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.

I have seen the enemy

and he is tiny and furry.

We've known there were mice. My dudes, in fact, have a rather robust and interactive population in their hooch (interactive as in they're so visible it was like having additional roommates). It got bad enough that my sergeant has taken to trapping them in water bottles using peanut butter and a string. He's gotten ten. In three days.

But the infestion in our hooch has been more understated. Oh, I've seen a couple from time to time while I've been drinking coffee at night. And I've heard them in the walls. But out of sight is out of mind. Or it was. Until last night.

Mom sent me, among other things, a bag of those little Snickers bars. Of course, I'd opened it and sampled a few. Then I closed the bag and set it on our table.

Long about 0100, I was racked out with a book and flashlight. When from the table, I heard a rustle. A mouse rustle. A mouse rustle among my goodies.

Like a ninja in Army PT gear, I hopped out of bed and turned the light on the table. Sure enough - I had movement in my Snickers bag. Some sort of blunt force was in order, so I survey the whacking potential of object I could grab without making any noise.

Axe - overkill. M4 carbine - plastic. Full can of M240B ammo - would definitely wake the roomie. Loaded 30-round PMag - that's the ticket! So I snatched up the magazine and hurled it, from a couple of feet, at the Snickers bag.

Being the ninja I am, it was a direct hit. There was sporadic movement, then stillness. Being kind of wimpy ninja when I am barefoot, I stepped into my combat boots and reached for the bag.

Which promptly tore, releasing a dazed-but-truly-terrified mouse. Which promptly ran away through a hole in the wall.

Mouse - 1, Abby - 0.

But, ladies and gentlemen, now that my candy has been threatened and my space invaded, it is on. There can only be one species eating from our Table of Snacks.

Stay tuned - I'll warn you if the pics are too grisly.

Mail!

The best day of any given period is mail day.

Letters from family...letters from family with pictures... That's the good stuff right there.

I brought a laptop, of course, and these days most of my pictures are digital. So a real highlight of today's mail call was a note from my grandmother in which she enclosed a picture of me and the Mister.

Further, I have noted that my mother and my husband (both Virgos, and both displaying several of the associated traits) share an approach to taping boxes. That is, there is no chance, under any circumstances, that boxes they pack will come open. Ever.

So I'm good on candy and soap and candy and trash bags and candy and razor blades and candy and all that stuff. And, best part about mail day, all my Soldiers got stuff, too. So we all feel loved.

More daily living

On those not-outside-the-wire days, I knock out NCO bidness. I wander around and talk to the guys who have stuff I need, shoot the breeze with the other "attachments" (those of us not assigned to this particular battalion, but who are nonetheless here to help), struggle to make phone calls (DSN to VOIP? VOIP to cell? Cell to DSN?) and generally handle the small stuff.

Once that's done, I drift back to AO Abby, fire up the coffeepot, dig out something I haven't read yet, and settle in.



Yep. That's my chair, on my porch. In front of it is my coffee cup, and immediately to the right is my ammo can ashtray. I like my porch, which is fortunate, because I think I shall be spending a lot of time there.

Of course, there are some drawbacks. Those of you who've been there know what's coming, right?



Yeah. Those are my pet flies, just chillin' on my clothesline. Ugh. Please note that I do not soak my clothesline in sugared water, or any other substance to attract them. They are simply that friendly.

Army humor

There's still a lot of bitching going on about the Army Combat Uniform. It wears out too fast, it doesn't blend in with anything (except that one guy's couch and possibly gravel parking lots), the zipper sucks, etc etc.

A special point of emphasis for all that bitching has been the Velcro. Excuse me - the hook and pile fastener. Sticks to everything, wears out, makes too much noise...

There is a positive side to all that, though. It means we get patches. You got your standard unit patches, you got your morale patches, and then you got your sarcasm tabs.



I saw this one on, of course, a gentleman of Mexican descent, the other morning. After some further observation, it was on several gentlemen of such descent.

Heh.

You gotta love military humor. Given the somewhat...indelicate nature of how we address things, you can only imagine how the recent election has played out.

CA Stuff

Another day, another excruciating meeting. Today's focused on a local contractor who appears to be building a water purification station in a location and manner utterly divorced from those specified in the Scope Of Work.

This is, of course, a no-go.

