Soccer Game and Achmed

What would a war be without a, without a, without a soccer game? Our higher headquarters, one of the brigades from FT Bragg, decided that it would be a great idea to have a soccer tournament with all of the Iraqi units teams playing, along with a few token US soldiers. Iraqis are pretty good at soccer, US guys are kind of good at soccer, so it was an OK idea . . . There are 8 Iraqi units in our area so the brigade set up a pretty simple single elimination tournament. We had to travel down south to play an Iraqi Army unit. I have seen home field advantages before (penn state vs. Nebraska, that penn state receiver was waaaaay out of bounds in 1982, but the home refs made sure he was in; and who can forget the florida state robbery in the 1993 Orange Bowl? Two Husker TDs called back, unsportsmanlike conduct when the fsu fans stormed the field with 15 seconds left?), but Iraqis take the the home field cake.


First half, 1-1 tie, pretty even match, our boys are more talented, but the Iraqi Army team has a lot of speed. First 3 mintues of the second half, the National Police score two quick goals, seems like the game is over. 30 minutes go by, the Iraqi Army gets a break and scores one, 3-2, no problems, only a few minutes left (the halfs were 30 minutes long), just lay back on defense and play keep away. 25 minutes later, the ref gives two of our players red cards for asking him how much time is left, so we are down to 9 players. 20 minutes later after it is obvious the Iraqi Army team isn't going to score, the ref finally blows the whistle and ends the game, a victory for the National Police.


Turns out the Iraqi Army unit had threatened the ref with arrest, unless they won. Kind of funny. Interesting story, one of the players that got a red card on our team was an American, he became an instant hero to the National Police. After the ref carded him, he went off the field, as soon as the ref turned his back, he went back on the field and played a few more minutes until the ref saw him, and chased him off the field with the his red card waving. Everytime I see him I call him Two Cards.


Achmed: BG Emad's father suprised him last week and brought his youngest son down from the big city to visit dad at work, it was pretty cool meeting three generations of the general.



All's Achmed (4 years old) wanted to do was drive one of our MRAPs:





Other notes:


Not sure if anyone reads the comments, but my brother-in-law, Wade, has decided to start the taunting early. He has thrown down the gauntlet on fantasy football this coming year, even trying to give me advice (?): Matthew Stafford. Yeah, right, rookie quarterback, Detroit Lions. Almost as good as drafting a kicker that didn't make a team . . . . Starting my research now.


Ice Cream:


One of the huge injustices of this mission is that the smaller bases, where most of the soldiers that get out and do stuff live, have small chow halls, with not the best amenities. While the big bases (FOBs) have palatial chow halls with great extras. One of the best extras is Baskin Robbins Ice Cream (chocolate, vanilla, cookies and cream, jamoca almond fudge, strawberry and pralines and cream). I have mentioned this before, Superman's favorite flavor is Jamoca Almond Fudge, prior to this month, I didn't partake of the delight. For some reason lately, I have started to have a hankering for ice cream, so I have broken down.

Today, we had a meeting at FOB Loyalty with one of the National Police about the SOI, one of the parts of the meeting was lunch. COL A, the acting commander while BG E is on leave, bugged me for two days about the meeting, lunch and ice cream. He didn't really care about the meeting (an SOI transition briefing) but he did care about the ice cream. He asked me three times before the meeting whether or not we would get ice cream with lunch. When the meeting went past 2 PM, he got worried because the chow hall closes at 2 PM, so he asked me a few more times. The meeting ended, he practically sprinted to the chow hall, ate lunch then started to talk about the ice cream. It was funny to watch. He ended up asking for vanilla, kind of cute. When I came back to the table with a scoop of vanilla and a scoop of jamoca almond fudge he was mad that I didn't tell him he could have two flavors, not sure if we are going to win this war with only one scoop of ice cream.