoke, followed by the soldier’s supervisor and his roommate. All the speakers knew the soldier, and spoke movingly of his dedication, love of service, how their lives were enriched by knowing him, and of how much he will be missed.

They held a roll call for the soldier. The company First Sergeant called roll of the soldier’s section by rank and last name, and each soldier responded “Here, First Sergeant.” When the First Sergeant came to the fallen soldier’s name, of course there was no answer. The 1SGT called his name again, adding his first name to his rank and last name. After a moment of silence, the 1SGT called his name a third time, using the soldier’s full name, first, middle and last. After a brief silence, someone answered “The soldier is out of ranks First Sergeant.” From outside we then heard a 21 gun salute, three rounds of seven rifles, followed by taps.

In closing, all the soldiers, starting with the generals, moved into the aisle fronted by a helmet on a rifle, with boots at the bottom. In threes and fours, all the soldiers approached the memorial and delivered a slow salute, then executed a right face and marched out.

The soldier had been a Marine for several years, and the program handout proudly featured the Marine Corps Motto, and the Eagle, Globe and Anchor of which Marines are so rightly proud. The soldier had volunteered to serve with our unit. Semper Fidelis.

Don’t Eat Yellow Snow

And watch what you’re drinking. We get Gatorade and Crystal Light packets to mix with water, as well as instant tea, and Kool Aid. Most soldiers just figure out the proper amount to pour into a half liter or one and a half liter bottle and mix the beverage in the bottle. You’ll see soldiers drinking red, green, orange, purple, yellow or brown liquid form the water bottles.

Of course, soldiers also use the bottles to spit in when they chew tobacco. And, the one and a half liter bottles are popular to use as, uh, chamber pots. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, one soldier said to me, it’s good enough for him.

Rather than get dressed and walk to the restroom, some soldiers choose to refill the large water bottles instead. Making Budweiser, some people would say. This is not limited to the male soldiers, though I’m sure it’s more prevalent among them. I heard the story of a KBR A/C repairman who went into a female CHU. Two female soldiers lived there, one of whom had some refilled bottles. The repairman knocked one over, and unfortunately the lid wasn’t on tight. It fell to the other roommate to clean up that hazardous waste spill, and she subsequently requested a new roommate.

I’ve been in CHUs with several large bottles of yellow liquid stacked on a shelf, or against the wall, or just lying around. For a while, the soldiers threw the bottles in the dumpster. The garbage men objected, so the soldiers had to either disguise the bottles before throwing them in the dumpster, or empty them in the restroom.

Just for the record, I don’t subscribe to the “if it’s good enough for the founding fathers” theory; no refilled bottles in my room.

Strategic Privates

Strategic Privates exist, every unit has them, and they can determine an entire course of events.

Strategic Privates are soldiers whose acts or words influence policy, command philosophy, or standard operating procedure far beyond their rank or position. They are not always privates, but they typically are lower ranking soldiers. If CNN comes around, they seem to easily find the strategic private who will do or say something stupid or off command message.

In New Orleans, CNN won a lawsuit (I think it was dismissed) for the right to take photos of corpses and to access stricken areas of the city. After prevailing on this against the administration, CNN was later told by a Strategic Private that the military has its own rules and the military would not allow CNN the access it desired. An LTC later clarified and CNN was allowed its access. The LTC said something like “There are lots of ‘Joes’ out there and this one didn’t get the message.” No doubt that at least for a short time command devoted its scarce and precious time to clearing up the confusion sown by that Strategic Private.

Lindy England at Abu Ghraib is a good example of a Strategic Private, assuming that she was acting on her own and not according to direction. The soldier who asked Donald Rumsfeld about armor for HMMWVs was another Strategic Private. Richard Reid, that mope who tried to explode his shoes on the airplane, could be considered a Strategic Private. Remember Mathias Rust? The 19 year old German flew his Cessna into Red Square, thereby allowing Gorbachev an excuse to purge hardliners who were blamed for the security breach, and setting the stage for the end of the Soviet Union; the ultimate Strategic Private. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena_Rust

Watch for them. They’re out there. You’ve probably got one in your unit or your business. Despite your best efforts, the Strategic Private will find his or her way to the front, or to the reporters, and will take control of events away from the leaders.

Holy cow

A soldier from Pocatello, Idaho told me that he’s looking forward to going home to assistant coach his youngest son’s baseball team. He said that his oldest son is going to Cooperstown.

