Nardo's Newsletter

Back in the High Life Again...

2006-05-14T13:30:00.001-07:00

We truly live in a blessed country...

Got in to FT Bragg North Carolina this morning. The trip was the typical, military, round the world adventure. 32 Hours elaspsed time, 20 hours on the bird (a commerical contractor with EVERY seat filled), slept almost the entire way except when they woke me up for my 2-hourly feeding (now I know how cattle feel).

When we arrived in Pope AFB (at 0330 hours) we were greated by the CAPOC General and the same Lockheed Martin woman (LMW) who gave us our predeployment hug a year ago! I recognized her and told her I had been waiting the whole year to return it! We formed up, marched around, ordered arms, listened to the general, listend to the LMW, national anthem and finished with the Army song.... Then we had some cake and it was off to the buses to the MUIC...

The MUIC is the same place we left from last year and also where we had ROTC advanced camp in 1995. We stay in the WW II open bay barracks and they are pretty run down. But since we are on our way home we don't complain (don't plan on spending much time sleeping anyhow!).

We reintegrated this morning by having 3 meals (one with beer) by noon and hitting the mall for cell phones, clothing, rental cars... all the things that provide the freedom and reconnection we so desparately desire... We've been bumping into the guys we trained with for 3 months prior to heading to Iraq and swapping stories, catching up, finding out first names (everyone thought my first name was "Captain"), and reminising of those who will not be rejoining us. Fortunately these are few, but enough to be missed.

We have redeployment briefings, equipment turn-in, medical evaluations, financial appointments, and lots of beer ahead of us. Hopefully this will not be more than a couple of weeks, but since we never know what we are doing tomorrow it is hard to say when we will be finished...

At this point, we are stateside and could stand on our heads for 3 weeks as long as we know we will be with our families shortly!

/nn

Pleasing the man in the mirror

2006-05-05T23:30:00.001-07:00

Going home... Satisfied

As my time comes to a close here I could think of no better summary than to have had the opportunity to brief the Commanding General on the economic development of our Area of Responsiblity in Northern Iraq for his Press Conference. I have not seen it yet, so my highlights may be limited to the dollars spent and that we continute to work the issues. If you have a connection faster than mine (assurdily likely) check it out on the Pentagon Channel for 05May2005 MG Thomas Turner "Iraq Brief" at www.pentagonchannel.mil.

***

By now it is almost a certainty that my time here is over, some of my brothers have already departed and the war, for them, is over. The new guys, a tri service unit of air force, navy and Army are being trained in their new roles and duties in preperation for a battle field handoff. My advice to them has been simple: "you will have the opportunity to 'move the needle' over here and you will have the opportunity to sit on your butts and do absolutely nothing. Leadership will not demand either from you, they will not provide guidance on where you are to deploy your resources, they will not help you if you strive and fail. Make every opportunity you can to make a difference, stay busy, and when your year is up, you will be able to go home satisfied with your contribution - and that may be all.

My tour here has been a learning experience for me. Few people have the opportunities to stretch themselves to the limit of their potential to determine their mettle. Few get the opportunity to work in an environment as demanding as this and still make an impact, few get as much maturity in their worldview on the military, politics, the middle east and economic development. To these, I will go home satisfied. To the branch of serivce I signed up for when I was 18, and emulated as a youngster, I know wonder what the future holds.

My one takeway from being an Army officer in a war zone is that "The Army is Not about
Progress, it is about control." Opprotunities squandered becuase they were in a different battle space, becuase yet another commander of some element needed 'read in' because the person with the answer is not in your food chain so you cannot contact them directly, becuase the project was not the idea (and hence the OER bullet) of the person whose help you need remains unfulfilled. The egaltarian culture surround military commanders does not lend itself toward a concerted effort and thus, when it is the whim of a BCT commander, he may make strategic adjustments at will regardless of how it affects the overall campaign.

I wonder at the future of our military. Many of the "big army" guys have been over here 2 and 3 times. They are tired and it shows. I for one could not imagine coming back here. I do not mind the mission: the convoy patrols to inspect/develop water projects; the living: tents, shower trailors, DFAC food; but I do mind the management. Leadership is failing and for the junior officers and enlisted, the disire to make a difference coupled with the hopelessness of command is maddening.

I have trained up my replacements. All 6 of them. The 3 of us were replaced with 6 folks: one each for economics, agriculture, Fire Effects (which has the daunting task of measureing non-kinetic effects of our actions), governance, education, and water infrastructure. The LTCs has moved on so I trained up their replacements for them. The issues of Iraq are now theirs. Mine will be to armchair quarterback from the states.

/nn

Get Shorty!

2006-04-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the pressure is worth the amazing relief that follows...

Being short is an amazing thing. Unfortunately, it is also a major failing of the current unit replacement system.

The guys going out are typically burnt, some having been over here multiple times and hit the wall of their emotional limits… The new guys coming in are bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to tackle the new job with gusto and energy.

The outgoing guys have had it with the system and think only of home. The new guys think only of getting as comfortable as they can and learning the ropes. The new guys will know better and start on initiatives that are ground breaking and scoff that the old guys never thought of it, the old guys warn them of implementation issues and provide guidance on the “limited solution” that became a fallback to the groundbreaking strategy. The new guys tell the old guys to move over, throwing away that which took a year to gain momentum, the old guys acquiesce since the resources and thus the responsibility now lay with someone else.

An so. Year after year, rotation after rotation... . Each time there is a new unit the war is rebooted, started fresh from scratch. But that, after working to set them up for success is now the next guys’ problem. Imagine being tasked an initiative that you know to be ludicrous, but instead of killing it in place (sometimes a full time job in itself) you let it ride since you are short! The new guy comes in fresh and wonders who the heck let this craziness happen!

Grab me after I’ve gotten back, pour me a beer and we’ll talk about how this transpired when the Active Duty 101^st Airborne Air Assault Division and cool screaming eagle patch took over from the National Guard, 42^nd Infantry Division with the rainbow patch. I was proud to be here serving under the same guys who felt 9/11 and rebuilt New York City.

***

What makes this particularly discouraging is that the obvious answer, the one that seems to the right strategy over here may not be the best one. I read a recent article in Foreign Affairs (My buddy turned me on to this periodical – it’s excellent) on our current Iraqi Policy and compared with the policy in Vietnam: “Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon,”
Stephen Biddle (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85201/stephen-biddle/seeing-baghdad-thinking-saigon.html). It is worth the read if you are interested in the dilemma facing our policy makers.

Frankly, I’ve been here through a few strategic shifts, been reading the State Department Cables and Military Situational Reports, and after reading this article, I’m pretty confused myself! There just does not seem to be an easy way to go about this and the hard way will take decades!

***

A comparison that makes this look easy (it was not) is to our fledging formation of America. I’ve been reading through “Pocket History of the United States” by Commager (very good and fits [surprisingly] in my cargo pocket!). There the better part of 5 chapters dedicated to the formation of the US. Some tidbits that enabled our great country:

1. The US had crucial leadership George Washington Obviously, but not to forget the Adamses, Franklin and everyone else labeled on currently or a bottle of beer

2. The spirit of the typical Colonial was that of optimism, enterprise, land acquisition (think “Far and Away”). Settlers were typically of some means from Europe and sought to immediately become self-sufficient and seek out opportunities. Westward expansion and cultivation was a lifestyle. The American Ideal quickly became more than a mantra.

2.a. (ok anal bulleting but I have a caveat) When the colonies broke free from England (under the imperial model raw materials went to the mother ship who did the manufacturing and then beamed them back down to the colonies for purchase) they immediately started Small manufacturing.

2.b (last time I swear) when the small manufacturing took off it allowed for the development of a professional class (managers, newspapers, doctors, transporters…)

3. Education was paramount to living in the colonies (think “Little House On The Prairie”) especially in the New England and middle colonies.

4. The colonies had an exceptional level of tolerance for other religions and races – unless you were Anglican apparently. There were numerous races of folks from all over Europe with Catholic and Protestant views. This tolerance allowed different kinds of people with diverse skills to coexists peacefully.

5. Because of Englands’ influence they mostly spoke English and, organizationally, they were intent on making Federalism work, especially after the failed “Articles of Confederation” experiment. There seemed to be an implicit feeling that the colonies would unit together, the question was how strong of a central government should they have.

These are crucial insights by the Author and after having read a few articles on socialist countries turned democratic (Russia and Chile come to mind) I seem to feel that these are in the right order of priority. Where does Iraq stand on these?:

1. Still up for grabs, 22APR06 selection of Jawad al-Maliki, a Shia who seems to be accepted by the Kurds and the Sunnis (with an emphasis on ‘seems’) may be able to move the country forward. This is a tough one due to the strong ethic lines toed by the Iraqi people (might need to reread Biddle’s Article I’m still confused…)

2. Different culture. Entrepreneurism is a tougher sell here.

3. Still third world. Was emerging and the place to get an education in the middle east during the early 80’s but there has been a major regression. World bank puts illiteracy around 60% (I can’t read Arabic either!).

4. Ummmm, resources are way to scarce to just give it other folks who don’t think like you do… This needs work.

5. The Government of Iraq is having a lot of problems giving up strong central control to the provinces. Once power is held it is tough to be divulged. Seems to be a thought that a strong central power is the way to deal with the country. This makes Federalism impossible.

Sounds bleak, but the time frame the current transformations are taking place are extremely compressed. As I’ve written before we have asked a lot from a predominantly agrarian/socialist country in much less time than we took to do it.

***

But these are all issues for the newbies. The next few months, until we get back we will spend moving out of our Iraqi Crack House, training the new guys, moving into and out of (repeatedly) tents, out processing, dragging duffle bags all over the world and finally… making good on all the beers that were bet over the tour. I for one am up a couple of Yuenglings at Kellers’ lodge at good old Ft Bragg.

Oh, and we’ll be doing a lot of hanging out too (the Deuce brings that cooler with him everywhere he goes!):

/nn

Daisies in a sea of sand

2006-04-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

Beauty is relative, but sometimes she invites her brother Decay

I was walking out to my truck the other day (I Drive a Hummer named “Tubbs”) and one of the female interpreters was walking to her hooch (the ladies live in a different building than the men). She is an Iraqi. Most of the “Local Nationals” here start English in grade school if you were privileged (education under Sadaam was heavily favored towards Sunnis – to the point where it was declared regardless of actual belief).

They understand written English fine, and know most of the words you throw at them however, I often wonder, after I have asked for something or had a discussion, whether my intent has made it through. There have been a number of times where I have asked for a translation (say, “Silver Filter, a point of use filter for the Iraqi people”), it has come back translated into the squiggly lines of Arabic – task complete. Right?!?!?!

Afterwards, in passing, they would ask what a couple of words mean. What’s “Point of use?” When you mean Silver, do you mean it is made of filter?? Or that it is Lovely (the word for silver is very close to the “love”)??? “When you mean for the Iraqi People, is this made by them? for their use?

Invariably, they would nod and relate full confidence of the translations accuracy; assured that the answers to all of the questions above were exactly as interpreted. The final Arabic would also be about 5 times longer than the English. Amazing. I was working on a slideshow video with about 35 slides with Arabic narration on each slide. I typed up the English narration – about a sentence or two per slide – in about 30 minutes. What I got back 2.5 days later (I made sure it was ‘Joshua’s highest priority). The final product was pretty long, and took a lot of flowery Arabic to get the point across. “You Americans are too direct – Joshua would protest.”

One reason for this increased translation time, is Joshua’s dedication to accuracy. I use him extensively because he has a Masters in Physics and the corresponding technical mind (rare in the other interpreters). Since my work, and thus my translation needs involve some water science and microbiology, Joshua’s works out well. He has a computer program which will translate the English into Arabic “word for word.” However he tells me this is not even close and chooses to write it all out manually. This makes me wonder about the “word for word” versus “thought for thought” translations of Middle Eastern languages of our ancient texts.

***

Arabs truly love their language and, in some cases, seem put off to use English. In “The Arab Mind” (Patai) the author discusses Arabic among Arabs (His comments below in italics). I think understanding the Arabic language is essential to understand Arabs and would condense this to three points:

1. The language-identity paradox. To the westerner: “I think therefore I am, then speak what I am.” Thinking influences speech – regardless of the language spoken. To the Arab: I speak therefore I am, my thoughts are an outpouring of my speech, and it is my filter how I conceptualize and verbalize my world view. For cultural linguists (a fun group I’m sure) call this the “Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis” more simply put as language functions, not simple as a device for reporting experience, but also and more significantly, as a way of defining experience for its speakers.”

This seems to be amplified when discussing technical details. Once when I was dating a Vietnamese girl I tried my hand at learning her native-born language (we can thank the French for introducing a roman alphabet – I’m not good with squiggly languages!). At that time I remember reading that technical experiences were very difficult to relate in Vietnamese due to their language being based largely on agrarian concepts. Contrast this with, say German, (It takes all the German I know to order 2 beers and a pretzel) which must be heavily technology based since they culturally excel in engineering. Appears these Sapir-Whorf guys may have been onto something.

Ok, to the Arabs, similarly to the Ents (Lord of the Rings) we English speakers are a shallow and hasty speaking folk. I think I am cool with that though cause we can build lots of stuff fast.

2. The use of exaggeration and flowery words. (I must note here that Patai titles this chapter “Exaggeration, Over-assertion, Repetition.”). It is always interesting to hear an Arabic speaker talk in English because the words are very respectful, typically indirect (especially if they are not familiar with Americans), and full of well-wishing and Allah praising. The easiest examples are usually the most common ones: The common greeting in Arabic is “Salaam al lay kum” meaning Peace be with you. Thank you is “Allah yukaththir khayraka,” meaning May Allah increase your well being. Another is “speedy recovery which, in English, is May there be upon you nothing but health, if Allah wills.”

One might think, this is not a huge deal this is just the way they talk – that it may be as perfunctory as an American saying “God Bless you” (which by the way the ‘God’ part is typically dropped), but in the casual discussion with an Iraqi eyes will roll upward, gestures will go skyward, pauses will be at the proper place of respect. I have edited a few emails for my Iraqi Interpreter friends and it always causes them pain when I take out all of the fluff – to validate point 1, their honor and respect is tied to their speech.

3. The use of rhetoric. This is one that is difficult for most Westerners and, having read and experienced it slightly, I am still not sure I understand it. However, the main jist is that, for an Arab, saying a thing is the same is doing the thing.

There it is. To have said something is to convey the intent, and the intent of a thing is more valuable and more respectable than the actual action. So, Mothers will scold and threaten their sons, but never harm, the men will belittle and bemoan their oppressor but never protest or take up action, Dictators will condemn and threaten the world but never take action (or so the goes the theory – Iranians are Persians not Arabs so all bets are off).

One thing that I found interesting was the rhetoric involved with the people to build up national identity. After almost a decade of war with Iraq in the 80’s and a decisive defeat by everybody and their brother in 1991, Sadaam still managed to find the gusto to build “The Victory over American and Iran Palace”. It is in Baghdad and was not completed. This same rhetoric occurred doing Desert Storm when “Baghdad Bob” the Iraqi Minister of Information repeated released false information to the Iraqi Press (this is worth the read if you google “Baghdad Bob quotes”).

***

Language difficulties aside, we somehow manage to get by. Relations with the interpreters are usually fun and jovial, we ask them questions on how a project will impact the populace while they ask us questions about the states. Almost all of them are looking to gain entrance to the USA – the women via marriage, the men via education.

I had a chat about this exodus of smart people at the sinks with my commander. It is an issue, because the interpreters are the more educated folks with some means and their departure drains human capital from Iraq. It makes it harder to reform a country without good people. But America (or the West) is the land they are heading for.

The impression seems to be one of amazing opportunities, freedoms, and lots of hot bodacious people running around on jet ski’s and living on beaches. We try to explain of course. But how do you explain a Wal-Mart to someone who considers a shopping plaza something like this:

Just to tell them that there is a building full of anything you would want to buy and you can use a credit card to swipe it and off you go… The streets are clean, there are common use parks, museums, subways, and restaurants where everyone is encouraged to use cooperatively (I stress cooperatively since here, the name of the game is making everything someone elses’ problem).

They claim they now all about it, that they have seen the pictures and read about life in the states. “How can their be culture shock,” Joshua asks, “when everything is better than it is here? The only shock I want is when I walk up to a pretty woman.” But what seeing malls, getting any food you could want from one place, getting fined for throwing trash on the ground….. I plead to no end…

But I know they will have some issues. Americans are direct and get impatient with long winded discourses, we are decadent and like to have our clothing and lives arranged ‘just so,’ and we are terribly accustomed to God’s wonderful creations of mountains and greenery that He has placed all around us and are used to expressing these ‘matter of factly.”

I know they will be shocked, cause we were on leave after being here six months. I am sure when “Amy” walks down a sidewalk in a big city and passes a florist full of roses, geraniums, tulips… she will not look at the stick flowers used for filler that she picks here….

