Ditches and paranoia

I made a trip out today to look at my favorite ditch.



Pretty impressive, isn't it? Fortunately, this time, the pipe was in the ditch and one of the contractor's guys showed up with a shovel before I had to crawl down in there to verify it.

It was the first trip out there with our new manuever guys, and it was the usual adventure. See, during all the trainups to coming over here, the Army devotes significant time and effort to preparing Soldiers to survive in a combat environment. This is, of course, a Good Thing. Hooah, surviving.

The downside is that nobody really prepares these guys for the situation as it normally is on the ground. That is, very intensely not house-to-house combat.

I understand force protection, and I'm a huge fan. But we're really not at the part anymore where inspecting a water line should involve cordoning off a small village and racing around like it's Fallujah 2005 on a smaller scale.

Why, said the young leader of the grunts, are the people not coming out to talk to us?

I am the very picture of saintly diplomacy, but I was so deeply annoyed that I couldn't say anything and, instead, just looked at him, at the trucks squatting in the road, and at his dudes circling around houses.

Not getting my hint, the leader then finally cornered a local man who hadn't run back inside quickly enough and asked.

Because you are scaring them, the terp explained. He says your Soldiers are running and it makes the people of the town nervous.

It's a hard thing for a tactical-level leader to grasp, this weird combination of war/not-war we've got going on. But it can't be ignored - although the war occasionally shows up and needs to be handled appropriately, that's not what's happening the majority of the time. The vast majority of what's going on right now is low-key. It's us, with our Iraqi Security Forces partners, hanging out in our towns, chatting with people not like interrogators and targets, but like neighbors with a language barrier. It's Soldiers not tromping through folks' vegetable gardens and startling them in their yards, but instead kicking a soccer ball around with the local urchins.

It's not the best for force-protection; we're much safer if we occupy the bejesus out of a given area and don't let anyone approach. It's not as sexy as kicking in doors, but it's what the situation requires.

The good news is, the new guys are slowly figuring it out. Within a week or so, they'll relax a little and figure out when hiding locals is a bad sign, and when hiding locals means we scared them. They'll accept the tactical risk of having a security team and a playing with kids team.

But wow - that first week is frustrating.

Things Abby Hates

Higher has decided to come visit. Not just the company commander and first sergeant, but the CA battalion commander and CSM.

Ugh.

Our actual battalion headquarters is still in Texas. But we fall under another battalion here, and, for one reason or another, those folks have decided to come down to our little FOB.

We had one of these visits scheduled once before, but through some bit of...umm...horrible, terrible luck, flights were screwed up and our visitors didn't make it in.

Working on the priciple that if we're prepared for them, they won't show, but if we're sleeping late and our spaces are filthy they'll arrive early, the dudes and I cleaned. Ever beat a rug that's been in use in Iraq for a year or so? That's a hoot.

In good news, the Bossman has been out and about for several days, and he's scheduled to ride back here with the visitors. And I believe he's bringing steak. It's like a silver lining. A fat-marbled, bloody-yet-crispy sliver lining.

Thoughts on Pants

TOne occasionally wonders, doing this, if one is seeing something
significant. I spent today at a district-wide economic development
conference.

Now, this is the sort of thing that did not happen the last time I was
here. But now? There was actually discussion of travel and tourism
potential in the southern Kirkuk province. Crazy.

Of course, I spent a couple of minutes thinking about the overall
significance of this sort of gathering in this country, decided it
might be a ground-breaking moment, then lost interest. Hey - your
author isn't perfect. And we'd handed off our interpreter to the
panel discussion, so...

Instead of thinking about the big stuff, I started checking the dudes
out. No - not like that. It's a long tour, but it's not that long.

I was looking at their clothes. There are two options for Man About
Town attire here. You have the Western look, and the Arab look (hence
referred to as the Suit and the Man-Dress).

