Today I almost didn't make it back. From the Post Office. I received over 30 lbs. of premo coffee. I should have enough caffeine to last me forever - thank you all. Old GW didn't know what he was getting when he asked for this surge.
I have seen the enemy, and he is us. Today during our BUB (Battalion Update Brief), which lasted a brief 3 1/2 hours, I found out why we have not won this war. We, the brain trust of the battalion of 1000 soldiers, spent 30 minutes trying to figure out when to switch our clocks for daylight savings time. There are conflicting posters throughout the FOB directing change tonight or tomorrow night. The official word says 0001 on 31 March, but this has been changed and re-changed at the General level. My unit finally decided on tonight. So the reason we may never win is us...
Or maybe not. Could it be that we are trying to save a desert nation that wants more waking hours of sunlight during the summer? I'll think about it as I sip.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Finding my self jealous of the Army
The Army and Marines have something the Navy is missing: special words. Huah is the Army's all purpose word and Oorah is the Marine's. They are words that can mean anything from "I understand" to "Hey numbskull, you had better understand" to goodmorning to "I can't believe what he just told me to do" to you name it. Besides negating the need for thought or vocabulary, these words have a useful purpose when saluting. You can return a salute and acknowledge a soldier in an Army way like you would acknowledge a normal person's "How are you doing" with a completely meaningless "fine." The Navy is just supposed to reply "Good morning," which works for sailors. But junior soldiers will often salute with their unit callsign (a common one is "Hellfire, sir!") or a skill level (Ranger, sir!). Good morning doesn't meet their level of esprit de corps. Commonly they will go overboard with esprit and say "Shoot'em in the face, sir!" which, call me a judger, I think is close to inappropriate. Nonetheless, a smart Navy "Good morning" is not an appropriate response. I am even jealous of the Air Force salute exchange (Enlisted: "Hey, Ben" to which the officer responds "What's goin' on Joe"). It's not extremely motivated, but at least it's not mechanical.
I have considered a sub-related motto: "Shoot'em in the face, sir" to which I would respond "Hide with Pride." Nope, doesn't work.
A nuke response: "Shoot'em in the face, sir!" "Shoot'em in the face, aye." Bam, Bam. " I have shot them in the face." But literal nuclear compliance doesn't always work with motivation.
A calculus teacher response: "You fail."
A daddy response: "Let's try to use kind words, please."
So that's my life experience trying to respond to motivation to soldiers. Doesn't fit out here. My life doesn't fit with the Army Whose idea was it to put sailors with soldiers, again? If I ever meet them Army motivation might be the best response.
I have considered a sub-related motto: "Shoot'em in the face, sir" to which I would respond "Hide with Pride." Nope, doesn't work.
A nuke response: "Shoot'em in the face, sir!" "Shoot'em in the face, aye." Bam, Bam. " I have shot them in the face." But literal nuclear compliance doesn't always work with motivation.
A calculus teacher response: "You fail."
A daddy response: "Let's try to use kind words, please."
So that's my life experience trying to respond to motivation to soldiers. Doesn't fit out here. My life doesn't fit with the Army Whose idea was it to put sailors with soldiers, again? If I ever meet them Army motivation might be the best response.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
A couple days late
I completely forgot that a couple days ago there was a big event that I forgot to post. I feel as I am cheating my loyal fans by not passing on every mundane detail of my life. On Saturday, I think it was, we got to go to the range on the other side of Rusty. Every so often, the Army wants to make sure that our weapons work, so we fire 10 rounds of M-16 and 5 rounds from our pistol. I asked one of the Master Sergeants who went one group ahead of me if he hit the target, and he assured me he had. After I shot, he asked me and I told him I had at least scared it. As they handed out our 15 bullets, I couldn't help but think that Barney Fife would be jealous.
Confession time: I haven't cleaned my M-16 yet. Whenever I think about that I just feel terrible, like I am letting Tim and Koichi and all the Marines in my life down. I cope, but I still feel terrible. My penance is that every night (almost) I take all of the bullets out of my magazine and let the spring stretch back into its normal shape. Tim told me to do that before I left, and I do it to make him proud. That way, if the base gets overrun I will have 15 chances to hand out 72 virgins for a total of 1080 eternally unhappy women, or I can really scare someone 15 times.