We got to talking about livestock, somehow, and he shook his head at the sorry state of beef cattle here in Iraq. “I haven’t seen any beef cattle” he said, exaggerating, meaning that he hasn’t seen any up to his standards. “I saw some wondering around Sulaymaniyah, eating garbage out of garbage cans. They wouldn’t know grain fed beef if they tasted one” he said, warming to the subject. “Just like the chow hall’s motto. ‘I never saw a piece of meat I didn’t overcook.’ They can have this frickin’ country”.

I guess he’s ready to come home.

Car Wars Victory

I wrote a few days ago about some Iraqis who were trying to lay claim to my NTV, but before I coughed it up we required verified proof of ownership. Well, the Iraqis produced their ownership documents which were shipped off to Baghdad. Baghdad determined that the documents were forgeries. Yes! I get to keep the NTV, at least for now. Ha ha! Take that, you bastards!

So there you go. An Iraqi success story. The Iraqi government has a functioning bureaucracy that is capable of determining vehicle ownership. Alert the media!

Hello, goodbye, hello, goodbye

Yet another group of Air Force has rotated through our FOB. The group here when we arrived last December was around for a month or so, then rotated out, replaced by a new group. That group was here for four months, then they left and another new group came in. That group just left, and now the fourth group of Air Force service members has arrived. Four Air Force units, and we’re still here. (Oddly, the unit name never changes. I don’t get that)

One of the obvious questions is, can the AF be effective in such a short time? What about the learning curve? It seems that they are plenty effective, perhaps because what they do here is very similar to what they do before they come here. There have been some glitches, such as when some new airmen shot up a car full of Iraqi civilians, but all in all the AF pulls off the short rotations pretty well. In our area, much of the AF mission is on the FOB, infrastructure support and the like, so it is not new to them.

The last AF rotation was from a base located in our home state, and some of our soldiers live not far from the base. One of the soldiers told me “One of these days when we get back, I’m going to be in [his favorite bar] and I’m going to hear some of these AF guys talk about their four month Iraq rotation. I’m going to be sh*thouse drunk, and it’s not going to sit very well with me, and I might say something I regret.”

I don’t begrudge the AF their short rotations; it’s good work if you can get it. I do think that if the Army can learn entirely new missions, then so can the other services. As reported in the MSM (I’m not giving anything away), soldiers are doing primarily infantry and MP missions here, regardless of their type of unit. So, for example, if tankers can learn to do knock and searches, I would think that airmen and sailors could. I don’t see why some of the other services can’t bear more of the burden of this war. This might even free up National Guard for flood and fire duty.

Good Help Is Hard To Find

Walking along the gravel road near our CHUs, I saw the cleaning crew spread out and working in various bathrooms and showers. The crew is composed of locals, supervised by a civilian, and overwatched by soldiers, which the soldiers call TCN (Third Country National) duty. I walked by the civilian, who was saying to the soldier “Look at ‘em. Diggin' for gold. None of ‘em got a damn thing.”

Looking up the road I saw a young Iraqi standing by a dumpster. He had the garbage can from a bathroom, to be emptied into the dumpster. But, before he dumped in the garbage, he sorted through the dumpster. He extracted a sack of potato chips and peered into it. Apparently empty, he threw it back and continued with his work.

**

Two soldiers carrying bulging green cloth laundry bags caught a ride with me the other day. Noticing the bags, and proudly demonstrating my command of the obvious, I said “Headed for the laundromat I see.” “Yes sir.”

They had chosen to do their laundry themselves, and spend about three hours doing it, rather than turn in the laundry to the KBR laundry. I asked them why, since they could turn in the laundry just a short distance from where they live, and it would save them hours of time.

“We work TCN duty” one of them said, as if that explained it all. “Oh, okay,” I said, “What does that have to do with it?”

“Well sir, we watch the locals who work in the KBR laundry, and it’s bad. Real bad. You don’t want to get your laundry done there. I saw one guy wipe his face with a clean shirt.”

Communist?

I guess in some minds, the cold war isn't over.

After washing my hands before entering the chow hall, I struggled with the paper towel dispenser. Large non-perforated rolls of single ply tissue, about 8 inches wide, hang on pipes by the sinks. Soldiers tear off a length of tissue to dry their hands. The tissue is about the same consistency as toilet paper, and little pieces tend to tear off and stick to your hand after you dry them.

