Friendly Fire Incident

Unfortunately we had a friendly fire incident here on the Victory Base Complex last night, but I'm okay. CNN has the details, so I won't go into it here, but it's something that we've talked about here before, the "what would happen if..." scenarios because literally everyone is armed all the time. It's just a shame that it did happen. Also pretty scary.
Otherwise, things here have been very "groundhog day"-like, just doing the same thing over and over again. Wake up, eat, go to work, go to the gym, work, eat, work, eat, work, sleep, repeat. I may have some news and more photos later, but not much for now.

32% done, 125 days to go

Happy May Day! It's also Labor Day here in Iraq, though I'm not sure if that means people here actually GET jobs instead of taking time off from work. Of course, that does not mean I get any time off work, the powerpoint slides must be updated, no matter the cost. Staff work is really dreary, and one of my lunch companions and I had a discussion on things. It seems like we (and I mean the military, specifically the staff to which I am currently assigned) are producing a product for the sake of the product, in this case a daily "quad chart" showing the significant events of the day. It doesn't matter that it may just be another Tuesday when nothing of any real significance occurs, I still have to fill out a quad chart. Unfortunately this leads to me having to be somewhat "creative" in determining what is quad-worthy. Sometimes the significant events of "that day" actually occurred several days ago, but I hoarded the knowledge like some sort of cerebral chipmunk (good band name, eh?), hoping to use it during an activity famine. Other times I end up making something rather insignificant into something that sounds like it needs immediate attention and the full power of the U.S. Army focused on it (not that this ever happens). In some ways, what I do can almost qualify me to work in the 24-hour news media like CNN or Fox News! Maybe a second career opportunity? Perhaps I will start tagging my quad charts with "Fair and Balanced" in hopes that saying it enough times will make it true.
Nevertheless, the days here are beginning to take on that dragging, repetitive quality now. For example, if not for the wonderful calendar Patti sent me in the last care package, I would have no idea that today really is a Friday, or is it a Thursday? Saturday? It's one endless parade of dusty sunrises, the same food at the chow hall...er, "Dining Facility"...a break to go to the gym, and back to quad charts! Anyway, the call of the office is upon me and I should return soon lest some earth-shaking happening like the "sun rose again today, in approximately the same location as yesterday" go mercifully unreported.

The President and the Sandstorm

Sounds kind of like a children's story doesn't it? Well, it has been busy here, a welcome change from the first few weeks of this little "vacation." Yes, I got to see the President (kind of). While I do work in Al Faw palace, and he did speak at Al Faw palace, I was one of about 2,000 people there that day. The media reported a few hundred, but they weren't counting everyone who was already there because they work there! The balconies were crammed full of people trying to get a view/photo, to the point where I thought we were in danger of having a catastrophic structural failure, especially since this place was built using bubblegum and scotch tape. I was stuck on the third floor since they closed off all the staircases for the duration of his visit, but I did manage to get one semi-good photo. Trust me, the black man speaking on stage really IS President Obama, REALLY!
And now the Sandstorm. No, Obama wasn't caught in a sandstorm (though wouldn't that have been an exciting media moment?). I was. Just this week I was to accompany my boss' boss (Brigadier General Walker) to a conference in one of the border regions. We were supposed to fly out to a place near Ramadi, about 150 Km west of Baghdad. It should have been a short 30 minute C-130 flight to Al Asad airbase where we were to get on a Marine CH-53 helicopter and fly into the conference sight. We had with us the Iraqi Director of Ports of Entry (a 2-star general), one of the Ports of Entry directors (a 1-star general), and a regional border brigade commander (a Colonel). We ended up flying halfway across Iraq to the north to pick up some other people going to the confrence, and then heading back south to Al Asad. What shold have been a 30-minute direct flight, ended up being a 2-hour flight with an extra stop. Once we got to Al Asad, we thought all was going well, since our helos for the next flight arrived on time, we all loaded up and then took off. Then we turned around, and landed back at Al Asad. It turns out a nasty sand storm was on the way and we couldn't fly, well, we could fly, just not land which is an important part of the flight some would argue. Anyway, so we got stuck at Al Asad, and what was going to be a day trip to Ramadi, turned into an overnight stay in Iraq's western desert in a sand storm. At least I was able to stay in some nice temporary billeting (travelling with generals has its advantages), but I learned a valuable lesson. Always listen to the advice from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, always bring a towel. It would have made the overnight stay MUCH more tolerable. Still I got to sit and take notes as General Walker discussed issues with two Iraqi generals, and I learned first hand quite a bit about Iraqi culture and perspectives. I also found the answer to a long-time question of mine. When working with a forgein leader through an interpreter, its proper to keep eye contact with the foregin leader while the interpreter is speaking, which is harder to do than you might imagine. Try responding to questions someone is asking aloud while focusing on someone who isn't talking.

