Pictures!

Just a little random imagery from around the company compound as we wind down and kill time. There was a big, impressive moon last night.



The creepy tree is almost a member of our unit, we're so used to it. It's not until you take a picture that you realize it really is...disturbing.

Today we did some laundry and sat around.



Yeah. I can actually do the "hadji squat." It's kinda horrifying when I catch myself doing it.



Note the creative use of the red bucket once I finished washing my socks in it. Ice is plentiful here at the Big Base, so we may as well enjoy.

Speaking of enjoying, here's a picture of the World's Happiest Team Sergeant as we were preparing to pull out of FOB McLazy.



I cannot confirm, but there have been reports of an MRAP leaving FOB McLazy with eight extended middle fingers...

Little Happy Things

I was standing in the shower trailer this morning. I stripped of my t-shirt and underthings and started to put them to the side like I always do. Then I paused, thought about it, counted days in my head. And I took the pile and threw it away.

A good trip

We did a fast turnaround at the Big Base. And although it's nice to come back with some meat and some snack, there's one thing that's it's even nicer to bring back: replacements.

I will, however, point out that last night's convoy coming back down here was like having my eyes burned out by capuchin monkeys with smoldering sticks. The straight-line distance is 47km (29 miles), so we figure it's about 35 miles by road.

It took 3.5 hours last night.

Never an awesome moment here...

It was 8 million degrees, sunny and there was a mild breeze. Incidentally, the breeze here is not a cooling factor - there's no wind chill of course, there's just wind sucking the moisture out of your body even faster.

Anyway - another godawful afternoon, but perfect for one thing: handswashing some clothes and hanging them out to dry.

So I did three sports bras, eight socks and three t-shirts and hung them out on the line on my porch. I went inside to collect up some trash, drank a bottle of water, and then opened the door to go outside...and it was rapidly turning orange.

I pulled my clothes down before they attracted more than a thin coating of dust, draped them over various and sundry objects indoors, and spent the next hour muttering obscenities about this country.

Worth reading

I know that all of us troops, and all of the folks who like troops, are supposed to disapprove of John Murtha and automatically categorize anything he says about our involvement in Iraq as utter defeatist tripe.

But, as the southern people say, even a blind hog roots up an acorn from time to time. Murtha is calling for closer scrutiny of how the Commander's Emergency Response Program has been used.

"A fundamental review of CERP, its purpose, use and scope, is overdue," Murtha wrote in the July 15 letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Murtha said he was disturbed by reports from Iraq suggesting commanders were in a "rush to spend" hundreds of millions of dollars by the end of the fiscal year.

War is not cheap. There's a reason it's known as a drain on "blood and treasure." But the CERP program is directed by a document we call "Money as a Weapons System," and flinging large piles of US taxpayers dollars at every problem, potential problem or confusing situation is every bit as silly as trying to resolve every kinetic problem with 155mm HE rounds.

In fact, it might be sillier, because I can't think of a single situation in which "success" was measured strictly in number of 155 rounds expended. And given the very real challenge of finding metrics to define success in a fluid counterinsurgency fight, the temptation to measure progress in terms of dollars spent or projects started can be mighty.

U.S. military officials say CERP has been invaluable in helping commanders get things done quickly, with little red tape. In recent years, they have used it to put insurgents on payroll, award micro-grants to business owners, compensate families of civilians killed in combat, and build schools and clinics.

Please understand that "very little red tape" is a relative statement. Our supported organization does pretty well with the CERP nomination and approval process, and it's a multi-step undertaking that even in the simplest circumstance (microgrants, if you're interested) moves in terms of weeks (and often, months), not days (qualifier: I have not handled a condolence payment on this tour, and I can't recall the timeframes when we did them last time around).

CERP has been valuable for building schools and clinics (and water treatment facilites and wells and roads and bridges and culverts and powerlines and hoophouses and corn silos). But have all of those been occupied, staffed and managed? Honestly, I don't know. I haven't been to all of them.

I do know that sometimes it's a challenge to get unit commanders to ask some of those harder questions when there's a pot of money that needs to be used by the end of the fiscal year/deployment/quarter and which battalion spends more of it is one of the few ways to measure who's done "more" during a given period of time.

If money is to be used a weapons system, it's imperative that we study its employment with the same diligence we apply to the use of armor in an urban fight, the employment of helicopter gunships in support of amphibious operations or the utility of gun trucks in base defense. It would be a valuable exercise, if for no other reason than that our experiences with money on the battlefield in Iraq may, if analyzed dispassionately and rigorously, enable us to leverage it to preserve the lives of our warriors in Afghanistan and future conflicts.

Ugh...progress

One of the things we do differently under the Status of Forces Agreement, which was reaffirmed by the June 30 security "transition," is try to stay off the roads during peak times. That's a concept that primarily effects "support and sustainment" movements.

Alas, those movements (resupply convoys and the like) are one of the best ways for a small group of people in one truck to move back and forth between the Big Base and FOB McSleepy.

All of this means that going from Point A to Point B can lead to "getting home" at 0115 after a slow-motion convoy. At least, when we travel at night, there's really not much need for IV fluids.

The party never ends

We've been up at Big Base for a few days now, doing more preparing-to-leave stuff. There's also been some drama, since there was a very ugly collison of bad days between our admin workhorse and an overly sensitive senior NCO.

Drama is, of course, annoying. We've been doing our best to ignore that, knock out the tasks we came up here to deal with, and keep our heads down. We've been filling time by eating good chow, enjoying the wireless internet and, of course, giving each other IVs.

After the drive up here, our gunner was feeling a little pink and dizzy, so I took that as an opportunity to remember how to stick:



Always good to know one hasn't lost one's touch. I was, of course, quite pround of myself.



And yes, anytime you think you're having a bad hair day, try wearing a padded helmet in the heat with a headset squished around the base for a few hours. It's a damn sexy look.