Some of the folks we work with typically wear western attire. For
instance, the "city manager" or "mayor" of each of our (sub)districts
is not a sheik - he's a hired official. In all three of the councils,
that individual wears the Suit. In the two of our councils that
function best, oddly, the "mayors" are pretty snappy dressers.

The sheiks who make up the councils, however, typically wear the Man
Dress. And nice ones, too. not the run-of-the-mill lightweight white
button down Man Dress over a wifebeater, but well-made robes.

We also interact with Ministry Representatives who work at the local
level. These gentlemen are also frequently in Western attire, but
it's never as snappy as what the mayors wear.

I suppose I can understand the divide - the mayors and the Ministry
reps aren't as concerned with whether or not the public perceives them
as 'adequately Arab." They spend the vast majority of their time
interacting with either government officials in Kirkuk (largely Kurds,
who are fairly western in their attire and habits) and Coalition
Forces. So I suppose they adapted.

The sheiks, on the other hand, although they certainly aren't elected,
are doubtlessly under a certain amount of pressure to represent their
villages and appear to be powerful in a traditional way.

All fine.

But one of them appeared at a recent meeting in a suit. He's a bigwig
- I know him. But I got through a large part of that meeting without
making the connection that the tall, handsome, dignified older
gentleman on the other side of the room was Abu Farras.

I know what my sheiks look like in their traditional attire - I'm past
the phase where they all look the same.

But it wasn't until I found myself actually surprised by Abu Farras'
"transformation" that I started examining that a little bit.

This is my second tour here, and it hasn't all been nice lunches and
long naps, so you're going to have to forgive me. But I have fallen,
occasionally, into the trap of thinking of them as "savages," as
"lying Arabs," and things much more politically incorrect.

Which is what it is. It's a war, and I'm certainly not the first to
catch myself dehumanizing the "other." Probably won't be the last,
either.

But I felt ashamed of myself standing in the hall looking at the
sheik. Of anyone in the Army, a CA type shouldn't fall into that trap.
I was perceiving the sheik differently. Had we had occasion to
speak, I'd have interpreted his words differently, read a different
subtext, probably not suspected that every word was utter bullshit.

And all it takes is a suit?

How different, I wonder, would this whole campaign be going if the
citizens of Iraq were just a little less alien to us? If every
political, social, economic and military consideration were the same,
but if they dressed exactly like Americans? A foreign culture is just
that - foreign. But I did have to think about how much of that
foreignness really is them, and how much of it is perceived
foreignness because of the significance we attach to a suit and tie.

Food for thought.

Incidentally, today's meeting was probably about 60/40, Western/Arab look.

[Hack]

The dust has returned. It was hazy this morning, outright dusty by afternoon, and it's now best described as thick.

We don't tend to run non-essential missions when the visibility is limited, so if doesn't lift, my entertainment for tomorrow is in jeopardy. That's no good, because I'm on a roll this week - two for two at getting lunch provided by someone other than the US Army.



That's the thrown-together version of lunch we stumbled upon Monday, out looking at canals and counting sheep. You'll see chicken (cooked on one of those big rotating sticks that I can't spell), rice, tomato-based soup of some sort, and that wonderful bread that might well be the only thing Iraq really has going for it.

The young man I cropped out of the photo had never done one of these sit-on-the-floor-and-grab-some-chow things, but he caught right on, much to the delight of our host, the local mukhtar, who is looking on with some amusement.

Good lord

The roommate came stomping back in out of the darkness. Something had gone terribly wrong, it seemed, on her trip to the porta-jon.

The first pooper? she said (yes, she actually uses the term "pooper"), there's poop all over the seat!

I blinked. I was getting this information because I had announced my intention to visit the Green Closet after she returned.

Does this mean, I asked, that the Mad Pooper has struck again?

The Mad Pooper Incident was recorded photographically but, because I respect basic human concepts of decency, I have not shared those photos with you. You can imagine, if you try, what exactly the Mad Pooper Incident involved.