Yes, this IS the President down there. I like this picture because it shows the crowd and the excitement more than it shows the President, a perspective the press didn't show.

Here is lovely Al Asad airbase. It used to be an Iraqi Air Force base, and now the Marines have taken it over. Not much out there but sand and wind.

Our ride into Ramadi that ended up being a big lap in the sky.

And this was why we couldn't fly. Umm, which way was the chow hall again?

Some people like walks on the sand. I got to take a walk IN the sand! The mask and glasses is not to look like some train-robbing bandito, but to let me breathe without inhaling the dust; it's like brown talcum powder. Hmm...train robbing asa second career maybe? Probably more time at home with the family...

31 days and 17% down, 151 days and 83% to go

Greetings and salutations! I have another few minuteso n a slow Sunday morning and it's time to update y'all on the goings-on here. I have actually had a pretty busy week or two, a welcome change from the first several days here. At the end of each month I have to put together end-of-month reports and summaries, so it does take a bit of my time. Our Commanding General (or CG) also got back from leave and so he is driving a lot more taskers to get done. The good thing is that it's making the time go by faster! There's been a lot of turn-over in people here this month, and so I've taken a trip or two to go out and meet some of the new people that I'll be working with and for them to meet me. One of these was to FOB (Forward Operating Base) Prosperity in the International Zone, or IZ, which used to be called the Green Zone, which used to be called a big target. The folks I visited lived and worked in a bombed out palace that, to the best of my knowledge is called the "palace of the four heads" mainly because sadaam had four giant sculptures of his head in brinze or something placed out front. The heads are gone now, one is in the Smithsonian (or so I hear) one may be in the British Museum, and the other two may be in the Baghdad museum which just recently opened up. I'm sure given a few years, someone will make a movie about them. Indiana Jones and the Four Heads! National Treasure...Baghdad's Big Heads! But I digress. The palace is still standing (obviously since people work there) even though 7 JDAMs hit it in 2003. I got to go up on the roof and get some pics of the damage that 7 500-pound bombs can do to poorly put together steel and concrete. Emphasis on the poorly put together too, seeing the construction of some of these buildings is absolutely terrifying, especially when you're standing 100 feet up on top of it! I think the buildings stay up because they're so light due to all the voids in the concrete (ask a civil engineer or anyone who knows what a "slump test" is and they'll tell you voids are bad things, especially in load-bearing walls). The trip over to FOB Prosperity was an uneventful event. I mean that because it was my first convoy, and it was extremely boring, which is a very good thing. The situation over here has gotten much safer, to the point where taking the armored bus (affectionately called the Rhino) from Camp Victory over to the IZ is a pretty dull, everyday thing. We still have to wear all our "battle rattle" but the threat has been significantly reduced. The Iraqi Army is ensuring the roads in Baghdad are much safer than in the past.
I'm starting to settle in and figure out the way the Army does business. They like to have meetings, a LOT of meetings. They even have meetings to get readty for pre-meetings before they have a meeting (I'm not exagerating either). They will hold a meeting to get ready for a teleconference during which they will discuss what they're going to say at the next teleconference. Maybe that's just headquarters staff in general, but it makes me crazy! I was in a meeting where we spent 15 minutes of intense discussion on whether to change a rating scale from 4 colors to 3 and the potential impacts. The best part is, they tabled the discussion until the next meeting! I'm amazed anything gets done at all. Well, I should really get going, it's time for me to get back to work, fighting the insurgency one PowerPoint slide at a time!



