Christmas in Iraq

Wow, what a day we had yesterday.

It all started out about 11 PM (2300) on 23 DEC 08, we had to go up to Bagdhad to draw 2 new vehicles, replacing two of our 1st generation MRAPs. Because we were bringing two vehicles back and couldn't leave our old vehicles up there we had to hitchhike on a late night convoy up to Bagdhad and spent the night there. We ended up getting there about 4 am, and had to draw the vehicles at 0630, so really short night. The vehicle draw went just fine, the vehicles are the latest and greatest things for anti-IED protection and even had the new car smell to them.

After we had the vehicles, we decided to crash for a couple of hours, naptime in Iraq. Most of the major bases have transient quarters (tents with cots, mattresses and that is about it) set up for soldiers wandering around, so we just crashed in one of those. We had chow, and started to head on back to the country when we one of our new vehicles sprung a leak. It is kind of strange when you are up on a different base because you don't know anyone there and don't have your normal support units around. We lucked out though and found a maintenance unit that is attached to our parent unit (maintenance unit = HHC, 1st Battalion-6th Infantry Brigade; parent unit = 2d Brigade 1st Armor Division) and the mechanics there found the problem and fixed it in about 45 minutes, great support to be honest, we have been other places that didn't help us out as much.

We got back on the road and started to hustle back south because: Traffic can get pretty crummy about 5 PM, it was getting dark (crazy things happen at night and driving is a little more difficult at night) AND the General had Christmas Eve Dinner ready for us and our Task Force (1st Battalion, 35th Armor Brigade - - the TF 1-35 in my mailing address). For those of you that read my blog regularly (thanks mom, Julie, Melissa and Aunt Faye), you will remember that the General had been raising 4 turkeys for Christmas Dinner.

Before:

After (this is the big one):

It was actually a whale of a party, the General normally throws a pretty good feast, he had all of his staff and commanders there. We had the team and a lot of the TF 1-35 staff folks as well as the commander of the Task Force. Check out the decorations, the General went all out.

I gotta be honest though, I really wanted to go back to our building and crash. After the party we stopped off at the TF base and picked up mail, water and went on back to our side of the compound. In the mail we pretty much got Christmas: Most everyone got a package (thanks Dad and Sheri for the dried fruit, nuts and beef jerky) and Superman's wife (Mrs. Superman? Holly?) had sent each of us a present for Christmas, which was very cool and thoughtful. We also got some packages from OPERATION GRATITUDE, an organization that sends out holiday packages to soldiers that are deployed, pretty cool.

After that, we finally got to crash, and I slept til 9 AM on Christmas morning. Merry Christmas!

News and Notes

Target Number One has been captured, he was scooped up in a raid north of Bagdhad. We now have a new Target Number One, believe it or not he is supposed to be working at another Ministry. I am not sure what is up with that, but tribes and religions run deep here, one side may think that these guys are criminals while the other side thinks they are the next true patriot. The hard thing about a civil war is there are two sides, if you are on the wrong side at the end, it will be bad unless you happen to have lost to Abraham Lincoln, Douglas McArthur or someone with a reconciliatory mindset.


Yesterday was Smooth's birthday, even though he tried to deny it. You just can't hide from Army records yah know. We got him a cake, sung him Happy Birtday and made it a point to put an Iraqi fireworks candle on the cake. He was a good sport about it all, turned 37 which is about the average age on the team, only Savant is a bit younger.


I am attaching some other photos that I took recently. The one that I thought pretty much summed up the American Soldier's ability to sleep anywhere was this one. I have no idea who this person is, but he is pretty much dead to the world. He is racked out on top of his faithful HMMWV, in the motor pool while the whole world moves around him. There are vehicles being worked on, other vehicles being driven around, folks walking by but he is perfectly happy to just catch a few winks deep in his sleeping bag. Something like that you just figure he is where he is supposed to be, probably just got done with one of those all night sort of missions, had to stay up during the day to figure out the next day's mission and caught a break when he was told to take his vehicle to the motorpool and got a few minutes to catch up on his sleep. I think most everyone took his photo, including the Task Force Commander (LTC M) and even he just let sleeping soldiers lie.

Yesterday was also our first volleyball match against our National Police Brigade. I was not there, so I can't give a play by play analysis, but the 3-1 NP BDE takes their volleyball very seriously, we umm, did not take it as seriously. I had warned the guys that the national sport in Afghanistan was not soccer, but was volleyball, and that the General had told me that their team had been practicing regularly, so there was a bit of over confidence came into our game. The quote of the day came from 6.5: "We were in trouble when they showed up in uniforms." The first game was against one of the battalion teams, and we won. The second game was against the General's own team, and umm, it was close, but they beat us. I am pretty sure there will be a rematch.

Hmm, what to write, what to write . . . .

To be perfectly honest, there hasn't been an exciting or noteworthy event in the past couple of weeks. Not that I am complaining . . . . That means there have been no IEDs in the area (good job National Police), there have been no tribal scuffles (good job National Police and tribal leaders) and the Sons of Iraq are doing their job.

We have just got done with Eid, a huge Muslim holiday. It is a 4 day celebration, it started on Monday (if you were a Sunni) or Tuesday (if you were a Shia). Eid marks the end of the Haj to Mecca and is a family celebration based on Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son to Allah, at the last minute, Allah switched Abraham's son with a lamb as a reward for his faith. All across the Mid East, lambs were sacrificed and served up. The tradition is that part of the meat of the lamb goes to your family, part of the lamb goes to your neighbors and the rest of the lamb goes to the poor families that you know of. Beings how we are in the security business, there was a huge concern about security - - Eid is a 4 day period of celebration with a lot of large gatherings at mosques (kind of like Christmas and Easter for Christians - - if you aren't a regular church goer, those are the times you go to make up for the year of slacking) so even non-religious Muslims made their annual appearance at the mosque. Nothing happened in our sector. Most of the National Policemen went home to their families as did most of the insurgents.

Shoe Throwing

This was probably all over CNN or Fox or your news station of choice. Outside of someone getting off two shoes at the President without a fast Secret Service reaction, this was not a big deal to me (just shoes, and to be honest, the man did invade their country). The General was genuinely depressed. Backing up a day . . . the General knew George Bush was going to be in town before we did. We received an order to ask the National Police to clamp down on the two roads leading into Bagdhad that go through our AO. The only thing the order said was a "very, very important person" was visiting Iraq. When I called the General up the night before to ask him to increase his security, he asked me what was going on, I told him a "very, very important person" was visiting Bagdhad and he said " . . . Oh, is George Bush coming to visit again?". Next day, right there on CNN, George Bush was in Bagdhad. The man is smarter than me.

Back to the shoes, the general was very concerned about how the world would look at Iraq after the shoe throwing incident. I gave him the normal song and dance, no harm no foul, freedom of speech, these things happen from time to time . . . He said, yes, in the US these things can happen. In Iraq, the security for an event like this has to be extra intense and someone that had the idea to throw shoes at the President should not be allowed to even think about going in the room, especially because the world is watching. Despite being the man that sparked the invasion of Iraq 6 years ago, plunging this country into a very violent sectarian/civil war, George Bush is respected here for what he has done for Iraq.

The List

Every area of operations (AO) has a list of most wanted individuals. Some areas they are genuine insurgents on the list, some are just common criminals. On our list we have one genuine insurgent. Code Name: Target Number One. Each area has an Iraqi list and a US list, developed by each respective force. Over the past two weeks we have begun to compare lists and cooperate a lot more on arresting these individuals. The US list had Target Number One at the top of our list (naturally, he is after all Target Number One), the Iraqis did not have our Target Number One at the top of their list, but understood his importance to the US and over all security, so they moved Target Number One to the top of their list as well.

Yesterday, the General was summoned one of the Ministries to talk about some buildings that the National Police and US forces are using that belong to the Ministry. Interestingly enough, Target Number One has just gotten a cushy job at (yup) the Ministry. Jokingly, the General said he would have his guys go through the building and look for Target Number One, he was laughing a bit when he said it, so I didn't think he was serious. During the meeting, the General was really smooth, interacted with the Deputy Minister, cajoled, praised and pretty much had his way with the man. The meeting went from "You National Policemen and your ilk must leave our precious buildings" to "Of course you can stay in the buildings, why, we will even have our crew come in and clean them up for you." after about an hour. Pretty smooth on the Generals part, probably used the Jedi mind trick on the minister, I just didn't see him move his hand . . .