I was trying to start a new roll, which involves peeling off the big sticker, then trying to start the roll. Like toilet paper, the first few sheets are glued down, and it’s confusing which way the roll will roll, until you get a few layers off. Of course, as you peel off the layers, they rip down the middle.

As I peeled off strip after strip, the crusty old sergeant waiting behind me said “Boy, that’s a communist thing, isn’t it?” I said “My hands have air dried while I’ve been fighting it.” The female solder behind the sergeant said “It’s just being difficult, like everything else in this country.”

You want the truth?

Americans seek “the truth” about what is happening in Iraq. I’ve have many people tell me that they would like to “really” know what is going over here. Americans have a huge stake in this war, in blood and money, and they want to know whether the endeavor is worth the cost.

The main stream media (MSM) is not trusted to accurately report. MSM focuses too much on the bad news and destruction, it is said, and by failing to report the good new the MSM presents a skewed picture of what is happening here. Conservatives recently sent a “Truth Tour” to Iraq because they think the good news isn’t getting out.

What is the truth about this war? I’m reminded about the story of the five blind men and the elephant. Each feels part of the elephant, the tail, the ear, leg, truck or side, and each describes the elephant in those terms. It is like a snake, or flat and thin, or like a tree truck. Each is correct, for the small part of the elephant they’re trying to describe, but none has the full picture.

Likewise, the reporting here tends to be about small events, and seldom does a citizen have enough freedom of movement to get around and be able to report the big picture. Military leaders do have a much better view of the big picture, but won’t talk about it for fear of encouraging the Anti-Iraqi Forces or of irritating higher or political leadership.

The most comprehensive reporting I’ve seen is in the Stars and Stripes, Middle East Edition. The paper edition daily carries many pages of stories about this war, and more importantly, its reporters are out there with the troops. Our unit has been visited many times by S&S reporters, and the resulting stories seem accurate and balanced. The stories printed also seem balanced; not overly sunny and mindlessly supportive of the war, but not unfairly critical. It also has the most personal interest stories I’ve seen.

Of course, that may be because it is the only paper I see regularly. But I get to see CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, and many internet news sources. We do also get hometown newspapers, and of all those, the S&S paper version has the most complete picture. Also, it carries letters to the editor that really let you know what is on the soldiers’ minds. And they’re often funny, as when a Marine complained about fat soldiers, of course drawing a counterattack. Another fascinating string erupted when a soldier complained about praying in the chow hall and suggested that prayer ought to be saved for church. Letters are available online. www.stripes.com

If you want some good news stories, check out The Snakebite at http://www.idarng.com/snakebite.asp. This is a unit newsletter, one of many like it, and while it definitely supports the command message and is pretty upbeat, it also reports reconstruction stories that you don’t see in the MSM, as well as soldier personal interest items.

If you want to know what’s “really” going on in Iraq, you’ll have to work at it and assemble it yourself from many sources.

Mudville Gazette

I noticed that the Mudville Gazette has linked to a few of my posts lately. Thank you, and welcome to all Mudville Gazette readers. I hope you enjoy my blog.

I usually have to email in my postings and cannot see my blog, or respond to comments, due to security restrictions. I appreciate the comments you leave, which are emailed to me, and I'm sorry I can't respond to them.

Gently Rapping At My Chamber Door

Over the past few months, I’ve heard knocking on my CHU door. Usually it was three quick Rap Rap Raps, sometimes four or five, but always kind of soft and evenly spaced.

Typically I’d hear this in the early morning, and most of the time I was still in bed. The rapping woke me up a few times, and other times I was lying there partially awake and trying to crawl out of the pit of sleep. I usually wondered if I had really heard it. I’d lie there and wait for another knock, but it would never come. Once in a while I’d roll over, crane my neck around my locker, and look for a shadow in the bright sunlight shining under my door, but I never saw anyone. One of life’s little mysteries.

One morning I got up early and stepped outside my CHU, headed for work, and I heard three quick Rap Rap Raps. As I looked around I heard it again, and then it dawned on me; I was hearing machine guns being test fired. Mystery solved.

Until 0200 a couple of nights ago. I was sound asleep, and dreaming. In my dream I was trying to print something in color (I guess I dream in color). The first page came out all crinkled and smeared. After adjustments, the next two pages came out sideways, and then I heard three sharp knocks, which woke me up. My first thought; weapons test firing. After a few moments I realized that the test firing had never awakened me up from a deep sleep, and that the knocks had been pretty loud and I thought it might actually be a visitor.