Don't ever accuse the Army of being unsafe. See how concerned they were about some spilled oil in the parking lot? If you look close enough, there may be room for 1 more cone...
Here's an entry hole from one of the JDAMs that hit the "four heads Palace"

From the roof of the palace we could see the second largest mosque in the world, apparently still unders construction.

Here I am on top of the "Four Heads Palace" with evidence of what happens when you make yourself a target for the Air Force.

Waiting for the "Rhino." See Mom, I'm being safe and wearing all the protective stuff they issued me.

Vehicles at Victory

Hello again from Camp Victory; yup, still here. I thought I would share a few pics of the sights I get to see everyday. Its somewhat of a change from Nellis, where I get to see airplanes of all types, here I get to see helicopters, and not much else. Still, the "cool" factor of getting to see some of this stuff hasn't worn off yet. Enjoy the photos!

The ubiquitous UH-60 Blackhawk. I took this picture from one of the LZ's (Landing Zone) around the base. We do get a little excitement occasionally. Here are 2 V-22 Ospreys taking off from the base. There aren't very many of the tilt-rotors in country and the Marines are the only ones flying them operationally right now. They really are impressive, as fast as an airplane but with the ability to take off and land vertically.

I saw this MRAP the other day and just had to take a picture. "Have a Nice Convoy!"

Blackhawks at sundown. (My poor atempt at an "artistic" photo). Farwell for now!

5% done (not that I'm counting)

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've gotten a chance to update my blog, and so I'm taking a few minutes to let you know how the first week has gone. I'me pretty much settled into a routine now. I get up aroun 4 to skype with Patti, it's pretty much the only time there's enough bandwidth on the wireless to do that. Then I head to work for a couple hours before hitting the gym. Then it's back to work until about 7 in the evening, home to bed and all over again the next day.
I try to stay busy, but it's staff work, and that means doing nothing until I get information from other people. Basically I make up things to do until around 3 or 4 in the afternoon when my work really starts. Nice to know the Army needed me so badly I had to come here for 6 months to build PowerPoint slides!
Here's a few more pictures of the Al Faw palace. It's nice, I live in a trailer with 5 other people and I work in a corner office on the top floor of the palace. Weird...


Here's me and my friend Russ. We met at Vandenberg and he's deployed over here from Ft. Meade. What a small world that we met up in Baghdad, his office is just around the corner from mine even!

Here is the main rotunda of the palace, it really is impressive, even if the "crystal" chandelier is made of plastic. I think if you put a few rows of slot machines in here it would make a great casino!

This is one of the many columns throughout the palace. Sadaam was nice enough to put his initials on top of every one to make sure nobody forgot who built the place.

This is a picture of my office. Yes, I work in a hallway that is affectionately called "the submarine." One of the Navy Lieutenants that works in the office gave it that name and it stuck.

Here's the view from my "office." I get a pool-side view! Of course, the pool is closed (I wonder why?)

Housing at Camp Victory. All of the trailers are protected by concrete "T-Walls." These are the bathrooms/showers closest to my trailer.

Home sweet home for the next 6 months. The Army has spared no expense. At least we get air conditioning!

My "office" is in the Al-Faw palace, a resort that Sadaam built for himself. It is now crammed with coalition staff workers. Still, it is an impressive building to see.

Al Faw palace again, this time during my first dust storm. This picture was taken about 4:00 in the afternoon, long before sundown. I'm told this storm wasn't even a bad one!

Greetings from Baghdad!!