But in a way, in all of this sand and gravel, mortar fire, and metal-armored machines. Stopping to pick a yellow weed and expressing it’s beauty given by God is not such a bad thing.

Welcome to Groundhog Day

2006-03-27T05:59:00.000-08:00

Day 300 of captivity..… Or is 100? 250?

Every solider who gets tapped to come over to OIF/OEF instantly seeks out those who have “been there and done that” to glean as much information from it as they can. These war-crusted soldiers will readily tell you about the basics: Living on FOB, Convoying around, dealing with the Iraqis (if you can find a vet who shook hands instead of shook them down), the chow, and interaction with home… All of these are on soldiers’ minds as they deploy. One thing that seemed to resonate with me during these discussions was when they would say “it’s Groundhog day over there. Every day is the same and you lose track of time... You will experience boredom at a whole new level.”

Well, we’ve been in country now for what, 9-10 months or so… it feels like a lifetime. I think I’m beginning grasp this….

The mornings are my favorite, 0540 hours my vibrating (so I don’t wake up everybody in the hooch) wristwatch gently rocks my arm awake which begins slapping on my face until I ‘come-to.’ At 0545 I am dressed in my pathetically plastic and horribly smelly PT clothing to meet LTC B for a workout. We have done this to many times we don’t even say good morning.

After a work out it is back to the Iraqi Crack House to the rest of the unit waking and coffee pots slurping… The hot water has been better so showers are more common and after a quick run through the barracks sinks it if off to the chow hall.

At the chow hall is where all uncertainty leaves the war, you can set your watch by the hours, prerecord you conversations to the gate guards, the clicker-counter guy, the omelet maker guy… They try to have some variety in most of the meals, but breakfast is completely devoid of anything even remotely creative. That is fine, I order the same thing everyday anyhow: “Ham, Cheese, Tomato, Onion, omelet Please” I sing to the Indian grill cook. There are three of them: “Burn the omelet” guy, “runny” guy, and “not enough filling” guy. A good group and you can have yours anyway you want it unless you want it filled, firm, and fair…

The coffee is terribly predictable as well. The east side is too weak the west side too strong. I usually fill up on the strong and add some weak to it (just like adding strong acid to the water in chemistry class to avoid the aggressive reaction).

After chow it’s back to the Crack house. Coffee is done and the Colonels are in the hallway chatting about stocks, the war, economics, current events.. This is the best part of the morning and I love it! I usually join them for some macro economics discussions. Today we hashed out that a dollar spent on anything other than oil over here is a bad dollar. We usually wrap up with the reporting of The Number.

The Number representative of the estimate of the days left. We are short. And the Number is on everyone’s minds. We all track it in excel spreadsheets... I have a year calendar that is laminated and cross them off… LTC M “The Crazy Texan” writes the latest on the “Rant Board (probably more on this later).” It has replaced “Any hot water today” as the customary greeting of the day. Shaving at the sinks is now as easy is, “morning” [shave, shave], “92,” [shave, shave]. Other guy: [brush, brush] “yep” [brush, brush].

Of course, some poeple post things on the Rant board to make fun of other certain p

Some guys track the number of days until we are back with our families, some the number of days till we leave Kuwait, others track the days left in Iraq, the days until we start our training with our replacements, the days until our replacements come, the days until me move out of the Iraqi Crack house and into the tents, the days until we have to pack up all our extra stuff and live out of a duffle bag until we are back home….. From a planning point of view this is done on a plus/minus basis: move out to the tents on D-15, Replacements come D-Day, transition until D+15, consolidate baggage D+17, Leave for Kuwait D+20… and so on…(these numbers are made of course).

Me? I track the number of EFECCS meetings left. This is meeting that I goto for my section 2-3 times a week. It is supposed to gauge the efficacy of our division’s operations. But mostly it is a big “what-if” group to answer any questions that may come up over the week from higher ups. I am not sure if it is value added or not because I am not sure what the results are… If there was something we were delivering on I would be able to answer this more readily.

The EFECCS is one of those meetings no one really wants to go to.. It basically sucks the life right out of your body. We bounced it around the unit quite a bit, as a matter of fact, I we had 4 people assigned to it before me. Each time someone got tagged as the EFECCS-Boy everyone who was “not-it” sighed in relief. It tricked down the rank structure until it fell on lowest guy around who could not seem to get out of it. That’s me. OK, for my own sanity’s sake, that is all I will say about it. My command suckered me into it when I came back from leave and was unemployed (they delayed the DoS entity I was to join) by telling me I would only be doing it for a week… and then they left me there for dead. I then made the mistake of doing a good job and became dreadingly indispensable. There is just something inside some of us that won’t let us do anything halfway.

So I have “X” numbers of these meeting to go… I spend most of my day tracking down information from those who don’t want to give it to me. Occasionally I can put together an information paper or make changes to an operations order that changes how we do business. I have managed to make some key priorities changes in how we handle our water infrastructure or economic programs – just a couple of paragraphs but is division-wide. I slept well that night. Each crossing-off of a meeting on my calendar sends shivers down my spine as I giggle like a school-girl.

After ‘work’ it is back to the Chow hall (for the 3^rd time that day – lunch and dinner are the same except lunch involves going back to work). I will typically head back to the hooch (crack house) where I meet the guys for a smoke (cigars) and tea. It has become a custom we all have come to enjoy. Probably the only relaxing time to we have were we can slip away from everything, the five of us (The Two, Swani, MM, Steel, and I) hang and pretend we are relaxing at home. We drink non-alcoholic beer, blow smoke into the air and act like men and talk about men stuff (mostly women [Since I don’t know much I just nod a lot]).

I think it is these commonalities through out the day which both make the war tolerable, but also make each day indistinguishable form any other. We work every day so the day of the week is irrelevant. The common faces, at the common time, at the common place make it seem like we live from smoke break to smoke break, chow to chow…

In the movie “Groundhog Day”, Bill Murray had the task of an emotional change to win the heart of a woman in order to break him out of the mold of each days’ uniformity – here there is no such luck, but we do have missions. This could be anywhere from a training class, to a meeting with an official, a conference, inspecting water infrastructure or coordinating a project… Going out breaks the common-place into the purposeful. This trips last days or weeks.

The absence is noted at the smoke room and chow table – it is marked by the absence seat and a remark that “The Two’s in Baghdad” or they convoyed to FOB Wannamaker.” It is not long-lived however as upon returning it feels like you never left.

I think today is Saturday, coffee talk involved the increased spread of bird flu, discussions on how hot it is going to get before we roll, the asymmetry of sentences among reservists who go through UCMJ actions as opposed to active duty (I’d love to see a study on this), and how interest rate increases affect financial stocks….There are X days left till D-Day, meatloaf day at the chow hall, and 9 house and 30 minutes to smoke&tea break…

Maybe I’ll eat lunch left handed for giggles.

/nn

Gun Pot Pie and Apple Streusel

2006-03-15T12:30:00.000-08:00

There's always a hiccup or two when you rush a meal...

I was talking with a buddy the other day who is out on a smallish FOB on the edge of city (much like Danger used to be). He lives and all his team live in one building, ringed with high concrete barriers we call “Tee-wall” (I would love to have the contract for these puppies). A river edges in one side of the FOB and the city is one the other. It is an Iraqi FOB so they help pull security.

This is a good thing as they have better situational awareness – have a better idea of how to interpret the images that they see over the wall. For instance, if there is a crowd standing around a mosque shooting guns most Americans (uninitiated ones anyhow) would take alarm and run for cover. The Iraqis on the wall however do not even flinch or disrupt their snacking on flat bread as they look at the ducking Americans who have never seen a wedding procession before.

What can be disconcerting and what my buddy has said the main threat is, however, is if the guns “turn inward.” For the most part, the Iraqi-secured FOBs I have been on look much the same as ours and I felt just as secure. This sentiment is more of a joke that is tossed around near the coffee pot than a strong word of caution. But this morning. LTC M passed on an article about ranking Iraqi Defense Ministry folks working to put 421 al-Qaida fighters into the Green Zone and I have to wonder what some of the Iraqis are thinking! (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060315/D8GBP74G0.html).

Surely some folks in Iraq (I decline to say Iraqis here due to the foreigners who are here causing problems) seem bent on self destruction. Of course the media realizes the “sell out” potential of this in the market and are all heralding an Iraqi Civil War. A quick Google of this turns up the phrase on just about every major news site. I’ve even joked about it with our office pool...

The first thing anyone more realize when harbinger ring their bell at you proclaiming an impeding war is that it is absolutely impossible to tell anything with any certainty here! The Geographic, Demographic, Ethic, Religious Impacts are way too complicated to actually make a general statement. Once you have come to a conclusion regarding these factors, let’s Throw in the oil game, throw in the international scene with the Arab Sunnis Vs. Arab Shia Vs. Kurds Vs Persians Vs. The West Vs. DPRK, throw in the need to obtain value on already spent political capital and see if we can still hit the target! This will be like darts night at the local pub after quaffing a few too many!

Speaking of Oil, it is well know that it accounts for about 95% of Iraq’s GDP. No one argues this. What people will discuss is fluctuations and the need to get it back online. I hate it being all about the Oil, but since I have spent 90% of my tour trying to complete this GRE analytic (hereby noted the “Iraqi Bazaar Corollary”):

Iran: Persian Rugs; Iraq:?????

What you will find is that there is not much that is created here that is unique. Before 1991 you could say palm dates, might even have been able to say… well palm dates. But when 95% of your game is Oil you do not have a choice but to get it up and running. It is a sense of national dependency, it is a source of national INdependency it is a source of national pride. When the bad guys want to stir things up with the Locals they just have a local religious leader tell them The Americans are trying to steal their Oil! They hardly know what the stuff is or where it comes from, but it is deeply rooted in their psyche that it is there god given (and I use that intentionally) property right!

Here is how we are doing. You won’t see this on any Iraqi news source (all the information on this Blog, including this is Open Source Unclassified Information – the Oil stats are from BP).

You might think, wow, Iraq is not doing so hot. But, based on this graph alone, let me infer two things: 1) The oil game is a risky one, even if you country is stable. I choose to put Q in here with Iraq because, besides Iraq, it has the most volatile production over the past 10 years in the Middle East. Iraq’s standard deviation is about 44% of its 10 yr average while Qatar’s is about 20%. And Qatar has had a relative stable history, has a constitution, a reputable government and the ability to develop, plan, and execute large-scale projects (such as the $14B largest liquefied natural gas plant). I’ve been there on a diversion (good beer conversation and my CO is still bitter) and can tell you it is a clean metropolis with a great airport, restaurants, and shops (as seen here with in this picture that could have been taken in a similar environment drinking cokes with Renegade):

Iraq has somehow managed to keep their production relatively stable in the last few years considering they were coming off 8 years of war with Iran (‘80-88), getting trounced by everyone and their brother (including Qatar) in Kuwait (’91), economic sanctions (UNSC Resolution 661 ‘90-2003), and a major invasion in 2003 (hence the Oil ‘dip’ in the graph above).

OK, So Oil is Risky. Great noted.

The #2 thing from this graph, is that we are within prewar levels. OK within 1 standard deviation of prewar levels (statistics wimp talk for close). The steepness of the graph (slope) from ’03-04 shows great promise and a good increase. This makes everyone happy because, due to The solution to the “Iraqi Bazaar Corollary” being a big fat negative, you really need to have some cash flowing into your country – it just makes you feel good. When the oil is not flowing you feel like Idaho during a potato famine.

The international and US politics into the mix are not even well enough understood to discuss and I could not find any data on them in an excel spreadsheet on the web. Inferences in this case are In Fere some SensesJ

Their will continue to be a little gun chatter here, the word sectarian violence gets tossed around like it was on a word of the day on some AP editors desk calendar but a lot of this is due to how much was forced on these Long-historied people in so short of a time!

Here’s a comparison. In my constitution book (my Department of State Acquaintance turned me on to it) there is a chronology of the USAs formation.

1776, Declaration of Independence
Then we hang out for a couple of years (might have been a war or something)
1778, We form basically a transitional government, and propose The Articles of Confederation (this would be the Iraqi’s Transitional Administrative Law)
Then we hang out for THREE YEARS
1781, Someone finally gives up on the spelling of RI (hyphen or space?)… and we pass the Articles (BTW a buddy has a poster on his wall… “Transitional Governments: They take a lot less time to create and it will be years before any realizes the mistakes.)
1787, propose new constitution (after having more than a decade since Concord’s Shot Heard Round the World”)
1788, Ratified Constitution
1788, G. Washington becomes first president

Compare this with what was rushed through in Iraqi:

2003, Invasion
2004, TAL in affect under CPA
2005, JAN, First elections for Interim Government
2005, AUG Draft Constitution Due
2005, OCT, Ratification of Constitution
2005, DEC, Election of Permanent Government
2006, FEB, Gold Mosque bombed (Shia Mosques in Sunni Town)

I’ve talked to Iraqis whose lifestyle mirrored that of Abraham and think in generations and yet they have managed to do more in the last two years of democratic formation than we did in our first ten! When this much has been done in a very short amount of time there in bound to be a few hiccups - especially when the scenario is as compliacted as this one.

Time will tell what crucible this country will have in store. Most articles say it is in the wind, that the Iraqis will turn on each other, Shia against Sunnis, Kurd may hunker down and play a border war - But those are small potatos. Most Iraqis seem to want the process to proceed, to have peace, they want to get on with life (preferrably under their own power). This is the meat of the situation.

Too bad a few rotten apples spoils the whole pastry.
/nn

Homage to Iraqilonia

2006-02-23T21:27:00.000-08:00

If things keep up I am going to lose my office pool...

I've been reading a lot...

Hanging in the day room recently I came across a book by one of my favorite Authors, George Orwell. I first came across George in high school when - in my lower level English HP (Hopefully he'll Place in something) were were to read some excerps of his work in Animal Farm. But since my teacher said her husband was an Engineer (what I hoped to be-) who did not have to use english for anything I told that as a justification for illiteracy never bothered reading it.

I next bumped into him while searching for an audio book for my long drives to Dell when I was doing my master's reseach there in Nashville. The Nashville public library is beautiful! And the have an huge Audiobook section. Fortunately, there are these people who work there to help you pick through them. "Gimmie a classic" to which they handed "1984." The narrator's british accent perfectly accented the stuggles of class, socialism, central goverment control with "Ministry of this, and Ministry of that..". I learned a about the dangers of a strong central state and the exploits of Winston Smith as he dodges "Big Brother."

I enjoyed "1984" so much I went on to "Animal Farm" (again a class struggle thesis - although the evolution into pigs was tasty), and also to "Homage to Catalonia." The current reading is "Road to Wigan Pier" a narrative (large essay actually) of the unemployment situation in Britian in 1930's. A book I had never heard of and would not have noticed save it stood out drastically against a backdrop of Mack Bolan:The Executioner series, Dragonlance Chronicles, and Maxim Magazines - although I am quite sure to be the only one to acutally consider this a "find."

It is these last two that I cannot help but compare to my current situation: a book of unemployment and class struggle, and and a book about civil war.

Wigan discusses unemployment like it is a disease - very western I think. The situation in the UK at the time was difficult with the coal mining industry booming and busting, and a few decades from a decent educational reform leaving a large number of uneducated unemploy folks living in slums. Couple that with late 1930's German growth and socialist politica sucess and poeple starting wondering if Britian's poltical model is working - good time to send the socialist Orwell on an unemployment book hunt through the underpinnings of British industry.

The unemployment situation (10 - 70% depending on how it is measured) here is bleak - by US standards. But it is not the US. The typical measure of unemployment is the number of those actively seeking work divided by those in the labor pool. Both of these numbers are in contention here. Sure there are those who are searching and not finding - my friend 'Slick' was educated in baghdad as a chemist and had looked for a year before he came here to be an interpretor. But mostly work is found for you by a family member who asks you if you want a job at the government building sitting around smoking and drinking chai all day long and the off you go. I have yet to find an operator at water treatment plant who is directly related to the Mayor.

This is reinformed by the wealth accumulation system in families. Banks are here, but their sucess is arguable. Most folks here are mattress stuffers - much like Americans were during our national formation. It is not uncomming for the head of the household or clan to hold the wealth for the group (he sleeps on a california king). The question is, if the wealth is for the family, then the job is for the family, then the looking will be done for/by the family. The head of the family also is incharge of getting the local food basket at the Public Distribution System (subsidized food basket), keeping up the estate, interacting with other clans, tribes, politicians, encouraging the development of the children...