The next day we gave the Bossman a couple of bags (I provided support and snarky commentary for that evolution). He enjoyed it so much that we wrangled a box of fluids and associated supplies out of the medic to take back with us. We kind of have to watch him, since although he walks around with a bottle of water, I'm not sure he ever actually drinks it.

Blast from the past

Sometimes we run across an update on someone we once knew - say, someone in our high school graduating class - and think, Wow - that's pretty impressive.

And sometimes we run across a tidbit on someone we once knew - again, say someone in our high school class - and think, Creepy.

I don't even remember this chick's pre-married name, but I do remember I probably would not have pegged her as one of those grown women who has inappropriate relationships with young men.

...a former counselor for KidsFirst program at St. John's Home for abused and neglected children, has been accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in her care.

Huh.

Heads Up for my Dog People

Squeaky has some info up regarding disturbing reports of some trouble that may be associated with Beneful dog foods. Suggest you go and read if you're feeding Beneful.

twiddling thumbs, time NOW

After a brief, two-hour frenzy of paperwork in which I built packets for sole sourcing construction of five six-room schools, we again found ourselves staring at the calendar.

Two more paychecks, pointed out SSG C.

The rest of us nodded numbly. That's still plenty of staring at the calendar.

Sadness!

That's what we call the meal experience here, as in Who wants to go to sadness?

We eat UGR-A (Unitized Group Ration - A) meals. By following the link and checking out the Table 1 and table 2 options at the bottom of the page, you can see exactly what the options are.

Tonight was Table 1, option 6 - LUNCH/DINNER MENU 6 - SHRIMP SCAMPI/ CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI PENNE. That's not a bad one at all, really.



With my left hand, I'm engaging in the during-meal sport we refer to as "fly pong," wherein I attempt to eat while chasing the flies off of my food and onto the meal of the guy across from me.

Good times, I tell you.

You will note that I also have a most excellent salad on my tray. This concept - fresh vegetables (and, sometimes, even fruit) - was one that came with the manuever unit we're supporting now. Their predecessors didn't seem to realize such things were available. Scury- brought to you by the unit that also hasn't figured out how to make food warm.

But this group is much better. In fact, when they realized that soldiers were rejecting their salad offerings because there were flies crawling all over the food, they came up with a solution.



Mighty hard to walk around on my lettuce when there are hurricane force winds blowing across it, isn't it, Mr. Disgusting Fly?

Of course, this makes scooping up shreds of lettuce with a spoon kinda exciting, but that's OK.

So, in summary, the food could be worse. You get some of the meal packets more often than others (I could go the rest of my life without ever eating slices of beef drenched in BBQ sauce dumped over rice), and rotating through a given set of "menus" gets...tiresome, but at least it's not MREs.

[head, wall, repeat]

My most "substantial" body of work experience lies in the public affairs/outreach realm, with a heavy emphasis on natural resources and military issues.

I've been working through the godawful process of setting up resumes on the "special resume website" that it seems each and every agency in the government has (oh, there's a USAJOBs resume, but the Army, Navy and USDA all have a different one of their own).

I was reviewing my info on one of those sites this evening when I spotted a typo...

Folks, what one word do you think, given the information in the first sentence, could I have typo'd/misspelled and had missed by automated spell-checkers and multiple proofreaders?



Yeah. You guessed it.



Fortunately, I haven't sent out too many application in which my work experience included, in a bit of delicious irony, a line that reads:
• Provided final editorial oversight for all printed products designed for pubic distribution

[sigh] I can only hope to have caused some amusement for some office drone out there somewhere tasked with reading through it.

Random Day

Having failed at sleeping through an entire day here (although we're up roughly one eight-hour nap after each three-hour period of verticality), we futzed around and tried to stay busy.

First, there was the Chair of Death. Buying "local" is encouraged here - anything to stimulate the Iraqi economy. Sometimes, though, it would be nice if we could have gotten some office chairs from, I dunno...another economy that could use some stimulation. See, the local stuff kinda...sucks.



So we tried to fix it. This is the test of the first iteration of repairs.



Back to the drawing board... After about four tries we got it stabilized enough to stop whoever was sitting in front of the secure computer from occasionally being launched backward onto the floor. That pretty much qualified as a "win." So we went shopping!

This is not as exciting as it might seem. We have a "unit-run" PX, which means that every so often, somebody drags a conex up to the Big Base, puts some stuff in it, and brings it back. Normally it gets raided for the good stuff (chips and Ramen noodles) within 24 hours, but it's always got the really important stuff.



There's some word on the street that the Powers That Be have nefarious plans to enact a military-wide smoking ban in the middle-future. I will, of course, not say rude things about any plans coming down from On High. I will merely point out that back when we used to actually win wars, the Powers That Be actually put cigarettes in our ration packs.

Having done field chair repairs and having successfully procured smokes and chips, we felt like winners. I felt like such a winner that I rewarded myself.



That is a peanut butter and thimbleberry jelly sammich. I do not know what a thimbleberry is, but it makes a fabulous jam.

I just don't get it

I just walked into our "office trailer," to find SSG C watching the Michael Jackson memorial on CNN International.

No - we did not participate in the "join hands to pray for Michael" part.

Is it over now?

When posting is light...

When I decided to keep blogging during this deployment, I had to make a decision that ran counter to my every inclination. I was, I decided, going to have to be nice.

Now, you may have noticed I'm not always very nice, but trust me - I'm genetically inclined to be a total ranting bitch on wheels. I am of the school that tells children: If you can't say something nice, come sit by me.

But I didn't know what sort of...tactical situation this trip would present, and so I planned for the worst-case scenario. That one would, of course, involve people dying. And, given my ability to jam my feet in my mouth, I figured that if I went off on a good long rant about how much of an absolute shithead moron Captain So-And-So was, he would be immediately killed the next day.