No, Roommate answered. It's just a little poop. But then the second pooper? There's pee all over the seat. I didn't have enough paper to wipe it up, so I sort of had to hover. I'd recommend you use the second pooper, but take lots of paper.

So I went to the second closet, taking enough paper to make the seat...habitable. But I gotta wonder, folks, what's so damn difficult about using a porta-jon? Our have the little "urinal feature," so about two-thirds of the available hortizontal surface is totally in play for succesful peeing. And still... And the pooping issues... I dunno. That just ain't right. At least we finally got the locals to stop straddling the hole and splashing water all over...

Some days...

aren't even worth getting out of the rack and shuffling to the Green Closet, you know?

First there was the Battle of the MBITR Radios, which we eventually won, but really, it was one of those that wasn't much worth fighting. This radio works in this mount, but neither radio works in the other mount... One of those where nothing can ever just be simple. Duct tape was involved in the solution.

Then there was some indirect fire, or maybe not. Some threat of something, and since we were standing out in the middle of a giant open area, we really had no choice but to take cover and smoke bitterly.

Then there was the E. Coli outbreak.

(incidentally, I cannot ever think of "E. Coli" without thinking of that throat lozenge commercial. Riiiiiicooooooolllllaaaaa!!!!! Worse, probably, is that I say "E. Coli" with that same inflection)

I think I'm going to go to bed. Perhaps when I wake up, it will be a warm, sunny, happy day in Iraq.

It's been...

slow. Phenomenally slow. Like...glacially slow.

If I'm ever in charge of a war, I'm deploying units, and none of them are coming home until we've either won or lost entirely. There will be no "rotations," there will be no "relief in place," and there will be no "transition."

Nobody will take servers full of information and just leave, and nobody will look at me and explain that they need to visit every cluster of huts within 25 klicks to "learn the AO."

No city leader will have to listen to another junior - the tenth in five years - officer explain that his unit is there to "help the people of Iraq learn to leverage their government structures." No farmer will have to explain to an earnest Soldier with a clipboard that he has six hours of electricity on the average day, ten on a good day, and none at all on occasion.

[Sigh]

Grumpiness like this is probably why I'm not allowed to be in charge of wars. Well, that and the part about being a staff sergeant in the Reserves.

What's better

than free beer in Iraq?

Free beer in Iraq with another recovering jarhead, that's what!



That's right - we trudged over at 0130 for our two MGDs-in-cans. They were great. Consider this a big thank you to the American taxpayer. Those dollars, at least, were well-spent.

(note - the other jarhead is our company commo guy, who's hiding out with us for a few days)

Dog (deprived)

We sat outside, the Boss and Roommate and I, discussing the latest Bright Idea from Higher.

It was, I declared, the absolute Stupidest Damn Thing I Ever Have Heard. In fact, I further elaborated, it sounded like the end product of a branding meeting conducted by rhesus monkeys. No, I corrected myself, since I am under the impression that rhesus monkeys are kinda bright and capable of learning simple tasks, this latest Bright Idea sounded like something that was dreamed up by carp. Or tree stumps. I folded my arms and glared.

You are, the Boss pointed out, one angry lady.

I shook my head. No, sir, I explained, that's just not so. I could deal with stupidity and the silliness and the fact that my feet kinda smell funny 'cause I wear boots all the time, but they made me leave my dog at home.

And it's true. What a morale boost one of my dogs would be. Better, I daresay, than even beer. Either dog would work just fine here.

Sparky would have his pluses, what with being small and a good sleeping companion and being the Scourge of Mice.



He could sit in my lap while I read and I could tote him around in my assault pack. Or maybe I could even get some sort of specialized ACU-pattern MOLLE-compatible Yorkie-toting device.

Jack, of course, would fit right in.



Maybe he'd do some floor peeing during the occasional indirect fire event, but other than that, he'd be super. I have a beanbag chair I won in a USO raffle he could sleep on, and he could trot around the FOB with me. He'd be great company for porch-sitting, and excellent for cleanup at our team cookouts. The interpreters do not seem fond of dogs, so he'd keep them away from our CHU. And if he could get past the fact that the few windows on an MRAP don't open, and so there's no sticking one's head out, he'd even be great on mission.