Unemployment here has a different meaning here in a somewhat socialist, one national product (oil), strongly tribal country. Although the living conditions in Wigan are not that far off from what some communties here endure - subsistance is subsistance. What Orwell does describe also a propos in Iraq is that the 'have nots' do relize what they don't have until the'haves' tell them:

"Talking once with a miner I asked him when the housging shortag firsmt becmae acute in his ditrict; he answered; "When we were told about it." [Orwell, "Road to Wigan Pier"]

Saddam had his own stuggle with this apparently (I am now begging to think Iraq was Fascist). The old FOB I used to live on was the palacial grounds (where were really nice BTW) for his mother near Tikrit (turned over 22Nov). Next to this was a tall hospital that had all of the windows blacked out on the side that faced the palaces. When we asked the doctor what was up with that he said it was so people could not see the nice buildings.

Catalonia depicts a focus of socialist struggle against the fascists and the stalwart youths who converge on Spain to look fascism in the face. M-w.com lists fascism as:

a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition"

Although I like the definition of provided by one site that bascially said Fascism is a dicatorship where one class of people is favored over another. Interesting. This was also a site the offered for sale a "Disappearing Civil Liberties" Mug. You fill it with coffee and our rights disappear (Much faster than Congress!). If we had a mug like this for the Iraq's I woudl be quite the opposite... Their mug would brim over with freedoms that have been granted in past years.

I work with some Department of State folks, and have been working some Governance issues. So I have been boning up on my US Constitution, American History, Internation Economics... So I can say with confidence that the first ten amendments (those our Revolutionaries fought so hard for: Speech, Bear Arms, no Unlawful borders, search and seizure, immient domain, fair court proceedings.... All of these are bascially at their disposal. As soon as I read up on the 11th - 26 (or 27th my book keeps saying there are 26 or 27 ammendments - guess the author did not wanted to be bothered with specificis:-) I will know if they are here as well (although I know woman voted on Jan 15th, Oct 15th, and Dec 15th, 2005 so that is one down).

Yet in Catalonia, the struggle was against classes which invariably leads to economics. Yes, Yes, both are governmental political systems, but have some impact on how the economy is run. The higher inequality (I must unqualifyingly address) would be with Fascism so an economist woudl say the struggle was for an increase in GDP per capital that woud come with socialism. Less equality, more overall spending... more products, we are building our economy here.

In Iraqilonia, the struggle I find is with religio perspective - or is it? The Shia, the dominant (and dominated) population in Iraq, believe in the religious leadership transcends from the bloodlines of the Prophet Muhammad. The Sunnis, the lesser population but traditionally the upper/ruling class in Iraq, believe leadership to be elected. That is about as indepth as my understand of this split goes and it may seem like an unusual thing to fight over.. until you try to explain the differences and the antagonisms of the Catholic and Protestant Churches to a Muslim. BBC has some good stuff: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/subdivisions/sunni_shia.

Civil war had it's place in Anglo society as well. I am not a historian (but I am a great googler) and the UK's CW of the 1640's pitted Catholic centered monarchy against a protestant republic. They were not tracking GDP at this time but I cannot help to imagine that living conditions increased after the 'power to the peolple' was granted in this religio-politic transformation. This transformaton took the focus off of institutions and placed it instead, on the individual (an important distinction when comparing Eastern/Western Thought).

The bombing of The Golden Mosque in Sammarra (of which I have only seen from the highway it stands out for miles), one of the the top Shia Shrines, could be the shot heard round the world. (see open source info http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185640,00.html). Comments on the impact would be premature (and out of place), but it has potential to be symbolic.

The only conclusion I can find is that they are having our 1600's religous persecution struggle and we are trying to force on them 21st century economic and governance reforms! It is uncertain what the value the end state will have (I am not sure we are the ones to measure [course if we do it woudl be economically and I doubt that is the thrust or would be a significant increase]).

If they can hold off on the Civil War I've got $20 on May 2nd.

/nn

One Year Anniversary, WU-Day, February 18th, 2005

2006-02-18T11:08:00.000-08:00

All of life’s major messages should be delivered as gingerly…

It was Friday. Nothing atypical about the morning thus far. The Routine had little interruption save for skipping the typical email check before I ventured out the door to work for Ortho-Clinical, the diagnostics company I worked for in the Johnson and Johnson portfolio (one of 200).

My laptop bag on my shoulder, I race out the door glancing sideways at a my desk as I reached for the door. My roommate had placed my mail on it from the previous day – I must have been out late or else I would have dealt with it that evening. No bills were getting my attention early on a Friday, however a letter with an unfamiliar logo in the top right hand corner did.

It struck me. I’ve never received a WU telegram, never even knew anyone who had (not surprisingly they discontinued the long standing business 1/27/2006). The only thing I had ever heard that actually came from the 145 year old telegram service were WWII death notices and Vietnam era Draft cards.

It seemed the novelty was not lost on the Military for the Global War on Terrorism. I grabbed the letter without opening it knowing about 90% what it was… I was an IRR guy. I’ve written of this a few times in passing. An Individual Ready Reservist. A modern-day minute man required to drop everything at a minutes notice to head back off to fulfill the needs of the Army once more. Another way to think of it however, I was an Army officer on the lamb. Running from US Army Reserve Human Resources Command – St Louis. Occasionaly screening calls, leering at recruiting centers, and looking over my shoulder for the "green machine."

Never one to do anything halfway, I wanted all the way out. I could have drilled – done the weekend a month thing. However that always seemed a little distracting from being 100% involved with my current projects whether they were school or J&J or church involvement…. A weekend a month (really 4 days a month for an officer) would require gear switching, uniform maintenance, putting on the Army cap and struggling to keep a foot in a world where I would never be allowed to be on top of the game… Reservists are anathema to the active duty soldier.

So, in May, 2001 when I Expired my Time of Service (ETS’d) I chose to fade to gray and go into the IRR knowing we had never been called up save a few select military occupational specialties during Desert Storm. I went to school. Got two degrees. Went on to a Fortune 30 company (right on the button at 30 actually) and settled in to all that New York City had to offer.

I always intended to do my duty as a past professional solider and proud of having had served: was a member of my school’s Military association, co-lead an Army Leadership course for the undergrads, interviewed prospective cadets... all that a responsible alumus would do. I even occasionally responded to the annoying letters sent on my HRC-St Louis requesting updated information and asking me to volunteer (for what they never tell you). But of all of these implicit Army requirements, the hardest thing I would do would be to open that letter.

I opened it on the car ride into work on the Pulaski Skyway that spans the Newark area shipping yard. One hand on the wheel one on the letter. Eyes scanning the document looking for some hint of a joke (my Army buddy Wes had called me with a muffled voice right after 9/11 and left a message that “CPT Phillip Nardo was to call HRC Immediately” – even screwed up my name which made me think it was 100% authentic!). It looked real. I took it into work and asked a few military reserve guys what I should do… My buddy Chris basically said: “I’m sorry bud, but your screwed!” And I was…

[orders deleted]

You will notice from this very official looking document (it has to be cause it is all CAPs – they were yelling at me already) a couple of things:

“Failure to report may subject me to UCMJ (uniform code of military justice) action.” I was not getting out of this. I was screwed.
At 545 days, I was potentially screwed for a very long time.
There is no indication of which unit I was assigned to know who I would be screwed with
I had to report in “No Earlier Than” Easter Sunday but “No Later Than” Easter Sunday (guess my family gets in on the screwing as well)
I had a lot of acronyms to relearn…

So on Easter, 2005 - after opening the box in my mom’s attic I wrote: “Break in Case of War” 4 years earlier - I flew in to FT Sill, OK. Got in around 2330 hours and a very tired sergeant was there to pick us up, give a few crusty “Welcome Back to the Army” speeches, and dropped us off at the big open bay barracks with our instructions (goto this building to sign in, that one to get bedding, that building to find a bunk… formation is at 0700 in the parking lot). I remember pinching myself thinking this could not be real. I fell asleep watching “full metal jacket” again… right?

After stumbling into a bunk in the dark I lay awake trying to figure out why I signed that paperwork to accept a 4 Year Army ROTC scholarship when I was 18 – oh yeah for tuition. Yea! And at Ohio State that came to about seventy-five dollars and fifteen cents (about $8K actually). I could have made that in my 4 OSU years pan-handling off of really bad Waite-staff at all night truckstops….

Somehow I fell asleep and awoke the next morning to find myself shaving at the barrack's sinks. This is where I bumped into Trevor whom I went to the Officer Basic Course with in '97. This is where we went to formation. This where they had roll call to check off their list of the names of folks called up.

Trev and I were standing next to each other in formation during rolls and I think I counted about 51 names that they called. I did not need to pull out a calculator to determine that our formation was about 18!!!! I look at Trevor and shriek: “Was this optional!!!!” Where the heck is everybody!!!!

Those other folks were those who did not open the WU telegram or answer the phone. Maybe they lost it, or the message did not get passed, quite possibly HRC really thought their address was 1060 West Addison…. We call this “taking the blue pill.”

These absentee numbers were fairly typical, because of this (and general out of shapeness, not to mention being out of practice with our military specialties [which was why the called us up]) the Army generally considered the IRR program and it’s subsequent first large-scale call up a disaster.

So much so that they changed their entire policy on IRRs. Now once you have reached your MSO (mandatory service obligation) you must actively volunteer to be IRR as opposed to actively DE-volunteer yourself off the list at HRC. They should be able to manage that list now with a couple of post-its and a sharp pencil.

I bought a 365 day calendar before we deployed – it is perfect cause it starts and ends in June! I keep this laminated piece of perfection outside my bunk pinned to my plywood cubicle wall in our Iraqi Crackhouse. Every night I check off the date. During the day I have my missions and schedule posted on it. It keeps pretty full.

In Spite of my IRR-ness I am able to make an impact... Today I briefed the Fire Effects commander on our Economic Development Plan. They came up this morning asking if I could put a plan together for the 1400 meeting. This short-sightness on what should take decades can be a little hard to deal with, but I consider my role to be one of eduction. We put 3 slides together quickly. The first was an assessment of the overall Econ situation in Iraq (poor housing/sanitation, high illiteracy [I can’t read it either!], high unemployment, poor agricultural practices, poor labor productivity…). We discussed this at length and had round table chat on how disparaging the situation was.

On the second slide we posted the cite for the first slide’s information: “The Economic Development of Iraq: Report of a Mission Organized by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development at the Request of the Government of Iraq” Book by World Bank; Johns Hopkins Press, 1952. Two things of note here, 1) Gov of Iraq has been thinking about this for 54 years, 2) the basic living conditions have been fairly poor for a very long time. A caveat to this on the economic transformations of Russia (soviet -> capitalistic), Chile (dictatorship -> democracy), and China (state run socialist to state run 'captialistic'?) taking decades brought the point home that we woudl not turn Iraq around by the end of their tour.

The third slide discussed our way ahead. Which I briefed - along with the previous two - in full “PowerPoint monkey boy” regalia. This type of briefing has occured all to frequently in my new position as a Staff monkeyboy. They want something reserached and a report out in the same day... I've done this for Unemployment, Empowering a people group, Empowering Provincial Governance an the economics issue of the day. I work these issues with LTC M (economics) and LTC B (governance). M was called out of retirement and B was a drilling reservist. We work in the 'Nerdery' the 3 of us in a small cube - helping where we can.

"Big Army" is not smart on these things. The reconstruction in Iraq involves publics works, political governance, and macro - economics on a grand scale. You can go your full career in the Army and never even need to put a budget together for your shop - The Army is a cost center not a profit and loss (we sometimes work very hard to spend all the money that is alloted). I think we are doing a valuable service and influencing leadership to drive impactful policies. Killing people only helps economics if they were previously unemployed.

Having reservists here is crucial. Even though they won't update my eyeglass perscription, take care of my tooth, take great pains to ensure we conform to their active duty standards, and sometimes sneer at us for not being ''committed to active duty' I don't think we would be a sucessful as we have been here without the lawyers, engineers, politicians, and businessmen who happen to wear green over here. Corporate teaches us to see the 'big picture' and look beyond the short timeframe of an officer evaluation report allowing us to pass on crucial insights on longer-term impactful programs.

It was a good day which has now turned into night. Time to cross off one more ~~18FEB2006~~.

/nn

Happy Valentines Day

2006-02-13T21:44:00.000-08:00

Dating in a War Zone

Most of the guys over here are married. I can’t imagine how they get by. They have kids, car payments, loans, spouses, mouses, houses… I have none of these. My buddy renegade found out his wife was pregnant the first week of mobilization, he went to the state back after 9 months on leave to find a new kid around! Never saw his wife pregnant or anything. It was like, gone on deployment, come back and bam! There’s a new kid…

Most folks try to talk with their spouses on the phone regularly, they have Skype (Google just bought it). Some don’t because there is absolutely no privacy. When we were at Danger I was in the computer room and there was a crying solider on the phone with their spouse… Nothing like waiting in line for the phone only to have major life issues come up and you have to share it with 48 of your new best friends… Things can be rough for them. The married folks… But, I’m Single.

When I was home on leave I picked up a few things. Went shopping at AutoZone for UAZ 469B parts, stopped by Wal-Mart for smokes and razors, Bought a 1967 BMW R60 off my uncle (a huge vintage motorcycle enthusiast – he has bikes hanging upside down in restaurants)… I really like that bike. I rode in my uncles 1954 BMW with sidecar when I was 15 and told myself I would get one someday. Being in a War makes you act on impulses like this. Makes you go for things that you need in your life instead of waiting for them to come to you.

Now that I had a bike, I needed a biker chic to ride on it. So I talked to Nancy, a girl from church in NYC area and we entered into contract negotiations. It went well, I got almost everything I asked for (she has to wear flowery yellow sundresses on all our dates [that will go over well in NYC] and has to promise never to lean the opposite way of a turn on my bike). We had a great first date on the First of 2006 and decided romantic involvement would accompany leather riding pants and world travel.

So then I went back to Iraq and found myself wanting to interact... There are crazy things that go on a daily basis that needs shared. So we try to talk on the phone (crazy time zone switch, lines, unreliable service, no privacy…) but the best way is email, occasionally a chat session on IM. What a great way to get to know each other! It is sooooo….. Old school (although in a new tech internet kind of way). Man, writing letters? Who does that anymore? (I was even thinking of carrier pigeons…) And then returning them with answers? It is great, I have favorite stuff, she has favorite stuff. We chat about stuff. Stuff get talked about. Share books. Send pictures over email…

And, the best part, is that on Valentines Day, you actually have someone to send stuff to (although mine was certified mail that needs her signature so I got my Package today and Nancy will have to wait until Saturday – too bad, it sure is stellar). My sister gets less packages from me though (and her husband typically just spackles her a heart or something).

I got this big box about 5 days ago that someone wrote: “don’t open until the 14th.” What is up with dat? That is like putting a big bowl full of candy on the porch at Halloween with a note that says “take only one.” Yeah right. There were hearts all over it so I felt I had to honor it.

But I was good. I did not open Nancy’s box until today. Here is it prewrap (on that oh so familiar, camo poncho liner backdrop):

Notice how nicely Nan wrapped everything! I felt bad tearing the stuff off like a 6 year old at a birthday party…

Here’s the goodies:

Isn’t she lovely! Everything has a purpose and is well thought out – girls are great! The picture is a print of some dude’s painting “The Nineth Wave” that I saw at the Guggenheim (Nancy was there a couple of days after me on a tea party she planned for the girls [I went before so I could go with the guys, drink beer, and make fun of stuff]). I mentioned this painting to her because I liked the big translucently greenish wave right above the guys who were hanging onto a capsized mast for dear life. These guys are in a bad way yet they have this beautiful wave to look at – I just liked the emotional balance of this piece. So Nancy repainted it exactly from memory (ok, she bought a print) and I dig it.

She also sent on some shampoo. And for a second, I was like, “what the heck is this?!?!” I have not bought shampoo for like 15 years and she is sending me shampoo. But then I smelled it and recognized it as what she uses. Cool! I remember mentioning that I liked the way her hair smells. Redolent of Nancy. I think I will start using it every dayJ

Some of the other guys got some package too. Renegades’ wife sent him fire chips, corn pops and heart shaped lollipops!!! I forgot to ask for that stuffJ Maybe next valentines I can get that box of cheerios I’ve always wantedJ Dating is great cause you get stuff.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

/nn

Riding the Pine

2006-02-12T01:14:00.000-08:00

PowerPoint, Emailing, and Communicating - careful of splinters

When I got back from leave in January I had no idea what I would be coming back to. I did not know if I was staying at the same FOB, who I would be working for, or in which capacity… We have been trying to go through a complete change in direction for how we run reconstruction.. Mostly because what we are doing is working.. but it is inefficient…

A Major I was talking to in Mosul really summed up our inefficiency conversation with: “that’s why you don’t see the US Military running the government back in the US.” This stuck. We are making major progress. But could be doing better.

The plan was to move from DoD leadership to DoS leadership. However it is really hard to get promoted in the Army if you have “Did what the Department of State told me to do” as a major evaluation bullet… The change over did not happen. I am now thoroughly convinced in my previous assessment that it is not about progress over here it is about control.