Of course, a 2 AM visitor never brings good news, so I rolled out of bed and opened the door wondering what evil had befallen me. The last time something like this happened, I was told my Uncle Eldon had been killed in a car wreck. But, it was my sergeant, doing her part to count noses. There had been a report of a missing soldier, so the units did a head count to account for everyone. I went back to sleep until I heard the machine guns later in the morning.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the FOB

I was in a convoy a few days ago heading to another FOB, and midway on our trip we saw a civilian car turned on its side, with several Iraqis and their cars and little pickups milling around. By the debris on the road and the charred weeds, it was clear that an IED had just exploded.

Seeing no other military on the scene, except a couple of Iraqi police, we stopped to check it out. All the Iraqis, including the police, took off immediately, leaving the scene to us.

I couldn’t tell what type of car it had been, other than color and that it was a fairly new sedan, because the IED rent it asunder. Tires stripped off the wheels, frame bent, glass blown out, large chunks and tiny pieces strung all over the highway. The blast flipped the car up on its side and torched the weeds on the other side of the road.

There were also remains of the driver, although he was pretty well rent asunder as well. I don’t feel too sorry for the guy though. After an investigation was complete, it turns out that there were two guys killed in the explosion. They had emplaced an IED up the road a little ways – which by the way exploded with a deep BANG and a tall column of dust and black smoke while we were there - and they had stopped to emplace another. Apparently the 2nd one went off while the passenger was putting it down next to the car, and it killed both of them.

I’m not sure how to characterize this event. Human Tragedy? Just Desserts? Natural Selection? I have to admit, I’m not charitably inclined toward the former.

Car Wars

This war has many battlefields.

When we first got here, everyone scrambled to get one of the few NTVs (Non Tactical Vehicles) available for soldiers to use. Without an NTV, the only way to get around is on foot (LPCs – leather personnel carriers), bicycle, or bus. Two of those involve physical exertion in the hot sun, so aren’t favored. The bus is OK, but time consuming. If I wanted to go to an hour meeting, I had to leave more than an hour early, then wait for a bus back, and it was usually a three hour endeavor to go to a one hour meeting. When I got my NTV it was a good day, and it has been nice to use in the since then.

My NTV has a checkered past. A starter went out, and we couldn’t get a replacement because the NTV was not covered by the lease contract. It is a rogue, probably confiscated from someone. We haven’t been paying for it.

The other day, four Iraqis showed up at my door, with a soldier escort, and in very broken English demanded the NTV. They wanted to drive it away, and I knew if they did I’d never see it again. I scrambled around and talked to our logistics folks, who said that we need to require some proof of ownership, Iraqi title documents. We will then send the documents to Baghdad to verify ownership and status. Some confiscated vehicles must be returned to the owner, others can stay on our use, depending on from whom they were confiscated.

Hopefully this process will go slowly and I can use the vehicle for the rest of the time I’m here. Otherwise, it’s back on the bus for me.

Mammy

I suppose soldiers and shovels have been partners for thousands of years. It's no different here.

While walking through the new tent city I saw five soldiers with shovels standing and just looking around. I went over to see what they were doing, and as we stood there a little front end loader, like a Bobcat, turned a corner and drove toward us. It got a few feet away, dumped a load of rocks, then spun around and headed back to the rock pile for a refill. The soldiers got busy with the shovels, spreading out the rocks to form a pathway between the tents so that when it rains, soldiers do not have to walk through mud.

When the loader dumped the rocks, it also unleashed a choking cloud of dust. One of the soldiers buried his face in the crook of his elbow. Another squeezed his eyes shut and turned away, a natural but pointless act since the dust swirled all around us. After it cleared a bit, I noticed that the soldiers were all thickly coated with grime, except their eyes and lips, making them look like brown faced Al Jolsons.

I continued on to lunch (spaghetti & meatballs), they continued to shovel rocks in the 110 degree heat.

Relief in Sight

It has been a 115 degrees (46 C) or hotter every day since I returned from leave in June. I have scanned the sky every day, looking for clouds, but have seen none. None. I had thought that we’d have a summer storm or two sweep through, but no. Just an unbroken string of cloudless hot days.

The last couple of days have been a little cooler, 112 or 113 F, but last night and today I saw a harbinger of relief on the horizon; clouds. Not a lot of them, but some, and they’ve built up today so that instead of just a couple, we now have quite a few.

I’m hoping that the clouds mean cooler weather is coming.