Then, the way I figured it, his grief-stricken family members would eventually be directed to a post on the internet about him, written only days before he died, in which some random chick devoted paragraphs and paragraphs to describing him as dumber than dogshit. This would, of course, probably make his Mom sad. And really, if there's one thing I never want to feel responsible for, it's making someone's Mom sad.

So sometimes, when there's not a lot of posting, it's because I can't sit down at the computer and generate anything but a seething vat of rage and vitriol. As a deployment winds down, it gets worse. Everyone would rather be somewhere else, all grand ideas have been given up on, and frankly, we grow sick of the people we've been tolerating for months.

So - in summary - everyone in the Army in Iraq who is not on my Civil Affairs Team is an idiot. All of them suffer from cranial-rectal inversion, which might be solved if they extracted their heads far enough for good advice to reach their ears.

But, rather than write mean, bitter posts that would make me feel bad if someone's Mom read them, I will simply take a deep breath and sometimes, rather than write something rude, occasionally leave you with no Bad Dog howling. I think it's best this way.

From Here to Y'all

I cleaned that table two nights ago after we ate on it. The dust has been...very special. It allows us to analyze foot traffic patterns in the gravel.



Hope you all are watching fireworks and cooking out today!

Oh yee of little faith...

My mother, of all people, asked in the comments from the last post...

DID YOU GET MEAT???

We are elite warriors, and, for us, failure is not an option. We brave porta-jons on a daily basis, we face without flinching the dreaded Iraqi City Council Meetings. We grill in the face of sand flies and wear unauthorized hats behind the backs of sergeants major. We carry Beanie Babies into crowds of Iraqi children and come out unscathed.

Chuck Norris can leap six-room schools in a single bound, but we can fund construction of several such schools in one afternoon of paperwork.

We are, in short, really really bad mofo's.

We got meat.



That's 26 steaks of various cuts, and the trusty box of old burgers we keep around for snacking.

We also keep backup meat in the Bossman's freezer, but this is the freezer we filled on our most recent trip.

Some days...

It sounded like a good idea when the opportunity came up yesterday. We were low on meat, I wanted some new white socks, the boys needed snacks and magazines featuring scantily clad wimminz...there was a convoy headed up to Big Base for the afternoon. We'd load up our trusty Maxpro Plus MRAP and tag along. It'd be a hoot. And, as always when we roll our vehicle, good training.

I rolled out of bed in a decent mood, and headed outdoors. The dust was a little thick, but I was Abby the Optimist today - well, the guy in the gun won't roast, I though.

We picked up some mail, then SSG C and SGT B went down to move the truck over to the line, Bossman and I finished up some coffee and prepared to get a little paperwork we were taking. Just before we headed off, SSG C came over with a question - did we know, he asked, if this particular truck had a set of slave cables?

(those are basically a giant jumper cable for military vehicles, which tend to have a special port designed for "slaving")

It started yesterday! I pointed out, which forced SSG C to point out that although yes, he had started the truck yesterday, it apparently had decided to take today off.

(and no - we didn't get a set of slave cables when we signed out the MaxPro)

We found a set and jumped the truck. The boys drove it around to the line, and the Boss and I grabbed our paperwork. Along the way, they grabbed ice for our cooler and returned the cables.

We met them at the staging area (we were still early - our truck has been, on occasion, prone to commo disasters - we budget extra time).

My pants gave out!, announced SGT B, hopping down and indicating the signature ACU failure - a spectacularly blown-out crotch. It was, we noted, a blue underpants day.

I hopped in the back to put the water and Gatorade in the cooler with the ice while the guys handled their gunner and driver chores. Except the cooler...I'd never seen a catastropic cooler failure before - cracked plastic and a separated insulating layer. The lid wouldn't fit. And when it's over 100 in the dust at 0900, a non-sealing cooler is a non-starter.

It was not, the Bossman noted, starting out as a particularly super day.

The blue cooler (which we loved - it was the perfect size) ended up in the Dumpster, and I trudged off to fetch Second Best Cooler (it's red and just smaller enough to suck). We got that loaded, the commo checked, the gun up, my high-speed warfighting Tom Tom system up and running. We hit the test-fire pit and rolled out the gate.

Hey, C, I asked, you smell something?

Smells like brakes, the Bossman volunteered from the back.

Burning brakes, said SSG C, piloting out the entry maze.

The radio chatter turned to the weird burning brake smell, and we made a quick stop outside the gate to check the emergency brake on a trailer in the convoy. It was semi-engaged, so it was blamed for the smell. We had no idiot lights or odd gauges, and Old Faithful was handling in her normal, godawful manner. We continued on.

We reached Big Base, established a linkup time in six hours, and and parked near Finance so the boss could go in and grab some cash. I crawled out of the front to stow my body armor in the passenger compartment. SGT B pulled down the gun and SSG climbed out of the driver's seat to stretch.

Only there was this smell...

SSG C and I circled the vehicle. His background is in the motor pool, so when we noted a good, solid, Class III leak around the inner edge of the inner rear tire on the driver's side, he was about to expertly diagnose it as probably the problem.

Fortunately, we were parked right across from the Maintenance section for the battalion we support. Cooking with gas, hey? Well, not so much. See, they don't keep parts on hand for the Maxpro varients of MRAP...

[insert sound of head hitting wall here]

But maybe they had what we needed. Of course, it being Sunday on Big Base, the maintence crew didn't actually show up till 1300...

We went to lunch, sent the Bossman to do officer things at Higher, and linked up with the truck bubbas at 1300.

Nope, said the staff sergeant in charge of the section. They didn't have any hub seals (aha! Now I knew what we needed!) for a Maxpro, but there was an outfit a couple streets over that worked on Maxpros...