As we were leaving, the General was literally giggling as we waited for the elevator. I asked him what was so funny, he said "He wasn't here." Like a moron I said, "Who?" and he laughed and said "Target Number One". The whole time we were talking to the Deputy Minister his security detail was fanning out in the office building asking for Target Number One. When you think about it, it was kind of funny. A pile of National Policemen, armed to the teeth, travelling with a pack of Americans, also armed to the teeth and wearing a pile of body armor and radios, pulls up in front of a quiet, academic sort of building and goes on in with an Iraqi General no less. There you are, peacefully going over your bureacratic piece of paper, reviewing your TQC reports when in walks an Iraqi National Policeman who politey asks you if you have seen Target Number One. It was a good day.

Other notes:

I am resigned to my fate in fantasy football. I will probably finish near the bottom of pile, if not on the bottom of the pile. Tragically, both of my brothers in law will pass me up and I will have to listen to them for the next year. Next year I will draft some good wide receivers, will not fall for the lure of Terrell Owens, diversify my team a little and will check into some new players. Sigh. To think, last year I finished off in second place and now this.

Running:

I am up to 27 miles a week, over three days, on the treadmill. Normally a 7 miler on monday, a pack of intervals on Wednesday and long run on Saturday mornings. I will have to find a race sometime when I get back to see if I was able to maintain any sort of training form.

Dynamics and Condolences

Condolence Ceremony

Today was a Condolence Ceremony (I will post some pics in a few days) where the Coalition Forces make Condolence Payments to Iraqi civilians that have been affected by Coalition Force action. It is an interesting process where we work with the Iraqi National Police to allow civilians to make claims for damages - - their car was blown up during an airstrike, their house was damaged when we blew up an IED on the street, a member of their family was wounded or killed as a result of Coalition Forces action.

I was kind of expecting a lot of loud, angry emotion, but that was not the case. Most of the civilians were grateful that the Coalition Forces were around and understood that sometimes in conflicts like this accidents and mistakes happen. I was trying to imagine how this process would happen in the US - - it would probably involve lawyers, TV News and a lot of teeth gnashing and wailing, here in Iraq a father who's child was wounded by US mortar fire actually thanked the US for the action that took place and told us that he understood why the US was firing mortars. His final comment was he hoped that the insurgents were killed in the action and was happy his town was freed from terror. All in all there were 4 claims paid for today - - the wounded child, a car that was damaged, a husband that was killed and a gentleman that had his leg amputated. For the amputation and wounded child, the US evacuated the casualties to a US hospital for treatment. The wounded child was actually sent further back to Germany for specialized treatment.

Dynamics

This is something that has amazed me in Iraq, just the dynamics of getting something done here would overwhelm most folks. At the bottom of the dynamic heap is the family, in the US families are normally who is living in your house or apartment, maybe the kinfolk that are close to you. Here in Iraq the family is huge and members of the family remember what happened to that family 5, 10, 100, 1000 years ago and which family caused that event. One step above the family is the tribe. Each tribe is represented by a hierarchy of sheiks, some tribes are huge - 200,000 people, some are only a hundred or so. Some families may have members in different tribes.

The Tribal Support Council works out issues between tribes - - member of tribe A killed a member of tribe B, so some sort of reconciliation has to happen, that normally involves money. In a case like that there is an independent mediator agreed upon by the Tribal council who mediates the settlement. In Iraq families and tribes are old and are used to having the power to solve problems and the sheiks are the ones that have the power concentrated in their hands.

With the introduction of a representative government, the families and tribes are a little confused about who has the power. In the old days, the tribe would figure out how to get electricity to the village, now the government does that. Instead of the sheik giving his people a new road, it is the government that puts in the new road. There are also several layers of government - - Nahia (county), Beladia (city), regional and national government.

When you throw in religious affiliation (Sunni and Shia) it gets pretty frustrating. There are Shia and Sunni families, tribes and the government of an area will normally be dominated by one of the religious sects. So, if a Sunni Tribe isn't getting electricity from the Shia town council there will be a sharp discussion at a city council meeting. The idea of reconciliation is starting to sink in, but not real fast. So the Shia Town Council may just smirk at the Sunni Tribe leader and say " . . . Well, when your people were in charge, we were getting hosed, now it is your turn to get hosed." (That exact exchange happened at the Center City Town Coucil Meeting two weeks ago, Sheik Q brought up a road project that didn't extend out to one of his villages and the Town Council had no sympathy for him because the Sunni were in charge a few years ago). The theory is that after a certain amount of reconciliation, things will improve.

It will take a few years to figure out how all of the dynamics are working, until then there will be some minor frustrations and challenges, but nothing that can't be worked out.

Fantasy Football Update:

Team Fritz made out good last week, but Marion Barber was injured. I am not sure if Team Wade has him or not. I need Drew Brees and David Garrard to throw the ball to the right team this week and things should work out ok.

Thanksgiving with the Sheiks, Army Style

The Army goes all out for holidays when you are deployed. I remember in Haiti we would fly Thanksgiving Dinner to all of the teams in our sector, hang around for them to eat it, load up the turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and pies and fly to the next team. Here in Iraq all of the chow halls have an unofficial competition to outdo each other on Thanksgiving. There are a ton of decorations, cakes, food sculptures and other food related paraphernalia (see the pictures, honest).

Thanksgiving started off with a Tribal Sheik meeting which was pretty, ummm, entertaining. All of the powerful tribal sheiks in the area got together to talk about local issues and how things are going, most of the times these folks get together they are pretty tame, this one got a little heated towards the end of the meeting. Most of the sheiks have warrants out for their arrests, but nobody enforces them - - - all of the warrants against the sheiks are sworn out by enemies of one tribe or another, one sect or another or just someone that doesn't like what the sheik is doing for his tribe. Pretty interesting, I will have to write about tribal justice later on. Anyway, all of the sheiks agreed that false accusations must stop and they would work to stomp out false accusations. After the pleasantries, folks started to really get into it, I kept getting flashbacks to the scene in "Lawrence of Arabia" where the sheiks are all trying to decide how to rule the lands they had just taken from the Turks, throw in the confusion of interpreters and you have pretty much sheik overload. The General looked at me a few times and just chuckled. He gave the best speech of the day, he told folks they should look at themselves honestly, work hard to secure the area from insurgents, help Iraqis that have been displaced by the civil war to come back and support the Status of Forces Agreement, pretty enlightened.

After we were back in his HQs he talked to me about the dynamics of the Tribal Council. Basically, they are wise, but not highly educated, they understand their tribe and it's structure, but have problems seeing the whole of Iraq. I always enjoy talking to him about such things.

After the Tribal meeting, we had the traditional Army Thanksgiving meal, 1 each. All of the Sheiks dug in as did the security force leaders. One of the best ways to cement relationships is to eat together, if you eat with an Arab, you are on his good side for life. If you host him at your table, he remembers that.

Speaking if Internally Displace Personnel. . . . . Saturday was our next meeting and it focused on a small village to the north of North City. The village is basically rubble, but folks want to move back to their homes and get restarted. The General hosted another sheik council, a smaller one than the Thanksgiving one, just sheiks from the area around the village, and again, there was a lot of talking, but not much. The meeting started off with the usual pleasantries - - - folks are happy that the environment was so secure and they could begin to think about families moving back into the area. After about 45 minutes of small talk, the three main issues leaked out: Outlaws (insurgents from the area) must be captured, there must be social reconciliation and someone has to pay for all of this. After the three issues came out, there was an agreement for another three meetings on the subject. Long process, lots of talking . . . .

At each of these meetings the General normally turns to me and asks me to provide some coalition words of wisdom. The guys on the team have started to score my speeches on a scale of 1-10, they thought today's was an 8, I recognized a teenager in the crowd (a sheiks son, who was bored stiff) and told them that it was great that the younger generation of Iraq was being allowed to see how the new Iraq was going to be formed, with wise men working with the local government and the security forces to help people start their lives back. That bit of recognition apparently moved me from a 7 to an 8. Now that I know I am going to be scored, I will try to be more eloquent.

Other notes: The Huskers played a wild one, my Heisman vote is going to Alex Henery, 6'2", 175 lbs. sophmore kicker from Omaha Burke. He kicked a 57 yard field goal to put the Huskers ahead of the buffaloes 33-31. The Blackshirts sealed the deal with an interception return for a touchdown at the end of the game, and then sacked the heck out of Cody Hawkins on colorado's last series. Final score: 40-31. Pretty sweet game, even if I had to stay up to 3 am to watch it.

Fantasy Football: Team Fritz is off to a blazing start - - Brian Westbrook had 4 TDs, the Tony Romo offense was clicking and Dallas's defense finally showed up and held someone to less than 10 points.

News and Notes

Pretty interesting week this past week, we did our first night mission with the National Police and are getting ready for the holiday season.