Alas - no. Although I would have been more than willing to bring a dog either large or small, Uncle Sam has said no dogs. And so we're left with FOB cats. Because of our rodent problem, the Powers That Be have declared the cats allowed, as long as nobody pets them (because then they'd cease being vector control and become pets, right?).



Cats.

[sigh]

You know, I'm just saying, the last time we really no-crap won a war, there were dogs all over the place. Working dogs, sure, but look at the pictures. Pet dogs, too. (Seriously, go look at the pictures - they're great)

US Army with pet dogs - defeats Nazis, saves world.
US Army with cats - six-year involvement in low-intensity conflict, of which both the causes and likely outcome are still sorta iffy.

Lieutenants

We were out and about today, introducing a new manuever unit to the AO. We hit a meeting, a couple of ICERP projects (school addition, complete; health clinic, progressing very nicely), drove past a couple of key points. Then we got to the part where the outgoing manuever unit wanted to introduce the incoming manuever unit to a local "sphere of influence."

The gentleman in question, a retired general from the old regime, exerts significant influence in part of the AO. His support of coalition efforts has, without a doubt, contributed substantially to the security improvements in the area.

We needed to talk about some election site security issues and do the introductions, so we parked the trucks in his compound, set most of the dismounts to playing soccer with the children, and headed into his "conference room" for chai and conversation.

It's a very nice conference room. The Iraqis don't seem to have figured out the concept of the "vacuum cleaner," so one of the ways the general keeps his conference room nice is by insisting footwear be removed before entry.

A little weird - I know - but at this stage of the game, if we've decided you're wearing a White Hat, and you want us to take our boots off, we take them off. So, sock-footed, we filed in. My part of the conversation was extremely brief, and I had time to sip my godawful sweet chai and look over the new guys we'll be working with.

Platoon leader...has his little book out, looks engaged, is participating in the conversation. Good. Platoon sergeant...looks like he'd rather be kicking in a door and whacking someone, but is paying attention. Good. Random second lieutenant...trying to follow the conversation, tapping his foot, which makes him look bored and...what the Hell?

Remember, dear readers, when your Mom used to tell you to wear clean underwear in case you ended up in the emergency room?



[sigh]

Bad enough that it looks tacky, but a dead giveaway of a military man whose training didn't involve nearly enough forced marching.

One of our Iraqi hosts must have seen my double-take, because he looked too and very nearly snorted scalding chai onto the nice conference room rug.

Fortunately, that part ended quickly, and we adjourned to the outdoor picnic area and ate far too much food. Good food, too. Kinda sad that we eat better out there than we do on the FOB, but such is life. It's rough out here, folks.

Amazing

We made the trip up to FOB/Camp Comfy to hang out with Higher for a couple of days. Our headquarters has, of course, a really nice wireless internet connection running throughout the building.

It's great. No waiting in line for timed access, no crappy community keyboards where half the consonants don't work (great fun in the Age of Complex Passwords), no tremendous slowdown from some funny-looking E3 downloading video from the mail-order brides website...

There are about ten of us visiting up here right now. You can tell which ones we are at a glance - we're the soldiers giggling with glee and crowing, "Yeah, ask me for updates NOW!"

(an aside - the whole auto-updating thing is phenomenally irritating if you have no access. Sometimes I'll be working down at FOB McLazy and one of the boxes will pop up - "you are in extreme personal danger unless you update Minesweeper immediately! Update now?" So I'll hit "update" just for kicks and laugh at my computer as it searches, and searches, and searches.)

Reading list

I'm coming to the end of some of the stuff I've been reading, and thought I'd solicit some recommendations here.

Some ground rules - I don't do a lot of heavy readiing while deployed. I sort of consider this an extended period for "airport reading." I keep it light, avoid anything too intellectual. Reading is an escape here. I did read The Arms of Krupp (loved it!) last time, but almost anything qualified as "escape" on that tour.