Tent city

We are going to get to leave here one of these days, I can’t say exactly when, but it’s coming up pretty soon. As part of our transition out of here almost everyone will move into a tent city that is being set up.

I wrote about the earth moving and dust creating a few days ago, and that was part of setting up the tent city. The field was flattened and graded for run off, and then wooden floors constructed. Now the tents are being erected.

Each tent is about 20 feet by 50 feet, and made of fabric with a rubbery coating. These are brand new tents, provided by the Air Force. They are tan, and each has a fly above it. The fly is the same size as the roof, and is held about 10 inches above the roof so air can circulate and reduce solar heating. Inside the tents are black, but all have in inner white liner, again for insulation and to lighten up the inside. A divider cuts the interior in two, with a door between.

Each tent comes with an air conditioner/heater and a light set, and a large air plenum runs down the middle of the ceiling to distribute the air. All in all, pretty nice, for tents. Way better that that nasty greasy canvas stuff we used to have to use.

The tents open onto a concrete walkway, which will be nice during the muddy season. There are lots of tents, but we also have lots of soldiers to pack into them, so I guess each tent will house are least dozens of soldiers. Exactly how many per tent remains to be seen. Our stay in the tents should be short, maybe a couple of weeks.

Slug it out

Our FOB held a “smoker”, an amateur boxing match, the other night in the gym, and it was the most well-attended MWR event ever. Hundreds of spectators came to watch about 12-14 matches, two of which featured female fighters. One female match was planned in advance, but the other was just two soldiers who got inspired and decided to box. The skinny fast female won that, because she’d throw a few punches then run behind the referee.

Weights ran from a low of 145 pounds to a high of around 250 pounds, and most of the matches were pretty even. One match, a grudge match I guess, was between soldiers in the same unit. However, one fighter weighed around 200 lbs and 6 feet tall, the other 250 lbs, 6 ft 6 inches. The big guy won.

Most of the fighters just went out and flailed away, throwing a spectacular number of punches. All of them were exhausted by the last, the third, round. Round were two minutes with a one minute rest between. The referee was pretty aggressive about protecting the boxers, and he stopped over half of the matches. Our surgeon was there and checked out the pugilists as well.

The rounds started off with an air horn to start and stop rounds, but it ran dry and they ended up using a whistle. Only two helmets and two sets of boxing gloves were available, so the time between fights was a bit slow.

The guys who spend lots of time in the gym preferred to fight with their shirts off. One of the female boxers has her dad here, and he was in her corner giving her the benefit of his boxing wisdom. Another boxer, one of the heavyweights, has his wife here, and she was in his corner.

You’ve heard the saying, don’t bring a knife to a gun fight. Well that night, most people brought guns to a boxing match.

Circularity

President Bush was in Idaho last week, thanking the Idaho National Guard and other service members for serving in Iraq. As he pointed out, of all 50 states Idaho currently has the highest percentage of its Guard force on active duty. There are a few Idaho soldiers serving elsewhere, but almost all of the state's Army Guard is now in Iraq.

So, the people George Bush was thanking weren't there because they were away doing what he was thanking them for. Still, it was nice to be recognized and thanked, though a bit surreal. The President was in Idaho thanking Idaho soldiers who were in Iraq watching the President on Al-Jazeera TV.

Modern medicine

Today a couple of soldiers told me about one of their many visits to the hospital in Kirkuk. They didn’t exactly describe things as I am here, and they saw this stuff over several visits, but for the ease of telling I’m going to write it as one visit. All the facts and info came from the soldiers. I just added the narrative.

The soldiers took an Iraqi to the hospital to be treated for a gunshot wound. When they first pulled up to the hospital, they saw bloody bandages and dressings scattered around the outside. They saw a bunch of needles lying on the ground. The hospital is run down, dirty and trashy, inside and outside, and has a terrible smell.

Once inside, they saw more bloody bandages on the floor in the hallway and rooms. They laid their patient on a gurney made of plywood. The top was dirty and had fresh blood on it from another patient. The patient lay bleeding there quite a while with no medical personnel paying attention to him, but with his family standing around him, wailing and crying and adding to the chaos. The people standing around him were smoking, and the patient was having trouble breathing, but his family continued to smoke around him.

They saw a dead young girl lying on the blood stained cement floor in the hallway. No one paid much attention to her, either. Locals bring in blankets for their relatives, as the hospital has none. The locals also tear up sheets to serve as bandages, again, because of shortages.

They saw a dead patient be lifted from a bed and carted off to lie in the hallway. The bed was soaked with blood. A new patient was put on the blood soaked bed.