The night mission was targeting three individuals with outstanding warrants for terrorist activities. That is the cool thing about the Brigade we work with, they only target individuals that have warrants. In years past, they could arrest anyone without really having any evidence, now that the General is using warrants, he has a lot of credibility with the people of the region, as well as the government, folks can't accuse him of being heavy handed or sectarian, it was the judge, enforcing the law, not the National Police, we are just doing our duty. The mission was to go after three terrorist suspects, the best time to go after folks is after midnight, that way you know they should be in their house. The National Police have gotten very good at this, they politely knocked, asked for the gentleman that had the warrant and looked around the house some for evidence. Unfortunately, the guy wasn't there and his mom said he was innocent (of course she would say that, all mom's believe their kids are angels).

The other two warrants were in a small town that we can't go into with out vehicles (very low hanging electrical wires). Technically, we could go into the town, but we would pull down every electrical wire in the town, and not make many friends. We have pulled a few down and it is quite spectacular when we do, especially at night: Huge sparks, puffs of smoke, that electrical smell in the air. Pretty cool, but not a good way to win the hearts and minds. After we had done this we asked the National Police about it they told us that the townspeople were pretty good at putting the wires up and that they get pulled down a lot by other things, not just the coalition forces.

Overall, we were 0 for 3 on arrests that night, but we got to see how the National Police operate at night and how they used the warrant system to their advantage.

Other team notes:

Every time we meet a sheik, he insists on inviting us to lunch or dinner, which as you know makes the team quake with fear. I will talk to the general about all these invites (he is normally with us) and see if he intends to take the sheiks up on it. I know it is part of their culture to invite folks, but as a cheapskate, I know they have to pay money for it and don't want to put them out, and I know the team will dread it.

This is Thanksgiving week, marking the official start of the military holiday season. If I were back at Bragg, it would be pretty sweet. Football/Lunch with Mike, Mary, Rachel, Kris and Mike's parents (Mary and Bob) as well as the most spoiled dog in NC, Dixie. We would follow that up with a Survivor session (it is on a Thursday, yah know). After that, the Huskers would square off with the buffaloes on Friday, and there would be a solid weekend of football on TV.

Here, it is a bit different: I am taking the General and two of his colonels to Thanksgiving Lunch at one of the larger Army dining facilities, then coming back here to eat dinner with my team and the neighboring unit to the south of us in their dining facility.

I explained Thanksgiving to the General, he was kind of interested in the whole pilgrim/Indian dynamic, the legend of the first meal, etc. When I told him about the turkey, he got an idea. His unit went out and bought 4 turkeys for us to have, they are walking around his compound getting fattened up. I asked him if we could save them til Christmas and he agreed. I explained Christmas to him (the Santa Claus legend) and we named the turkeys Santa (the largest one), Mrs. Claus (the female one) and the smaller two are called elves. Should be interesting.

Fantasy football update:

I picked up ten points on Wade, thanks to Drew Brees and Tony Romo having huge days, if David Garrard and Aaron Rodgers would have thrown the ball to their own teams I would have almost caught him. Team Mark is somewhere in between us, so, if I catch Wade, I will pass up Mark. Should be a good finish.

Husker notes:

Nobody will take a bet on colorado, so they must be respecting the Huskers a bit more. Should be a good game, I hope the Huskers get the W, 8-4 sounds soooooo much better than 5-7 (last year's results).

Pop's Birthday

OK, I blew it, again. Pop turned 68 yesterday (17 NOV 08 - - born in 1940, Pittsburg, KS) and I forgot to even send him an email.

I have a few pictures of dad, and one of the famed Arch in Kearney, Nebraska. The Arch goes over I-80 but is more of a museum of Nebraska's role in the United State's migration west. It covers the early pioneers, the railroad period and the building of I-80. It is one of the adventures me and pop went on. Probably one of the easier adventures, but an adventure none the less.

Some of the other good ones were: Family vacation to FT Robinson, MT Rushmore, the Blackhills of South Dakota and all points in between. A canoeing trip to the Charles L. Somers Wilderness Canoe base, a Philmont trip, a hiking trip along the Penine Way in England (including walking along Hadrian's wall and visiting the HMS Victory - - Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar where I stood on the section of deck where Nelson was shot. For the record, that was a pretty special trip), and about a million diving trips to the coast of South Carolina (not that good, thought he was a goner in the missile tube and on the wreck with all of the fish), Key West (OK), Cozumel (thought he was a goner in the currents, I always practiced the speech I would give the rest of the family when I came back from a dive trip without him, but he always came up), a couple of other carribean trips and a ton of trips to Roatan.

Me and Pop, adventuring in Cozumel.

Good shot of Pop getting ready to dive (just take the damn picture, will yah?).

Pop on the beach in Cozumel.

Hummingbirds in Roatan, never would have seen those unless you would have gone down there the first time, dad.

Pop, doing what he does best, finding little things on the reef.

Anyway Pop, I am glad you came up those times, life wouldn't have been as much fun without you. Happy 68th, and I look forward to many more birthday's that I forget.

Electricity and Water

Electricity and Water . . . . those were the two main complaints at the Northern City Council meeting yesterday. I was attending with the General yesterday, they are trying to lure internally displaced personnel back to a small village north of Northern City and the local sheiks requested he come to the meeting and discuss the security plan. The meeting started off with a recitation of all the projects that the city council wants to have done, water and electricity were the highlights of that list. I was feeling kind of bad because those are not easy things to do, and the city council has to try to take them on. In this region everything has to flow out of Bagdhad, including electricity and water. During the Saddam years Northern City was pretty much ignored, wrong party, wrong religious affiliation, bad location, etc. After 30 years of isolation, folks want to see things go their way right off the bat. For anyone that has an engineering sort of mind, or a basic understanding of water and electricity distribution, you know that is hard stuff to do (how do you establish and electricity grid in the middle of nowhere?), never mind the fact that there are no local public utilities organizations or corporations and your nation is 30 years behind the power curve and challenged in a million different ways.

Dealing with sheiks is kind of interesting, they lead a different sorts of lives. They are the head of their local tribe and have responsibilities to the members of that tribe. This is pretty much in competition with the local government, but not really. They know that they have to work with the local government in order to bring things to their tribes, so they maintain a careful balance between trying to be the tribe provider and talking down the government, and then working closely with the government. I think that most Iraqi government folks are used to the double sided nature of the sheiks, it is kind of difficult for Americans that are used to a smoothly operating system (trust me, it is) to understand the nature of getting stuff done around here.

After the town council meeting up north, we went down to South city to check up on some Sons of Iraq checkpoints that were involved in a firefight last night. The checkpoints are right on the boundary line between the National Police Brigade I work with and an Iraqi Army unit. The insurgents know where all of the boundaries are and are actively probing them to see if there is a weakness they can exploit. Last night they were firing from the Iraqi Army side at the SOI checkpoints to see their reaction and probably to get the SOI to shoot at the Iraqi Army checkpoints. Kind of devious, luckily nothing happened and the SOI took care of themselves.

We finished the day off by patrolling along the Diyalla River (one of the rivers that feeds the Tigris), it would be a nice drive, except for the fact this is Iraq and folks have been fighting for 6 years, there has been about 20 years of neglect and lack of services and the area is pretty poor. There were some really nice houses along the river, but they were run down from hard living. I would say that I would like to come back in 10 years and see how things look, but I seriously doubt I would want to leave the comfort and convinience of the US to come and see if Iraq has turned around.

Fantasy Football update: I probably won't be updating Fantasy Football for a while, putting all of my eggs in the Cowboy offense basket, making some bad trades early in the season pretty much doomed me to the basement.

Husker update: Smooth is now wearing my Special Forces tab and 6.5 pulled my radio watch last night. Nobody wants to bet on the Colorado game dang it.

OK, back to work here. I am having technical difficulties with the picture uploading, but I will figure that out.

Hatchet Job

The enemy of the people of Iraq is crafty and well placed. The battalion commander of the Northern Battalion was suddenly and suprisingly transferred to a border battalion (same as being sent to Siberia in the old Soviet days). There are two schools of thought on why this happened: 1. He was not towing the political party line (each of the Ministries is basically ran by a political party here) or 2. He was too effective. Either way, he was a patriot to the people of Iraq, and in only a month on duty in the Nothern city he had made some pretty good strides with clearing operations, operations with the Coallition Forces and had made some key insurgent arrests. I suspect the reason was he was too effective and one of the insurgent leaders talked to his buddy that was planted in the ministry and had him moved out of the Northern city. The general tends to agree with me and has noted that the insurgency is not only a shooting war against an enemy that won't fight, but is now an administrative war against an enemy that is well placed in the Government of Iraq.

That was how the week started off, we found out that the battalion commander had been transferred, it was supposed to be a great week with the SOI Pay Plan finally going into effect, but it started off badly.

