Catchup Post!

OK, so here we are at Big Base, because someone is getting ready to go on mid-tour R&R leave. In the name of operational sercurity, I won't say who, but the individual in question is abso-freakin'-lutely ready to get out of this country for a little bit.

Hooah, cold beer.

Anyway. A couple of you asked for followup to the earlier post about SGT B's trip to get meat. He won, and upon his return, SGT C (who does not eat pork) left the FOB for a few days. So SGT B and I did the only thing we could do - Pork Fest 09!

My Mom (who rocks), had sent some marinade-in-a-packet with hickory flavoring. So we made up a dry rub.



Then, we recalled, some people often roast, simmer or boil their ribs before putting them on the grill. We had only one pan, but sometimes one has to make do.



They got a wee little simmer while I attended a meeting. When I returned, they were ready for the sauce. Then a quick toss onto the grill, and...



Oh, yes. Hooah, ribs.

9,000 standardized tests worth of pencils

Roughly two weeks ago, the Bossman put together a little "request for
support" to Higher.

"Could we get," he asked, "some CR123A batteries, some writable CDs,
and perhaps some school supply type of stuff for the kiddies?"

Higher sat quietly, mulling the issue over. Many requests are, of
course, best handled by simply ignoring them. Some requests should be
directly disputed in regards to their scope or format, then
subsequently rejected. But this request...ahh...this request offered
opportunities to Get Rid Of Stuff.

I received an email - "Stand by to received Stuff. Coming on convoy
soon. In box. Marked for you."

The time came for delivery. Said box was coming on a convoy that was
due in, of course, at 0130. Because this is the Army, it was also
raining. SGT B and I stood outside in the mud, arms crossed, scowls
in place, striking the traditional pose of the Cranky NCO.

The convoy rolled in. We spied a white box of the type desscribed.
Most of these boxes are labeled with sheets of paper inside document
protectors, printed with a unit designation in a large font. This
one...well, it had MY last name spraypainted on the back side, over
the course of two lines, and with the skill one would normally expect
to see if the painting had been done by a retarded howler monkey. In
magenta.

[sigh]

We claimed our box, and a very nice private forklifted it over to our
little quadcon, where, since it was at that point 0230 and still
raining, we simply locked it in and left.

Today we sent out our Borrowed Specialist. "Please go look in that
box and try to get an idea of how much of what we got," I instructed.
"I do not want you counting individual crayons - just ballpark it."

The specialist returned.

"So," I enquired, "what do we have? I assume no batteries, CDs, or
anything for us, right?"

"Right, sergeant," he answered. "But we have twelve boxes of coloring
books, 20 books per box."

"That's 240 coloring books," I volunteered, earning me an
I-did-graduate-high-school look from the specialist. "Sorry.
Anything else?"

"Oh yeah. We got six boxes of pencils."

"How many per box?"

"Umm...3,000 pencils per box, sergeant."

I blinked. Did the math. Did it again to make sure I hadn't
misplaced any decimal places. Looked at SGT B and the specialist.

"18,000 pencils?"

"That's a lotta pencils," SGT B pointed out.

"They're sharpened already. But they don't have erasers." The
specialist grinned. "Most are green, but there are some red ones.
Not that the lead is red, but the pencil itself, that's red."

So. The coloring books are not very challenging - I have some crayons
and colored pencils around here somewhere, and such things have a way
of trickling in from various well-meaning groups out there.

But 18,000 pencils? Perhaps I need to put some thought into some sort
of junior engineering program, wherein local children construct
bridges, buildings and water treatment facilities (on a small scale,
of course) out of pencils. I do believe I have a few bottles of
Elmer's Glue...

A most desperate situation

To our horror, we found ourselves out of meat. There is worse Army
chow out there - I know, I've eaten it - but meals here are nothing to
write home about. It's been almost a week now since our last Giant
Meat Festival.

The Boss is still out of town, so my sergeants are Home Alone With
Abby. As is in keeping with my leadership style, we held a Team
Meeting.

SSG Abby: Okay, guys. We're bingo on meat. I'm thinking of
dispatching one of you on an emergency run to Big Base. What do you
think?

SGT C: I'm about it. I'm living on Ramen noodles and tuna. Walking
over to the DFAC is....[shakes his head mournfully]

SGT B: Meat! Meat meat meat!

SSG Abby: Okay, then. We've got stuff going on this week, but I
think meat is more important than the future of this particular part
if Iraq. Agreed?

SGT C: [laughs, nods]

SGT B: I don't think we're totally tapped any day this week, are we?