(figuring out which little garage does what to which vehicles and for whom could be a full-time job. It's not mine, so this part is always frustrating as Hell)

Fortunately, while we were at lunch, the whole wheel/brake/hub/axle area had cooled just enough to unseize (a lovely development as soon as we had parked the truck). So we could move it to the Possible Maybe Guys Who Could Fix It.

I walked into their bay, which was full of civilians, and started telling my sob story:

Hi, my name is Abby and I'm with the CA team supporting the Cav guys down at FOB McSleepy. We seem to have developed a hub leak on the way up here, and the Forward Support Company people here don't have what they need to fix it. They said you all might be able to help. Did I mention our SP to get back is in 3.5 hours? And we really really hate our Higher and didn't pack our toothbrushes, so I'd pretty much sell my soul to you if you can fix my truck.

And you know what? God love those guys at ManTech, because they did.

We pulled down the wire mitigation system, I shuffled some paper, we debated a grumpy staff sergeant from a nearby maintenance section from which the ManTech guys actually liberated our part...we watched gallons of water (to cool) and degreaser (to, I suppose, degrease) go into the afflicted area of Old Not-Quite-Faithful. At a couple of points, there were six guys cranking on our truck to get us out the door in time to get home. They seemed mildly amazing our rear axle hadn't burst into flame or something similarly horrible on our trip up there.

In between the debates and forms, we had time to get each of us past the real PX and to reassure our fearless leader that he would not, in fact, be trapped at Higher for the night.

We rolled out of their compound at 1615, picked up the Bossman, fueled up (no way we were rolling out with the needle anywhere to the left of "F" with the day we were having), made our linkup, and got back to our dusty little home.

Soaked in sweat and thankfully ditching our body armor, we stood next to the parked truck (who has a followup visit with our local maintenance guys tomorrow).

Next time, the Bossman ventured, when the truck is dead in the morning and there's a pants failure and a cooler breaks, all before we even saddle up...

Right, we agreed. The next time that happens, it's a sign we all just need to go back to bed.

Bingo, he said.

(note - I wanted to link to the ManTech folks because they went a lot farther than they needed to with a lot less paperwork to help us out. Maybe I heard the name badly, because the only ManTech I could find with a link to the defense industry didn't sound like the same folks. Pity, 'cause this was a great group of guys)

Just FYI

In case my US readers thought they were the only ones...we have satellite feed TV here sourced from somewhere in the middle east. We get CNN International, the BBC and Al Jazeera (in English).

When the Michael Jackson Grief Festival got to be too much on CNN, we switched to the BBC. When it overwhelmed us there, too, we went to Al Jazeera.

The good news is, it's not just the US that's overwhelmed with this godawful contrived celebrity media seizure that's become the norm whenever anyone who's ever made the cover of the National Enquirer gets athlete's foot.

The horrifying news is that it's everyone in the world who gets their news in English.

The worst job in the Army

belonged to the platoon medic for the guys we were out with the other day. We had to sit in a small meeting room (cushions on a concrete floor, etc etc), drinking even-less-trustworthy-than-usual tea and talking about water projects. We had to continue said discussion even when the power went out and the flies tripled in number.

But unlike the medic, we did not have to examine the muktar (town headman) as he lay sprawled out on the floor, wincing.

Unlike the medic, we did not have to have the level of highly personal physical contact that allowed him to declare "torsed testicle, he needs to see a doctor."

We don't smell very good, and we have access to sufficient water for a daily scrub. I don't envy the man whose job took him into a crotch without that resource.

Mail Call!

Bossman and SSG C went out to look at something this morning, so that left SGT B and me on mail detail.

Sometimes we ignore the mail ritual and let the little HHC gnomes schlepp our stuff back through to their headquarters, but this morning we thought we'd join our teammates in the spirit of up too early doing stuff, and, after an awful attempt at what passes for breakfast here, we lurked outside the mail conex to be offer our help.



That's four days worth of mail. This is where it gets fun. We hopped in (much to the confusion of the mail guys - "why are there two sergeants helping us?") and joined the chain passing boxes out and stacking them.

"Alpha! Alpha! Bravo! HHC! Alpha! K-9!"

You don't know how many weird little subunits you have until you start making piles.



It starts small, but you schlepp packages and packages...and then you get to the rear of the conex and start coming back toward the door on the other side...



As the piles grow, people start showing up and sub-sorting. Because, hey, if you're with Second Platoon, Alpha, you're sure not schlepping mail for those Third Platoon bastards.



We made it to the end of the conex, gathered up the stuff for our team, and loaded it into a handy plastic footlocker the Bossman had shipped in. We were preparing to lug it back to our area when a little karma tapped us on the shoulder.

"You guys want to just throw that in our Gator?" A civilian worker grinned. "It's no problem."



Hooah, not dragging boxes through gravel. That's a win, kids.

Hey, Dads!

You guys are great. A good Dad is just about the best thing a kid can have. So you all get today to put your feet up, hoist a cold beer and tell yourself, "Self, I rock."

In that spirit, here's a picture of my Dad, wrestling some dogs in the snow.



And once you're done relaxing...there's a possum in the garage, the lawn mower won't start, there are sparks coming out of my breaker box, somehow your axe has a broken handle, I have a sliver in my finger, we're out of beer and someone - I'm not saying who - may have wrecked your truck.

The Adventure Continues

Quite some time ago, after much discussion, the Mister and I decided to part ways after this deployment. No hard feelings, etc etc.

This was a personal decision, and is not, directly, the subject of this post.

However, although we're not done here yet, the end is in sight. I'm starting to do some post-Iraq planning, which involves post-Texas planning. You, the American Taxpayer, are a generous sort and, what with a nice little program we call PDRMA, I will not be broke or unemployed immediately upon my return.