We went and checked out each of SOI Pay Sites and were pleasantly suprised that every thing was going as smoothly as things in Iraq go - - there were no angry mobs, no disgruntled employees and the National Police was at its best. The enemy attempted to disrupt the operation by placing an IED in front of one of the SOI Pay Sites, but a sharp-eyed National Police Lieutenant spotted the IED and called in the bomb squad to blow it in place. There are two more days of paying to go, I think everything will go smoothly.

The IED marked the third IED that has been planted in our area of operation, all three of them were planted within a few kilometers of each other in the Middle Battalions Area of Operation. This was a bad sign for the Middle battalion commander. Yesterday afternoon the general stopped by the the Middle battalion commander's headquarters and gave him a royal ass-chewing, Iraqi style. Basically he told him to get him and his men out of the headquarters and get after the insurgents: Patrol, clear, keep them off balance and out of his sector. One more IED on one of his roads and it will be bad.

I really wish that Middle battalion commander would have listened. The general went out this morning to see if his orders were being followed, and they weren't. We patrolled through the Middle Battalions area of operation, stopping at most of the checkpoints and talking to some of the Sons of Iraq. Unfortunately, we didn't see any patrols. Middle Battalion Commander got a second visit from the general, it went about the same way the first visit went. I suspect we will be checking up on Center Battalion again here soon. More to follow.

Team notes: The team is starting to catch onto something: If we are near one of the headquarters (either one of the battalions or the brigade headquarters) around mealtime, we are going to get drug into the dining hall. I picked up on this and have started to time our visits so that we won't get caught near one of the headquarters at lunch. The devious Iraqis have figured this out as well and have shifted the lunch hours around. It is funny, I will be in the general's office about 2 PM, thinking we are safe, and he will announce that it is lunch time and we should eat with him. My guys, meanwhile are hiding in the vehicles, hoping they won't get drug into the meal. The devious (and generous) Iraqis figured this out and take some of the food out to the vehicles and eat with my guys out there. Kind of funny.

This morning we got trapped in a breakfast situation. After going out on patrol we stopped by Middle Battalion Headquarters, where the general lit into that commander again. I thought we were free and clear, but even after getting chewed out by the general, Middle Battalion Commander invited us to breakfast, amazing.

Fantasy Football update: Team Wade had a huge weak, I had a whimper of a week. I hope Tony Romo is the savior, I am in serious danger of being passed by Mark.

Husker bet update: With a Husker victory over kansas, balance to the universe is returning, and I won the first of my three bets. With a Husker victory over the wildcats of kansas state this weekend, I will win the other two.

Blog note: I installed a site visitor meter, it counts how many people visit my site, I am almost up to a thousand visits since I deployed, pretty interesting statistic. If you click on the sitemeter at the very bottom of my blog, it will give you all the statistics of who visits (location,, time, duration of visit, etc.).

What have we been doing?

This has been a pretty busy week, plus there is a wicked stomach thing going around and I caught it, so I haven't had too much time to blog.

We are still working on the SOI Pay Plan, I think the plan is in place and we brief all of the Generals later on today. Just imagine having a 3,000 man work force that just shows up on your door and now you are responsible for all of the administrative paperwork that goes along with it. Also imagine that you don't have the internet, a database, a computer, no checking system, no banking system and you have to track paying those 3,000 people in cash, by hand, with a pen and paper. That is the challenge facing the National Police these days. Previously, the Coalition Forces just gave a stack of money to the SOI leaders and let them take care of it. Now the Government of Iraq has absorbed the SOI into the Iraqi Security Forces and has taken over paying the sofwah and wants to do it straight to the individual, not to the leaders. Gonna be an interesting week next week when all of this goes into effect.

We also had a small ceremony to honor three Iraqi Patriots - - One of the National Policemen that was killed in the line of duty and two that were wounded. I thank my lucky stars everyday that I am in the US Military, as bad as folks think our veterans get treated, it is 1000% better than any other program. In the US, there is the Veteran's Administration as well as the Military Medical system to take care of wounded vets, and if everything goes wrong, you can call your congressman up, here, NOTHING. Basically, the wounded soldiers are given a pat on the back, a letter explaining that they weren't terrorists and they were in the National Police, a few dollars and they are sent on their way. One of the wounded guys had lost the use of both of his legs and the Iraqi government couldn't even scrape up a wheelchair (we think we have one coming from one of the US hospitals). Kind of sad.

We also executed a large operation designed to keep the insurgents off balance - - clearing an area that was suspected to be an insurgent stronghold, confiscating weapons and showing the National Police treating folks correctly. Very big deal. So, it has been a busy week.

In our AO there are three larger cites: One down south, one in the middle, and one way up north. From now on, I will call them South, Middle, North. Each of the cities has a National Police Battalion stationed in it and they are working on countering the insurgents in that area. Each of the National Police Battalions has a Coalition Force company working with it, so there is a pretty good relationship. Here next week, each of the NP Battalions will be absorbing several hundred SOI sofwah each, so they will be very busy, the first step is paying them, and then figuring out how to do everything else.

Husker Notes:

The Huskers are currently 5-4, with losses to respectable teams: virginia tech, missouri, oklahoma and texas tech. There are three games remaining against kansas, kansas state and colorado. Some of the Nebraska haters on the team have made a bet with me about how the Huskers will finish off. One of them (Superman) does not believe the Huskers will win another game and bet a pound of peanut M&Ms on it. 6.5 thinks they will only win one other game, as does Smooth. When the Huskers win 7 or 8 games I will win: One pound of peanut M&Ms, Smooth will be wearing my Special Forces combat patch for a week and 6.5 will be pulling my next shift of radio watch.

Fantasy Football:

Team Wade pulled a little closer and may get even closer or pass me this week: The Cowboy's, who are the basis of my fantasy football team, have a bye week. After that though, Tony Romo comes back. It will be an interesting finish.

Final note:

New pictures have been posted. They cover us leaving Kansas, going to Kuwait, going from Kuwait to Taji and our first few weeks here. Let me know what you think.

First Post in November

November, new month . . . .

Things are going ok here, nothing too special, interesting week though.

Most of Iraqi society revolves around the meeting. There is no good phone network, no internet, no good way to communicate outside of the face to face communications, so, I go to a lot of meetings. This week we met with the Iraqi Security Force leaders - - National Police, Iraqi Police, Emergency Response Unit - - to go over local security concerns, especially the second IED that went off last week.

Our next meeting was a formal meeting with the Sons of Iraq (SOI) leaders where they voiced a lot of concerns about the SOI being absorbed into the local security structure as part of the National Police. Their main concern is who is going to take care of their everyday needs. Outside of a pay plan, there really aren't a lot of plans for the other things a security force needs - - food, fuel, uniforms, vehicles, communications systems, checkpoint construction materiel, etc.

This will be a trying time for the SOI, especially the leaders. In Iraq the leader is everything and in order to get his followers to follow him he either bullies them (Saddam) or is benevolent to them, gives them stuff, uniforms, ammunition for their weapons, intercedes on their behalf with local government, etc. The SOI leaders have traditionally provided everything for the SOI so they follow him. Prior to 1 OCT 08, the SOI leader was paid by the coalition forces for each of his SOI, the SOI leader then paid his SOI soldiers (sofwah). Of course this was very beneficial for the SOI leader, he could skim a certain amount off the top for each sofwah and provide stuff for the sofwah. Now, the NP is paying the sofwah, and the SOI leaders are cut out of that picture, so there is a lot of turmoil and ruffled feathers.

After the big meetings, we had a break of sorts - - It was my general's birthday and also the day that one of our units was doing some tank training on the range here. So, we coordinated for our general to get a couple of shots on the tank. Pretty cool day, the Iraqis had some of their T-72 (Soviet era) tanks on the range firing right next to US M-1 Abrams tanks (pictures to follow, I swear). Right off the bat, you could see the huge difference between the tanks - - the US tank was HUGE, the T-72 was kind of small, the T-72 could not shoot on the move, the M-1 can, the T-72s sighting system was an antique and the M-1s sights were state of the art. Firing the tank was a big deal to my general, he was beaming from ear to ear when he got on and got back off, pretty cool.

We also had a small birthday party for the general, pretty cool event. He is actually a year younger than me, but looks about 5 years older. Rough life here in Iraq.

About my general: He started off in the Army as a tank platoon leader and worked his way up the chain the hard way - - by earning it. In Iraq the traditional way to make rank is to use family and tribal connections to advance anywhere. My general go there through hard work so he has no real tribal allegiance or family connections. He was a tanker in the Iran/Iraq war and I suspect in Desert Storm I and on the wrong side during this war. He was asked to come back into the military structure 3 years ago an has been kicking ass for those three years. I am kind of proud to be working with him.