SSG Abby: Nope. And I think there's a convoy headed that way soon.
I can cover down on your meeting, you can take mine later in the week.
SGT C just got back from Big Base, and utterly failed to bring meat,
so he's not getting another chance. I hate Higher and don't want to
be on the same base with them, so that's YOU, SGT B.

SGT C: They were OUT of meat, sergeant! I went to the PX twice the
last day I was up there -

And so there were instructions, and briefings, and shopping lists.
SGT B has a cover mission, and strict instructions to avoid Higher
and, if spotted, to feign utter ignorance of the English language.

There were, of course, PCCs and PCIs (precombat checks and precombat
inspections).

SSG Abby: You've got the list? And the giant wad of cash? And a bag?

SGT B: Yep. Look. Only thing in the bag is my night vision.

SSG Abby: Excellent. Godspeed. Be safe out there. Remember -

SGT B: I know - "failure is not an option."

Open to interpretation

My team consists of a major, a staff sergeant and two buck sergeants.
We have, collectively, nine tours in Irakistan, and about fifty years
of service. We would be entirely useless, however, without our
interpreters.

I shall refer to them by their "terp names," since we do not use their
real names for anything other than pay purposes. We (my team) have
three, two of whom are on the FOB with us at any given time. They are
Tim, Ronoldo and Ali. Two are guys from the local community, and the
other is from Baghdad.

All ours are Arabs. That's a good thing, since several of the groups
here have been assigned Kurdish terps. The Kurdish terps tend to have
decent English, but their Arabic often leaves something to be desired
and, occasionally, the presence of a Kurd is less than helpful.

Ronoldo is a younger guy, working on his paperwork to get a visa to
the US. I would hope that if he is successful, he applies himself to
whatever stateside work he finds with the same diligence he's pursuing
the visa, rather than the diligence he brings to his duties with us.
Because he is one lazy dude. Decent interpreter if you can:
A- Find him
B- Wake him up
C- Get him to admit he's healthy enough to work

Then there's Ali. Ali is a local and a very nice man. However, Ali's
English leaves a bit to be desired. OK – make that a lot to be
desired. OK – to be perfectly honest, let's go ahead and say that Ali
doesn't speak any English at all beyond "OK" and "would you like to
drink chai with me?" The guys hear that second one a lot, which
creeps them out a little.

But the third terp, that one makes up for the other two. Because the
third one is Tim – superterp. Tim is also a local, a respected family
man who has worked as a schoolteacher (of – what else? – English).
Tim has been working for Coalition Forces since shortly after the
invasion. He has visited each and every village, asking about the
status of sewer, water, electricity, academics, trash, medical,
transportation and agriculture (a godawful combination we refer to as
SWEAT-MTA). He has interpreted the negotiations for most of the
projects, successful and failed, in the area. He is, in short, a
lifesaver.

We made it through our first month or so here in typically stupid
fashion, slaving diligently to re-invent the wheel and generally
acting like we were the first US Soldiers to set foot in these little
towns. Until we began to tap into the wisdom of Tim.

"Tim, that contractor seemed like he was up to no good. Do you have
any idea about that?"

"Well, yes, sergeant Abby. His uncle is Sheik Thatguy, on the
council, and makes sure he gets contracts. But he is stupid and
incapable of building things – he has been stupid since he was a small
boy – and his oldest son does most of the site management. That
oldest son is named Amar, and he is over there in the green T-shirt."

And the lights came on and the angels sang.

And now, we are able to reach that rarest of Nirvanas for those of us
working with the populace out here – sometimes, we can figure out what
the Hell is going on.

"Tim, what's up with that group of women who say they live in some
village where there's no water or anything?"

"They are part of a tribe that had a murderer. The murderer killed
someone in the neighbor tribe – all of this happened in the Next Town
Over – and there was…revenge? Another killing? For honor?"

"An honor killing? To set things right?"

"Yes. But of course, that is not all. So the murderer's family had
to leave and now they are all in one neighborhood and there are not
many men. They are pitiful."

"Can we do anything about it?"

"No. Nobody cares to help them. They had a murderer. That is the way it is."

It's especially helpful when he explains "the way it is."

"Tim, there are a lot of farmers here. People are interested in
starting a 4-H program to teach kids better farming techniques. Do
you think that will catch on?"

"No. "

"Why not? Everybody loves 4-H!"

"The people here are already farmers. They do not have money and
seed. They do not need to be taught to farm. The children work on
the farms. That is the way it is."

Sometimes it's not work-related, just interesting.

"Tim, do you take your family on vacations?"

"Sometimes, before 2003. But not often."

"Why not?"

"It is complicated. I have eight children, and to take my family on
vacation, I must first ask my wife's mother."

"Your wife's mother? I don't get it."

"Yes. It is difficult. But it is the way it is."