These days, we spend Iraqi dollars (through the Iraqi Commanders Emergency Relief Program - ICERP) through city councils, but we still provide contract and procedural oversight.

So when we heard the contractor was not purchasing actual real filters, but instead building them himself with his own two little hands, that required visual inspection.

So off we trudged. Up the road, through the market (abnormally tidy), through the critter-slaughtering part of the market (only mildly disgusting, through the machine shop part of town (where they did not appear to be manufacturing IEDs).

Until we found the "filters."



That's one of our terps (interpreters), serving as a size reference.

So, yeah. Giant, rusty, badly welded, slightly misshapen pipes.

So guess who came back to FOB, got an interpreter and phone, and arranged a little meet-the-bitchy-new-CA-sergeant meeting for Mr. Substandard Contractor?

Sometimes, I love this job.

So...about that election

Well. That was a little more...definite than I had thought it would be.

I spent most of the morning in a room full of Sons of Iraq leadership, watching Al Arabia's coverage of said election. Explaining the electoral college through an interpreter is, in case you've never done it, kind of an adventure.

The Daily Routine

So there are two kinds of days here - there are days when we go outside the wire, and days when we don't.

You all know that our "official" mission outside the wire involves hanging out with the civilian populace, trying to ensure they're using decent local government practices and trying to teach them to do stuff for their communities without just stealing all the funds available. That's the official mission.

In truth...

Mostly we just go outside the wire to feed dogs.



That's Daisy. She lives at one of our regular stops and actually seemed pretty excited aout MRE Jambalaya.

On days when we don't go outside the wire, the mission remains home improvement. We finally found nails and a hammer.



And no - I did not tumble from the beams. Although my roommate did suggest perhaps I should don my helmet.

Just saying...

Have you ever been to a municipal meeting? A city council type of thing?

I sat through one of those today. With a less-than-motivated interpreter and the usual representatives from all 37,429 district-level Ministry offices. Water, Water Sourcing, Irrigation, Youth, Culture, etc etc.

And, unlike almost every other meeting I've been to in this country, nobody smoked during this meeting.

War is hell, I tell you. Hell.

In good news, fruit tree saplings will be available in January, at probably a little over 2,000 dinar per. This was, I kid you not, the hit news of the meeting. I guess everybody really likes fruit trees.

Things NCOs hate

My boss is gone. An emergency in the family forced him to take emergency leave almost as soon as hit theater. So Yours Truly has been in charge during the RIP/TOA process (Relief In Place/Transfer of Authority).

This isn't really all too bad - we fall in on the outgoing guys, learn what they do, follow them around, and then they leave and we're here. Pretty simple, eh?

Except for the other little part...the part where we sign for their equipment. Or, in my case, the part where the Team Leader signs for their equipment. If, of course, one's Team Leader is absent, that duty falls on the Team Sergeant.

And we're not talking about signing for little stuff either.



That, ladies and gentlemen, is an MRAP. Pretty big, huh? And it's full of stuff. Expensive stuff. All which I had to officially take possession of. Not the best feeling for someone who considers herself the reason they invented the dummy cord.

Losing an MRAP would probably have negative career consequences. But that wasn't the end of it.

Today I signed for all the team gear. That's another vehicle, pistols, radios, night vision and a pile of other crap. Including mystery boxes of ammo. Although those didn't require a signature, they did require sorting.



Yes, I did sub-hand-receipt as much of it as possible as quickly as possible, but there's still a pile of crap and two trucks in my name. I may lose my Sergeant Card for saying this, but I cannot wait until my officer gets back.

Interfacing with the locals

I've got one phrase for those of you who've been in this part of the world. Let's see what sort of imagery it conjures up:

Turkish shitter. In an Iraqi Police station.

For any of you who ever doubted my devotion to what I do, not only did I use that awful "latrine" a couple of days ago, I did so and then did not run screaming all the way out of the Middle East. Which isn't to say that after straddling a crap-filled trench in a small, urine-soaked closet that - by the way - did not seem to confine said crap to said trench, not to say that after that I did not want to run screaming. Because I did want to.

Alas, Civil Affairs sergeants cannot run screaming because the host nation is icky.

And today, at a city council meeting in another town, I used a "latrine" that, although of the same fiendish design, was not horrifying. And they fed me. So...win some, lose some.