They took a recently arrived lieutenant with them, and he emerged white faced and shaken. The soldiers wondered what rural hospitals are like, if a city hospital had these conditions.

For better or for worse

As I exited the chow hall tonight carrying my foil covered chicken breast and broccoli, a soldier said hello. I’ve gotten to know this soldier fairly well on the deployment, and I asked him how things have been going.

“I was on emergency leave” he solemnly informed me. Emergency leave is granted when the soldier has a serious problem back home; a death in the family, a life threatening situation, or some emergency that requires the soldier’s presence. I have worked several emergency leave cases, and usually it’s a matter of the commander trying to decide if the request meets the criteria required by the regulation.

Death = approved. New baby = maybe. Post partum depression = doubtful. It’s almost always bad news. The run of the mill new baby doesn’t rate emergency leave; the ones that almost kill mom leaving her a basket case incapable of caring for the other kids, and no other family is around, can justify the leave.

I said “Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good. What happened?” As I’ve written, I think people don’t bring this stuff up unless they want you to ask about it.

“My wife burnt down the house and blew up my pickup” he replied, calmly. Immediately I thought “Man, this guy is going through a REALLY nasty divorce.” He added “And she got pregnant.” Of course, I thought that not only was she really mad at him, she was sleeping with some other guy. Even though the person might want to talk about it, you still have to be sensitive. You can’t just say “Jeezus. What a b*tch.” You never know.

I said “Well, I hope you were there when she got pregnant.” “Oh yeah” he said. I thought, this guy’s soon-to-be-ex torched his house and bombed his truck, and he gets her pregnant? “What were you thinking?” I blurted, shocked. He showed me a new wedding ring he was sporting, a beautiful Titanium and Platinum ring, three bands in one ring, grayish, lighter in the middle third. “Feel it” he offered, and handed me the ring. I hefted it and handed it back, by now really confused.

Turns out that on the Fourth of July, his wife left the garage door open. Some kids threw fireworks in the garage and got things going. A propane bottle exploded and took out his truck. The garage burned. The rest of the house was spared, but smoke damage pretty much ruined everything.

Good news; insurance will cover the damage. Bad news; with the new baby, they now need a minivan. Goodbye to the pickup days.

Bottoms up

We are supposed to drink only bottled water because the local water is suspect, and this rule is easy to comply with. Pallets of bottled water are frequently deposited anywhere that soldiers congregate. Lots of them in the living areas, many near offices and the gym, and I even saw a pallet next to the running track.

Most of the bottles are 1.5 liters, but half liter sizes are available and much sought after. If you get a cold 1.5 liter bottle (about a quart and a half), it gets warm before you can finish it. Also, because you can’t drink that much very quickly, you always end up setting it down somewhere, like everybody else, and then you can’t remember which water bottle was yours. I guess the Army buys the large bottles because they’re cheaper, but in the long run I doubt it saves much money, because of all the wasted water in the big bottles.

These pallets unfortunately just sit out in the sun and wind, so if you grab a bottle during the day it’s going to be 120 degrees or more. After not too long the bottles are dust caked, which makes them look like they’ve been sitting in the heat for a long time. No one seems to want to drink water that’s been sitting in the sun for weeks, so the dirty bottles tend to build up and hang around for a long time.

The water doesn’t seem to go bad, but who knows? Maybe that is the source of an ongoing gastrointestinal problem that plagues the FOBs. Or, maybe it is the non-potable water we have to use. Showers and bathrooms use non-potable water. It’s tough to keep water completely out of your mouth and off your lips when you shower, if you try to take a good shower. Some soldiers brush their teeth with the sink water. And, since we wash and rinse with the non-potable water, how clean can our hands be? Let all the eye rubbers, nose pickers and finger lickers be warned.

I talked to a soldier whose job it is to run a high-volume water purifier. They do what they can, but they don’t make enough water for showers and bathrooms. He told me that local well water for soldiers’ use is pumped into an open topped tank on one of the FOBs, so bugs get in the water, and birds swoop down into it. Recently they found a dead cat in the tank.

Y'all get cleaned up for dinner

A graveled field separates our chow hall from the soldier housing area, and many soldiers walk across it on the way to chow. Others, like me, stumble across it because it is nearly paved with large rocks, some as big as your head, most about fist size, smaller ones mixed in. The rocks are a way of avoiding walking through mud when it rains.