Often, Tim drops by and hangs out on my porch. We've talked about all
sorts of things, from Saddam's use of chemical weapons to oil
refineries in Israel. I've asked a couple of times what Tim intends
to do when the US leaves Iraq. He's torn, more so than most of the
terps. Of course, he's older, and a family man.

"I do not know, sergeant Abby," he says, lighting another cigarette
and accepting a soda. "I think it might be best to leave here, but
with a family…"he shrugs. "These things are not easy."

Things that make you say "Huh."

In true lead-from-the-rear fashion, I was doing paperwork on the FOB today while my boys were out battling the forces of evil.  SGT C was out doing a "Key Leader Engagement" in a village nobody remembered visiting.  SGT B went to look at a couple of schools.

 

I was standing around when SGT C got back.  He caught my eye and rushed over.

 

"Hey, man," I said.  "How was the mission?"

 

"You'll never believe what we found," he said, more or less bouncing up and down.  You kind of have to KNOW SGT C to realize how odd the bouncing is - he's a Very Large Man, a prison guard in real life, and is NOT prone to excessive enthusiasm about...well, anything.  Great NCO and smart man, but...low-key.

 

Also, there's isn't much one "would never believe" can be found here.  Bodies, bombs, cash, pickup trucks from Canada, New Kids on The Block T-shirts, heads, empty tequila bottles...you find a lot of weird shit in Iraq.  So I looked at C, intrigued.

 

"We found about a million dollars worth of water purification equipment.  In conexes.  In the desert."

 

"Huh?" responded the quick-witted team sergeant (me).

 

"You know those big sediment tanks?  Like six of them.  And pumps.  Lots of pumps.  And the filters they use on the big filtration plant by the Tigris.  And -"

 

Long story short, C and the platoon that owns the area in question dropped in to say, "hey."  They struck up a conversation with the local bubba, who pointed out that his village was supposed to have a water filtration project and, in fact, had once been awarded a water filtration project.  But the contractor, the local bubba said, dropped some stuff off, got paid, then ran away.  Leaving, oddly, enough equipment for not ONE water filtration plant capable of filtering and providing water for 6-8 small villages, but three or four such projects (because that's, roughly, what one could do with that number of tanks and pumps).  This occurred, it seems, in early 2006.

 

So now comes the fun part, wherein C wrote a detailed SITREP with imagery and grids, and I launched it off to God and Everybody to see if, perhaps, someone out there knows where this equipment ought to be or, even better, has a good idea of what might be done with it.  With the best of intentions, the US threw a lot of money around without a lot guidance the first few years here.  Now, once in a while, we get to deal with the consequences of that cash festival.  This seems to be one of those situations.

 

 

 

Conversations from my CHU

Dude, I said to my sergeant as we were cleaning off the table for another cookout. What are you using to wipe that?

Uhh...these wipes, he said, gesturing at a plastic package. Why?

Man, I yelped. Don't use those! Use the Clorox wipes! Those are butt-wipes! I can't use Clorox wipes on my butt if you waste all the butt-wipes on the table!

The sergeant blinked, then reached for the Clorox wipes. You have really, he said, got to start stealing toilet paper again.

If you're out there, whoever keeps stealing the toilet paper from the porta-jon, I hate you.

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.

Notes

Dear World's Coolest Grandmother,

Thank you for the all the dried fruits you sent when I asked for them. It really adds something to my limited crummy Army diet. I am enjoying them very much.

Love,
Abby

****************************
Note to Self -

Even though the prunes (now called dried plums) are very yummy, eating half a large bag of them is a Very Bad Idea. Don't do that anymore.

Oh boy [hack hack]...it's 2009

[blinks away dust]

Yipee.

Here's hoping y'all are enjoying a day on the couch, recovering from much fun and watching football. Of course, I understand that Bad Dog readers are much too wise to get wild and crazy on New Year's Eve...but if you did, I hope you had one for those of us who were wishing we could!

Weirdest Catch Yet

I woke this morning as my roommate came trooping back in from a trip to the porta-jon.

I don't want to make you sad, she said. But you caught something in a trap. Not a mouse. And it was the trap up on sandbags, so it's on your chair.

MMph? I pulled my head from beneath my pillow. Did I catch a cat?

Nope. Bird, she replied.

I got up, put on a jacket, went outside.



Yep. That's a bird. In a mousetrap. You don't see that every day.

Ho Ho Ho

Merry Christmas from Abby, the whole Bad Dog pack, the World's Grumpiest CA Team, and our merry band of flies!

I was up late trying to move my soldier around, and then again up early to get him on a convoy. I went back to sleep after we loaded him up. And woke to a pounding on the door.

I stumbled out of the rack, opened the door, and...