This changeover did not affect the guys on the ground much. They kept on keeping on.. but for those of us who were to work intimately with the new structure, we were cut off and left to find a new position when the ‘new’ became ‘moot’.

The Functional Support Team (FST) I worked on was a group of professionals (we have an medical Doc who assesses Iraqi Health care, a Veterinarian who does agricultural and livestock, a politician who does Iraqi governance, a Lt Colonel from Texas – who just from being from texas knows how to make a profit from stuff, he does economics, and an Engineer who does infrastructure (water, public works mostly, oil, elec, in a pinch).

We used to be off by ourselves. Traveling around the country. Working with Iraqi officials, State and Military leaders, and civil affairs teams consulting within our specialty to help make our billions of dollars spent as effective as possible. I had developed a pretty good reputation as “The Waterboy up North.” Requests for information came frequently and I had more work on more FOBs than I could handle. I inspected Water Treatment Plants, talked to Sheiks about their villager’s water, brought my “Hach DR 2010 Portable Water Microbiology Lab” out to do water quality tests (I would bring some chlorine so I could add it to the DPD test [it turns the water pink if Chlorine is present {the kids dig it }]), looked over projects, consulted on design, worked on starting up factories, discussed economic developments at DoS meetings in Baghdad… it almost felt like I was called up for my skillsets!

When I was a kid, I read a book about a bulldog who did not know what his purpose was – what with overbite, stubby legs, pushed in nose and all. Then one day, when his girl was out in the field a bull started rushing her! The bulldog, instinctively, jumped up and bit that bull right on the nose. His overbite, angled teeth, and other “imperfections” him well suited for this. Finally, the bulldog has found his purpose and he saved the little girl.

For a while here, I felt like that bulldog. All of the Army environmental training, the work in my masters in economic development, leadership training, studying manufacturing operations – it was like an intersection of many of the skills I have picked up over the years!

But that’s gone… We’ve been disbanded. Now we are staff officers. Making PowerPoint Slides on the mistakes made by non-technical folks who spent lots of money on the wrong systems. I like to add recommendations to have them consult with the Functional Support Team.

***

I work at division. DMAIN. A big building where the general sits with all of his staff sections. Because we hate saying we are a staff officer in the Civil Military Operations Chief we just say we work for the “9.” More specifically the “G9.” Every staff section at has a number. My buddy, Dave, is in Plans, he works for the G5. I think 9 is the highest. If there is a G10, I’ve never seen his folks.

The US Army is one of the mightiest organizations on the planet. I especially liked John Keegan’s chapter in “The Iraq War” where the British Army was rolling with the US Army and stopped for a supply refill. The Supply Trains rolled up and did their thing – Men were fed, trucks gassed, ammo resupplied – like one amazing logistical pitstop.

The ability to coordinate information down to the most minute detail to different units in different parts of the country, with different equipment and is truly awesome. If some full bird colonel wants SGT Snuffy and his squad to meet, PVT Johnson no later than 0545 hours at location GRID EH12349876, to perform overwatch and tire change operations with a toolbox, a cup of coffee, and a fresh pair of underwear, well, he could and it would happen. The method we have to do this is via a piece of paper called a FRAGO – Fragmentation Order (basically it is an adjustment to a operations order (OPORD). We plan the big stuff for an operation with an OPORD and then put out specifics with a FRAGO).

FRAGOs are a bear – especially when you are at Division. When you see one you freeze to see what it’s about… They lay down the law. They have Claws & big teeth. And it is not uncommon for folks to run around about their business banging sticks and throwing rocks so as not to run into one. Sometimes they will run downhill in a zig-zag pattern to avoid them. Occasionally, the FRAGO rolls head over heels and the unit gets away. They sometimes get overlooked. But like a stop sign at a frequently rolled through intersection – when there is an accident, they clearly assign the blame!

Unit levels:
- ARMY
- CORPS
- DIVISION <--I now work here
- BRIGADES
- BATTALIONS <--My unit at this level (445 Civil Affairs BN)
- COMPANY <-- this is the first level where “value added work first occurs”
- PLATOONS
- SQUADS
- TEAMS
- BATTLE BUDDY <--This guy watches your gear while you’re in the can

You will be off working on something and need to coordinate with another group for something:

ME: ‘Hey MAJ Snuffy. I need to get those coordinating instructions and necessary equipment for OPERATION PURPLE PENGUIN from you. We’ve got a Rest Over Night and we need security and billeting.”
SNUFFY: I don’t have that!!!!
ME: According to FRAGO 479 to OPORD 66 you were supposed to provide that information to G9 (my office Civil Military Operations) Not Later Than 1800 hours today!
SNUFFY: Oh… ah, FRAGO 479 huh?
ME: Roger, 479, yep [smugly, fully on the power side of the FRAGO. I usually have a laminated copy in my cargo pocket!]
SNUFFY: OK, I’ll get right on it!

Not only is the FRAGO a sword to wield to get people to do their jobs. It is a fully powerful shield for others to parry any impending interruptions to their internet surfing. Had I not been on the service side of the FRAGO our little exchange could have had drastically different outcome:

ME: ‘Hey MAJ Snuffy. I need to get those coordinating instructions and necessary equipment for OPERATION PURPLE PENGUIN from you. We’ve got a Rest Over Night and we need security and billeting.”
SNUFFY: ‘Oh, we were supposed to get that to you and I have it right here in my hands, but according to the FRAGO 479 – to OPORD 66 you are supposed to get that from Purple Raider 6 (we have colorful names)”
ME: ‘Crud! When did that come out??!?!?! I’m screwed it’d due to the G5 (the plans guys) at 1830!!!!!”
SNUFFY: “Last night, 0037 hours. Where were you??”
ME: “Doing eye maintenance!”

It takes a lot of people to work this kind of process fortunately, there are hundreds of people at DMAIN all doing a lot of nothing, so that if something does happen, there will be plenty of people who can point you through the maze to the one person who has been determined by the FRAGO to have the answer you are looking for.

I have often thought is ludicrous that the most DEOMCRATIC entity in the world, the USA - with the greatest freedoms of speech, job mobility, market access, and individual incentivazation is protected by the most SOCIALIST one, the US Army.

Sometimes they let me make the coffee.

Fun with PhotoShop!!!

2006-01-25T09:45:00.000-08:00

They would not make fun of you if they did not love you...

We of OIF III-IV would like to thank the folks at Adobe PhotoShop. Not for their great product, their many features, printing capability, but mostly for the opportunity to use it to make fun of each other..... There is not greator love in life than to be the target of a prank! We have a few stressbreakers we thought you would enjoy...

This "wanted" poster popped up everywhere one day when I got back from a trip. Our Militiary "Intelligence" officer created this from his scant MI database. Rather clever and generated the "female panty incident" already mentioined.This would make a lot of sense if: 1) you were familar with the Army Standards posters which have soldiers with great teeth modelling every nuance of how to wear the latest uniform they want to correct us on, and 2) you knew our crazy Lieutenant Colonel who wears around his field jacket liner like it is a green fluffy polyester blazer (he's from Texas) (he keeps telling us its Italian...).

The MI guy shows up here on this (now) vintage 2005 Christmas 4 -way folding card. Now we all know what he's got under those combat unforms:-)

Probably more than 57 hours of quality solider time went into these 'products'! Good use of Ol Uncle Sam's Money:-)

/nn

Cold Steel Rain

2006-01-23T11:36:00.000-08:00

Ahhh, nothing makes a cold shower more tolerable than knowing someone else’s is absolutely freezing (and it's your fault!) :-)

We been having shower problems in our barracks (the old Iraqi ones that we managed to “fix” up to save us from the 500M walk to the shower trailers [shared with the third country nationals and quite scummy… Basically, the hot water goes on and off… This has been happening so frequently that our morning salutation has changed to "any hot water today?"

I went about 4 days without one cause the water was cold, nay, freezing. While washing my hands this evening I noticed a certain lukewarmishness there (yes the water was almost tepid!) so I ran back to my hooch (Army lingo left over from Vietnam meaning hovel) to grab my stuff and head back only to find John had just jumped into one of the showers! Crud. He was using ALL sing all of MY hotwater.

I picked my shower carefully. Close to the hot water pipe entry point. John (he’s only a 1LT:-) picked a shower further along the direction of hot water travel (amateur!). Little did he know I was now in power and completely in control of that life support substance that keeps the pipes from freezing and makes cold showers bearable!

AhhHAAAaaHHhhaaaHhhhhhaaaa... AH HAAAAaaaaaAAAAaaHHHHAHHAAAAAaaaaAAAA!!!!!!

It was so easy, and yet, a small twinge of guilt hit me as as I effortlessly diverted the not so frozen water from John's shower to mine. I cycled my faucet on and off to solidfy my position of power and let him know he was at my MERCY!. He Shrieked in dismay, thought thoroughly wetted and entirely committed there was now, no turning back now for Johnny boy! In full combat shower regalia I proceeded to enter the niagra of lukewarm spray and then proceeded to use up every last drop of 'hot' water!

Final out come?

Total Shower Time Hot water Used

Rick 2.3 minutes 5.8 gallons Winner!!!

John 7.0 3.1 :-(

/nn

Return Flight to Iraq War - Gate 31E. U.S. Support for Soldiers - Everywhere else!

2006-01-19T10:58:00.000-08:00

There can be no greater place or time to be in life, than a solider on leave from

Iraq

in the States.

After my 15 days in the states on leave I headed back to Iraq - to my surprise - a war veteran. Not because I have done anything outstanding (my fellow soldiers here can attest to that:-) but because I happened to be one of many Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) Soldiers on a well guarded list at the US Army Reserve Human Resources Command - St Louis. A list whose occupants had no commitment other than keep our contact information up to date and not to burn our uniforms. I wish I could say I heard the call to duty and volunteered to lend my steely Army and civilian skills to coalition forces in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I didn't.

I must admit, I originally did not tend to come back to the States. Going on leave is entirely disruptive physically and emotionally. I felt coming home would be too difficult to depart the theater of operations and then come back in pick everything up again. Also, I did not want to see my friends and family until I was 100% safely in their grasp. Did not want to go through the travel rigors of getting home and back again (84 hours there 56 back). Did not want to lose "The Edge" - the callous to hardship and attentiveness to the environment. Did not want to leave my work here for a month and then have to pick it up again.

But when the opportunity came up to head back to the US on short notice (they gave me 15 minutes to decide and about 2 weeks to prepare) and over New Years Eve - I did not hesitate. I was not disappointed!

I have two observations that I take back to Iraq with me worth discussing. The first and foremost - I feel - is the outstanding support for the participants (soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines) who head out to engage in the war. The second, is that public opinion in support (or opposition depending on your starting point) for the war is largely undecided.

***

The support we have received from the American people is very heartening. Before we left country in May2005 we were warmly greeted by the kids of a fellow deploying solider. Additionally, a woman from Lockheed Martin, Tina, came to the Green Ramp at Pope Air force Base to give us all a hug. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US!!! That was over seven hundred hugs right before we got on the aircraft to take us to the Theater of War. I stood line to make sure I got mine. It was exactly what I needed.

[Thank you All pic]

Since my dear friends have sent countless emails, pictures to grace my wall locker, reassurances of prayer, packages full of goodies, inquiries from friends I have not seen in over 10 years to check up on me (Kathy ½ of the Twins was the longest not seen). What a blessing to have such a group of people … Surely there are those with whom I spend life so richly, yet so infrequently, our thoughts inevitably turn towards eternity.

***

On the way home on leave at the Atlanta airport a little girl (however old 36 inches is) stopped me. She wanted to show me her Barbie her father told me. I stooped down to take a look and took it as she held it out admiring it on her behalf. In giving it back she squeaked out a little thank you. She was so proud to show it. Likewise at a coffee stand I order a big cup of coffee to steady me after the long flight asking if they took a credit card (I did not have cash - Dollars or Dinars [although paying with Dinars would have been interesting]). The gentleman who ordered ahead of me told me they will not take mine here and picked up the tab. Repeat this again with a newspaper at the Cleveland airport.

Security checkpoint lines rerouted, airline stewards offered priority seating, doors gave way, smiles appeared, strangers came up to shake my hand, women holding the hands of their children whispered “thank you…”

I had never been so self-aware and humbled by these kind folks and hope I acted honorably on behalf of the many soldiers whose uniform I now wear hold dear. It was especially hard on the way back to Iraq at the airport when a tear fell from the eye of woman - possibly the mother of one of the 18 marines killed earlier this fall near my hometown. I often wondered who is serving who in this difficult time.

Soldiers of other wars have not been as fortunate. While I was back with my family I was walking through the mall and saw an older man wearing a Korean War Veteran ball cap, his wife on his arm, strolling along the mall hall without looking at the facades. I caught his eye and nodded suppressing my initial desire to go and talk to him, maybe even give him a hug. Same goes for the Vietnam Vet step dad of my college roommate whom I saw while after we spent the day working on our projects (he builds a plane while I work on my 62 Lincoln). They have never received the warm support for their service radiating from their American brethren I now felt.

***

Upon being home all I wanted to do was relax, enjoy the company of my friends and family and pretend I was never really over there. But getting away from Iraq was difficult with so many interested in what really goes on in Iraq. Understanding this I tried to do my best while still trying to maintain some semblance of mental distance from my current occupation. I found it encouraging fielding any questions or holding any discussion regarding the Iraqis, their culture, their government, economics, demographics, or how the coalition is doing in attaining our goals. However, I found it painstakingly exhausting to answer even the smallest question regarding myself or any personal experiences while deployed.

It is to this end I continue with the second of my “home on leave” observations. I don’t think there is much I can say on this regarding one of the most common questions regarding pubic opinion: “do you feel we should be over there?” as I have never meant for this to be a political forum of any kind. I can however answer this question with three others that I feel should be clearly answered before I could make up my own mind:

1. Was the build up of an Anti-west, fundamentalist, terrorist net imminent?
2. If looming, Were the events of 9/11 singular in nature or sure to be the first of many?
3. If numerous, Where would be the best place to fight the war on terror thereby mitigating Western collateral damage?

By this simple decision tree, I find Iraq as good a place as any to hold this forum. We have had over 2,000 US Military KIAs but over 25,000 Iraqi killed from collateral damage (depends on the site as this number is not tracked really well). Iraq was on the outs geopolitically under Sadaam’s rule. All the other Middle Eastern Governments were stable and somewhat friendly. Probably not a swimming approval but that is about all the energy I have to analyze this situation. I would encourage more discussion on this about four years after I get back in country.

Either way I am here and this solider is glad that the American people is able to separate the War from the solider and support us regardless of their part, party, or perspective. Makes coming home welcome.

/nn

Hat Head, dog face, & Airplane Butt

2005-12-29T00:03:00.000-08:00

Practicing patience promotes perfect passiveness...

I checked in to start my leave at 0800 hours christmas Day. I rolled into my home airport at 1000 AM 28Dec EST. A full 84 hours later...

The actual amount of loggable activity in the entire trip was about 22 hours. 3 hours flight to our staging area country (SAC) + 16 hrs flight from our SAC to the US + 2 hours domestic flight home + about 1 hours and 15 mintues of actually process time = 22 hours 15 mintues (on the button). From talking with buds who just got back from MidTour, I thought I would be drinking beer at my Sister's in 48 hours!

I know, I know, you are wondering what happend to the other 61 hours and 45 mintues. Let us investigate shall we? It took:
- 36 hours to get out of Iraq (Balance Forward 25:45). of this I think I slept 12, in my own bed, we would go to the Paz Term (not the "end of peace" but the place where passengers hang out while they wait to fly. The Pax Term is a wonderful place int he middle of nowhere with all the MREs you could eat, fully stocked (with people) bunkhouses (I sat on the end of a soldiers bunk to read while he slept on the other 60%), a big room to watch TV (if you like sports, complete with static and no sounds [we do our own play by play -- quite funny actually]), and a PX trailer (a trip to which will definetly kill an hour [55 minute line to get in]). The Pax Term feels like that train station stop of purgatory that Neo was caught in the Matrix. You sit and watch other people come and go, but none of the planes are for you (plus everytime you try and get on you end up arriving in exactly the same Pax Terminal! If you were looking for a place to leave the special someone stranded 'for dead" I think I found your place

- 20 hours 45 Mins Downtime during Processing in SAC (BF 5:00). The SAC was an exercise in patience and sleep depravity (good training actually and it was well thought out to make sure no one every hit R.E.M. sleep). We arrived 0001 (min after minnight) hours on Day 3. We had a formation, dropped off our gear, moved into The Big Room (TBR) for a brief, signed into our sleeping tents, and were released until 0200. Thank God for Midnight chow - Burgers and corn dogs all around!. Formed up (stood in Army looking rows) at 0200 and sat in the TBR. For the life of me, I cannot recall what we did here. I signed something I think (I hope that does not come back to haunt me - probably was the 2006 0200hours re-enlistment briefing and life commitance ceramony). Released at 0400 and told to report back at 0600 (good thing we signed into the sleeping tents)

At 0600 we formed up again (I got real good at this). And were given our itinerarys. Released at 0615 (if you were early in the alphabet - the "Mids" [those of us in the middle of the alphabet {we even have a T-shirt "The Rock Steady Mids: We don't care if we go A-Z or Z-A!!!"!} were released around 0630. Told to report back at 0830 for the "flight update brief."