Unfortunately, almost all the employment prospects I'm finding are...well, civilized. You know - decently-paid positions leveraging my PAO background to represent some worthy agency or organization.

Which is fine. Great. I'm not turning up my nose, so the Gods of Employment shouldn't be offended.

There are also some Army opportunities, which is slightly-less-than-appealing, but still...it's there, which is good.

But...you'll never know if you don't ask, so...

If any of you happen to live someplace in the southeast, and happen to know of any vacancies at...oh, I dunno...beachfront bait shops, campgrounds, that sort of thing...the sort of work that might appeal to a mildly grumpy thirty-something woman with a big black dog...you could shoot me an email. I'm not saddled with a tremendous amount of debt, so - if you know someone who wants to pay minimum wage to a marina caretaker...



I can also spread gravel.

[hack!] frickin' lovely

Dust storms by themselves are pretty awesome, let me tell you. Fine powder, oozing under the door and around windows. But tonight, we're extra lucky, because we're having dust and pretty impressive wind.

Now, keep in mind this entire FOB is covered in camo nets, tarps and cobbled together cheap-nail-and-plywood construction projects. So in addition to being pretty much country dark out there, we now have obstacles lying around.

I just made my way to my trusty porta-jon, where the dust had worked its unique magic. I could have written my name on the toilet seat, so thick was the dust. Considering the level of GI distress and the traffic that brings to the green closets, that's a pretty clear statement about the volume of dust.

And no - I did NOT write my name on the toilet seat. Ick.

Happy Birthday to me!

31 years ago today, Mom and Dad peered into my little, howling red face, glanced at each other and decided to have dogs from there on out.

And what fun activity did I engage in today?



Why, I went to the GYM! Which is, oddly, slightly less buring-in-hell hot than trotting around the perimeter of the FOB, stumbling over loose gravel.

And this evening we'll celebrate with meat. Could be be worse.

I am NOT coming here on a vacation

We made it back home after the great Customs Adventure, and have fallen right back into the same do ten minutes of paperwork then stare at the calendar routine.

The only break in the monotony came when, looking down to lace up my running shoes, I spied something moving on my sock. I grabbed, killed and examined. When I found two similar wee little beasties later the same day, it was confirmed.

Your Author has fleas.



[sigh]

Seriously, is there anything not to hate about this place? I just triumphed over the sandflies (using a mosquito net that creates a really adorable "princess canopy" effect over my rack), and now I have fleas.

Fortunately, the Bossman had some sort of liquid insecticide in a spray bottle, and after three treatments of my floor and what I expect is the true culprit - my blue rug - I have now been flea free for 24 hours.

The beginning

of the end has, it seems, arrived.

We're all up at the Big Base, since we loaded out our big shipping boxes this morning for redeployment. No - we're not actually close to redeploying yet, but it seems as though the boxes will be handcarried by gnomes from Iraq to the US, so it's going to take a while.

All the stuff we no longer need and are allowed to be without, we stuff into Contico boxes and duffles, and load into the containers. Before we can load them, of course, we must be subjected to the Customs inspection.

We had a very nice MP sergeant first class come out and explain all the things we are not allowed to take back with us (camel saddles, human skulls, and livestock semen were particularly intriguing items on that list). We emptied out our boxes for inspection. Before the oh-so-human and thus oh-so-prone-to-overlooking-things inspector, the contents were perused by...Capka the Customs Dog.



What a good dog, huh? And a pretty cake job for an MWD, too. She comes out, gets introduced, then sits in an air-conditioned SUV until it's time to sniff some piles of soldier crap. Then it's back into the SUV while the next group drags their stuff out.

However, as a note for all involved, perhaps we should try to remember that even high-speed badass uber-ninja military working dogs require the occasional bathroom break.



Otherwise, the customs tarp gets peed on.

It really was a reflection on the degree to which we're all a bunch of dog people when, from our required position off the customs tarp, half the company shouted to the handler that a little dog pee was, in fact, ok, then dispatched the specialist whose stuff had been narrowly missed to get some paper towels and take care of the puddle.

And, finally, just in case you ever wonder what we do with extra care package stuff...we save it for the next deployment .



Hooah, emergency Chapstick!

Sad News

My great-grandmother passed away two days ago. A week short of 106 years old, so she had a good, long run.

"Grandma Walton" was a character. She was a twiggy woman who walked several miles a day to keep in shape, but I remember her as a voracious carnivore - ordering large slabs of rare beef at any occasion (preferably rare). She tended, as she aged and her appetite diminished, to prefer her deserts first.

She made major in the Army Nurse Corps in Europe in WWII, then left the service when the war ended and pursued a career in school nursing and its administration.

I was fortunate to have been able to hear her stories. She was a treasure, and will be missed.

Look what I saw!

On the way to the green closet in the small hours of the night, I shined my light over near where the kittens hang out - you know, to see if they were doing anything impossibly cute (as kittens are wont to do).

And I spotted something snuffling around a pile of meat scraps...



That, folks, is a long-eared hedgehog. And it's cute. Way too cute to be hanging out in Iraq.

In the news

We don't have much to say (that we really ought to say) about this piece of shit who shot a couple of Soldiers in Arkansas.

Police think the shooter acted alone "with the specific purpose of targeting military personnel," Thomas said.
...
He [the shooter]"stated that he was a practicing Muslim, that he was mad at the U.S. military because of what it had done to Muslims in the past," homicide detective Tommy Hudson said in a police report.

Whatever the military has "done to Muslims in the past" pales in comparison, I would say, to what a lot of members of the military would like to do to one, paritcular Muslim right now for killing one young private right out of Basic and wounding another.

A crying shame. Bad Dog hearts go out to the family of Private Conway and we wish a swift return to duty for Private Ezeagwula.