Oh Come, all ye Faithful...joyful and triumphant...

The Boss, knowing my inclination to ignore all holidays that occur while I'm deployed, and my resulting intolerance for Christmas music, had rounded up a band of carolers (complete with Santa hats). Well aware that a long night probably meant I was still racked out, he'd decided that the best alarm clock is...singing TOC rats.

Lunch/dinner/midday meal was very nice (ham! We got ham!), and there was fruit. There was something that looked suspiciously like Army-issued eggnog in paper cups, but that did not seem like a wise choice.

In short, a pretty good Christmas in Iraq.

Here's hoping you all enjoy a wonderful day with your families and friends/

Administrative madness

Is trying to push a soldier out on emergency leave on Christmas Eve.

We live with a battalion from the 4th Infantry Division. We support them, and they have operational control over us. Administrative control (promotions, leave, awards, UCMJ actions) is retained by the CA chain.

So, we can see how, when a distraught family member initiates a Red Cross message and sends it to the soldier's mailing address instead of command address, there can be confusion.

Now, just to make things more interesting, the battalion we work for has been chopped from 4th ID to another Division (25th). But elements of 4th ID are in Iraq. So the Red Cross message got...sidetracked.

But...you know what? Nothing on God's green earth will get soldiers moving like a Red Cross message. You can call the biggest asshole in the US Army and say, "I have a soldier with a Red Cross message," and he's suddenly helpful. The lazy sprecialist napping in a corner will wake up, get on the phone and start moving heaven and earth. The lost lieutenant gets a clue.

I used every one of those folks, and few more. Got the message, got my guy a ride. We'll get him where he needs to be, as fast as is humanly possible. It's nice to see this machine work once in a while, even if it's in the service of sad news.

[grumble grumble]

I finally dragged myself out of my nice cozy rack around...oh, well, suffice it to say it wasn't early. Not even remotely.

With nothing on the horizon until a 1300 "chat," I made coffee and stood on my porch, surveying my (limited) domain.

Things appeared...hazy. I climbed up on a pile of sandbags and looked across the helopad. Quite hazy.

Things developed. The weather progressed from slightly hazy to downright dusty. It's nasty - the dust doesn't seem that bad outside until you look down and realize there's a thick coat on everything. You go indoors to escape it, and realize it's working its way around the door, in through the air conditioner, around the taped windows.

Dust sucks less here than it did living in tents, but it still suck.

To top it off, it's thinking about raining. A few drops, now and again. Yeah - rain in the dust. Mud-rain.

Love this country.

Best Army Idea - Ever

And I'm not even being sarcastic.



That, ladies and gentlemen, is SFC Boe. She is a therapy dog.

Not just any therapy, either. Combat Stress Control therapy.

Iraq can make you crazy in a zillion different ways, whether you be the guy who gets griped at about PowerPoint slides or the guy kicking down doors or the gal flying medevac birds or the kid processing 10,000 leave forms. There's plety of stress and plenty of crazy to go around.

However, somebody got smart, and now there's something nice here that soldiers can pet, maybe talk to, maybe cuddle a little, and feel normal with.

That's good. Three cheers for SFC Boe the therapy dog, and two tails wagging for the Army for finally getting something right.

A note - yes, she was being handled by a CSC captain. Somebody please, please tell me how you get that job? I even have my own black lab who would be great at being a combat stress therapist.

You miss some things

when you're hanging out here. News, for one.

Oh, I was aware that someone had thrown some shoes at President Bush.

But I wasn't really aware that it was any kind of big deal. Until I was sitting, with one other soldier, in a meeting. And suddenly noticed something other than the normal traffic sounds. Something more like...several hundred people shouting in the street outside the building (they were, incidentally, the Free The Shoe Hurler faction).

Hey, New Sergeant, I suggested as quietly as I could. Why don't you stick your head out in the hall, make contact with one of our security dudes and make sure we're cool?

Did I mention this was New Sergeant's first mission?

The shouting continued. She came back in and gave a thumbs up.

All the same, we tied the meeting up and moved out, since being one of two in a building secured by four dudes is not my favorite place to be when there are large concentrations of people worked up about anything. I am getting downright cautious in my old age.

Ramblings

We’ve reached kind of a confusing point in our involvement here. And by our I mean not only the Civil Affairs effort, but the Army in general. The Status of Forces Agreement is scheduled to go into effect 1 January. More changes will follow.

All of this basically boils down to the fact that the Iraqis are taking over running their own show in this area. Which is good. They’re pretty close to being ready, and there’s no way to find the flaws and limits of their systems without taking the training wheels off and giving it a spin.