Hello from Camp Victory! As you can see from the pics I made it safe and sound and have started getting settled in. Life here in the deployed environment is all about establishing a new routine in totally strange environment. I live in a trailer, also called a CHU (pronounced 'choo') with a roommate. Our room is actually jusy one of 3 in the trailer, but it's enough space for the few things I brought along. It's kind of a pain to have to walk to a separate trailer to use the restroom or take a shower, but at least my CHU is really close. Some folks have to walk about 200 yards. It doesn't sound like a long way, except for the fact that everywhere in the housing areas is covered with several inches of loose gravel, which is about as hard to walk in as loose sand! The KBR contractors put down gravel everywhere in an effort to keep the dust down a bit and to keep it from getting too muddy when it rains.

Speaking of the weather, it hasn't been too bad lately. We've had a warm day or two, but for the most part it's in the 70's and 80's during the day. We did have some excitedment this week though, I got to experience my very first dust storm. The dust was finer than talcum powder and just hung in the air, almost like smoke, and got into everything! The hallway where I work (yes, "hallway" not "office") was hazy all evening long.

So yes, hallway where I work. The organization I work for just moved into the Al-Faw palace, which was a retreat that Sadaad built for himself to be able to get away from the pressure of being a tyrannical dictator. So many people to opress and murder and so little time! The place is crammed full of staffs for just about anythign you can imagine, and so space is at a premium. I work in an upstairs hallway that is divided in half by cubicle dividers. I have a "corner office" but I get to share the space with 15 people. Some of the Navy folks I work with have nicknamed the area "the submarine" because it's long, narrow, and so crowded that people can barely get to their desks if someone else is sitting down at their own. The nickname stuck, so now I can say that I deployed with the Air Force, to work with the Army and the Marines in a submarine. It really is a joint fight!

"So what is it you'd say...you do here?" In a nutshell, I create powerpoint presentations and send email, not too different than any other staff job. However, the work that I do is pretty interesting. In case you missed the President's speech a few weeks ago, or if you've been living in Bora Bora with no radio, TV, or internet for the last 6 years (I wish I was in Bora Bora), the Coaliion Forces are trying to turn the country back over to the Iraqi people. Part of that is ensuring the Iraqi government can defend itself, and secure the country, especially its borders. That's where my organization here is important. I work for the Multi National Corps-Iraq, a group that is responsible for training and supporting the Iraqi forces until theycan take over that security mission on their own. Specifically I work with the border enforcement department. I collect periodic reports and assessments from coalition teams on how the Iraqis are doing on securing their borders and running ports of entry. I then take all this information and pass it along to get briefed to General Odierno, the top U.S. Commander in Iraq. I get to see exactly how things are (or aren't) progressing, and I get to see what kinds of challenges the Iraqis are overcoming to get their country back on track after decades of abuse by Sadaam and the Baath party, constant war, crippling poverty for the general population, and countries on all sides that want to increase their influence and control over Iraq.

While I hate being gone from my family, I am excited to be doing the work I am. Although I disagreed with our coming into Iraq in the first place, seeing first-hand some of the impacts that Sadaam had on the country, I'm glad we were able to get rid of him and start the country on the long, tough road to being a true nation again.

Life at Al Udeid

Here are the transient tents we're staying in. Mine's the brown one (or was it the tan one?).

"The Bra" where most hanging out is done (so to speak!)

The latrines or "Cadillacs." I wonder if it's got a 30,000 mile warranty?

Things over here are the same, but different at the same time. Evidence the regular old Nissan Pathfinder, same as you'd find in the states, but the license plate let's you know you're not in Kansas anymore. Interestingly, while words are read left-to-right in Arabic, numbers are read right-to-left. Anyone have any idea why? I've yet to figure that one out.

Al Udeid must be a nice place to while away a deployment, they've even got volleyball!

Here I wait, bored and jet-lagged for a seat on a plane getting me to Baghdad. Since I'm going to be here for another 24 hours, I thought I'd snap a few pics and share what the living conditions over here are like.

First off, I'm staying in temporary quarters, so the folks that are here for there deployment are probably getting better quarters, but the common areas are all the same. The chow hall (sorry, "dining facility" or DFAC, we're not supposed to call it a chow hall) is pretty good. Open 24 hours and all I have to do is show my ID. Plenty of sun, sand, and all you can eat 24 hours a day...it's like I'm on a cruise!