A funny story. Back when we were at the main base in Baghdad, my friend Geoff and I were walking back from the gym, and we passed these two soldiers who were barbecuing. They invited us to have a steak with them (where they got it we did not ask), and the one guy started telling us about his last day. These were two real soldiers who went off the base and got in abandoned houses and waited for people to come and try to kill them. The way his day normally goes is they get in the house a couple hours before sunrise, and after morning prayers people start coming toward the houses with AK-47's. So this sergeant is recounting his squad's gun battle and this sergeant says, " and then car drives by and the guy shoots at us with a pistol." The sergeant is clearly insulted, as if a violation of a sacred code has occurred. The squad stops their shooting at the bad guys and just stare at each other until some says, "Did he just shoot at us with a pistol?" Before anyone can respond, the car drives by for a second round, and that was too much of a foul to bear, so they disabled the car and end up taking the guy prisoner.
The really funny part of the story was the second barbecuing soldier who was clearly not leadership material. He looked like a grown up and slightly heftier version of Opie, red hair and freckles. He had on white leather I'm-not-athletic gym shoes, and during the whole conversation he had been trying to jump up and get a seat on a four foot tall wall next to us. He had failed, miserably. I really felt for the guy because he was clearly out of his element being with the real soldiers instead of the fob dwellers. Or so I thought. Once his sergeant mentioned the guy shooting at him with the pistol, Opie starts yelling "die" and cursing at the top of his lungs. Kind of turrets-esque. Not civilized. I wanted to laugh and run at the same time. Aunt Bea would not have been pleased, Andy would have tanned his hide, but deep down inside all of Mayberry would have been proud that their son had grown up into a man who knows you don't bring a pistol to a gun battle.
Maybe you had to be there to appreciate the courage these plain average guys had to go out of the wire every day, and not be scared when a guy shoots a pistol and then come back and barbecue and talk about how their ex-wife is spending the child support on manicures. Facing bad people who want to kill them is these guys' 9 to 5. I still chuckle when I think about it and hope that Abu or Mohammed doesn't get as mad as Opie if I ever have to use my pistol.
Confession time: I haven't cleaned my M-16 yet. Whenever I think about that I just feel terrible, like I am letting Tim and Koichi and all the Marines in my life down. I cope, but I still feel terrible. My penance is that every night (almost) I take all of the bullets out of my magazine and let the spring stretch back into its normal shape. Tim told me to do that before I left, and I do it to make him proud. That way, if the base gets overrun I will have 15 chances to hand out 72 virgins for a total of 1080 eternally unhappy women, or I can really scare someone 15 times.
A funny story. Back when we were at the main base in Baghdad, my friend Geoff and I were walking back from the gym, and we passed these two soldiers who were barbecuing. They invited us to have a steak with them (where they got it we did not ask), and the one guy started telling us about his last day. These were two real soldiers who went off the base and got in abandoned houses and waited for people to come and try to kill them. The way his day normally goes is they get in the house a couple hours before sunrise, and after morning prayers people start coming toward the houses with AK-47's. So this sergeant is recounting his squad's gun battle and this sergeant says, " and then car drives by and the guy shoots at us with a pistol." The sergeant is clearly insulted, as if a violation of a sacred code has occurred. The squad stops their shooting at the bad guys and just stare at each other until some says, "Did he just shoot at us with a pistol?" Before anyone can respond, the car drives by for a second round, and that was too much of a foul to bear, so they disabled the car and end up taking the guy prisoner.
The really funny part of the story was the second barbecuing soldier who was clearly not leadership material. He looked like a grown up and slightly heftier version of Opie, red hair and freckles. He had on white leather I'm-not-athletic gym shoes, and during the whole conversation he had been trying to jump up and get a seat on a four foot tall wall next to us. He had failed, miserably. I really felt for the guy because he was clearly out of his element being with the real soldiers instead of the fob dwellers. Or so I thought. Once his sergeant mentioned the guy shooting at him with the pistol, Opie starts yelling "die" and cursing at the top of his lungs. Kind of turrets-esque. Not civilized. I wanted to laugh and run at the same time. Aunt Bea would not have been pleased, Andy would have tanned his hide, but deep down inside all of Mayberry would have been proud that their son had grown up into a man who knows you don't bring a pistol to a gun battle.