So we find ourselves wondering…what do we do now? This has been a little confusing for us as CA since we arrived for this tour. Last time I was here, we were still at a point where the regular Army maneuver units (the infantry and armor guys who own battlespace) were killing people and breaking stuff. They were kept reasonably busy with that, and so there was a lot of room and need for people who specialize in the civil populace. We were busy, and it was the rare maneuver officer or soldier who had the time, experience or interest to get deeply involved with the “non-lethal” side of the fight.

Now, however, we’ve been in Iraq for closing in on six years. Most of the captains and majors are on their second, third or fourth tours here. They are fully engaged in the non-lethal fight (which is good, since we’re pretty much set with the large-scale killing of people and breaking of stuff). They understand the basics of relating to the local civilian populace, and of working with local leadership.

Which is, of course, a large part of what we (we as in CA) are out here to do. The days are behind us when we did humanitarian aid – we’re not dropping water and food, or bringing in medical aid. We’re not moving populations out of the path of advancing armor columns, and we’re not developing and maintaining protected target lists.

So we’re left with monitoring the tail end of the ICERP programs and engaging the persons designated as Spheres of Influence. Except that the projects only need so much monitoring, and really, all anyone has left to do at this point is engage the Spheres of Influence. Of whom there are only so many.

And, really, if the Iraqis are running Iraq, and we’re no longer empowered to go threaten people to make things happen (“start talking to the Ministry of Power representative about this issue or we’ll shoot you”), and we don’t have any money to run around handing out (“you need a road paved and can’t make your government do it? We’ll pay for it if you agree to tell people not to blow us up!”)…we’re slowly running out of things to engage people about.

There is an Iraqi way of doing things. Quite often, it is not the way we Americans would choose to do things. There is an Iraqi pace for getting things done. That pace often seems unacceptable to American military personnel. But the fact remains that the Iraqis are going to be here in three, eight, 25 years. And, as the plan currently stands, we are not.

So we’re slowly trying to figure out how to back off and let go. We have checklists for grading their local government meetings. But if they’re holding meetings, and nobody is getting shot…then who cares if they distribute minutes from the last meeting days in advance or if they print them and hand them out the day of? Or hang them on the wall? It’s a block on our checklists, but that’s really about all it is.
Since 2003, the US Army has been the Solution Fairy. Need water? We’ll get you water. Need medical attention? We gotcha. Sheik from the next tribe over picking on you? We’ll have him in to the FOB to talk about working and playing well with others.

That’s behind us now. And that’s hard for Americans, particularly Americans in uniform. Soldiers see problems and immediately look for solutions. But our solutions aren’t worth a whole lot at this point. We need the Iraqi solutions, and quite often they’re not the ones we’d have chosen.

Sometimes, the writing on the wall isn’t as nice as we’d like it to be. We’re surrounded by barely-above-subsistence-level farmers in the desert. There are lots of nice theories and bits of technology out there that would enable them to produce more, but it doesn’t seem to be a high priority for their higher levels of government, and not a lot of the farmers themselves are particularly interested either. So we have to let our American fixation with progress go by the wayside. The people don’t want to change everything about their lives and their world to become Iowa. They would like for the US government (or any government) to come by and hand them large stacks of cash. Absent that, they’d really rather just sit around and be barely-above-subsistence-level farmers in a country with a sufficient social safety net that they won’t starve in bad years.

And, at the end of the day, that’s probably about all they’re going to get. Not everybody gets to live in Iowa. Not everybody wants to. And even if you’d like to live in Iowa, you won’t get to if you don’t pack up and move your ass to Iowa. Metaphorically, of course.

It’s a hard thing to realize. Americans, at least most Americans in uniform, really dig America. We think America is super, and that everyone else in the world should be exactly like us. Then they’d be super, too. And doesn’t everybody want to be super?

Apparently not. And, as we’ve learned, it ain’t easy to become awesome. We didn’t start out half as screwed-up as Iraq, and we didn’t decide to stop being jerks about letting black folks vote until 1965 – 177 years after we ratified our Constitution.

The American drive to make this place as much like the US as we can isn’t, I don’t think, a reflection of hatred for other, different cultures. We’ve probably all read or seen interviews with Soldiers where they’ve talked about Iraqi children, how those children made them miss their own, how they came home and hugged their children and thanked God they were born in a land of endless, boundless opportunity. Well, the American soldier is softhearted, and the urge to make this country like our own comes partly from affection. You see an Iraqi kid, and he’s not starving, not sick, just hanging out in the road begging for a soccer ball, looking at a lifetime of chasing sheep around or standing at a checkpoint on a road, or guarding an oil tower. Or she’s looking at a life under a headscarf, lucky to finish sixth grade if she’s a farm girl.