Getting down to business

Not being the sort to let grass grow around us, we plunged headlong into wandering around our new AO (area of operations), looking at stuff and talking to people. Until I do a little more research, we're not going to talk very much about that. However, I can and will say that:

A - this area is significantly more permissive than the one I was in 2005-2006. This is obviously a Very Good Thing, but it does take some getting used to.

B - MRAPs are big and tall, and driving them through street across which the locals have hung a rat's nest of electrical wires is recipe for causing blackouts. Which is a great way to convince the locals not to kill us...I guess.

After a meeting with a local mover and shaker, we returned to base to start the truly important stuff - home repairs! We live in CHUs (Containerized Housing Units). My roommate and I were not fortunate enough to inherit one with a porch roof, and so we're slowly "acquiring" material to build one.

You can see the initial bits and pieces here.



Only in the interest of giving you all a concept of what "home" looks like here would I ever publish such an unflattering picture.

Another move

And now we have reached our final location. It's dusty, sandbagged,
has Army cooks, and is FABULOUS. Mostly because it's NOT co-located
with our headquarters.

Coming soon, to a spottily-updated blog near you...tales of hilarity
from First Convoy and First Real Mission.

Love this place

The only thing better than Iraq is Iraq in the rain.

 

That is all.

 

Well, hold on.  The only thing better than Iraq in the rain is Iraq in the rain when, apparently, any time mortars impact within a zillion miles, one has to spend an hour in a damp, urine-smelling bunker with a bunch of squirrely young Soldiers who want to sing popular hits of Journey.

 

I love this job.

 

 

Your Tax Dollars

are, apparently, being put to shocking good use in Texas - Military hospital opens for dogs wounded in war.

It sounds like a highly spiffy new place, and quite an improvement over the previous arrangement.

Before the center opened, veterinarians treated and rehabilitated dogs in a cramped building that opened in 1968, when the military trained dogs for work in Vietnam.

This is obviously nothing but tail-wagging news. In addition to the fact that I like dogs, we know the contributions they make and the lives they save on today's battlefield.

To treat the trainees and injured working dogs, the new hospital has operating rooms, digital radiography, CT scanning equipment, an intensive care unit and rehab rooms with an underwater treadmill and exercise balls, among other features. A behavioral specialist has an office near the lobby.

That's good stuff.

Characters

We've got this guy.  He's a staff sergeant in his mid-to-late 40s.  He's been in the Army since Christ was a corporal.  He seems to get out from time to time, so he's held a bunch of different jobs.

 

He's a wiry dude, white, with thinning hair, leathery face and a nifty little mustache.  There's a little bit of the surfer or stoner in his speech and posture.  He chain-smokes and consumes somewhere north of 30 cans of Dr, Pepper a day. We will, when feeling cheery, refer to him as "The 'Stache."

 

I was sitting at chow last night with a sergeant, a corporal and a specialist, and the talk to turned to The 'Stache.

 

He's like the smartest guy in the world, said the specialist.  He knows everything.

 

I don't think he sleeps, I pointed out.  Does he?

 

The dudes shook their heads.  The 'Stache, apparently, has been witnessed sitting down and leaning against something, and once even pulling his hat down over his eyes, but never actually sleeping.

 

This one time, remembered the specialist, when Ace left that SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) in that class?  I saw him get mad, and it was like, whoa...he barely even raised his voice and I felt bad.  I didn't even do anything wrong!

 

Discussions went on until we'd established that nobody has ever seen him trim his mustache, get a haircut, or engage in PT.  Of course, he's entirely within regs at all times and has never failed a PT test.  He's always got extra cigarettes to hand out, and we'd trust him to perform neurosurgery with a lighter and a pocketknife.

 

One of those guys that, with just a slightly different personality, you could hate.  But because The 'Stache is The 'Stache, you love him.  You see a lanky figure strolling up in the dark with a can of Dr. Pepper and a pack of smokes, and you hear that west Texas accent starting out with, "well, isn't that some bullshit..."

 

 

 

 

Kuwaitin' Around

Wow. I'm sure there's a point to the time we're spending here, but what it's really accomplishing is turning us all into nocturnal chain-smokers. This is how the day passes in the Giant Chick Tent:



At night we smoke cigarettes and, wearing our absolutely-no-kidding-required reflective belts, trudge around the camp to the 24-hour coffee places. During the day...well, there's a lot of napping.