In better news, we note with approval that Princess Leia made it to the States, albeit without her person. MAJ Huchinson sounds he was a helluva guy, and the sort of character that gives the Army a lot of its soul.

In one of his biggest capers, he adopted a dog. A stray crossed his path and from then on, Hutchison brought it scraps from breakfast, lunch and dinner. He wrote a memo authorizing the dog as a member of the unit and requesting it get shots from the base’s vet. He signed it himself.

Fitting that, although the Warrior didn't make it home, the dog that brightened his days did. For those interested, Princess Leia made the trip from Iraq to Michigan courtesy of Operation Baghdad Pups. Not that there aren't enough worthy causes out there, but...well, if you happen to find some extra cash under the couch cushions...

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,

In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

I was sitting on my porch, reading. SGT B was sitting on the other side of my porch, reading. The sun was down, darkness had settled over FOB McSleepy. Since we were reading, my porch light was on.

One of the laundry gals who lives across the way stepped outside and headed in my general direction. There's a very nice porta-jon next to my area, and the quickest route there is either across my porch or the porch of the first sergeant who lives behind me. The laundry gal, seeing my porch occupied by NCOs, altered her path to cut across the first sergeant's vacant porch. Then she stopped and switched back.

"Can I cut through here?"

Sure, I replied. Public property, cut through any time!

As she crossed my porch, she looked at me, shame and terror in her eyes.

"I'd go back there," she indicated the first sergeant's porch with her chin. "But there's cats back there. I don't like cats."

She hurried on her way. I looked at SGT B, he looked at me. We sat there perplexed until Laundry Gal finished in the porta-jon and trooped back through. Then I had to ask.

She doesn't like cats, I asked? As in, afraid of cats?

They're not even cats, SGT B pointed out. They're kittens.

I was, until last night, unaware of the threat that very small kittens pose to America's Fighting Men and Women. I knew combat deaths have dropped off significantly here in Iraq, but I wasn't aware that we were losing Soldiers primarily to suicide and, after that, to kittens.

But, admit it, they are kinda scary.



With twenty razor sharp points before they even open their mouths, they're like wee little demonic tigers. And while you may be able to escape one of them, rumor has it they hunt in packs. And, due to their feline grace and cunning, they retain the element of surprise, particularly in the dark.



Note how that one is lurking behind a piece of webbing?

I have also heard that their whiskers ooze poison, ala the greater weever fish, and that, possibly, kitten tails have spikes cleverly concealed in the fur.

...When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb, make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The horror

Look what was in my CHU.



Of course, it was alive when it first zoomed by my head. Now I'm afraid of my CHU, since insects that large make my soul shudder.

Odd things

So we are in Iraq, right?

Iraq is a desert. The part of Iraq we are in is, in fact, experiencing a drought. Drought in a desert is, of course, dry.

Even away from the rivers, occasionally you will see grass here. It's a status symbol. You'd see small (like 4-fooy-square) patches in the front of the occasional house, that sort of thing.

We were out trooping around yesterday, and I ran across an odd one.



That's a lawn - okay - but that's also a sprinkler. A sprinkler that is running. Did I mention that was no-kidding 95 degree in the shade at 1000 yesterday?

Hooah, basic conservation skills.

Memorial Day

Same statement as I put up every year, folks.

Cook out. Barbecue some critter. Hang out with your family and friends. Enjoy yourselves, because that's what the folks who didn't make it home would have wanted you to do. Do that for them, because they gave up a lifetime's worth of slightly-charred burgers and games of catch to preserve those things for the rest of us.

^$%^$ furniture

Well, I went to a war, and a garrison broke out.

They ordered furniture. Each CHU got two wall lockers and two little drawer/chest thingies. Today we did wall-lockers. Well, we did two of them. Out of the six we have.

Each wall-locker arrives in three boxes. Here's one box:



Many, many pieces. There were 50mm screws, too. About 10,000 of those.



Did I mention we don't have any powered screwdrivers? I was lucky in that I found a real one - that's a lot of screws to drive with a Gerber/Leatherman.

So, with four more of those and the little drawer thingies to put together, we shouldn't be bored for a few days. And, if nothing else, it's a wrist workout.

Scenes from a FOB

I actually took my camera this evening as I wandered out on an errand. I thought I'd share some imagery with y'all. Now, certainly you understand that I can't really stand on top of something tall, take a picture of the whole FOB, and label it with handy information like "PX," "LZ," "motor pool," etc. But I figure I can take all the candid FOB shots I want.

I walked out of the Hesco barriers that surround the living area, and shot a picture of the first interesting thing I saw.



Now, being a decent noncommissioned officer, I'd normally pick up a piece of refuse. But I left this one alone. Why, you ask?



Because it was underpants. Ick.

I trudged down, copied the number I needed off our quadconn, and turned to trudge back. And saw this delightful little slice of tackiness!



Yes, in the foreground you will see what is affectionately referred to as a "piss bottle." Because half of the world cannot be bothered to drag their sorry carcasses outside to pee at night. Not my half, I'd point out.

I didn't pick that up, either. But don't you think the dead mattresses add something classy?

I headed back to the office. Passing through the Hescos again, I glanced at the CHU behind mine where one of the first sergeants lives. We received some furniture for the CHUs this morning (some assembly required), and I note that the first sergeant's was (like most of ours), as yet unopened. Then I noticed that it was also, apparently, doubling as a lair.



I tried to lure the little critter over for some petting, but apparently he (or she) is already aware of the FOB's If You Don't Pet It It's Not A Pet policy, and kept its distance. Then I noticed it wasn't alone.



The only thing worse than one very small tiger is a whole gang of very small tigers. So I turned off the camera and backed away.

Next time - adventures in furniture assembly!

Road trips

The Bossman was recently out of town (yet again), hanging out in a much nicer and more Kurdish area, doing...well, field grade stuff (naps and PowerPoint). Or something. Word was passed that he should return to Big Base on Tuesday, or perhaps Wednesday, and then he might begin to try to find a way down here.