Maybe you had to be there to appreciate the courage these plain average guys had to go out of the wire every day, and not be scared when a guy shoots a pistol and then come back and barbecue and talk about how their ex-wife is spending the child support on manicures. Facing bad people who want to kill them is these guys' 9 to 5. I still chuckle when I think about it and hope that Abu or Mohammed doesn't get as mad as Opie if I ever have to use my pistol.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
I survived
Today's excitement, besides changing my sheets, was that we had to upgrade to battle dress alpha. A couple of rockets were fired somewhere outside our base in our general direction and missed our base, but better safe than sorry. Battle dress alpha includes the 11 pieces of Army body armor, your helmet, and safety glasses. My helmet and body armor were on the other side of the base since I was at the hospital, but I had my safety glasses. Anyway, if I got hit I was already at the hospital. Oddly, safety glasses are the only thing we are required to wear at all times when outdoors. I haven't figured that particular regulation out yet, but at least I have a pair that can change between tinted and non-tinted lenses. Of the 13 pieces of potential body protection we are issued, the glasses are the lightest. If I had to carry the main body armor vest around all the time I would have a backache.
Monday, March 26, 2007
A day late
Sorry I didn't get anything written last night. There was a brief I had to go to that lasted until later than normal, so I just went to bed. Speaking of bed, today I got a piece of plywood to put under my mattress which should make a big improvement. The mattresses here are way too soft for my comfort.
Yesterday I went to the traditional protestant service. I am torn between the contemporary and traditional. The chaplain at the contemporary is actually a pretty good preacher, but it is nice to sing hymns, too. The traditional preacher was very fire and brimstone. That's okay, but the contemporary preacher is more expository. The whole hymn question could be moot since they use a Presbyterian hymnal. In addition to changing "ye chosen seed of Israel's race" to "ye seed of Israel's chosen race" in All Hail the Power, in And Can It Be they changed "And bled for Adam's helpless race" to "and bled for all the chosen race." Insidious. Well, that is yesterday's crisis in the war zone. Hymnals aside, we do have much to be thankful for here because we haven't been mortared since I got here.
Yesterday I went to the traditional protestant service. I am torn between the contemporary and traditional. The chaplain at the contemporary is actually a pretty good preacher, but it is nice to sing hymns, too. The traditional preacher was very fire and brimstone. That's okay, but the contemporary preacher is more expository. The whole hymn question could be moot since they use a Presbyterian hymnal. In addition to changing "ye chosen seed of Israel's race" to "ye seed of Israel's chosen race" in All Hail the Power, in And Can It Be they changed "And bled for Adam's helpless race" to "and bled for all the chosen race." Insidious. Well, that is yesterday's crisis in the war zone. Hymnals aside, we do have much to be thankful for here because we haven't been mortared since I got here.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Except for the dust
The weather here was June gloom, almost San Diego summer like today. Maybe it was 5 degrees warmer than SD, but that's the feeling I got. Saturdays are ever so slightly slower than weekdays even though everyone works the same amount. It's almost as if once a week people instinctively know they need a day off. Who would have thought.
Today I cleaned my room a bit. Mostly involved sweeping the carpet. It is a worn down indoor/outdoor carpet so using a broom is not quite as silly as it sounds, but I think most of the dust just went up in the air an came right back down.
So that's the highlight for today. We have been blessed with quiet at Rusty since I arrived. Maybe tomorrow will have something a little more exciting to write about, but hopefully not exciting like things can get in a war zone. While I'm here in Iraq, a chicken salad sandwich is all the excitement I need or want.
Today I cleaned my room a bit. Mostly involved sweeping the carpet. It is a worn down indoor/outdoor carpet so using a broom is not quite as silly as it sounds, but I think most of the dust just went up in the air an came right back down.
So that's the highlight for today. We have been blessed with quiet at Rusty since I arrived. Maybe tomorrow will have something a little more exciting to write about, but hopefully not exciting like things can get in a war zone. While I'm here in Iraq, a chicken salad sandwich is all the excitement I need or want.
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