About Iraqi Law:

This is a huge challenge for Iraq. There are actually two types of law here: Regular Iraqi Government Law and Tribal Law. Regular might say one thing, but Tribal law trumps it. Case and point: One local leader here in Iraq has been accused of murdering another local leader's brother in law. Now, in the US, there would be some sort of police investigation, the results of that investigation would be presented to someone and an arrest warrant would be issued. That is the way that the Iraqi government wants things to work, but tribal law trumps it. What the general wants to happen is to have the big sheik in the area meet with the sheiks from the two leader's tribes and "work" this out. I am not sure how that would be worked out, but things have to be worked out in order for the country to progress. In other nations that have faced civil wars there have been reconciliation efforts that have taken huge efforts to get folks like this to forgive and forget. Here in Iraq that will be a tough thing to do.

Husker update:

My beloved Huskers took it on the chin in Norman oklahoma. The sooners put the hurts on us this weekend, 62-28. I didn't watch the game (it wasn't on tv here), but I read about it - - three early turnovers led to a 28-0 lead early on. That is hard to overcome. I think the Huskers are still on track for a bowl game and maybe 7 victories this year.

Fantasy Football update:

The Romo-less team Fritz somehow scraped up enough points to pad my lead over Team Wade. Thanks to Drew Brees, David Garrard, Clinton Portis and my legacy pick Ricky Williams for coming through this week. Now if TO could just get back on track I would be good to go.

Update Time

Well, I haven't blogged in a while, so I figured it was about time to knock out a chunk of writing.

Everything is going ok here, pretty normal Iraq stuff - - we have been focusing on how the National Police will be paying the Sons of Iraq next month. November is the first month that the Government of Iraq is responsible for paying the SOI. There about 2500 SOIs in our area in about 20 groups, none of these groups are regimented in any sort of way, and the leadership consists of a leader and a pack of Sofwah (the nickname for an SOI soldier - - it loosely means Awakening, which was the name of the Sunni uprising against insurgents that coincided with the surge of US troops). Traditionally, the SOI is the bottom of the pack and they were paid by the US. On 1 OCT 08 the responsibility for the SOI got turned over to the Government of Iraq, so, now they are officially part of the security structure of the nation. The National Police Brigade I am working with now has the responsibility for the care and feeding of about 2,500 more people. This will be an interesting next couple of months.

The SOI basically act as eyes and ears in the neighborhoods, they are armed and can solve some small problems, but mostly they have to call the National Police for help if something arises. They do provide a great deal of information, but they are a challenge administratively and logistically. The general I work with is working very hard to make sure the SOI are integrated in everything that is related to security, and that is what I have been helping him with. It is definitely not kicking down doors, clearing rooms, firefights with the bad guys or arresting evil-doers, but it is important to the overall security of Iraq.

Other Iraq news:

Yesterday was IED number 2 in the area, which is a very low number across Iraq, but is still the second one in 10 days. It was another smaller IED, targeted at US forces, the IED pretty much scratched up the paint on a Mine Resistant, Anti-Ambush, Protected (MRAP) vehicle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP armored_vehicle ), but not much else, no injuries and the vehicle drove away. The National Police Brigade has taken this very seriously, any threat to the coalition is a threat to them, so they are combing through the neighborhoods and gathering as much information as they can. They have some pretty good suspects (good enough to get warrants issued by the judge) on the first one, it just takes time to scoop folks up.

Chai update:

Chai comes in waves - - the first wave is normally the first glass of tea, very strong, lots of sugar. The glasses the general uses to entertain with are about the size of shot glasses, so, not a lot content, but it packs a punch. If you are in the office for more than 30 minutes, a second round of chai comes out. Of course I have a pretty good buzz going after two glasses (I normally don't use a lot of caffeine, but when in Rome . . . ). If the meeting goes on over an hour, the heavy stuff comes out - - Arabic coffee. Imagine the left over coffee after the coffeepot has been on the burner for a week or so, that is how strong Arabic coffee is, about the same flavor too, very bitter. The general really likes it, so I suck some down. The serving size is very small, it barely covers the bottom of the cup, so I just slug it down. After two glasses of tea and cup of coffee, the Chai High is rocking. I have learned that if I don't want any more coffee I should just jiggle the cup when Chai Refill Man comes around. I kind of like the tea, but not the coffee.

Iraqi food:

For those of you wondering about dining with the natives - - the food is pretty good, but the next week or so is pretty rough. I think the Iraqis know this so they time inviting us to lunch so that they can prolong the gastronomic agony. About every week or so there is an occasion to eat some chow with the Iraqis, as a guest, I can't really turn it down. From now on though, I will follow some simple rules: Well cooked meats, no dairy products or creams, no vegetables, some rice and all the baklava I can eat. I have found a way to get them back though - - apparently American food has the same effect on Iraqis, so I make it a point to invite the general and his commanders to the chow hall as often as possible. I will let you know who confesses to the plot first.

Husker update:

5-3, pretty good record compared to last year. I am able to track the games on rivals.com, mostly follow the stats and plays as the web site updates. I am hoping that the Nebraska vs. oklahoma game is televised here, I may be able to watch some of it if it is on AFN. My sister swears she is going to send me the Baylor game on disc, I will make everyone watch it because they are for the most part Husker haters.

Just Letting You Know What Is Going On

Yesterday was an interesting day. We had two pretty major events in the district: The district security meeting and a detainee release ceremony. Both events took place at the the National Police Brigade Headquarters. The first one was a meeting with all of the Sons of Iraq leaders. The Sons of Iraq (SoI) grew out of local "concerned citizen's groups" and are basically a work/security program for military aged youth and their local leaders. This does two things: It provides a large group of folks that can watch an area and report things that are happening and keeps the young ones employed and off the streets. At the beginning of October, the US Military gave control of the SoIs to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi government has put either the National Police or Iraqi Army in charge of the SoIs. In our area, the National Police Brigade is in charge of them. Like most everything, this is a new thing and like most everything, there will be challenges associated with absorbing the organization. The first challenge will be how to get them paid (not as easy as it sounds) and then all of the administrative and logistical things that go along with standing up a local security force.

The second event was a detainee release ceremony. As the US transitions most everything to the government of Iraq, we are clearing out our detention facilities. Most of the hardened criminals are being turned over to the government of Iraq, other folks that didn't really commit a crime are being released. Each time a detainee is released, his local sheik has to come and pick him up at the police headquarters and basically vouch for them and promise to keep them out of trouble. All of the detainees are told that they will receive special attention and observation from the NP and SoI. Should be interesting to see if any of them get into any other trouble.

For the record: Our first month in theater is over. 11 more to go.

Fantasy Football update: Team Fritz took a major hit when Tony Romo's pinky got broke. Not only did I lose a solid and proven producer, but the rest of my Dallas offense players (TO, Marion Barber, Jason Witten and Nick Folk) are suffering in production too. Top that off with a couple of bonehead trades (Randy Moss for TO - - Who is producing now? not TO. and LT for Brian Westbrook who went out the next game and twisted his ankle and broke a rib) and Team Fritz is fading fast. I am banking on a Dallas revival when Tony Romo comes back, we'll see. Team Wade is getting closer.

And a Good Day

Riding the Chai High right now . . . it is 11PM or so here and I can't sleep. I am very sensitive to caffeine and in Iraq, Chai (tea) is drunk like water. Every time I sit down with the general the Chai comes out. Today was a two cupper, but it was one heckuva day.

The day started off kind of slow, nice little 40 minuter on the treadmill. After that we started rolling on the road. We did some coordination at one of the FOBs, had some lunch and went on back to our COP. Right when we were getting ready to go do another visit I got a call from the general and he wanted to see me. After a quick frago we hit the brigade headquarters and saw what a good day looked like for the National Police.

As we pulled up the soldiers were unloading LITERALLY A TON, OVER TWO THOUSAND POUNDS of C-4 and about 500 more pounds of powdered C-4. I just sat there and stared for a while. To be honest, I had never seen that much explosive in one area. The NP were literally bouncing with joy for two reasons. First, if you remember from my last blog, their comrade was killed by an IED that was made with either C-4 or some sort of home made explosive. Second, most of the IEDs that are made in Bagdhad nowadays are made from either C-4 or a home made explosive. This discovery took over a ton of IED materiel off of the streets of Bagdhad and away from Iraqi citzens and coallition forces. Pretty sweet day.

The sweetest part of the day was that local Sons of Iraq found the cache of explosives. The Sons of Iraq are local military aged men that prior to this month the US Military had hired as local watchmen. This month, control of the Sons of Iraq transferred to the Iraqi military. There has been a lot of concern about this and whether or not they would be effective. In this area, they are on it. Pretty cool to watch.