And you wish everybody on earth could have been born in Afton, Wyoming or Middleville, Michigan or Tyler, Texas. You wish every town ran like Stillwater, Minnesota, with somebody happy to make a living driving a garbage truck. You wish there were systems to encourage entrepreneurs, so that one of these small cities would be the home of the Iraqi equivalent of Steelcase.

American soldiers look at Iraq and see a nation that we wish could have all the benefits and freedoms we’re accustomed to. We’re fast approaching the point, however, where we need to back off and let the people of Iraq take their nation as far as they can in the direction they want to take it.

And so we sit on the FOB, slowing down our missions, waiting on guidance from Higher about what life after the SOFA is going to look like. We know there’s more mentoring of governments and processes, and we know there are NGOs to pull into towns and situations. But we also know the end is getting closer, and that the vast majority of what the US military can and will do for Iraq has been done.

Chasing Soldiers

Time doesn't stop once you get to Iraq, and so one of the things we (and by we, I mean I) have to keep track of is my Soldiers' career progression.

As deployed Reservists, administratively controlled by our parent company (which now reports to a totally different CA battalion than the one that owns us stateside) but operationally controlled by an active-duty armor battalion, this boils down to a tremendous amount of chasing paper and generating paper and trying to transmit paper.

We're trying to get my senior buck sergeant promoted. This means we need to get a "packet" to the CA brigade conducting the "board" (packet screening and selection) somewhere else here in Iraq. My sergeant needed a current Army Physical Fitness Test.

Here's how that works.
1 - I take a thumbdrive and go to an unsecured computer so I can download DA 705 (PT card) and FM 21-20 (Army Physical Fitness handbook).
2 - I then take that thumbdrive to one of the two people on the FOB who have a printer that's connected to a computer one can plug a thumbdrive into. I print the objects.

(this is whole entire additional nightmare. Thumbdrives, which are pretty much what the modern deployed Army runs on, are now pretty much forbidden)

the order to stop using flash media was issued by U.S. Strategic Command, which is responsible for operating and defending the .mil and .smil domains.

That memo, directed at Washington, D.C., Air Force offices and dated Nov. 17, ordered “immediate suspension” of the use of such devices on all NIPR and SIPR networks.

You have no idea what a pain that makes everything.

3 - We measure a two-mile run course, the sergeant runs the PT test. We fill out the card.
4 - I find the only scanner on the FOB, scan the PT card, put it on my thumb drive, email it to Higher (company HQ).
5 - Higher emails it to Texas so my sergeant's 2a can be updated.
6 - Texas emails the updated 2a back so it can be printed out, put in the packet, and sent to the board.

And active Army guys (who appear, in person, before these "boards") say Reservist promotions are simpler.

All the running around notwithstanding, my sergeant looks good for the January board, if everyone else holds up their ends and his papers get updated. If not, he's a shoo-in for February.

In the best news of all, my high-speed corporal is no more. His packet made the cut last month and we promoted him to sergeant him this morning. He's a very happy camper right now.

I suppose, as a good NCO, I should ensure we get him in front of a retention NCO before the promotion afterglow fades. As I recall, we've got a couple of weeks.

Ugh.

I shall simply say that it has cooled off even more. We fixed our heater, so now we have a nice warm CHU. It's a happy thing, to walk in from the cold, dark, trash-smelling night (we burn our trash here - it's really tiresome) to a bright, warm CHU.

The only thing better than a bright, warm CHU on a cold, trash-smelling night is a bright, warm CHU full of flies.

I walked back in last night and, no-shit-there-I-was, killed more than twenty flies. Just stood there and whacked and whacked and whacked. When I was finished, I had to swab our table with anti-filth wipes and cart the little carcasses out. And still, still, there was a cloud of flies.

Rather than pull my sheet up over my head to keep them off my face until I could fall asleep, I instead sprinkled bits of broken cookies across my roomie's side so they'd choose to hang out with her instead. Ok, I didn't really do that. But I wanted to.

Ick.

I hate flies.

Blinding flash of the obvious

At least it wasn't US tax dollars spent to figure this one out - Dogs Get Jealous!

Researchers in Austria, after what seems like a rough stretch of playing with dogs and giving them treats, have come to a startling conclusion.

Scientists noted that dogs hate to see their owners being affectionate to other dogs...

And, in other earth-shattering news, dogs prefer steak to lettuce.

Why I'm not allowed to go anywhere fun

It's Eid right now (the week of feasting after Ramadan), so there's not much going on in the Civil Affairs world. We could go out and annoy the locals during their holiday, but decided that would be unsmart. Instead, we packed up our MRAP and headed out on a two-day vacation to Camp Comfy - where our company headquarters is located.