0830 Formed up. A crusty Sergeant came out to tell us there were no changes to the flight plan. Released at 0830.05 hours. Told to report back at 1130 hours with all our gear for "Lock Down." Also told the chow hall opens at 1100.

Lock down is not so much of a place as s state. It is staging to go somewhere when you are 100% ready and have no contact with anything. Mostly you sit with your gear in a chair in a tent and look at the other people sitting with gear in the tent (and people wonder why Army guys are so good at Spades). Lock down is the place you go when you are trying to mentally form your "happy place" (the place when everything is made of carmel pralines ice cream and fat necks are sexy). Think of being in Lock Down, cramped, with a bunch of gear (none of it fun gear [how come we never goto war with Xboxs]), tired, and then spin around, and whatever you wish you were your happy place.

They had hot showers, so I took one (like a 20 minute one!), shaved, and changed - even better than sleep!

1130 we formed up again (this time we tried a nice star shape - turned out quite well I think). The flight update guy said we were on time for a 2200 flight. 2200!!!! I turn to the guy next to me to discuss the rationale behind rushing 300 guys through a chow hall in 30 minutes so we could stand around in "lock down" for 10 and 1/2 hours.

Here, it turned out, lock down was a place - it just wasn't where we were. Had a 45 min bus ride there (turned out to be 2 1/2 hours). We sat around. I read "Dawn" by Elie Wiesel from my buddy Johnny Rocket (yeah John you know why you're the rocket [10th grade, d12 rocket engines, in the house, carpet on fire... {remember how you blamed the dog} ah you're killin me..). "Dawn" was great, a 100 pager, fits neatly into a cargo pocket, and was a classic (the guy won a Peace Prize). Great story about terrorism from the side of a terrorist - Like they said in my anti-terrorism Force Protection training in 99: "one man's freedom fighter is another man's terroris." I finished it there on the spot and gave to the guy next to me (he was pagin through a 'Maxim' so I'm not sure if he made it through the first 3 pages...).

They formed us up a couple of times during the lock down to put out information. I think they were afraid someone was going to go AWOL (like who would miss the plane to THE WORLD!). Almost everytime they called roll call. Almost evertime someone would be missing (sleeping somewhere mostlikely). Almost everytime I would be in the back handing out t-shirts to the L's through P's.

Then, just about on time, we flew out. We spent a total amount of 21 hours in the SAC. I might be generous if I said that 15 minutes of it were productive.

- From then on out, we were in the hands of international commerical Airlines (ahhh where time is money!). The rest of the 5 hours of down time were split between Airports SAC (1.5), Ireland (2), US (1.5).

For the graphically oriented I have summarized this data in the following chart to aid the discussion on the time allocation of my trip:

As you can see from the chart above, there is considerable about of time on the front end spend on 'milling about' and 'chow hall.' While milling about remains a critical portion of the journey, 'chow hall' drops off appreciably towards the back end of the trip: most likely this is a result of the lack of time to eat or possible the poor scheduling technique of bracking chow hall hours with formations and processing. 'Sleeping' (accounting for less than 17% of the total time) also appears to be sproadic at best with approximately 67% of the sleep occuring in the first 48 hours of the trip with remainder occuring as cat naps and drool sessions on the plane.

'Actually travelling' is heavily backloaded on the trip, and as can be seen for the nite 3 and day 4 account for over 60% of the time for those periods. Reading and TV was wieghted towards the when sleep was sufficient and TV resources were available.

All of this goes without saying that the crucial activity of the exercise was completed with unabted success: I"M HOME!
/nn

Happy Holiday Greetings

2005-12-19T00:41:00.000-08:00

When in doubt, grab a clipboard

I was down in Baghdad minding my own business in early November when I was approached by a SGT with a clipboard. For the uninitiated, a clipboard is the last thing you want to see in a soldier’s hands! (I wanted to ask him if it was loaded). Typically this means that he has some authority granted in him by some General or something and has to write down the names of all the people he can get to do some miserable task somewhere miserable.

Having taken the Karrass (that stern looking dude on the back of your In-flight Magazines) class on Negotiations. I am now a firm believer on the “Power of Legitimacy”. This is a tactic when you capitalize on the social norms of a culture using the training they have imbibed since learning to crawl. A good example is labeled prices.

If you were to walk into a Target and see a cute little throw pillow (pink with fringes) with a $19.99 price tag you would not think twice about giving the clerk the twenty-odd bucks and walking on. That’s the price, that is what is legitimate to buy the decorative item. No negotiation is required. Further, they would look at you funny if you tried to negate this legitimate price with negotiation. This is completely foreign in other cultures. A price tag on a hookah (another decorative item :-) at the bazaar means nothing in this culture and would probably been an insult to the customers (although the Arabs at the FOB bazaar use them with great success; Americans don’t like the conflict of haggling – that is how strong our power of legitimacy is).

Others are crosswalks (like there is some force field at other crossing points), cookies before dinner, signing everything that is put in front of them (leases, loans, enlistment papers…), and my favorites: signs of authority such as power ties, three button suits, cufflinks, a double breasted suit skirt thing… (I would include rank here, however, as I have been instructed recently, I have to do everything that a senior officer tells me even if I think he is an idiot and the request enforces my assessment [yes, my commander reprimanded me with pretty much these words last week]) so I guess, rank is a fairly strong power of legitimacy (i.e. it IS legit). When we see people wearing business suits, well groomed with the tie of power, we assume that whatever comes out of their mouth has authority.

Since we do not wear ties in the military (when we do it thin and black ~ I think we call that the “Power of Malnutrition”) it is the clipboard which reigns supreme. Throw a clipboard at a private and tell him to walk through the barracks with his hunting face on and watch his soldiers abandon ship! He could assemble a fake detail to gather everyone’s boot inserts for compression test inspection and you’d have soldiers supervising soldiers taking off their boots and measuring the bounce of a golf ball… I have often thought it would be fun to walk around with a clipboard and pick on people all day long just to see what I could get away with.

You could imagine my knee jerk reaction when Sergeant Clipboard walked right up to us at the Embassy (the place is full of Generals by the way). It went well beyond red shirt, clipboard toting, question asking, test trial nuisance at the shopping mall.

Fortunately, he only wanted to know if we were interested in taping a video clip for our loved ones (and brother in law) back in the states. The backdrop turned out pretty well with the digital camouflage blending in nicely into the date palms in the background (almost looks like my head is just floating there [that out to make you want to check it out]). We don’t have date palms at my home FOB (Breaks up the desert scenery so we had them all replaced with more sand).

A quick note on date palms: These date palms are ubiquitous along the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys with over 600 species (they all look the same to me, but I hear the palms get pretty offended if you mix them up). Iraq used to be the worlds #1 supplier of date palms, then in 1991, Iraqi date palm supply rolled off the table like a Randy Johnson curveball. UAE (United Arab Emirates [if you know what an Emirate is let me know]) Malaysia and others picked up the slack in global demand using agricultural improvements that will make it hard for Iraq to catch up. Until then, they rot on the tree. Which is a bummer, since they could be used for date palm wine. End note.

If you want to check out the holiday cheer, jump onto the Digital Video and Imagery Distribution System (DVIDS). There is one for Ohio…:

http://www.dvidshub.net/?script=beta/holiday_greetings.php&view=OH

… and one for Hoboken:

http://www.dvidshub.net/?script=beta/holiday_greetings.php&view=NJ

The quality is a little grainy, the sound is tinny and a little reverb (good for rapping, if only I had known), which is surprising cause they had this big movie making contraption all setup. But you get the picture. Supposedly they are going to air it, but I don’t think they would put it on TV with such poor quality. But the important thing is I get to wish you all Happy Holidays in “Person.”

/nn

My foxhole buddy...

2005-12-16T22:48:00.000-08:00

I plagerized this from Ed's newsletter...

"My good friend"

Our comraderie... green tea, cigars and chat. Rick Nardo right Edwin Morris left

It’s amusing how people, who are thrown together into adverse conditions, find rewarding human bonds. Friendship in a war zone is a lifeline of commonality which provides, some days, the only thread of reality that keeps the scales of lostness from tipping too far. This balance tends to be in the extremes here in sunny Iraq. As a soldier of over 24 years of non continuous contact to the military machine, I view friendship as to the most rewarding experiences this existence has to offer. It provides a reflective experience that allows one to build or reconstruct oneself. More importantly it allows you to be helpful as the balance to the other…service to humanity of the perfect form.

The conditions in which Rick and I found ourselves early in the spring of 2005 has led to many new encounters with or destinies. This deployment as mobilized reservists has given us both an incredible view of historic events.

The adventure of being a soldier is most frustrating and rewarding. As with all things in life you get what you put in.

Ed/nn

Where are my fuzzy bunny slippers!

2005-12-06T21:01:00.000-08:00

I know this is now an “Army of One” but I still have not found him yet…

Warfare, believe it or not, can be stressful. Even if you never leave the FOB you are always within reach of a mortar or a rocket (tiny risk). In some rare cases your own buddy can flip out and pull a Rambo on you (super tiny minute risk). Coping with this stress is the responsibility of each soldier and his buddies. Different folks handle it in different ways. But it must be handled.

I prefer pulling pranks on our intelligence officer (who is a great guy by the way). The lost pink panties with his name on them, hung to the company bulletin board was a classic. But then again, so was the water balloon episode while he was loading lumber into his hummer. And who would forget the huge, plastic, black spider in the shower. I am also thinking we ambushed him once or twice with the super soakers as well, but I digress…

Soldiers will find ways to keep their sanity. Some retreat into their bunks watching movies, others are talkers, some find projects (like rebuilding a Russian SUV) to keep their brains occupied. But being in a war zone can always be a huge benefit: You can have a lot of fun and be a little crazy as long as you complete your mission well and add value. We only goto war every other generation or so, so let’s make the best of it!

Before Iraq, I was indoctrinated with the greatest wartime stress-relieving solider of all during the only popular military offensive of my childhood: Alan Alda as Pierce in “Mash.” He and his cohorts were nutz and had a ton of fun while being the best and most committed doctors in the unit. They were not afraid to do their own thing, walk around the compound in robes, drink homemade martinis, revel in their nicknames, make fun of each other, create opportunities to laugh… It is amazing how they were able to make light of a difficult situation, face wounded soldiers regularly, and yet still complete their medical mission and remain highly motivated by being the best at what they did!

What Hollywood promoted back then the current day Army solider would never be able to pull off. Today – in spite of the new slogan - individualism is suppressed and uniformity is bolstered. Granted, uniform appearance of the military is required for “good order and discipline.” Understood. Geneva Convention (which by the way does not apply to insurgents) requires full protection only to uniformed members of a acknowledged military. To enforce this, soldiers are encouraged to “spot check” each other to ‘correct’ uniform infractions. This is usually done in as gruff a manner possible to better mark the moment – indelibly – in the mind of the infractor (and to think my operations professor in school wasted time giving the pinnacle Economical Order Quantity Lecture in a sliver disco shirt!).

Consider the following hypothetical list of infractions and how they were handled.:

A short list of "imaginary" infractions:

1. I walk to the gym. But to get there from here I need to cut across someone’s area or else walk the long way around. One day I walked through this units compound (which looked like a dirt road [heck it’s all dirt]) and some solider chased me down to yell at me for cutting through (after all the trouble I went through getting through the barbed wire too).

2. In the mess hall two Sergeants Major told me to “untuck my sleeves… and by the way. Take off that wrist band (my Lance Armstrong ‘LiveStrong’ bracelet from my Austin buds). That’s not part of the uniform.”

3. I pulled out [slowly] at an intersection with a blind spot. When I arrived at my destination a senior NCO – who followed me to my destination to yell at me - told me I pulled out in front of him and he had to squeal his tires to avoid hitting me.

4. The PT (physical training) shorts are a truly horrible (I guess with the ousting of hazing they had to bring some pain somewhere) plasticy material that are designed for skinny kids. I buy mine 2 sizes too big, cut out the liner, pull the draw string, and wear underarmor underneath. At the gym this morning, some dude, stops me, squinting, to ask me what that white stuff was peaking out of my shorts (there is a ‘V” notch on the sides). “My underwear,” I replied. “You can only wear Gray or Black” he continued to correct. “Oh, I did not know that.” “You don’t?” He snickered. I said “OK Thanks” walking away. While he grimaced after me “hike those underwear up!!!”

5. Driving back in the dark to my hooch from the laundry pick up I was coasting down this dirt road that had troops on both sides. Apparently I was going too fast (like 7 instead of 5 MPH). Clearly the smart thing to do in this case is to walk slowly across the road in my path making the ‘slow down’ hand motion which one solider did while his buddy yelled “Slow the &^*%%$%% down, chief!” They really showed excellent teamwork as I continued to coast on through [no one was injured in the incident].

6. Our Sergeant Major was walking to work and another Sergeant Major corrected him that he did not salute her Colonel which he did not see.

A shorter list of what goes on in ones head after the “Keeper of the Regulation” “chats” with the infractor:

1. Right and you never take a short cut!

2.a. Oh yeah, I forgot we were in Garrison.

2.b. (alternate or can be used in conjunction with 2.a.) Isn’t there a war going on somewhere around here?

2.c. Oh yeah, that’s right, Uniformity is more important than motivation.

3. You followed my Hummer all the way over here to yell at me about that? How did you squeal your tires in a 10 MPH zone?

4.a. Why were you looking at my underwear?

4.b. I’m at the Gym everyday at 0600 if you want to inspect my undies

4.c. I get dressed at 0545 if you want to nip it in the bud

5. Are you doing this pro bono? Cause I hope my tax dollars aren’t paying you to do this.

6. Here’s his salute could you pass it on for me?

Imagine being stationed overseas with a hundred or so “MAJ Frank Burns” running around, adding value, ‘spot correcting’ everything. It really makes you wonder if your mission of economic development and infrastructure security is really all that important.

I can’t help thinking a slightly relaxed posture would provide the desired service recognition while still allowing soldiers to express themselves. To an extreme, the special forces have recognized relaxed uniform standards (growing their hair, not shaving, not wearing issue boots, not wearing name tapes…) as an expression of elitism and uniqueness; instead spending their energy on mission accomplishment.

Somewhere there is a balance between this strict adherence to the institution versus this expression of the individual – especially in a war zone. Until it’s found, the combat stress psychologists are always forward deployed with us.

/nn

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

2005-11-23T23:19:00.000-08:00

Eat until you're tired and then sleep until you're bored for me...

Woke up early today to give my dear friends in Austin, Kabob and TheKid, a call. Great sharing with you guys! Turns out 0600 is a good time to call as far a phone lines go.

The weather has turned quite chilly; I have even dug out my fleece that the Army gave us in FT Bragg. I almost sent all of my snivel gear (the stuff you wear so soldiers will stop their sniveling – even warmth is optional) home thinking I would never need that stuff in the Desert. There is not much atmosphere here (just now getting some clouds) to retain the day's warmth so the nights and early mornings are freezing. It rained yesterday for the first time I can remember; not a ton of rain, just enough to get the Humm-Vee seats wet:-) The post-rain, musty smell of the Iraqi dirt is redolent of spring baseball games.

Obviously, I won't be able to make it over for turkey this thanksgiving, won't be able to stroll down 6th glancing at the MACY's window displays, won't be playing guitar for the nephew, won't be meeting the buds for some whiskey and cigars, won't be digging into the Santa hat for the lucky duck that gets my Christmas present this year... There is going to be a lot of left over turkey and cheesecake this year!!!

You never know what you've got until it's gone. Or a better way to say it (but doesn’t fit lyrics as well): you never know how thankful you are until you take a second to think about how much it means to you. When you struggle for the staples in life: food, water, shelter, companionship (at the most basic level [survivability]) - or at least work with those whose lives remind you of it frequently - you really learn what it means to be Thankful.

I have all of these in spades and have confidence in them even at 6000 miles away. The absence of life’s distractions has provided an opportunity to reassess their priority in my life. We as Americans do not have to worry about survivability, so we muster to battle other issues in life: the bills, wealth accumulation, meeting the mortgage on the oversized house, egalitarian pursuits.. It seems our nature is to always to hunt and forage. Further, if our bellies remain full and basic security need is met, we will zero in on our occupations, and scavenge for other distractions from reminding us our life passes each day - and then count our blessings for the diversion.