How did all of this go down? Basically, the Sons of Iraq had found a smaller cache of explosives two days ago in the vicinity of this cache and decided to keep looking around. They came across an area where someone had done some digging and started poking through the dirt and JACKPOT. The neighborhood watch, the guys that were shooting at coalition forces two years ago were instrumental in finding over a ton of IED making explosives. They called the NP and local coallition forces and the rest is history.

The general that I work with has his own press corps, two cameramen (I call them the soldiers that walk backwards) that follow him around and shoot footage of the operations that are conducted and the NP in action. They also do a lot of filming of him in action, which is pretty cool, but also unnerving because I am standing right next to him (Just ask mom, I hate having my picture taken). Today, they shot video of the cache spread out on the ground, lined up as neatly as you can line up a ton of plastic explosives, and sent it off to Bagdhad. Within two hours, the discovery was on the Iraqi equivalent of CNN. The general is all over this counter-insurgency stuff. He has a great relation with the sheiks who head up the Sons of Iraq, as well as the local govenors and mayors.

A very good day.

Tuff day in Iraq

Today was our first "real day" in Iraq. The 40 day string of no incidents was broken this morning in a bad way. One of the National Police vehicles was hit by an IED and an Iraqi National Police soldier was killed, two were wounded. The IED was on one of the routes that a lot of coalition re-supply missions go on, but we think the insurgents were targeting the Iraqi National Police - - the size of the charge was very small for an IED (about 20lbs) and it was put in a place where the National Police normally park their truck when they go patrol through a vehicle.

Up to this point, the National Police had done a great job keeping that route clear, now I suspect that area is going to get a lot of attention, whether they wanted it or not.

We went to the site with the General (my counterpart), and he got right to work with the local sheiks and Sons of Iraq leaders. We followed up two leads, but no other clues were found, but we will keep working with the NP to find out who did it. In a situation like this the standard Iraqi answer up front is "I didn't see anything or anyone . . . " until the heat starts to get cranked up. Then folks start to talk. I suspect there will be some good leads and solid evidence in the next few days.

Iraq is going to have a few more bad years, but there are a lot of folks that are plain tired of all of this and want to get their lives going again. Those are the folks that are imporant. Anyway, just wanted to blog it up, normally I keep the blog light but today was a different sort of day.

First Day on the Road

We had a pretty good day today. It started off with a nice little treadmill run for some cardio, then we did pretty much a whirlwind tour of our AO. We will have some more tours here soon.
Our AO is partially a suburb of Bagdhad, we are on the other side of the Tigris River from the rest of the suburbs. The rest is agricultural type of land, mostly dates from what I saw today. We were tooling around with the National Police Commander, a very good guy, dedicated to settling Iraq's problems in a non-sectarian way, he will knock Sunni and Shia heads equally. His sector has had no serious incidents for several months while the sectors next to his have had several. Right across the boundary from his sector there was an RPG attack on a convoy the day after I arrived. It is funny when you see the serious incident slides for the past month, there are a lot of red and yellow dots in the sectors surrounding this sector, NONE in ours.

Our tour started off at a school that was just starting out it's school year (Ramadan ended last week, and they start school a week after Ramadan). The NP CDR handed out a pile of school supplies that a church in the US was kind enough to send over. It was pretty cool to see that in action, the NP CDR and the school principal decided to hand out the stuff only to the orphans and other students who's parents can't afford supplies.

We also toured some of the other hot spots in our AO. It was interesting to watch the NP CDR (my counterpart) walk right up to a business leader in the area and ask him how things were going. There were some areas that are clearly not pro-Iraqi government, but the CDR jumped right out of his truck and started chatting folks up. He made it a point to point out that business was happening and the markets were open, instead of closed when there was fighting between the National Police and the anti-government forces. Pretty cool. More folks in Iraq should do things like this.

Tomorrow is more briefings and area familiarization. Should be a hoot.

Fantasy Football update: I know I haven't updated my blog in a while, but last week was a huge week for Team Fritz. I left Team Wade further in the dust, moved up into contention for the money, and watched Team Mark not do so well. It has been reported that Team Mark has made some scientifically based trades, I hope they help, the grandma in the league is smoking him.

Running update: HUGE PROPS to JFord, my running buddy in DC. He scored me an Army Ten Miler Coin (I had a 5 year string of them going) and some running swag from the race. I hung the route map up in our gym, right across from the treadmill so I can imagine where I am running the Army Ten Miler every time I run on the treadmill. Thanks a ton, JFord.

One more week . . .

We are at the Iraqi Army National Training Center near Taji, Iraq for one more week of training. I have to say, it is very difficult to pay attention to most anything right now - - being so close to going out and doing our mission. Not too much to write about, most of our classes are reinforcements or reviews from classes that we had at FT Riley, there is a little more first hand experience added to the class as well as more up to date information in the classes. Unfortunately, the classes are literally scheduled from dawn til dusk: 0700 to 1930 or so. Very little time for PT.

That little snivel said, I did get a pretty good run in this morning around the compound. There were some areas that I thought were muddy, but it turns out the mud was a combination of oil and dirt. Initially I thought someone had spilled the oil there or it had been put there to keep the dust down, but it turns out it is oil that seeping up from underground. When folks say Iraq has the third largest reserve of oil, I believe them, it is literally seeping up all over the place. Anyway, about the run: Pretty much a steady run on the flat terrain (never thought I would say that I miss the sisters on Longstreet, but I do) around the camp, 30 minutes, probably around 4 miles, but I didn't wear the GPS to track the run. I figure it will blow it's little computer mind when my last run was in Nebraska and the next one is in Iraq.

Not much else to say, thanks for reading.

Quick Update and some othe stuff

We finally made it to Iraq, we are currently at Camp Liberty near Bagdhad. We have one more week of training to do, then we link up with the Transition Team we are replacing. Things are going pretty well here - - some of the teams are being re-tasked because the Iraqi units they were working with have reached the point where they can execute operations on their own and take responsibility for the security of their sectors. Still work to be done, though.

Camp Liberty is ok, nice gym (which I visited twice), nice chow hall, big PX, etc. So, no complaints about that, just waiting for the last bit of training to be done.

Other stuff:

Team Bowder had a huge week in Fantasy Football, Team Wade did not. My season goal still remains to beat Wade and tie up the record. Now both of us have to worry about Mark, of course, Brett Favre won't have 6 TDs every week. . . .

How Small is the World?

OK, There I was, there I was . . . . at the dessert line at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, waiting on my oatmeal raisin cookies (you never know when you will get another chance for oatmeal raisin) when I overheard someone talking about the HUSKERS, who play VA Tech sometime today. I ask him where he is from and he says Omaha, looks at me and almost drops his tray. Turns out, he is from Omaha, but runs a bar in Plattsmouth, NE that is in a building my dad owns. Wow, he told me he had just signed the lease a few days ago, while he was talking to my dad they started to talk Army shop and one thing led to another they figured out we would both be in Kuwait at the same time. He swore to my dad he would look around for me and as fate would have it, we ran into each other at the dessert line. That is how small the world is. Two days ago, this guy was talking to my pop, now he is talking to me in Kuwait.

We are in Kuwait, and are doing our last training live fire tomorrow, today was a series of tactical Situational Training Exercises using vehicles, radios and weapons. Every kids dream. A couple of more days of Kuwait, then off to Iraq.

I went for a 30 minute run yesterday, felt GREAT. My next run should be somewhere in Iraq, not sure where though.

Fantasy Football update . . . After a shaky first week that saw the anchor man, Tom Brady, go down for the season, Team Fritz made a week three comeback and moved ahead of Team Wade. Not by much, but ahead none the less. I made my last trade, gave up Randy Moss (who I think has given up the season without Tom Brady chucking him the ball) for Terrell Owens. Wade has also used up all of his trades, so it is down to team we got. I don't think either one of us will finish in the money this year, so it is pride on the line. Team Bowder, well, it is not his fault, turns out he didn't know what he was doing when he picked his team.

Hello from Kuwait

We are one step closer to getting to Iraq, good news is our one year clock has started. The team has made it to Kuwait without incident. After leaving Kansas we flew for a solid 20 hours - Topeka, KS to Bangor, Maine, to Germany (not sure where but we spent a couple of hours on the ground there) then to Kuwait. We got in about midnight in Kuwait, then took a bus to our training FOB. The folks in Bangor are awesome: We arrived there shortly after midnight, and there were probably 10 folks there to shake our hands and greet us as we got off the plane and back onto the plane. They had a little welcome center with cookies, pretzels, other munchies, a couple of cell phones for folks to use, I had heard they were friendly to US soldiers, but wow, that was going the extra mile to be friendly.