Anyway, I've been doing a couple of series so far on this trip - an odd combination of science fiction (which I am not normally inclined to read) and Florida murder mysteries.

I'm almost finished with John Ringo's Posleen War series, which has been pretty good and even occasionally combined man-eating alien invaders with Nazis. How much better can it get? Ringo writes good, interesting characters, and I can ignore the sci-fi silliness (really, I'm sure someone out there cares about fictional anti-matter technology, but it ain't me) if there are good characters.

That one was recommended to me by someone who noticed I was reading David Weber's Honor Harrington series during mobilization. Ringo's character are good - I think Weber's are better. Weber's vision of the societies of the future also really rung my bell. He's a throughtful writer, and I enjoyed that armload of books. And, of course, there were treecats.

I've been breaking up the aliens and invasions with some Randy Wayne White mysteries starring Doc Ford. The good news - they remind me of John MacDonald and Travis McGee, who got me through the last trip. The bad news - Doc just isn't Travis. He tries, but... well... that's the problem with reading the series that set the standard first. Everything else is a bit of a letdown. I'm also getting a little sick of all Doc's girlfriends dying at the end of each book. Travis could never hold a lady, either, but at least his damsels would run away, meet someone else, or die. Doc's ladies just get whacked.

I picked up Matthew Bracken's Enemies Foreign and Domestic recently, just to actually read what I heard a lot of the gun crowd referencing. Interesting, but it reminded me a little of Ayn Rand (remind me to tell you guys about the Ayn Rand fan and the Iraqi microloan guy some day when I'm whining about having nothing to write about) in that after 50 pages, you've got the point and the rest is just...remediation.

So. If, given that brief synopsis of what I've been reading and what I've thought about it, you have any ideas...please. Please share. Keep in mind - I have no problem knocking out the average novel in a day, so please - no 50-page wonders that won't get an afternoon past mail call. I likes 'em lengthy.

I'm really looking for some optimistic fiction, with good characters. I read a lot of cop novels out of the community library, but the overly dark ones...they don't do much for me.

I think I'm really about pegged on sci-fi stuff for a while, but I'll ponder all suggestions.

No Nicholas Sparks. Ever. Under any circumstances. I got desperate enough to read...what was it...well, one of those, recently. I would have flung it away in annoyance if it hadn't been all I had to read.

Any ideas, again, are welcome. A series would be best, so I could order several at a time.

Joy...and meat

We were sitting around this afternoon, hatin'. Nothing going on, nothing on the horizon. Then Bossman remembered the steaks he'd picked up on his last Officer Mission to one of the Big PX FOBs.

T-bones and ribeyes and charcoal - oh, my!

I dispatched New Sergeant to the chowhall to get some potatoes. You're one of like 12 chicks here, I explained. You'll get more food than the guys.

She did wonderfully, so we ate well. I scrubbed and sliced taters and, with butter, garlic and foil, put together very nice side dish for the slabs of beef Bossman cooked.

Short on forks, we ate with combat knives and hands. The sounds coming from my porch, I think, probably resembled the sound of six hyenas around a wildebeest.

We played beach music and laughed at each other and stuffed ourselves. 'Twas wonderful.

Thoughts on helicopters

The LZ (landing zone) here on FOB McSleepy is right behind our CHU. The birds come in, the birds go out. We get the Kiowas of the Scout Weapons Teams, small birds that land for fuel. We get the Blackhawks, running troops around, ferrying Them Who Be Important, doing all the miscellaneous aerial labor of a battlefield where ground travel is still problematic. And we get the CH-47 Chinooks (more affectionately called the Shithook). The ’47 is the biggest bird that flies in here (the Army does not stock any variant of the CH-53, my favorite Marine Corps bird, in its Big Army inventory), and we can tell when they come in – our quarters vibrate noticeably.