The tent I'm staying in houses 48 people in bunk beds. The accomodations aren't really all that bad, you just have to get used to sleeping with a light on, since there is inevitably someone coming in or going out pretty much all the time. The bathrooms are in trailers called "Cadillacs" and are actually not too bad, though the fly strips hanging up outside the stalls betrays a liklihood of being a bit, shall we say, malodorous during the heat of summer.

I have wireless acces in the Coalition Center, an open air common area called "the bra" because the two huge white canopies over top look like..well...a bra (see the pic above). We also have access to a community center with pool tables, video games, and TVs (all playing Armed Forces Networkor, AFN). The weather has been good so far, highs during the day are around 80 and upper 50s at night. There's a nice gym, a coffee shop, and a pool, though I don't think I'll be utilizing the pool. Thw chow is okay, but it's tempered by the coffee being excellent.

Anyway, there's not much more to say, I don't really have anything to do here other than wait and check email while I've got access. I suppose it could be worse. Hopefully my next post will be from Baghdad!

Finally there! (Not really)

My last look at the U.S.

Here I am in Germany!

The beer garden in the airport terminal. Lots of folks took the opportunity to have one last alcoholic beverage before going into Iraq.

Back on the plane for Qatar!

Welcome to Al Udeid!

Well I finally made it! (to Qatar). I still have to wait on a flight to Baghdad, and so I sit here in transient quarters waiting. The trip was a unique experience, it was the first time I have ever been overseas, much less on such a long flight.

We left Wednesday afternoon from Norfolk 2 hours late (great start eh?). The air terminal staff announced it was because they were "adding more fuel to the plane" but then I thought, "why didn't they just fill it up to begin with, how much more can they add?" Funny though, about an hour and a half into the 30 minute delay to "add fuel" the flight crew showed up! When we got on the plane the pilot apologized for the delay because there was "a discrepancy" in the scheduled flight time. I'm guessing they stayed at the bar too long the night before.

Anyway, we got a fun 8 hour flight into Leipzig-Halle airport, Germany. All I got to see of Germany was the terminal during the 2 hours we waited for a new flight crew and more fuel. I did manage to have my last beer before 6 months in Iraq! Mmmm...German beer for breakfast.

We got another 5 hour plane ride into Qatar which would have been okay, except for the turbulence. The mountains over Turkey were beautiful, covered in snow, but the constant bouncing made it hard to appreciate. I got my first view or Iraq from 30,000+ feet as we flew right down the fertile crescent to the Persian Gulf. It was interesting because there is so much dust in the air that there isn't a definitive horizon, the sky slowly blends into sand or sea.

One of the first things I noticed, even from so high up, was the overarching presence of the petroleum industry. In the US you see highways, sports stadiums, suburbs, and shopping malls from the air. Over here you see oil tankers, oil refineries, and oil pipelines. There's the occaisional "city" which you can make out a the brown lumps with right angles as opposed to the brown lumps that are crescent shaped (sand dunes).

We finally got to Al Udeid on Thursday evening (there was a crossing of the Prime Meridian though) and got settled into our transient tents. It's not too bad, I get a bunk, a foot locker, and 47 roommates! Hopefully I won't be here for more than a day or 2, not because the conditions are bad, but because there's nothing for me to do! I'm ready to get to Baghdad and get to work.

I'll be writing more later, while I wait for a plane, again.

Back home for a spell

The Calico Hills at Red Rock. Ancient sand dunes turned into sandstone and colored by iron oxide, very cool!

Lorelei's first hike

Lunch Break!

Lorelei Awake

Lorelei asleep

ACST is finally over, and I got a wonderful (though short) time back home before I deparat the country. Patti and I managed to get a lot of stuff done around the house (painting, hanging light fixtures, etc.) but the highlight was a trip over to Red Rock Canyon just west of town. Lorelei got to try out her kid carrier and I got to play sherpa. She seemed to have a good time, and fell asleep about 30 minutes into the trip. It was a beautiful, and the best part...we couldn't see the Strip!