Lately the field has been prepared for future operations by grading it flat and mostly level, with some slope to account for run off. The rocks have been turned under and covered with dirt. As part of the process, Hesco barriers are being erected to protect soldiers from rocket attacks. Hesco barriers are 6 foot cubes made of strong wire mesh lined with a heavy fabric. Picture making a thick flexible fabric out of cement. The barriers are shipped folded flat. After being unfolded and emplaced, usually several in a row shoulder to shoulder, the cubes are scoop-loaded full of dirt. A quick, and I suppose relatively cheap, way to shield soldiers from indirect fire.

Soldiers continue to walk across the field as it is prepped, but risk getting dusted. A stiff breeze blows across the field, and as a scoop loader gobbles up a huge bucket of earth from the trucked-in piles, a thick cloud of dirt kicks up. This cloud rides the wind and attacks across the field, engulfing unwary soldiers and completely swallowing them, like The Blob. After disappearing briefly, the soldier reappears, usually stumbling, head down, face and eyes twisted shut, and often waving at the dust like it’s smoke in the face.

At dinner time it’s usually about 115 degrees, so even after the cloud moves on much of it is left stuck to the perspiring soldier.

Moral quandry

Our chow hall has a one way flow through it. Once you exit the back door, the only way back in is to go around, show your ID card, and reenter through the front. Tonight I walked outside, dumped my plastic plate into the trash, and headed for the parking lot. I turned back to look at something and saw a couple of soldiers walking toward me. One was carrying in his left hand a plate of food for his buddy, covered with aluminum foil, and holding the napkin and utensils on top of the plate with his right hand. He saw me turn to look at him, so he snapped out a salute. Of course, the no longer secure napkin and utensils blew off and tumbled into the dirt at his feet. I wonder if he went clear around and back through the chow hall to get clean utensils, or if he just dusted them off and didn’t say anything to his buddy. What would you do?

Dahling, you've never looked so lovely

I had to use the internet café to post a blog, not my favorite thing to do. The A/C is weak and I was perspiring before I even got fully logged on. You have only a hard wood bench to sit on, and if it’s too close, or too far away, tough, because 3 other soldiers are sitting on it as well. The person next to you is just inches away; sometimes you bump elbows.

The last time I was in the internet cafe the guy next to me was a two finger typist. He typed fairly quickly using just his two pointer fingers, but that method requires a pretty close focus on the keys, so he was glaring down at the keyboard. What he lost in typing speed he made up for in vigor. He’d stab out a few letters, then WHACK the space bar, type a bit more and WHACK the enter key. I started to feel sorry for the keyboard. I’ll bet his two pointer fingers are shorter now than when the deployment began. Because both arms were pumping up an down, the guy's upper body was rocking from side to side.

I looked at the magazine rack on the way out, and noticed that someone had doodled on a picture of a famous actress. With the goatee, I think she nowe looks like Dennis Miller. I also saw similar doodling on a cover photograph of the new Pope, but that was a week ago and the magazine was no longer there on my most recent visit. I wonder if that had anything to do with the two little devil’s horns someone drew sticking out of the Pope’s hat.

What did Dewey do?

Between where soldiers live and the chow hall, wetlands have developed. Gray water, water from sinks and showers, drains into a large holding tank. The gray water used to be pumped out and into tankers to be taken to a sewage treatment facility, or at least off the FOB. Black water from the toilets is still pumped and hauled away, but they quit trucking off the gray water because of lack of trucks, I think.

A large drainage ditch cuts across the path from the living area to the chow hall, and into this ditch the gray water is pumped. The water flows down the ditch and ends up in a holding pond, where it seeps into the ground, or evaporates. The ditch is uneven and the low spots always contain standing water because the holding tank is emptied daily. Reeds and plants are growing, and it attracts birds, so a little habitat is developing.

The gray water is laden with soap, phosphates I guess, which is nutrient for aquatic plant life, algae looking stuff. The ditch and ponds are lined with sheets of algae, the rocks thorough and over which the water flows are green and scummy, and the water smells like the drain in your kitchen sink.

People being human, they do not want to walk around the ditch so they cut across it. At two or three crossing points, large rocks form stepping stones. Since the rocks can be slick, and since the water is nasty, you tend to pay attention to where you’re stepping. Crossing the ditch on the way to lunch today, I noticed that someone has left a message written on one of the stepping stones, where it is sure to be read: “F**k off, Dewey!” Not exactly a message in a bottle, but it gets the point across.