Our manuever battalion is doing most of our job at this point, so we're a little underemployed. Given that, we decided the best way to ensure Bossman made it home (rather than hanging out with the wireless internet and good chowhall for days on end) was to go fetch him back.

We packed our assault packs, loaded the radios, stuck SGT B in the turret, SSG C in the driver's seat and Yours Truly in what I like to refer to as the "aircraft commander" seat. Trading an open seat in the back for a spot in an outbound convoy, we hit the road.



Is that exciting or what? However, I've reached a point where if a car ride in Iraq is boring beyond words, I recognize it for the good thing it is.

We made it to the Big Base, found the Bossman, bought a lot of meat, grabbed a lot of snacks (hooah for Higher, who managed to get us access to the fresh fruit and vegetable storgae point!), and trucked back.

The ride back was at night (hence the lack of pictures). Alas, it wasn't utterly uneventful. In good news, our people are pretty good at handling nasty surprises in the road these days. In less-good news, handling those does take a while. So there was waiting. A good, long, stretch of waiting.

I will not elaborate on the acrobatics required to pee during said wait, when one is wedged into an abnormally small front seat area and wearing a ridiculous amount of gear. Suffice it to say it required monkeylike feats of perching, balancing and hanging by the arms.

I love my job.

But all's well that ends well. We made it back to FOB McSleepy with our Boss and our snacks. Although we told people we'd be gone, nobody really seems to have noted our absence. And although we had a couple of virtual papers in our electronic inbox, we're certainly not swamped. The excitement just never ends over here, I tell ya...

cringe

You know, I'd have thought there was maybe a better way to deal with this, pubicity-wise, than to publicize the resolution this way: Military burns unsolicited Bibles sent to Afghanistan.

I'm not a Bible person myself, understand. And I am fully aware of all the ways in which proselytizing of any religion, faith, or practice (Gen. Order 1B, paragraph 2k) might not really help the cause in Afghanistan.

But reeeally?

"The decision was made that it was a 'force protection' measure to throw them away, because, if they did get out, it could be perceived by Afghans that the U.S. government or the U.S. military was trying to convert Muslims," Wright told CNN on Tuesday.

Troops at posts in war zones are required to burn their trash, Wright said.

I don't know how they do it there, but we tend to burn classified stuff, personnel rosters and such, and address labels from our mail. And I mean we burn it (usually in our high speed classified material disposal unit - our grill). The rest of our trash we cart to the burn pit, where a super-healthy fire smolders 24/7, blowing charred bits of refuse and questionable smoke across the FOB.

But something about burning Bibles in the name of force protection and then doing media interviews about it strikes me as either creepy or bad public affairs work. Possibly both.

Then again, who knows. Maybe Bagram is so very crowded and packed, or there were so many Bibles, than it was impossible to shove the box into the back of the chaplain's conex for eventual transport stateside.

Small ray of sunshine

There's been a lot of grumpiness around here of late. We're not getting out much, and are mostly engaged in perpetuating some serious self-licking ice cream cone action.

So there we were in the office this afternoon. SGT C and I were griping. SGT B was on the NIPR, and I asked him to click into my AKO email. He did.

You've got an email from the first sergeant, he sang (with a certain degree of snarky cheer).

Awesome, replied Abby. I love communication from my chain of command. Let's see what wise things they have to say! (Or something very similar to that)

The subject line on the email read MAY JUNIOR BOARD PPRL.

SGT C, sensing my impending ecstasy at receiving email from Higher, edged toward the door as the email popped up.

I'm out, Sergeant..., he began.

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR SOLDIERS WHO MADE THE LIST....read the email.

No. Don't leave. I need to read this. Stand right there and don't read over my shoulder, I did my best Sergeant growl. SGT C's packet was in front of the board, but they've been rough on him because, between two prior OIF/OEF deployments, a fine young family and a real job, SGT C has not yet gone to college. This has, in the eyes of previous boards, made him a giant, epic tower of FAIL.

The attachment opened....cover letter...[scroll...scroll....]...list of new Sergeants...list of new Staff Sergeants...

Hey! I smacked SGT C on the shoulder. Look!

He leaned. He peered. SGT B leaned and peered.

And there was grinning and backslapping and handshaking and great rejoicing all around. Effective 14 May, SGT C had become SSG C. That's good stuff, and it couldn't happen to a better guy.

The nail, it has been struck...

upon its head.

Tamara earned herself a hearty hooah from all three of the NCOs on my team with this shockingly accurate observation:

That whole corner of the world is like a Renaissance Festival gone amok; one where the participants don't take off their medieval garb and come back to the 21st Century at the end of the day, because it's never Miller Time in a country where booze is illegal and most anything fun can result in having various bits chopped off in a court of law.

It's one of those things we try not to say, but which does cross your mind from time to time if you hang out here long enough.

Mothers' Day

Just a note to wish all of my moms out there a Happy Mothers' Day. For the rest of you, make sure you call and tell YOUR Mom how fabulous she is. My Mom is, of course, the most fabulous one out there, but I'm sure y'all have some pretty good ones, too.

Next year, we have spend the day together, Mom!

They try...

but they fail.

Higher sent some people down today with some crap for us to hand out. They also brought snacks. A couple cases of soda (good), a box of fresh fruit and veggies (great) and a big box of bagels (awesome!).

Ok, so maybe not so much awesome on that last one. I popped it open so we could stick most of them in the freezer, and...



Now, seeing as we've been begging for them to send us something - anything - for months now, it was a commendable effort. But...nothing says you've been written off like a great whopping box of moldy bagels.