Today I am taking the day off. The 101 is a full go today (They think only wussies take Thanksgiving off...) however no one asked if I was heading up the hill to Division HQ, so I did not volunteer. Renegade and I are going to hit the concessions area for some Taco Bell and then I am going to catch up on some email and research the Oil industry for the new job. The chow hall usually tries to make a good meal and we should have turkey (hopefully unprocessed) with all the trimmings. We have scheduled to meet with some buds there at 1400. Should be good...
cranberry sauce comes in a can whether you are in Ohio or Iraq.

HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

/nn

Peel and Eat Information Conveyance Device

2005-11-23T13:24:00.000-08:00

Some assembly required....

1. Print out the Information Conveyance Device (ICD) (you may need to save it and then make it bigger).

2. Cut along the defensive perimeter of the cantonment area containing the block of text using your scissors, cutting, one-handed, civilian, silver. 1 ea.

3. Using a two-pronged approach. Grab one echelon in each grabbing device and divide the cantonment area in two using a overhead monkey-pull moition to bring the edges of the defensive perimeter into a an adjacent posture so that neither edge has a forward advantage over the other (they should be equally sucky).

4. Maintaining at least a three point stance for vertical balance, placed the billowed edge of the cantonment area under the terminal end of the appendage of the non-weight bearing member (either terminus can be utilized) and press firmly in a rocking moition, back and forth, until a visible and straight line of oppression develops in the cantonment area.

5. Taking a firm hold on the divided CA place a thin and even layer of adhesion material on the non-lettered side of the ink retention device and repeat step 4. An alternate method can be used if steel, ink retention device, fasterners wish to be used and an M479-A2 application gun is available.

6. Place entire ICD on desired mounting surface for display using retention mounts applicable to the desired mounting surface. The ICD has been shelf tested for up to 10 years in extreme temperature conditions and vibrational modes.

------------------------------------------------------------
/nn

Top Ten for What it is Like to be on Deployment

2005-11-16T12:14:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it is hard to put things in perspective until you see it in a Top Ten list...

Invite 20 friends over for the night to sleep on cots in your garage (make sure at least 4 of them talk/listen to music/TV until midnight).
Wake up at 5:30 to the muslin “call to prayer” in Arabic (very “Kingdom of Heaven” like)
Head down the block to your neighbors for a shower (in your flip flops, in the dark, don’t forget to forget the soap)
Cover your entire lawn with 6 inches of gravel (make sure all direct routes are crossed with concertina)
Go to your kid’s school cafeteria for lunch, stand in line for the plates, the grill, the salad/fruit, the drinks. Sit down shoulder to shoulder so your male Velcro sticks on his patches. Eat half. Make sure the tables are so close together you have to coordinate with the guy behind you to get up.
Carry a “Supersoaker” with you everywhere you go (even the latrine). If you have to leave it for a second make sure you ask a trusted friend to watch it for you. Never have it loaded.
Convoy with all the family cars in line whenever you go to the market (make sure everything you buy is non-perishable in a resealable bag). If you buy chocolate, stick it in the microwave before consuming.
Show your ID to the Wal-Mart Greeter, the mail man, the movie clerk, the mall security, the neighbor’s kid…
Don’t drink anything with more than 0.05% alcohol by volume
Wear the same outfit for a week. Put on a second set of exact clothing. Give the dirty set to your neighbor for washing. Switch when it comes back in a week.
Find a crowded phone booth but wait 30 minutes before calling your family, talk loudly about your personal life for 20 minutes, pretend nobody heard you.

Tech Transfer (the old fashion way)

2005-11-11T06:03:00.000-08:00

Sometimes all you can hope for in life is a successful handoff...

I finished up a major project just today to transfer some technology to the Iraqis so they can start a couple of factories to produce a line of products that will help us help them. It was a major pain in the keester. There is nothing done fast over here (or well for that matter)…. I am working with some really great Army guys and some really Great Iraqis but the system was never meant for progress (either the militaries or the Iraqi’s – It was meant for control).

The product is as simple as it gets but is an effective product that every Iraqi needs in their home. It will take the pressure off of me and other water infrastructure guys. But even if the technology is simple, the bureaucracy isn't.

We…

SPENT: over 5 months, considerable money (tens of thousands - a lot over here), countless man hours (from the entire leadership team this had to be more than the number of jellybeans in the jar at prom),
BUGGED: people from the Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office for Oil (and for Water resources), countless unit commanders, 3 civil affairs companies, MITT teams, an a lot of Murktahs, Sheiks, and bunch of poor Iraqis who just wanted cleaner water
WROTE: two funding requests and helped another officer write a third, wrote 1 proposal, a field manual, over 50 PowerPoint slides (makes me an expert by most consulting standards), and over 277 emails
CONDUCTED: over 20 patrols to speak to 3 Iraqi Mayors, assess water at over 10 locations, visit pottery makers at 4 sites, search out 3 potential factory locations,
INTERVIEWED: over 7 Iraqi potential business owners
SETUP: Two fully functional (well… 1.5 really… the first one was missing some equipment - but it failed due to social reasons before training started) training sites to transfer the technology
HIRED: one consultant from the US to come to Iraq to teach us the technology, a number of Iraqi "gophers" (for lack of a better name. basically guys who are good at finding things, and a couple of interpreters
MADE: Drug Deals with 3 welders (many visits to each to make equipment, 2 plumbers for pipe parts, 1 electrician, 1 HVAC repair man, 2 carpenters, and over 10 visits to the Dumps at 3 FOBs
SHIPPED: Equipment from the states to Baghdad, asked Renegade to drive down the most dangerous highway in the world to pick them up and bring them to location #1 (which failed), Begged and pleaded (for 3 months) to have the same equipment shipped to Location #2 for training (Succeeded)…

...SO...

You should not be surprised that I cried when the first successful widget rolled off the line at our training facility. We trained two independent Iraqi's on how to run and setup the business, aided them on setting up the financial structure, marketing, the production of the widget, quality control and discussed distribution.

The Iraqi’s we trained were very engaged and have spent some of their own cash (that should cause a ‘Say what – record skipping to a halt across vinyl response’). I believe they are very much on the ball and can take this further here then we ever could. I constantly focus on my leadership mantra for this tour from Walter Lippman:

"The final test of a leader, is that he leave behind him - in other men - the will and the determination to carry on."

And this was a very simple application of a very simple business! Next, I think I learn to juggle fire while hanging from my hair - or I may just go practice my office chair sitting technique in my new job.

/nn

When in Rome, Find a Roman…

2005-11-06T03:57:00.000-08:00

Just when you get warmed up…. The game changes.

Now that I am at the mid-point of the tour, I find myself spending some time reflecting on what we have accomplished thus far and looking ahead to leaving continuity for the folks who will be replacing us.

Midtour is a funky place to be. You have half of the engagement behind, enough so that you cannot vividly recall what it was like before the call up. Yet you still have half of the tour to go – so much that you cannot see the endpoint. Midtour is time when you informally transferred into the ‘old men’ on the block, the guys “in the know,” seasoned professionals who understand the underpinnings of what our true objectives are and have a remote inkling of how accomplished (ok, well… started). An astute ‘midtourisian’ might even have a coveted contact list and rolodex of contacts facilitating quick and accurate assemblage of information!. You are not longer an FNG, a cherry, a newbie, a drag…

Add to that that my unit was called up halfway between two rotations so we spent half of our time with a Division out of New York and have now watched them leave. And now are welcoming a new Division, the esteemed 101^st Airborne Div “The Screaming Eagles” (the guys of ‘Band of Brothers’ fame). They are back after being here in 2003 during the invasion (do we call it that? Seems kinda forceful, maybe “Iraqi spring fling” would be more appropriate). These transitions have left us being somewhat knowledgeable (at least the most knowledgeable) of what goes on in this crazy world.

The current GWOT (global war on terrorism) is a much different place than the 2003 ‘fling.’ Back then your enemies were in front of you. Possibly they were indiscernible from passive noncombatants Iraqi’s, however they were the ones screaming and running at you while they sprayed bullets sporadically in the air (if Allah wants them to his something the bullets will find their mark in spite of the gunner). Attacks were uncoordinated and ended quickly as fanatics from around the globe fell on coalition spears (I just finished reading “The Iraqi War” by John Kegan. Excellent account of Coalition Maneuver [“maneuver” is military speak for all of the coordination and movement to get troops into place before a shot is fired] on the battlefield – in particular the British Army’s taking of Basra and the Gulf coast with their use of Special Operations).

Today, the ‘war’ (really ‘insurgency’) is much different. The combatants are well-defined, well-equipped, and organized at the highest level. The Anti-Iraqi forces (AIF) may or may not be Anti-Iraq but are pro-cash instead. I have seen numbers in the paper of approximately 20,000 insurgents in Iraqi of which 2,000 are from countries other than Iraq (Stars and Stripes). There are however over 100,000 sympathesizers – folks who agree but are not passionate enough to jump into the fray. Add that up and it is 120k out of 26Million or about one half a percent – pretty small for a country that is attempting democratic rule by plurality (half a percent to the US’s 260Million is about the number of folks who visit Mansfield, Indiana each year – [it's true I googled it!]).

The “Sympies” may not pick up a rifle against the coalition (of which the Current Government of Iraq is a member, right?) but they may be inclined to lob a mortar our way and collect their $cash from the AIF for doing so. When you mortar for cash, it turns out you aren’t a good shot. Which is good for us. If they hit something their longevity would be a concern plus when you are paid per mortar you want to find a safe place to launch not necessarily an effective place.

The 101^st have inherited a war with a difficult enemy to spot and a quickly diminishing battle space. The focus has switched from humanitarian aid to getting the Iraqi forces up to speed to rule themselves. Humanitarian dollars have been cut as multimillion dollar projects are not having a huge effect in this country (more on this later as part of my new mission is to understand this) and we have practically rebuilt the infrastructure to the point where it was before the ‘fling.’

We are in the process of turning over FOB Danger to the Iraqi’s (see the article in Stars and Stripes: http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=31784&archive=true). This part of the path forward for out intervention: train the Iraqi’s to provide their own security, give them the government to manage, and decrease their dependence on the Coalition. In most regards, from what I am reading, they are doing very well with minimal US support in the areas that have been turned over.

With the increase in focus on Iraqi training combined with the decreased emphasis on humanitarian support, I find my own mission changing. While my ‘level’ has remained the same, the direction I look for mission support has pulled a 180. Before, I was at the Division level facing downward at our civil affairs teams to provide them with assistance in water, public works, and environmental engineering (although the latter had a very shallow demand). Now, I am still at the division level however I am facing upward to support the G9 (Civil Military Operations [CMO] Section Chief on information requests involving infrastructure.

I am a staffer to the staffers. If this new position sounds nebulous, well, it is. I was asked to “tell [them] what to order me to do.” Basically I find myself in an opportunity to provide a fantastic answer to the interview question: “have you ever found yourself in ambiguous position? How did you respond? Give us an example of how you added value to your organization.”

All good questions. It is Day Three in this position so I don’t have any answers except to map out the stake holders, understand who the customers are, and possibly work on some techniques to share this information across the board. None of these are easy tasks in an environment where it is difficult to get any of the 6 different phone systems to connect and emails are rarely answered. Looks like one area where my proficiency will be maintained is travel and networking….

At the midpoint of the tour curve we find ourselves at an inflection point. Changes in personnel and divisions and a major reorganization alignment have come knocking. If moral is upheld we may actually find ourselves answering and making some sense out of the darkness. Course, if I could find a Roman I could always ask him what is going on and where the bathhouse (a ‘hamman’ here [I’ve been thinking about asking our commander if we can get a combat patrol together so we can go visit:-) is...

/nn

Sad to see them go

2005-10-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

When you ask military folks what they like best you will invariable get the vehement response: "The people!" Army guys are from all walks of life, especially in the reserves. I have found most of them very likeable and have enjoyed learning about their lives at home. The bonds we form are strong enough to last the test of time and I a sure the WWII vets keep track of whose turn it is to spring for the beer at the VFW. You have to like each other enough to pull them out of harms way should they need it, and hope they would do that same - that is basic. Liking them enough to have chow with them and help carry their stuff to the helicopter that will take them back home is a completely different affinity.

Forturnately, I have met a great number of stand up guys here and I am bummed to see them rotate out back to The World (glad for them making it home safe though). Two in particulare that just left are "The Rhodesian" and CPT "Vegetable." Both are standup guys. Guys I would put into the highest tier of respect.

FYI - Respect tiers:
-low: Would pull their butt out of a burning HummVee
-Med: Would wait till they were ready to goto the chow hall
-Med-high: Would let them borrow my poncho liner
-High: Would share my Nanas' Ganett cookies
-Super high: Would plan to go into business with them

These guys were go getters often working against this crazy system to complete projects that might possibliy create employment and welfare for the Iraqi people. Oftent they would be slightly unconventional flying in the face of formal procedure becuase the convention is that the formal procedure is broken takes too long, changes the altruistic intent, invovles too much beauracry, costs too much... One of these guy's even had a boss who was going to find him AWOL (absent without leave) for going to the Embassy so he could network through the bureacracy to meet with the Iraqi Oil Ministry. This would be like navigating through GM to find the guy who makes OnStar and them getting him to champion a project to the president of the company for you! But he did it and he pitched his project to the Min of Oil.

Here, like GE I am finding there are three levels of people: The A's, the B's, and the C's. I try to define these below in what reads like a horoscope:

The A's are the folks who have some talent and desire to get something started over here, Nay, FINISHED over here. These folks would consider their tour a affront if they did not do something that led to a change in the Iraqi peoples lives. They are oftent frustrated becuase they are constantly bumping into the Upper Constraint: 'The System." The System is not desinged for progress. Troops rotate every year(ish) so continueity is tough, plus getting anything done in Iraq can take many months (getting it done right can take years), the money granting process takes time and is often disjoined from the money tracking process... These are just a few issues. If optimism abounds and they manage to not tick off too many people along the way as they work their projects these folks may go home feeling accomplished.

The B's are those who know that there is nothing they can do to cause any change. Their powerpoints will may be cycled through, their projects may be unfunded, but their desk space is fully occupied and they are always freshly caffinated and nicotined. Some of these folks were A's that bumped against the system enough to be beaten into reality, some of these folks were preescient enough to know they would not be able to affect change before they started.

The C's are the folks who don't want to be here and are not doing anything to give other folks the impression otherwise. A great example would be an E2 at one of the FOBs whose job it was to count the number of people who came into the mess hall (All mess halls do this per contract). This E2, Private, started out the tour as an E6, Staff Sergeant. But after getting found completely intoxicated and naked (twice) she was reassinged to her current position and rank. Other C's can be found in their bunks, talking with the barracks lawyer, planning what they can get away with to make life miserable for their commanders. C's constant bump up against the lower constraint: UCMJ action, and expulsion or, arrghhh, pay cuts.

The Army does not actually have these levels, however they are implicity felt. The Army's treatment, as far as I can tell, is more along the lines of Roping in the 'Cowboys' (A's) promoting the 'troopers' (B's) and ignoring the 'problem children' (C's). GE's definitions don't quite fit these as they are percentage based: A's are top 20%, C's are bottom 10%. However their treatment is slightly different (and better for profits). They promote the A's and chop the C's.

Most of my buddies are great guys, but I have found these two are A's and top notch - destined to captain their respective industry. I learned a great deal from these guys and look forward to having a brewski when it is my turn to rotate out of the sandbox....

Seven months and counting!

The World Thru Purple Colored Glasses...

2005-10-23T23:04:00.000-07:00

What do you get when you mix Navy kahaki's, Army Green, and Airforce Blue??? Obviously it's Purple. At least that is how the government sees it. Positions which are tri-service (involving Army, Navy, Air Forcel, Government) are known as 'purple' posistions. Someone who works in this job is a purple-suitor and drives to work in a purple hat - you get the idea.

Just finished up an economomics conference at the IZ. My first impressions are that I am impressed! This was so purple is transcended militiary, Agencies, and even countries. The last day was a round table chaired by an Indian and had presentations and participlation from a Doctor (JD) from Cardiff Wales, an economist from Lebanon, a Hotel operator (tourism was a big industry in Iraq) from Tunisia, and I'm pretty sure the last guy was a Turk. The rest of us were Americans. I am not sure what 'color' this would have been but it is somewhere beyond purple.

The committment of these poeple is amazing. Each of them spurted a C-V of countries where they have done humanitiarian economic work: Tunisia, Jordan, all over Africa, Central America... They put together programs such as World Trade Organization consulting, Import/export, Banking (Central and branch), Finance, Business Center development, industry development...

It all may seem like theoretical grandstanding - all this dreaming of WTO entry, developing of a credible banking institution, furnishing grants to cooperative developments... But, if these fail, the economy will fail, if that fails, well.... it may start cutting into my paycheck in taxes.

All of the programs to feed, clothe, shelter are wonderful. And they are much needed to 'stop the bleeding.' But the true measure of our work here will be in the sustainability of the programs discussed at this economoc meeting. If they are fed in the future, it will be becuase they were motivated enough to begin a startup, to create, employ and add value. If they do not, it is doubtful they will hold the World's attention long enough to provide dessert.