Although the birds come and go all day and all night, we still look when it’s light (my roomie, in fact, loves the helicopters and will occasionally throw on her night vision and go watch them in the dark. Strange woman). We glance up, throw the flight into a mental classification (the bird bringing the colonel to visit, the bird bringing the guys back from leave, the regular bird to Big Brigade Base, etc) and move on.

But one makes us stop and do the instant mental inventory of the Soldiers we own. The MEDEVAC bird.

We have, if my count is correct, medevac’d exactly ONE combat casualty since I’ve been down here. The day our Friendly Neighbors decided to shoot at us while we were out walking around, they got one young man in the leg with a ricochet.

We brought him back to FOB by ground, then passed him off to the medics. A couple of rifle squads went back out to look for the shooter, and we “leaf-eater” types were dropped off here. I was walking down toward the latrine when I heard a bird coming in. I looked up, saw the red cross on the side.

At that point, we knew our wounded comrade was most likely not in mortal danger. The medic on scene had not been overwhelmingly worried about him, nor had the medics here on the FOB. Most of these guys have been around the block and I trust them to tell us when it’s a appropriate to panic – they weren’t, so we didn’t.

But they were still lifting our soldier out (makes sense, why not take him to Big Brigade Base for a more thorough checkup?) and when I looked up and saw the red-cross marked Blackhawk coming in, I stood and ground my teeth and was struck by the urge to either spit or cry. I opted to do neither, they lifted him out, and he was back five days later with a Purple Heart and a bandage.

The way we’re set up, we have a slightly plused-up team (one extra CA NCO and a staff sacrifice – my roommate) supported two companies and a battalion headquarters that operate over a large area with several reasonably large towns. There are times –more than I’d like – when my soldiers are out without me. Sometimes I’m on the base, sometimes I’m on another mission elsewhere.

Once in a while, I’ll be on the FOB, and one of “the kids” will be on mission. I’ll hear a bird coming, and, although I know the dangerous town is just down the road, close enough so I’d hear an explosion, and although I know that if something terrible happened, it’s a small FOB and we’d know immediately – even though I know all those things – I still feel that clench in my gut. I look up and I squint into the sun, stock still until I’m sure there’s no painted-on red cross.

Because that, folks, I am learning, is the Big Fear. I’m afraid of lots of things here – cars that blow up, roads that blow up, potholes that look like they might blow up, so on and so forth. But the thing I’m finding really makes my blood run cold is the idea of something happening to one of my dudes, especially when I’m not with them.

Only one of my three has combat time, but I have two sergeants and a brand-new staff sergeant, so I cannot in good conscience treat them like dull-witted privates and hover over them every day. I’d like to, though. I’d like to hover over them and watch the alleys they pass and the rooms they enter, as though that is enough to prevent something awful from happening.

It doesn't work that way, though.

Not-Fun-Fridays

Friday being the Muslim Sunday, is the day when we tend to have meetings and that sort of thing. So Fridays around here are usually dull and irritating. Today was no exception, and when I sat down to try to put something thoughtful together, I realized that about a half-page in, I was finding a lot of grumpy rage.

So I though, the heck with that - I'll post a couple of pictures!

Here we have Good Dinner at the FOB. Why is is it good, you ask? Because Roommate and I cooked it ourselves, on the grill.



That's a nice slice of canned ham, some canned taters cooked in foil with garlic salt and butter, canned mushrooms and green beans. It was outstanding, which is kinda sad. But, it wasn't boiled, which put it miles ahead of chowhall food.

And the other I have to share with you today has a special importance for me. See, you all know Abby's Mom is a nurse. As are lots of the ladies I grew up around, and some of my friends.

So I think this is an important point, and I want you all to pay close attenion:



Please - when waging the Jihad, do not shoot the nurses!

Something that we can all stand to be reminded about, from time to time.

Note to Army

When you next hire contractors from a foreign country to perform a function on a base or FOB, if you intend to extend to them access to MWR facilities that will place them in close proximity to Soldiers, could you please, please require they sit through a class on the importance of occasionally showering?