Wild and crazy

I tell you what, there's no bored like bored in Iraq. Well, actually, I bet bored in Afghanistan is pretty similar, as is bored in Kuwait (but that bored lack indirect fire, so maybe it's not the same).

But, the World's Coolest Grandmother used to say that only boring people get bored, so we do our best to resist. I thought I'd bring you a couple of bits of recent things that have passed for diversions.



I was playing with my knife (Benchmade Nimravus tanto - significantly less than MSRP thru AAFES - seriously, less than half. It's a pretty nice knife, but not that nice) when I noted that it had degraded to only sorta sharp enough to shave hair, but that it was reaping an impressive quantity of dry skin.



Bossman yelled at us when we started gathering materials to collect all our dry skin in a baggie to take to Higher, so that was the end of that.

Shortly later, sitting on my porch, we were absolutely enthralled by, well...



Hooah, fly sex.

Is it any wonder we've taken up arts and crafts to kill time?

Freakin' Lovely

Seriously - if only I could figure out how to buy retirement property here...

It's warming up, which is fine. I mean, it is Iraq - it's not supposed to be cool. The warmth brings the flies - fine. Flies are an integral part of the Iraq experience (can you eat with one hand while waving flies off your food constantly with the other and not break up your conversations? We can).

The mice are gone, and there are rumors of snakes. Great. I had mice running through my walls all winter and sneaking through holes in the interior of my trailer - I love to visualize sand vipers doing the same thing. Comfy feeling, trying to drift off to sleep, hearing something odd in the wall, thinking it might be a poisonous snake.

HAAATE.

And now - now the Iraqi mosquitos have come out. Vicious little bastards, with the emphasis on little. Much like American mosquitos, interestingly, they really seem to like my A NEG blood. I can sit around with both of my dudes, all of us wearing PT gear, and I am the one covered in bites in moments.

No - I don't use some sort of mosquito attractant soap. I just seem to have brought the "drink my blood and make scratch" neon sign that's been hovering over my head since childhood.

The things one sees

I was trudging back to the trailer after Evening Sadness (supper) last night. And off to my left, I saw...this:



Yeah. That would be a terp, in some sort of man hotpants, trying to get a cellphone signal, while striking a rather unfortunate pose.

[sigh]

The cell issue drives us crazy here - several nights a week one can see my guys boosting Tim the Superterp up onto my roof because that's where we get the best signal after dark. If one wants to stay in touch with local contractors and municipal bubbas, one does need some sort of communications beyond DSN and VOIP phones.

Good Work

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is exactly what it sounds like - an organization dedicated to the folks who've participated in the wars we're fighting now. Far be it from me to pass judgement on any of the veterans' organizations out there, but I do think each conflict is different enough that perhaps an organization dedicated to veterans of one particular period of conflict might be valuable.

Anyway - these folks have been putting out some public service announcements, and they've got a new good one now.



Recognizing that many of our war veterans now are Guardsmen and Reservists, or Active Duty folks who might leave the military, I think it's particularly important to educate friends and family members about our care and feeding. The only harder thing, I'd say, than coming home and trying to readjust, can be coming home without your support network of comrades in arms.

There's a ton of good information there not only for vets, but for people who love vets. Worth a visit if you're in that position.

Harumph

A severe case of the Iraq has set in among the team here. For no apparent reason, we've all got a case of the OIF grumpies. We've likened it to a combination of athlete's foot, poorly-fitted underwear and a toothache.

So let's talk about something else, shall we? Look at what Mom found while I was in Michigan on leave:



Yeah - that's a chocolate bacon bar. It's a chocolate bar, but with little pieces of bacon in it.

I ate it, of course. But I'm still reserving judgement. Chocolate = fabulous, and bacon = awesome, but chocolate + bacon = kinda weird.

Arts and Crafts

This place is like the summer camp from Hell, really. Less singing, and no canoes, but other than that...

To kill time as things have slowed down, we've started to make things with our own little grubby paws. It started when we ordered some pewter skull beads just for kicks, and it's gone downhill from there.



Because, of course, if you start with pewter skull beads, then you start to wonder what other skull beads might be out there.

Then, after you string some beads, you start to feel mighty crafty. You notice you have some 550 cord, and that there are other, cooler colors available. If you're shockingly uninclined to figure out how to do arts and crafts on your own, there are websites out there to help you. And eventually you end up having days that produce this:



I'm learning. The watchband was strictly an academic exercise, but I'm thinking of making a new pistol belt based on the concept...

The Bossman came over yesterday and discovered his NCOs sitting around playing with 550 cord and debating color combinations. He looked for a second like he might make fun of us, then gathered his courage and asked, instead, "you think I might get some of that bright cord, if you've got some extra? I could make my daughters some bracelets..."

It's probably fortunate none of us knows how to quilt. Then again, I bet there are instructions for that on the internet as well...

Home, such as it is

I finally escaped Big Base and made it back here. The trip was the usual goatrope of oh-you-needed-to-go-to-FOB-McLazy-you-should-have-told-us-we-went-there-yesterday that always happens when you're trying to get somewhere around here.

I hitched a ride in the last free seat on a convoy, and it was only marginally free. I ended up riding with a significant amount of "Class 1 Supplies" (that is, snacks and drinks). My view for the ride looked something like this:



They'd used almost every bit of webbing, rope and bungee cord in Iraq, but had run out at the top of the heap. If the world had ended on my ride home, I may have met Saint Peter covered in blue Gatorade and grapes. Everyone's gotta go some way or another, I suppose.

But that wasn't the only thing aboard. There were some boxes... We had time to kill, so we opened them up. And what had the Tax Dollar Fairy brought for the grubby little Soldiers?



Tricked-out M14s! Your tax dollars at work, folks.

The platoon sergeant and I spent the entire ride back debating how to work the hand receipts so that the gaining unit got six M14s, he got one, and the Civil Affairs team sergeant signed for the other...