Fortunately, for now, multiple Non-governmental Organizations from around the Globe are here to invest the time and energy to furnish opportunites for Iraq to develop into it's own. Those of us in kahaki, green, and Blue are here to provide the resources so this can stay purple.

Gumming up the works

2005-10-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

Down in Baghdad at the IZ. The International Zone (and it is! Bumped into an Italian Officer earlier this week who went on to tell me what a wonderful place Nardo Italy is! Coolness!! I am vying for an invitation to their compound for some down-home Italian cooking]).
This is a good place to be becuase it is like a little city. Even have a hospital which is where I found myself last monday. I had to goto a dentist to repair the repair job that was done by an army dentist in Tikrit from an tooth ailment I got in Kirkuk (how about that for national medicine). I lost a filling in Kirkuk chomping on some tough steak causing me to goto the dentist at my home FOB in Tikrit.

I went in thinking it would be a quick refill of the filling and came out with a root canal! While in his chair he was probing causing considerable pain so he said he needed to roto rotor my tooth canal. All I was thinking is if it hurt this much when he sticks a metal pick in then it can't be dead! - let's close up and I'll be on my way.

Unfortunately, he was dying for an opportunity to test out his pneumatic drill - lucky me. He was actually pretty proud of it (light, portable...) So he kicks on his 5 gallon capacity compressor and proceeds to drill me. Turns out this is a rather unpleasant experience since the compressor only has enough capacity to power the drill for about 45 seconds at a time! He buzzes me, waits, buzzes, shoots me with more novacaine, buzzes... at this rate, I was going to miss lunch (and possibly not have a tooth left to chew with [and this is my right upper molar {#13 i believe} my favorite chewing side]).

I knew I was in trouble when he turned to his assitant and said: "Go get the files." Crud. So now the Dentist is filing my teeth with these tiny little files (they were quite cute actually). Much slower, but we were making continuous progress. Too bad he could not find the smaller ones cuase he made a huge (and I mean HUGE) hole. It was one of those holes you can't stop poking your tongue in...

At this point, he tought it wise to inform me that he did not have the tools or materials to complete the cap. Crud. "So why did he start?" He did let me know he had a wonderful paste that would harden and last about 2 months. When I told him I have about 8 months left he said it was not a problem since they could always remove the paste, roto rotor my canal again, and then put in more paste! His brother must have owned the company for this stuff cause this repetition is ridiculous.

So my dental tour of Iraq continued with the Baghdad Army Dentist. He must have shopped from the same dental catalog as the first guy cause he told me he did not have the correct tools either! Crud. I asked if he would refer me to Germany or Kuwait or where ever we could do this. But he wouldn't. Turns out this is not procedure. The standard operating procedure is to have your tax dollars buy enough paste so we can add some to my tooth every two months.

I was not in a Happy place - especially since the Dentist opened up with a question I am learning to hate: "Are you active component or reserve component?"

I guess your teeth are different if you are reserve and you are not to be treated. The part that stinks is that if I were not called up, I'd be in NYC with the best health plan in the world with Johnson and Johnson and they would not have let me out the door with sodium hydroxide paste in my mouth that rots out every 2 months!

They plan on me getting out of the Army once we demob (ilize) so they will not have to fix my teeth. But I will be making sure they fix it - oh yes I will...

***

But the point of the story (turned tirade) is a converstation I had with a civilian on the bus to the hospital. He was an older fella with a Harley t-shirt who looked like he had been over here for a while. He was impressed when I told him I did civil affairs work in water infrastructure and evironmental issues with the Iraqis. For the folks who never go off the compound or hardly see Iraqi's this can be strange.

This is how we get work done: going outside the wire, working with Iraqi's, meeting with reconstruction folks, and talking with NGO's. But for the folks who never see the villiges, rivers, mountains, or peoples of Iraq, I could understand how this would seem bizarre...

He asked how we were doing and how the infrastructure was, where upon I gave the party line: "to what standard? A. Pre-war, B. Iraqi standard? C. UN Developing Country Standard? D. American Standard?

All of these have separate answers. Any would require some evaluation and explanation to truly give an accurate estimate. The important thing here is that it is not a simple question and even harder to assess.

"A" is just about there. Surely if you wanted to make a case for it, we should only have to repair what we destroyed (which was not much due to our amazing target acquisition and guidance systems). The problem with "A" was Saddam usually had on his "Oppressive Dictator Hat" when he was deciding his distribution of resources and infrastructure and there were many folks who ticked him off so should therefore go without clean water, electricity, wastewater removal, heating fuel, garbage service..... But everyone had plenty of sand.

"B" would be the standard the Iraqi's are used to for everyone possible in the country. Water would be available but not potable, 8 hours of electricity per day would be a good start, wastewater would be via a drainage ditch straight to the nearest wadi or river, fuel would be bought on the black market or from a brother in the Ministry of Petroleum...

"C" would be better. But the only standards I have seen are for drinking water quality standards (I am sure there are others). These are meant to be a "stop gap" until something better can be found. UN provides guidance only - of course if they did mandate requirements they would have to provide resources as well and that would be harder to do considering they are NOT in Iraq (They operate liason officers here with offices in Jordan).

"D" appears to be what everyone talks about, is familiar with, and uses for their meter stick, but is probably overkill - as one of my buddies told me: "we're not here to build Hiltons!" Especially when all they had before was Motel 8's. From just the water infrastructure side of the house it would cost serveral Billions to get them up to the "D" standard. If it ever comes down to this and we will be moving toward the water quality Westerners are accustom t0 I may have some openings in my contracting firm WNI. Of course I would have to resign my commision, but WaterNard Incorporatred will provide the best talent available to consult on bringing the country up to standard.

Any way you target it - the current state measure is difficult to assess. Our work over here is constantly a moving target. Work starts late, stops for no reason, gets blown up, gets restarted, stops again, gets refunded.... It is a good thing I have paste in my mouth and can't bite off all of this - course we do what we can by 'gumming' at it.

/nn

Mediocre media...

2005-10-14T22:30:00.000-07:00

Has anyone told the U.S. Media the Middle East is undergoing the most progressive political change since the Code of Hammurabi?

I am down at the Emabassy as I write this - which means I have good access to TV. Namely, the news channels. BBC is preferred, and, I find, the most objective. I was turned on to them during a trip to Mexico City when a buddy, Sisepio and I watched the BBC report on How "Bloody Awful" the BBC was.

BBC had a wonderful program on the stakeholders of the vote - both internal to Iraq - and external. Fox/CNN was reporting on the floods in NJ and a 4 yr old case alleging Carl Rove's invovlement in CIA name dropping to people who already knew. The matter of stakeholders here is not one to be glossed over. It is complicated to say the least. Even the BBC's punchy-aggresive journalist style had trouble getting their mitts around it.

To understand this country you must understand the people. As my interpretor told me last week when I was gauging his take on the referendum: "the Iraqi people only understand Power (what can be done FOR you if you comply) and intimidation (what will happen TO you if you don't)." The sources of power are few in this country and involve countrol over the 2 natural resources (OIL, WATER) and one unnatural resource (fear for you and your entire family).

Value is derived from scarcity which also concentrates the power into the hands of the few. Oil accounts for 95% of the GDP (as well as it has beeb tracked - Saddam did not go out of his way to share data) according to a report by UNICEF. The oil fields in the north, the Kirkuk fields, are filled with a lot of the black stuff. These lie within the countrol of the Kurds and lie along the Iranian border.

The oil fields in the south, the Rumaila fields, are amazingly plentiful as well and lie between Iraq and Kuwait (some of which is still in disputed land). The oil fields in central Iraq are.... umm.. well there aren't any. That is the oil picture.

Water is just as complicated. Sources of water include ground water which varies in quality depending on where you dig. The enemy of GW in Iraq is salt. In talking with the Senior consultant for the Iraqi Reconstruction Management Office - Water Resources, he told me it was hit or miss. One spot could be fresh; another salty - with little rhyme or reason. Digging deeper (below the oil [floats on water if you remember High School physics]) you can get a different - and just as confusing - picture. You can find water fairly close to the surface (usually within 10 meters) but will be of generally poor quality. At 100 -150 m you strike oil and may not hit water again till 600 - 800 m deep (that is a long way to pump for a villiage!).

Surface water comes from the Tigris and Euphrates. The Two from antiquity, mentioned in the bible (Genesis) as two of the four rivers flowing out of the Garden of Eden. The Tigris flows into Iraq via Turkey, the Euphrates via Syria. The T & E come together at the "Shatt el Arab" about 100 KM from the port shared by Iran and Iraq.

If you happen to be near the rivers, or have good access to ground water you are in good luck. If not, you dig a hole in the summer and hope it will be filled by the end of the rainy season (Nov - Feb). The clayey soil will hold it and I am sure from looking at it, that it is tasty. This is it for the year.

Away from these sources, you are dependent on someone else for water for drinking, personal hygiene, and irrigation.

So obviously if you want to live in a region of power you should align yourself in the North (lots of oil access to Tigris). The Kurds dominate this region. If you can't be in the North, the South would work: lots of Oil, access to ports and the Shatt el Arab {the confuence of the T & E). The Shia Arabs dominate this region.

If you are in central Iraq you get little oil but access to the Tigris. The Sunnis dominate this region.

***

The picture thus far is complicated, and it is about to get worse...

In the states we would align our Identity by a small handful of parameters. We may be aligned religiously, poltically, ethnically, geographically, financially, occupationally, hobbyially... It is arguable, but I would say that for most Americans, we can handle two of these at most. We could be a rich repulican, a asian doctor, a democratic social worker..... I have yet to goto a party where someone ID's themselvse as a protestant, middle-class, 3rd generation Italian, Independent, MBA, Midwesterner from the Nardo tribe (mostly this person would just say I'm Rick and I have a 1962 Lincoln Contiental [any questions???]).

In the middle east, Identity = function(ethnicity, religion, and Sect, Tribe, geography, nationality, wealth [or access to it], politics)

Where:
Ethnicity <> (Kurd, turkomen, arab, persian, Asyrian, Chaldean...)
Religion <> (Muslim Sunni, Muslim Shia, Christian, Jew...)
Sect <> (Shia (religious authority comes from the SUMMA [Muslim community]), Sunni (R.A. from direct descendent of Mohammad {You might think this is a small thing to divide people groups over until you ask a muslim the difference between a Catholic and a Protestant}).
Tribe <> (there are a bunch. I have no idea how many family lines that are associated...)
Geography <> (mostly aligned by one of the 18 provinces...)
Nationality <> (From all over the M.E. Saadam encouraged foreigners to come and
live in Iraq after the Iran-Iraq war...)
Wealth <> (appears to have high inequality here. Access is based upon family lines and nepotism is the norm as is inter-familiy marrying to keep the wealth in the family...)
Politics <> (Ba'ath [Saddam's party {a form of Socialism}], Iraqi List, a few others..)

These are deeply felt and can be a source of schism across people groups. Different groups weigh the importance of each of these parameters differently, however they are essential to each ones self image. It appears a way of controlling the scare resources and "taking care of your own."

Utexas has some great maps detailling these: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/iraq.html

This one in particular shows the demographics
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/
middle_east_and_asia/iraq_ethnic_1978.jpg

***

What each stakeholder wants:
Kurds ~ pro constitution. Very business like and want to get on with nation building. Possibly a seccessionist agenda that would make a texan smile. These folks are very strong ethnically and are spread across Iran (who knows what is on their agenda, but they don't want a separate Kurdistan), Turkey (don't want a separate Kurdistan [they feel the same about the Kurds as we do the Texans - just like us, but are a little quirky with a strong identity we think is downright bizarre]), Syria (don't want a separate Kurdistan)... BTW ~ Kurds hold their own religion as well.

Shia Arabs~ Pro constitution. Want to move on. May think it is an opportunity to set right the wrongs of the Saddam Sunnis era.

Sunni Arabs ~ Possibly unfavorable (liked the idea of the "ammedning the constitution clause" added this month). Are by far the minority and have a history of oppressingn the dominant groups. Have little source of natural resources in their dominant regions. Don't want to be written off.

The other Middle Easter Countries? ~ Most are Sunni Arabs and see Iraq as a buffer country between themselves and persian, extremist, Shia Iran. They don't want American in Iraq, don't want a strong Iraq, don't want a Shia/Kurd-led Iraq...

I will say, they are profitting quite handily from the war however; everything I eat comes from Kuwait, alot of our R&R is in Qatar, Suadi Arabia and Oman are surely getting something from our bases there....

US Troops? ~ I cannot speak for all of them, but most have a job to do. And want to do it well and go home. If it is force protection they want to protect the force, if it is water infrastructure they want to set it in order, if it is fly people around then that is what they strive to do well. Out lot is not to politic, but to win wars! (more on this in General MacArthur's Thayer Award Acceptance Speech [It is the Duty, Honor, Country, Speech {everytime I think of D.H.C. I think of FT Bragg in 1995 when we had a big formation and had it read to us with a big cannon going off "Duty BOOM! Honor BOOM! Country BOOM!}]).

***

If someone can figure this out and let me know I'd be most appreciative. Or, if it is over, let me know how the whole Carl Rove thing turned out.

Potstradamus

2005-10-07T11:26:00.000-07:00

I finally found the guy who’s been making all of the pots the archeologists discover…

Iraq has many brick factories (they make pots there too). It appears to be one of the few industries which predates all of the conquests, occupations, and Saddam. Maybe, for this reason it has been left alone to run in the background, apart from the politics, oil, and religious infighting.

I hitched a ride there with one our our ‘CAT A’ (Civil Affairs Team, Level A – guys on the ground) Teams who had visited previously. I was tipped off on their work there by Renegade who passed on their Sit Rep (Situation Report). I knew the Army folks involved from being the unit movement officer for the battalion and contacted them to let them know I was interested in visiting for the project.

Of course, it would entail the typical travel scheme for the theater: Black Hawk, Heavy body armor, Hummer, Cots, foot patrol.

From the air, the black smoke of more than one hundred chimney kilns can be seen for miles. I have flown by them many times and wondered what it could be that produces this much pollution, who could live there, what was the benefit, how long this has been going on… I had always assumed they had something to do with the oil industry (never a bad guess in this country)– such as a refinery, or the world’s most inefficient electric power plant.

The brickyard is smallish - maybe 16 Kilometers square, but is the site of 1000s of years of brick and pottery making –many times the short history of the United States involved in just this simple industry. Little occurs here save work: Few living areas can be seen. No water sources for miles. No oasis of shade. Nothing green. This place is demarked by 150 foot tall chimneys adjacent to huge kilns 50 feet long and 20 feet wide. There are black oil pits everywhere. Imagine stomping cattail flax into clay in the middle of the La Brea tar pits.

The area is hard to navigate laced with uncomfortable dead ends between a rolling canvas of identical kilns, bricks, and pottery wheelhouses. The military has been the genesis for many technological advances we now hold mainstream. One of these, GPS, leads us to our destination: the pottery kiln of an indifferent, if not friendly, Iraqi potter.

Heading to an Iraqi site for an assessment or meeting always carries with it a certain concern of purpose. One wonders if the contact, if there, will be friendly or problematic. Some are overly happy to see the Coalition with the money, food, medicine and resources we bring. These can be seen giving thumbs up telling us how much they resented Saddam. A few can be openly hostile, spurning us aside and refusing to deal with us. These cause us alarm as we continue - looking over our shoulders. Most are indifferent – believing there is little we can do to change their way of life. Either way, communication with our assets is constant. Gunners alert of the scenery, drivers watch the access routes, those of us on foot patrol monitor the net and provide constant feedback.

The potter we are here to visit is somewhat north of indifferent – he is “enthusidifferent.” Standing atop his kiln he looks as if he could have given Heston a run for his money in “The Ten Commandments” with his all-white Disdasha (we call these ‘man dresses’ [truly we have talked of getting some made in digital camouflage]) flapping in the steady, dusty breeze. He is an albino - an unfortunate affliction for a land that knows no shade or clouds and has an abundance of sun. No telling his age. He could be a hard-knock 30 or a well weathered 70 – possibly could have shaken the hand of Moses himself. One thing is clear, he and his sons had been making their pots for a very long time. I would imagine the techniques they use here have been handed down from father to son since biblical times.