That'd be great. I'd really appreciate it.

Good lord

just when you think you're pegging the suck-meter pretty hard...

It was a cold and rainy day. Perfect at home for curling up on the couch with snacks and good company, but perfect here for...well, hating.

A couple minutes after 1700 I wandered over and collected up the Boss. We grabbed Elderly Sergeant and headed over to the chowhall for what we've come to call the Evening Sadness.

We remarked upon the absence of a guard at the entrance to the chowhall. There has been a recent outbreak of vandalism targeting the display of a certain command photo right inside the door (no, no big-picture political commentary - the vandalism has been more...local). The targeted picture was absent, indicating the guard (who was awarded that position...well, let's say not randomly) was probably eating (he takes the framed picture with him when he eats).

We ingested some "beef," then collected our cardboard trays and trudged outside. Where, in the glare from the lights that illuminate the Dumpster, we saw it falling.

Snow.

Wet, nasty snow that melted as it hit the ground and lasted only a few minutes.

But snow all the same.

Kinda sad

The best news heard here recently - US troops in Iraq get to drink beer for Super Bowl.

American troops in Iraq will be allowed to drink beer without fear of court-martial for this year's Super Bowl — an exception to a strict military ban on drinking alcohol in combat zones.
[SNIP]
A copy of the waiver said the consumption of alcoholic beverages will be allowed only Feb. 1-2 and service members will be limited to two 12-ounce beers each.

OK - it's two beers, and there's always that little voice in your head that says it's unseemly for an adult to be giddy over two beers, but still..

Current popular opinion holds that will be the most heavily guarded convoy in memory. I am sure the locals will be amused.

Ahmed, the Americans they are doing their convoy with eight tanks, four Apache gunships and what looks like an AC-130. Is it the President?

No, Mohammed - it is the beer for the football game.

[scratches head]

I had a simple mission today and got back shortly after noon. I had a message from the Bossman to check my email ASAP, so I trudged over to the MWR and logged on. The email from said Boss read (and I quote), "nevermind - I found it."

Oookay. Another crisis, narrowly averted. What other email dragons needed slaying? I scrolled....an email from the first sergeant! Subject: M9s

I clicked on it and scanned. The CA battalion is having a shortage of 9mm ammo...blah blah blah...no projected resupply date...blah blah blah...don't fire up our combat loads on the range. Try to get ammo from our manuever units.

OK. Got it. I ran my team through a range a few days ago to clear out the magazines they've been carrying. I then gave them new combat loads, so we're good. I clicked on to the next email, making a note but deciding that one required no action.

Well. I was wrong! My roommate came trudging to our hooch a little later.

I just got off the phone with First Sergeant, she said. He was all fired up about ammunition -

For the nines, I cut her off. Yeah. I got his email. We shot, we have ammo, we're good, right? Or did I miss something?

She stomped her foot. No - you're right. We're fine. But he called to tell us not to have any 9mm ranges.

Like we were going to go out and shoot up our combat loads? I asked. And then stand around with empty magazines in a war, looking confused and waiting for the Ammo Fairy.

I don't know what he thought, she grumped (thoroughly irked). But you owe me for talking to him!

True 'dat, roomie. True 'dat. I guess that means that disposing of the next person who shows up at 0100 wondering if some contractor has been paid is going to be my problem.

So there I was...

in deepest, darkest Eye-Rak. Sure, some folks were worried about IEDs, suicide bombers, and random small arms fire. But I knew we were in trouble when, standing in a quiet village, I turned and saw...

one of our MRAPs being attacked by turkeys.



We survived the turkey attack. Narrowly.

It ended up being, oddly, a productive day. The high point involved digging around in the bottom of a ditch looking for a water pipe. And there's always someone helpful around with a camera when you're digging around in a trash-filled ditch.



We finally found the pipe about three klicks down the road. Because the locals tend to know these things, but they like to watch us flail around for a while first.

I love this job.