We have knocked out some ranges here in Kuwait (HOT, BROWN and DUSTY) - - re-confirming the zero on our rifles (good to go for me), did some advanced, close quarters marksmanship (fired a ton of ammo, it was fun, of course) and today we did some urban operations (room clearing, building clearing). Overall, good training for the team. The camp here is ok, it is literally in the middle of the desert, nothing at all around it, so, what can you really expect? There is a nice chow hall, our building is air conditioned and we have a warm shower, so, no real complaints. Superman has been taking pictures on the ranges and of the camp, as soon as I get them from him I will post them to the web page and put a link in the blog.

Couple of nickname updates: CPT F who was previously Spooky or Specter or something has earned a nickname change: 6.5. Even though it is a number, it starts with an S and fits the bill for the nickname. Why 6.5? Traditionally in a unit, the commanders radio call sign is 6. For example, my call sign is SWATT 6. Whenever you hear a 6 on the radio, you know that a commander is talking. 6.5 is actually the number 4 in the chain of command, but has made it known that anytime I want to abdicate my authority, he is more than willing to take charge. I am closely monitoring the team for any coup attempts, especially when me, the XO and Superman (the first three in the chain of command are not around). 6.5 has also been selected for promotion to major, so he has a little extra motivation for taking over.

The XO has also earned a nickname: Soapman or Soap for short. He was pretty concerned that he would not be able to get his specific brand of soap in Iraq so he brought a ton of it. He packed about 10 bars of Dove, extra smooth in his duffle bag, which now smells very nice. According to him he wants to remain extra pretty and exfoliate his skin well while he spends the year with the team. The team is carefully monitoring him for other signs of lessening his manhood.

The Joe Ganz Fan Club

I have been on leave prior to the deployment, hanging out with the relatives and doing some Nebraska stuff. The highlight of the week was going to the Nebraska vs. New Mexico State football game this past Saturday. My sister scored two tickets to the game and gave them to me for my birthday. My brother in law Mark went with me, he was a football player and high school football coach so it is pretty interesting getting his perspective on football.

Backing up a bit, Saturday started off with a pretty good ten mile run at Chalco State Park (near Gretna in Nebraska), they have a path that goes around a lake, across a dam and generally through some Nebraska terrain - - low hills, nice prairie grass, picnic areas, some trees, etc. Overall a good run route, I got some good speed going towards the end, dropping it down below my marathon race pace for the last 3 miles or so. I went there with my older sister Melissa (she gave me the Husker tickets), who was meeting her friend and partner in running crime, Anne, for a shorter run and patiently waited for me while I knocked out my longer run. I was planning on 8, but it was a nice morning, and my trail just kind of wandered for a couple of extra miles. Good run, nice trail, great way to start the day off.

After the run, me and Mark made the drive to Lincoln and went to the game. The game against NM State was supposed to be our last warmup game before the real football starts for Nebraska. We had good seats in the South Stadium - - right next to the president of the Joe Ganz Fan Club (pictured below in the white hat). For non-Huskers: Joe Ganz is Nebraska's current quarterback, and is pretty good at it. According to the young man right behind us, Joe Ganz was slightly ahead of such Husker greats as Eric Crouch and Tommie Frazier, and was a lock for the Hiesman Trophy this year.



Here are a couple of his quotes:

After a scramble by NM's QB in which he ended with a slide: "Joe Ganz would have took the hit . . .'

After Joe Ganz caught (that's right, caught) a TD pass from Marlon Lucky: "Almost as good as Eric Crouch (Nebraska's third Heisman winner, who caught a TD pass against oklahoma during his Heisman Season)"

After Joe Ganz threw a TD: "Sam Keller has nothing on you, what were they thinking last year?"(Sam Keller was the big name QB that bill callahan played ahead of Joe Ganz last year, Keller didn't do so well, Ganz replaced him with four games left in the season and threw for HUGE yards in those games).

Anyway, great game by the Huskers, I have posted some of my pics from the game to the blog.

Couple of game notes:

Nebraska has pretty much erased the statewide nightmare that was bill callahan and scott pederson (our ill-fated athletic director and football coach for the previous 4 years, they were unceremoniously fired by Tom Osborne). During the pederson regime, most mentions of previous Husker glory was played down by pederson. He went as far as to take down the pictures of Nebraska All Americans (there are a few of them) and most of Nebraska's bowl trophies from the football offices. The final straw was when he would charge Husker greats the price of a ticket to come and watch the game from the sidelines. The current administration has made it a point to bring back Husker greats and highlight Husker tradition, big props from the Husker fans for this.

During the pre-game festivities at Memorial Stadium a few Husker greats were inducted into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame including Husker legend Grant Winstrom (member of three National Championship teams). Very cool. Also honored was Dan Coneally, one of the foundations of the Blackshirts (the nickname of the Husker's Defense) during the 1994 National Championship Season. He never made it in the pro's, but Nebraska fans remember him.

Before the Huskers come out of the tunnel at Memorial Stadium they play a Husker Legends montage on the HuskerVision screen, starting with Bob Devaney, going through Tom Osborne and now Bo Pellini. It has shots of Husker greats (Mike Rozier tearing it up) and great moments (Tom Osborne winning the 1997 National Championship). Very cool.

For some reason, one of the Nation's Supreme Court Justices, Clarence Thomas, has taken a liking to Nebraska football. He was named an honorary coach for the game and got to stand on the sideline for the game. It was funny to see someone that you think of as a quiet, reserved person going nuts on the sideline when the Husker's rolled. Very Cool.

OK, back to Riley here soon, talk to you later on.

Another Good Run

I have only had a few good runs during the train up here: KC, the tank trail (with the tanks rolling by) and yesterday.

Yesterday, I snuck off the FOB to check out a run route, I did it early on Sunday morning to make sure none of the JRMC police saw me. One of the Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal guys was talking about a HUGE hill on Hohenfels main post called Warrior Hill the way he was talking about it was just short of Everest, except for longer and steeper.

I started off at 6 am, snuck onto main post and started off the run, it was a very pretty day here in Germany, but kind of cold (49 degrees!), I was thinking I should have my favorite running gloves (Best Christmas gift ever from Aunt Faye) but it was August, so they were back in the truck in KS. I ran up onto post, up around the airfield, commissary and post housing, but didn’t see the hill. I was going to turn around and just head back to the FOB, but I wanted to run up that hill. On the way back, I saw it off to the right hand side, it was a pretty good hill, but, not quite as wicked as the sisters at Bragg. The catch was you had to run down a steep hill to get to the bottom of Warrior hill, then up Warrior hill.

It was a good hill, turning around was cool because you knew there a good downhill, but bad because you had to go back up the hill you ran down to get to Warrior hill. The main post is a good run because it sits in a north\south running valley, so there is a good sunrise coming up over the hills as you are running. Beings how it was a Sunday morning on a very small post in Germany, there was nobody else out there running. I was definitely missing the Manna Multi-Sport group, running solo is cool for a while, but I need the elf to run with me, or me with him.

Running Note: I was told by one of the Observer Controllers that it was not safe to run on the tank trail when the tanks are on the road. I am not quite sure why, I am pretty confident I can avoid getting hit by 70 tons of rolling steel, I will adhere to the rule. I would hate to be the cause of chaos by breaking a rule.

Anyway, the field problem is about over here and the teams are drifting back in. The quiet solitude of the barracks will suffer.

Couple of team notes:

Nickname update: CPT F = Shapeshifter, didn’t want to call him Supernatural, that might have gone to his head, my little sister recommended Shapeshifter, apparently it is a character on a TV show that she and the nieces watch. I think it fits. He also has earned the nickname of SWATT 6.5 because he is number 4 in the chain of command is working on ways to move up the chain of command.

SSG K = Sweet home, he is from Alabama and is always talking about it, so, Sweet home from the Lynard Skynard song works.

Me: Sweet tooth
MAJ L: Superman
SSG W: Slim
CPT F: Shape shifter
SSG K: Sweet home
SFC T: Smooth

Still needing a nickname: MAJ D (the XO), SFC R (LOG NCO), CPT P (LOG Officer), SFC J (medic)

MSG P (Sweetface) will not be deploying with the team, he has a stomach problem that will hold him back. His steady, senior NCO hand will be sorely missed by the team.

What is Tobasco Sauce worth?

We knocked out some battle drills in one of the training area today, it was good to get out of the FOB for a while. We pretty much covered the drills we did last week, just added a few more details to them and added two drills: What to do if a vehicle is completely disabled and can’t be towed away and how to move with the Iraqi’s when we are moving together.

We spent about 5 hours in the training area, this was our last opportunity to do that sort of stuff, the big wargame starts up at noon today, so all of the gates will be locked up and the enemy will be prowling about.