We were packing up yesterday before we hit the road. The Boss lives over near me, and the boys were pulling the truck around, so my front porch was a staging point. The Boss and I were having smokes and discussing my recent mouse-killing spree.

Yes, sir. Look in that box right there. There's like six in there.

I waved toward the trash box into which I'd deposited the night's mice.

The Boss looked. Pondered a second.

What are you going to do with those?

I explained that the box was destined for the trash. Unless, sir, I added, you know anyone who needs six dead mice. Like a gift.

Our eyes locked. He grinned. I grinned. A gift of dead mice? And we were going to Higher?

Hey, roommate! I shouted. Do we have any Ziploc bags?

She popped out the door with a sealing plastic bag and a matching evil grin. Taking the mousies to the first sergeant? You guys are bad!

I used my mouse tweezers and stuffed the little corpses in the bag. Sealed it up and put it in the front of the truck.

We arrived at Higher, and I went off to have the normal NCOIC chat with the first sergeant. We covered all the necessary business first, of course.

Hey, first sergeant. Last time we talked you asked about our health and welfare and, in line with that, I brought you something...

You can learn a lot about a person by the way they respond when you hand them a baggie full of dead rodents. Without any warning.

The first sergeant, for instance, is not a big fan of rodents. And he has a bit of a gag reflex when he realizes what's in the bag he's holding up to his face.

The company commander will try to refer a team leader and team sergeant to Combat Stress Control when he realizes how much the dead mice amuse us. (We couldn't stop giggling. My stomach hurt from laughing so hard)

Our private from a nearby patrol base (we're all taking vacations this week) will ask if he can have the dead mice, since he sees opportunities to torment his team leader.

The infantry platoon leader who rides in our truck and sees the mice will accuse of being "sick, sick people." Coming from an infantryman, this might be a cause for concern.

And, at the end of the day, the company commander will seize one's mice. Because Higher exists to kill fun.

Small victories

It's been dull here.

Until this afternoon. After returning from another trip to look at Things That Weren't There, the boss and I were sitting out on the porch. I was having a cup of coffee and a cigarette, he was enjoying a phenomenally stinky cigar.

"You've got a mouse," he said, gesturing at a crack in the boards by our door.

I whipped out a trap, grabbed my trusty chocolate Rice Krispie Treat, set it up, and...SNAP! Less than ten minutes, and it became Abby 12, Mousies 1.

And folks, that wasn't the end. I got three more. I'm at 15.

I occasionally wonder if we're accomplishing anything worthwhile out here. At least, if nothing else, I am putting a hurting on the north-central Iraq mouse population.

I wonder if there's a medal for that?

There's a lesson

in here somewhere...

'Cause I'm kinda accident-prone, and I do have a fair number of firearms around the house, yet I've never managed to shoot anyone (or get shot) while having sex.

Timothy Havens, 38, told Springfield police he was reaching for something on the nightstand when the pistol went off, hitting his estranged wife Carolyn in the upper chest.

I'm just thinking that perhaps this may not have been an issue so much of poor firearms handling skills as a reminder that one should not have sex with one's estranged spouse.

This is not a job...

it's an adventure.

Or something.

So it rained here. Which brought fog, which brought everything to a screeching halt. Eventually, of course, the fog lifted and we had to start doing stuff again. Being CA types, we've found ourselves tasked with assisting a guy who has the super-fun assignment of finding all the water purification projects the US funded in the first five years here, and checking on their status.

(Well, I can tell you their status. 90% of them are broken. Because Iraqis don't do maintainance. And their budget process somehow doesn't allow for hiring people to keep things running. It's a bit of a problem here)

But apparently, there needs to be more verification than simply my grumbling. So we took off with a list of grids to find us some water purification facilities. In MRAPs. On clay. When it had just rained.



It is MUCH more fun to get an MRAP unstuck when you're riding in the PSYOPS truck. Because those trucks have speakers, and you can play Brad Paisley's Mud on The Tires. And the guys pulling the MRAP out really seem to see the humor in that.

Today when we went out, we were bound and determined to avoid the whole giant-heavy-vehicle-stuck-in-the-mud thing, so we drove way out until we were a little over a kilometer from the water project grid.

And we started trudging.



The trucks are out there. Waaay out there.

It's not a long walk that sucks (I am, after all, in the Army - walking is not a big problem for me). It's not the stupid heavy outfit we have to wear (although a little walking in that goes a long way). But please take note of the terrain. Yeah - the ground is entirely covered in baseball-sized rocks.

Those of you who've met me in real life know how coordinated I am. You can just imagine how much fun that walk was.

And no - we never did find a water purification facility. Would you have put one out there?

You've heard the term....

now see the pictures!