Wrinkle free

I watched a soldier carefully fold his tee shirts in the Laundromat. His entire laundry consisted of five brown Under Armor tee shirts, the tight stretchy kind that fit sort of like spandex. He carefully laid out each shirt and smoothed out all wrinkles with the side of his hand. He tugged at the seams, pulling each straight and flat. Once he got the shirt lying as flat and wrinkle free as a piece of paper, he folded up the bottom 2-3 inches, creating a cuff around the outside of the shirt. Next he folded it into thirds, vertically, taking care to keep the sleeves unwrinkled.

As I watched, I wondered why all the effort at avoiding wrinkles; it’s a stretch shirt and any wrinkles it might have will disappear as soon as he puts it on. Once he got it neatly into thirds, he started tightly rolling it up at the neck, pressing down so hard that his fingertips whitened. When he got to the end, he tucked the folded shirt into the cuff and was left with a neat 4 inch long tee shirt sausage, suitable for inspection.

That's bloke, not mate

Right now, Iraq is a multi-culti paradise. Folks from all over go through our chow hall. Brits, Aussies, Fijians, Irish, Indian, Pakistani, Pilipino, and all kind of racial and ethnic groups. I sat a cross from a guy the other day, and overheard him talking to his friends. He sounded Australian to me, so I asked, “Are you from Australia?’ He looked at me like he was Jerry Farwell and I’d just told him I’d seen him leaving a gay bar. Stunned incredulity, with no small bit of irritation mixed in. “No, I’m British” came the clipped reply. We got past the poor start and ended up chatting about the insanity of American security measures at airports.

Stop the horror

Walking on my way to lunch today, I neared three porta-pottis stationed at the edge of the chow hall parking lot. A HMMWV skidded to a stop in front of the blue plastic latrines. A soldier standing up in the gun turret bracing himself with the grips of his .50 caliber machine gun hollered down “Stop the pooping!” A couple of seconds later a soldier burst out of the potti, clambered into the front seat of the HMMWV, and it roared off in a cloud of dust, gunner still standing tall.

****

I have been having a great deal of technical difficulties lately, which has made it difficult to keep up regular posts. Also, I was recently criticized for revealing too much sensitive information, and was threatened with having the blog shut down. This kind of chilled my creativity, so I have been struggling lately with ideas to post. I hope and plan to continue the blog, and apologize for the lack of posts recently. Please don’t give up checking in from time to time.

High Tech

I was driving back to my office today, and picked a soldier, to “Share the Ride." I know this soldier just from living and working on the same FOB for a year, although not well. He said he was going to change into his PT uniform and go back to work. I asked about what type of work he can do in PT clothes, and he said he works in supply.

He then asked me if I have one of the new space age pens. “Nope.” Well, I needed one, he assured me, and he began to root around in huge green back pack. He fished out a pen packaged in a blister wrap, handed it to me, and said that they’d just come in today. “That’s one of those space age pens NASA spent millions to invent, that will write in hot, cold, upside down, and in zero gravity. You know, what the Russians do with a pencil.”

Sure enough, the package listed those virtues, and well as having a pressurized cartridge, permanent ink, and the ability to write under water. It claims to write in temperatures from -50 to +400 degrees (we’ll see about the latter, probably any day now). It’s Nitrogen pressurized at 50 psi. I’m about half afraid to use it; think of the permanent ink stain I’ll have if that baby blows out in my pocket. It’s a cool matte black with a non-skid gripping surface, and all metal clip and exterior.

It’s the perfect companion to the “Rite in the Rain” All-Weather Field Book the soldier also gave to me. Nothing like a friendly supply sergeant. The Field Book has paper “created to shed water and enhance the written image.” Hot damn. That book is a good piece of gear, the kind of thing you wonder how you ever lived without.

The beige pages are lined horizontally but also feature dashed vertical lines, dividing the page into squares so you can make scale sketches. It has a conversion table and a seven inche ruler along the front inside cover and a 16 centimeter ruler on the back. The last few pages have helpful info, like Tactical Mission Graphics (Breach, Counterattack, Cannalize, etc.), Friendly and Enemy Unit Symbols, a sample Sector Sketch and a checklist for preparing one, a Range Card guide, steps to evaluate a casualty, effective ranges of weapons systems, and more. It comes in two colors; woodland green, and desert tan. Hope I don’t drop it. I’ll never find it again.

So, my random act of kindness in sharing the ride paid off big. That’s how life is supposed to work.