We were training in an area that was a lot like Western NC, the Smokey Mountains specifically. The same sort of trees, the same sort of terrain, some nice hills, just a pleasant area, I felt very comfortable there. I am attaching a few pictures to the blog, they are shots of my vehicle, the seat that I have to cram myself into and some of the guys on the team.

We had a little MRE picnic out in the woods, I found out exactly how much a small bottle of Tobasco sauce was worth.

MRE History lesson: Starting in the '90s the Army started to put about an ounce of Tobasco sauce in each MRE, it truly made an improvement to the overall MRE. As the MREs evolved, someone started leaving the Tobasco out of certain versions. The Tuna version (which is the king of lunch time MREs: A packet of tuna, a packet of mayonnaise, two flour tortillas, some spices, pretzels, chocolate chip cookies AND a bag of peanut M&Ms, way to civilized for Army food) does not have Tobasco sauce in it. I have no idea what they were thinking, but it proved to be a boon to me.

Superman makes it a point to always grab a Tuna MRE for his lunch, yesterday as we were having the picnic, he really wanted some Tobasco sauce for his Tuna. As noted above, there is none in the MRE, but, MY MRE had Tobasco sauce. I am not a Tobasco sauce fan, but I am a fan of bargaining. He started the bidding by offering me his moist towelette for my Tobasco, I counter offered with his bag of peanut M&Ms. Round one ended with no trade made, he queried the rest of the team, they turned him down. Round two started off with me offering my Tobasco for 4 Peanut M&Ms and the moist towelette, he countered with 4 Peanut M&Ms. I settled and celebrated my victory. 1 ounce of Tobasco sauce is worth 4 Peanut M&Ms in the MRE auction society.

Situational Training Exercise

Today was our first and only graded exercise - - a Situational Training Exercise (STX). Our mission was to move from our Forward Operating Base (FOB) to a smaller FOB to link up with our Iraqi Army counterparts. Or so they said . . . What we were actually doing was moving down a planned lane where we encountered typical tactical situations that occur in Iraq so we could be evaluated on our reactions and actions during the encounters.

Right up front, we smoked the lane. Good training, but we did good.

The situations that were on the lane were the same as the situations that we have planned battle drills for, our rehearsals over the past 4 days paid off in spades. We linked up with the Observer/Controllers (OCs/evaluators) and moved to the assembly area and waited for our turn to go down the lane. While we were waiting, we reviewed our battle drills, did some more rehearsals (rock drills – using rocks to simulate our vehicles and what each vehicle would do, while the driver, TC, gunner and passengers talk through what they would do in each situation) and talked to George, Ali and Safaree our interpreters. More about George later . . .

When our turn came up and we rolled down the lane, things went very well. Our first situation in the STX was a small ambush, two enemy soldiers in an ambush, they fired at us, we unloaded on them and broke contact. Good driving, good communication, good fire control. All in all, a good event.

The second situation was a more complex ambush that involved a series of IEDs as well as enemy soldiers. The first IED went off between vehicle 1 and 2, neither vehicle was damaged. The complexity started after that: A civilian vehicle (part of the problem) drove itself into the road and separated vehicle 1 (Superman’s vehicle) and vehicle 2 (mine) and 3 (MAJ D’s vehicle), while that was going on, enemy soldiers started firing us up. Once again, good communications, good fire suppression (the enemy soldiers did not get near our vehicles), the vehicle separating our vehicles was a bit confusing - - if we had been in Iraq, we would have just rammed it and pushed it off the road, but here, we didn’t want to wreck our HMMWV or the Toyota pick up. Once we maneuvered through the ambush and linked back up, we spotted a surface laid IED, called it in to our higher headquarters and proceeded. We didn’t see the one that was on the other side of the road, that one took out vehicle 3 (MAJ D’s), and one soldier (SSG K) was assessed as a casualty. Luckily, our team medic (SFC J) was in the vehicle and immediately started to do first aid. The team executed our vehicle recovery battle drill (my vehicle pulled security, Superman’s vehicle hooked up and towed the vehicle out of the ambush site) and moved about 600 meters away to call in a MEDEVAC. There was actually a helocopter standing by for MEDEVAC, and it was as close as a live situation as we can get. Pretty cool actually, I am the primary talker with external units, so it was cool to talk in an actual pilot, and watch the MEDEVAC happen.

Great training day, I was pretty happy with how we reacted.

About George: George is one of our interpreters; he is from Bagdhad and left in 2001, before everything happened. He is an Arabic Catholic, a minority in Iraq and left for religious/political reasons. I chatted him up about his military experiences in the Iran/Iraq war, very interesting. Because he could speak English, was college educated and could type, he worked in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense as a contract writer/typer. He primarily worked as an interpreter for the Iraqis working in Jordan and Syria as they purchased rockets and missiles from the Soviets and other countries that were supplied by the Soviets. He said he had it good until he made ONE typographical mistake on one of his contracts, then he got sent to the front for 3 years. Remember that when you are typing, one mistake, 3 years at the front.

Nickname update: CPT F is close to earning a nickname, and two have been picked out. His first nickname was Ghost because he has a tendency to disappear when we are heading out to class our to training - - my normal quote is “why do we only have ten people? Oh, wait, where is CPT F?”. Ghost does not start with an “S” so we are pondering Spook or Supernatural. More to follow.

The Alternative to the Techno Café

We have found another chow hall here on the FOB that is as close as the Techno Café and it seems to be better than the Techno. We were walking to the Techno one day for dinner when we saw two Germanish females standing around in cooks uniforms. They waved at us very nicely; we waved back and asked them what they were up to. They had opened up another chow hall two buildings down from the Techno, and nobody was going to it, so we started to. All of the chow on the camp comes out of the same boxes; it all comes down to atmosphere.

To be honest, I was a getting a little tired of the oppressive beat of the Techno, so the Happy Café is a pleasant alternative. They play pop-ish music, not too loud and they are always happy to see us, normally we are the only folks in the chow hall. It is kind of funny, whenever it is breakfast or dinner-time they are waiting outside the chow hall with no customers, they see us walking up, wave and run inside to get the food ready to serve. They have even picked up on some of our bad eating habits and enable them: They always have bananas and oatmeal at breakfast (my favorite), they put out a lot of Rice Krispie Bars and White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut cookies (the team’s favorite snackish food) and they give us extra large portions of everything we ask for. Pretty cool to have almost personal service in an Army chow hall.

We have spent the last couple of days practicing and refining our battle drills and integrating a few new personnel. The first new person is SSG K, a replacement for SFC C; he came from another team and has been welcomed all around, especially in his vehicle, now they have 4 people in the vehicle to do all of the drills instead of just 3.

We also now have 3 interpreters attached to the team, they are pretty happy to be here and working with us. Two of them are from Iraq, the third is from Morocco, and they all have been living in Europe for the past few years. We spent today integrating them into the different battle drills, they were a little leery when we told them that they will be required to drive from the back seat of the HMMWVs in case of injury to the driver: Their assigned seat is right behind the driver seat, if the driver is injured they are the only ones that can quickly reach the steering wheel and keep driving. The first time they did it, they were a little tentative but they got the hang of it. They even go to the point where they could accelerate the vehicle, drive around curves and corners, and stop the vehicle, all from the back seat, pretty cool for the first day. They also got into the vehicle rollover drill - - If the vehicle starts to roll over (which happens in Iraq, especially with heavier vehicles that are driven hard) they have to help pull the gunner out of the turret and hold on to him to keep him from bouncing around the vehicle. Every one else is strapped in with our seatbelts, but the gunner would be loose, so we grab hold of him to keep him from bouncing around.

Once again, they are an extra hand in the vehicle and really have gotten into the mission: All three of them know where the first aid kits are, where the evacuation litters are kept as well as the landing zone marking panels so they lend two extra hands to the casualty evacuation drills. Very cool. One of them is a veteran of the Iran/Iraq war, I am going to ask him about that some tomorrow. My interpreter is Kurdish from Mosul, he left shortly after the first Desert Storm, when Saddam cracked down on the Kurds. We had a very interesting discussion about how hard the life of a refugee has been for him and his community.

Tomorrow is more battle drills, we will throw in some more variations, but we should get good at them here shortly.

Cultural Note: British people are incapable of closing doors. We share a latrine/shower facility with one of the British units in the exercise, it is not uncommon to be enjoying a nice hot shower and get a blast of cold German night air. When you feel that, you know that some British soldier came in and left the door wide open. We may have to have some door closing lessons if it gets much colder.

Nickname update: SSG W has earned his nickname: Slim. During the past two days of casualty evacuation drills he has turned out to be the worst casualty to have to evacuate: He is about an inch taller than me (6’4”) and weighs 250 lbs. He is a LOAD to pick up and carry around, especially with his 50 lbs. of extra gear (body armor, helmet, etc.)