It's as old as the military - in some polite circles, you hear the term goatrope. In some, goatscrew. And, more traditionally in salty company, it's a goatfuck.



No - it wasn't what it looked like. The sheep was NOT violated. At least not in that sense.



Suffice it to day there was a special occasion, and a man who thought that a sheep would make an appropriate gift.

I tell you, this is the strangest place on earth.

Happy Thanksgiving

Here's to all of you and yours! Enjoy your dinners (I certainly enjoyed mine after I finished serving) and your families.

Although I miss my given family, I'm thankful for the soldiers I'm with this year. If it weren't for the quality of the people I get to work with, I wouldn't do this.

Another day...

another Big Adventure.

I did something today that although I've never done before, just about every woman in Civil Affairs does at one point or another - I attended a Women's Council meeting. With another female NCO in tow, and an interpreter (male) who'd been cautioned that he was severely outnumbered and should behave accordingly, I made my way into a room full of the Women In Black.

It was something else. On one level, meeting with the women was great. Unlike those in attendance at a lot of our other meetings, the women had no sense of entitlement. They did not sit and explain why Coalition Forces should give them stuff and money. I don't think much of anyone has ever appeared like a Fairy Godmother and given rural Iraqi women (all of them mothers, most of them widows) a damn thing.

The things they asked us to look into were smart - can we get some sort of vocational training? How can we get a loan that complies with Islamic law that would allow us to open a beauty shop? Why can't we have better OB/GYN coverage in the district?

I have read, and it has been true in my (limited) experience, that engaging women and boosting their standard of living and productivity is a very good way to raise the quality of life for an entire community.

But, it is difficult, when we are in the phase of this conflict where we are turning control of funds and programs back to Iraqis, to belive that these women and their needs will become a priority. They make up more than half the country's population, they have paid their fair share of the country's debts in suffering and misery, but they are a too-easily-overlooked population.

Fortunately, "Women's Issues" were one of designated "priorities" from Higher. So perhaps, with some diligence, there's a slice of the pie out there for them.

My grandmother was in Columbia with the Peace Corps when I was born. She told me there was a little girl born there on the same day I was born in Michigan. Nearly every year on my birthday, she mentions that baby girl and reflects that, even then, she had considered the Columbian infant, thought of her new granddaughter, and realized how fortunate I was to have been born in the United States.

I realize that, too. Being born an American doesn't make me a better person than anyone else in the world. But I do realize that it makes me a very fortunate person. And as I see more people and places, I realize that being born in the US makes me an incredibly fortunate woman.

The future of Iraq

is in excellent hands. Those would be, of course, my hands.



Yeah. That's Your Author, with a cigarette in one hand and an Iraqi child in the other. And, yes, if you look closely, that Iraqi child is carrying a gun. Yes, it's a real gun, a .25 of some sort. And no - it wasn't loaded.

I swear, sometimes this is the weirdest place on earth. I am certain that the fact they arm children for special occasions (this picture was taken at a grand opening for a training program) means something, but I can't figure out what it is.

Killing time (*WARNING* graphic mouse photo at bottom of post)

Sometimes, it's exciting to be in Iraq. The past few days have NOT been one of those times.

The last mail run brought joy in the form of some outdoor hanging lights.



Those are flamingos and chili peppers. The table we stole from my boss, and it's been one never-ending spades game ever since. Although Soldiers, unlike Marines, do stop playing for sleep at a certain point.

So the past couple of evening have been sit, shuffle, toss cards...*SNAP*...then I jump up to go check my trap. Sometimes...I get lucky.



I've been using peanut butter, but on the advice of my PYSOPS buddies, am trying chocolate Rice Krispie treat. I wouldn't have thought of it, but the PYSOPS sergeant is the undisputed King of Mousewhacking around here.

Current Score - Abby 6, Mousies 1.

Updated Scorecard

I shall, in deference to the possible range of sensibilities among my readers, refrain from posting trophy pics (although, of course, I took trophy pics). I shall simply say...

Abby 2, Mice 1.

Let's hear it for old-fashioned snap traps and peanut butter, shall we?

As you SHOULD

Jerk.

Quick note to any local readers I might have...

If the US Army in your immediate area is being friendly, driving carefully so as not to knock down powerlines and, in fact, walking around your city to check things out, it is not in your best interest to start shooting at those walking Soldiers.

Further, if you live in a neighborhood where you think you'd like some stuff - like, oh, say, new powerlines, or a park, or new sidewalks, or whatever - it is really not a good idea to allow people to shoot at the Civil Affairs element as they walk by.

In addition to really moving your area down on the list of places that get money, that behavior attracts the attention of different Soldiers with a focus on activities other than improving your quality of life.

Thus ends today's public service announcement.