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).