The make four types of pots at this location. I conferred with our interpreter to understand them and how they are used. The biggest, “Tanaors” (pictured above back right), are 4 feet high and have a small closed, flat top that slims down slightly to a big open bottom. It takes a very strong potter to throw (‘throw’ is official pottery talk for spinning on a pottery wheel) these monsters on a wheel. Fires are started in these pots and, once heated, they are transformed from clay pots into ovens. Flat bread is smacked against the side of the pre-heated pot and cooked. This is the same flat bread served to us with the customary chicken and rice meal. Quite hardy –if it sticks half as well to the Tanaor as it does to the ribs we could start a new enterprise here selling Pam cooking spray…

The next biggest, the “Hebs” are water jars (above pic, with pointy bottom in the air). They have a big opening that is consistent for 2/3 of the pots height. The bottom tapers to a point. Water is poured into these pots and allowed to settle in the pointy bottom. Once settling has occurred, water is dipped out below the surface for drinking. Not a bat start as far as water treatment goes – they get rid of the ‘sinkers” (yes that is the accepted environmental term) and dip below the “floaters.” The Heb is also unglazed so water can seep through the walls and will evaporate causing a cooling effect.

The third and fourth types in the potter’s product portfolio are the small “Qadah” and Larger “Qadah Kibeer” flower pots used for storing small and large flowers. These are spun (or ‘thrown’ if you happen to know anything about clay) on the wheel similarly as the one above. These are quicker to make and are sold for more for design than function (compared to the previous two). Therefore the potter will give a trademark ‘apple pie knuckle mark’ or use a stick/gear/rock to make a decorative engraving.

I was looking at one particular pot and miming how I liked the decorative circle of marks in the pot. I made a motion with my finger to ask if he used his fingernail to make the 200 or so ½ slanted lines around the perimeter. He said something in Arabic that sounded like: “what a doofus, we don’t have that kinda time, we’re trying to run a business here” and pulled out a gear from a machine that he holds up to the side as he spins the ‘green’ pot (in ceramics, the worked pot is ‘green’ until it is fired [after that, I’m not sure what color it would be]). Turns out the word in Arabic for machine is “Maqwina” which is very similar to Spanish “Maquina.”

The site has everything that is needed for pottery except for cattail flax (‘neefash’), water and labor. The ground is made of fine (coarseness not the character) clay, oil can be drilled to at 10-200 feet (I’ve dug that far with my toes at the beach when I was twelve), the missing three are trucked in. The water and flax from the nearest river valley, the labor from towns as far away as 2 hours.

The process is straight from the Old Testament and involves a lot of footwork. The clay is dug from the ground. Occasionally it would be sifted, but not typically needed. Then one of the sons (probably whoever was violated curfew from the previous night) got the task of adding water and then the celebrated stomping in of the neefash. This young guy was very happy to show us his fancy footwork. I am going to try this next time on a dance floor.

After “The Stomping” comes the throwing on the pottery wheel. The old man took his seat at the wheel like my grandpa to his favorite recliner. There was no mistaking whose seat this was. His two sons probably took turns sitting in it while he was gone just to hear him roar: “get outta my wheel spinning thingamabob” when he returned. The favored son rolls the clay into a sausage (if that is not official clay talk it should be) which the potter builds into the pot (picture below). The wheel itself is Flintstone power. This old guy kicked this thing with his bare feet quite a bit and must have had a right leg of iron. His son on the right is taking their pizza order. Turns out the potter hates mushrooms too.

After the pot shaping is done it is dried which, by the way, does not take long here. They are stacked outside in the special outside-on-the-ground-in-the-suninator. This is a crucial step in the process because if the pot is placed in the kiln full of moisture then it will burst as the water evaporates (somewhere around 100 degrees C).

Speaking of the kiln, this is next. The son who did not eat his peas gets this job. He sits near the furnace with a tin cup and ladles the oil from the oil trench into the furnace. This is a hot and nasty job. It can take hours to get the Kiln to temperature and someone has to feed the oil the entire time. I was thinking a 55-gallon drum with a nice pipe and spigot arrangement would be in order. That way you could control the flow of the oil without being in the heat. But then no one would ever eat their peas.

The kiln was run on a three day process. Day one is spent loading the kiln with the pots that the old man made in the past few days. Day two is spent ladling oil and firing off the pots. Day three is the fun day of unloading the pots from the kiln. This day is good for the calluses as it is done while the kiln is still hot. One of the sons motioned for me to go into kiln but I could not even get in the door. He was bare foot, bare handed, and bare faced and still managed handle the hot pots. The only thing I was, was embarrassed.

Now the pots are fired and placed outside for the pot picker upper guy. This is the guy who has the crucial skill of owning a truck. He stacks them in a pile that defies gravity and the takes them to the warehouse and later, to the market. The potters are paid on a piece meal basis from which they pay all of their expenses. This is the best example of a market driven, economic process we have found. It is heartening to know that these folks are hard workers and are rewarded for it. So after a hard days work. It’s hangout by the chimney time!

***
One other thing that the brickyard is known for, besides pottery, is bricks.

These are made in much the same process as pots except for a much grander scale. Probably the best thing about the brick making is the self-guided donkey carts. These beasts of burden have been pulling bricks from yard to kiln and back again for so long it is now genetic. When you go to the donkey-mart you have to buy them by route. I can hear them now asking: “Is that a Clayville, counter clockwise breed or a Oilburnsburg ‘water point and backer’?.

These animals know exactly where they have to go and don’t need anyone to tell them.
They pull up to the brick stack and hang out until they are loaded. Then they take off for the next stop without a driver (I would imagine there is a smack on their backside in there somewhere to get them started). On the way out we got held up behind a donkey carried bricks. Not even a 10,000 pound Hummer with horns blaring was going to speed up that guy – I think he gets paid by the hour.

At the end of every mission we have the advantage of getting our approval rating. We did pretty good on this trip although one youngster is not so happy with us (front right) giving us a thumbs down Sieskel would approve of. We are glad he has the opportunity to vote. Even this minute expression of opinion is a ‘win’ for some of these folks given what they had been living under - Saddam would probably have taken his thumb back to the palace.

----------------------------------

The Long Socron

2005-09-13T00:25:00.000-07:00

As I begin this letter that I have begun in my head so many times – I know I have because I am one story away from finishing “Arabian Nights’ and I started writing this (mentally) before I picked that book up - I realize it is late. 2300 hours in a day that began at 0530 hours. Not an atypical day, we got up early, got the vehicles ready, had a briefing, went over out plan for the day and visited a village headed by a not so friendly Sheik. We did some water assessments, talked with the townspeople – The adults ask for medicine and if we could do anything about their drinking water the kids in the way only kids can, ask for my watch, my sunglasses, and some cash (it was funny to hear a 10 year old girl ask “Mister, Mister, some money for me?” I am sure it was all the English she knew.

The village assessment wrapped up with Chai – two cups worth (and my bladder was already at capacity before the 2 hour sheik discussion started). We drive out of the village passing out any gifts we have on us as the kids wave. They know the drill – nothing till we leave, stay away from the vehicles, wave from a distance, get stuff… They know our gunners have pretty good throwing arms.

Back at the ranch we cleaned up the vehicles, I worked on some additional duties I picked up, and began analyzing the water samples in my make-shift water lab that used to be the scrub room near the OR.

Tomorrow is another early wake up so Renegade and I can go for a run before it gets too hot and the day gets underway. It seems that when you are busy, it is the small things, the important things, the “people things” that often drift by the wayside. No one grades me on our interaction (at least I hope you aren’t!). I am not rated by how well I tell folks how much I appreciate them or even if I well wish my colleagues with a “good morning.”

But this cannot wait. Not one more day.

A heartfelt Socron, thank you, for you packages, your emails, hats for the adults, toothpaste, vitamins, toys for the kids. Many of you have thanked me for coming over here, sent pictures for my wall locker, even passed on notes for my buddies. But I thank you, it is an honor to be here knowing the caliber of folks back home supporting us. What is this but an excuse to show your love for us! Ah… if only we could do the same while I was snowboarding down the AlpsJ

Packages tend to come slowly, but when they do, they come in bulk. Here is a shot of my room over shadowed by a tall stack of envious packages (had to have a buddy help me carry them to my hooch!).

#ONE My First Package!!! From the ladies in Denver!

Nancy (and David by staying out with the fellas so she could have “girls in” night) and the Denver girls put together a cookie night and sent a few my way – I never knew they made cookie recipes that only made 7 per batch;-) I’ll have to swing by for the remainder. Plus they sent letters to all of my buddies (a.k.a. Heros!). This was early on in the deployment so we needed the pick me up since we were facing a whole year right in the face. I had everyone’s favorite cookie flavor too. Plus the silhouette salute picture went over well with the guys (I’m not sure, but I think I saw a couple posted by some desks!). They took the shot on my favorite deck at Camp David. THANKS LADIES!

#TWO M Seed Crew

My favorite Christian School (And tax deductible too [I can see CM smiling over that one]J passed on mementos from home. Stuff from the kids was precious and the poster graced my dreary wall until recently when we tore everything down (just when I was getting all set up). Always good to catch the latest from the “The H reporter”. Thanks Ladies.

#THREE My bible study!

Always good to get stuff from those with whom you’ve shared your heart with – so they know that double stuff Oreos are where it’s at! JB passed on a harmonica. Hilarious! I am trying to work that in with my Arabic classesJ Thanks for the note and encouragement. There were some cookies that were Finntastic too. Walking straight here is easy (the errant paths are ‘off limits’). Giving ‘props’ with your attitude is a little more difficult as is Quiet Time… love you Guys.

#FOUR My Unk

My Unk, who is also my travel buddy (mostly because he helps defray costs), sent a box of his “Damn Good Brownies.” He also passed on the recipe, mostly because he knows I have not place to keep such things and will lose it before I get back to states. Individually wrapped, SUPER GOOEY, and placed in a zip lock seemed to do the trick…. I had soldiers lined up for these (I’d keep a couple in my trench coat pocket..). Thanks Unk!

The Next stack was like eight days later. Had to get two buddies to help carry!!!!!!

#FIVE Jenni&Wes

Wes and Jenni are friends from school who are hopping around the planet. A true encourager, J has been great about writing and sending great stuff (the National Geographic had a story about the ground water in the Sahara that has is similar to Iraq which has helped me with my analysis!!). Thanks J&W (and bambinos!) Congrats on the move!

#SIX Ma & Sis

I always tear up a little when I see a a package from my little sister – cause I know it may be the one that has my memory card for my camera. Something I asked for when I was still at Ft Bragg, 11 June 2005… HmmmmMMm I wonder if it came yet. Her brownies are stupendous! Plus she is the holder of my magazine subscriptions. She also send pics of my niece and nephews she is raising for me. Spanky, the in (but more like ‘out’)-law, likes to write notes reminding me about home: pizza and beer, watching TV, and how good his AC is working – thanks for the updates Spank …Thanks Mom, Thanks Sis (and Spanky).

Oh, how could I forget, they also sent me some shorts. Which I feel compelled to wear, but I’m not sure they match this whole Army motif too well…

#SEVEN The Gang at J&J

The boss sent on some goodies and a really cool toy to remind me of my Lincoln!!! I wonder if they had heard something about my breath and passed on the tic-tacs? Pringle cans were ‘right-sized’ for movie watching and the cookie snack packs were cargo pocketable for those long convoy rides! Thanks Bob and the SC Gang!

#EIGHT The unconscionable Sisepio and Ill from Cali

I met this guy while doing my masters work, and he looked so lonely. A blonde haired, surfer-looking lanky guy always nursing his favorite beer (free) and lurching in a corner, I would usually talk to him while I was waiting for my friends to arrive… he stuck somehow. Sisepio is his hockey name (great skater in a straight line non-stopping kind of way..)

So he and the crew from his work sent a package with some of the best brownies! Super good, I almost threw them away without eating one given the source and was overly surprised. Another article of surprise was the Hello Kitty notepad. Nice. I was short of writing pads that could fit in my cargo pocket as I was on my way out the door to catch a bird and threw it in my pocket. When I landed I needed to jot down some notes at a local office. I ended up chatting with them for a moment while I waited and left it behind. A SGT comes running out to catch me: “Sir, you forgot your Hello Kitty Note pad.!” Thanks Guys!

Actually, for all the ribbing we give each other S is a great guy to have in your corner. He may even take you fishing the last free weekend in the world before you are 'locked down' for a year...

#NINE A true Hero!

Nine is from another friend from masters work now In Austin. I was stoked to get her package, especially for her kind praise of what we go through. But Bri is the true hero, having had a few curveballs in life recently her attitude was an example for me and I appreciate her for coming through her crucible with a great outlook in life. We’ve hung a lot being on the same leadership team and even hitting spring break in Cancun. The TechReview mags were great too. Thanks B!!!! Did I see an “and Joe” on that card?!?!?!?

#TEN J&W, Great handout stuff

Jenni mailed some good stuff again that was terrific for handing out. The bears and blocks caused a few smiles (I think we may have knocked on little kid out though with the blocks). Turns out thought, we are not supposed to hand out flags and flaggy colored stuff (guess it promotes flag burning parties and gets on CNN). We put a few on our Hum-Vees cause we like emJ Thanks Again J&W!

#GOOD OLE NUMBER ELEVEN Mama Mez and the Archway great wall

Goosey comes through with enough Archway cookies to build a fighting position with and then spend some time eating my way out of during a flick. Archway were a great call since there sweet freshy goodness can survive a thermal blast from the sun. Sof t and chewy. The socks were clutch and are great hikers. Thanks Mama Mez and Papa Bear!

#TWELVE Ganets from Nana! & my Aunt
I don’t know what is in these things, but I’m sure it is some sort of narcotic derivative. My Grandma’s Ganets are hands down my favorite cookie and the made the trip only to be devoured in less than 48 hours by myself (I think ‘Renegade’ and my Roomie [at the time], ‘Dinar Plate’ pitched in). I had to do some extra PT since I was eating them by the handful but it was worth it! Thanks Nana and J!!!

#TWELVE AND ½, Schmid in Central OH

My Buddy, Schmid, and I went to school together twice! Doing well with his career and still found time to send me lens cloths and sidewalk chalk (that must have been an interesting trip to Wal-MartJ A pair of goggles and ear plugs would have topped this off nicely as we plan to get down and dirty with some flower prints and pro country development propaganda! Now if only we had some sidewalks over hereJ I wonder what those Iraqi kids did with them….. Thanks Schmid!

#TWELVE AND 5/8, Schmid again

Schmid must have found some optimal way of decreasing shipping costs cause he sent a couple of boxes in one day. You gotta dig when someone knows you so well they send off a whole box of your favorite pens – quad color Bic, clicker pens. The “easy” button that says: “That was Easy” everytime you hit it comes in handy here. I hit is a lot but would like to change it to “We can do that for you right away next month Inshallah.” Thanks Again Schmid!!!

#LUCKY THIRTEEN, My sis gets the world’s largest thumbdrive
I now have the most interesting mag assortment: the Tech Review, Business week, Sloan Management Review, Entrepreneur, National Geographic, and now… Maxim – Finally something to cover my walls (the pics of Alan Greenspan are going to have to come down).

My bro-in-law, Spanky, who is my electronics and music consultant, bought me the world’s largest thumbdrive. I’m not talking memory size here, but physical! This thing is huge! I keep it in my shirt pocket in case we take some shrapnel! You can see it in the pic and the woman with her pants down on the Maxim is pointing her left elbow at it in protest. It also doubles as a coaster. The Steelers ball cap went over well. I keep seeing the Iraqi I gave it to and I have yet to see him without it! Thanks B&G!

#FOURTEEN Davey in NYC sends that Barbie Toothpastes I’ve been holding out for

Davey- one of the best guys I was just getting to know really well before my vacation – sent some great kids stuff. Hats, watches, Yankee shirt (which must have been cheap this yearJ and toothpaste. All went over well and I got a thumbs up with what sounded like a Yankees numba one,” I wish I could have taped it for you bro! Thanks man! Keep blogging yourself. BTW – I kept the toothpaste for myself.

#FIFTEEN, Chrissy, My ‘adopted’ Sis sends on the DCaparnelia!

Everyone has that kid sister that is super way cool, right? Well Chrissy is just like that, Except she is Vida’s (a friend some school) sister (and, well, Vida is the kid). Ever since my indoctrination into the family I’ve had one of their Kin around, Boston, Austin, NYC, and now potentially, Ohio… It just would not be home without one of them around. C is the only person I know so chillin she had her Wedding at Hersey park! She and Jeff sent on hats for the Iraqi’s, Mags, and the Washington Post! Thanks C&J!

#SWEET SIXTEEN From the ladies of 104 Manhattan

Meg, Gayle, and Becca sent on great book (read it and passed it on to Renegade), post cards and sentiments. Sure do miss hanging out with you ladies on the Heights (or H WestJ. And eventhough I cannot remember that TV show were siblings run around world and eat hot foods while chasing each other in taxi’s I remember the Oreos during. Thanks Ladies!!

#SEVENTEEN From Sis

My sis sent on my fav mag, FastCompany! She was sticking with the Simpsons’ theme as Mr. Burns was on the cover. Good Work B! Note in the picture the complete lack of anything which resembles a memory card adaptor for my camera so I can put the pictures on my Laptop! Keep Looking Spanky!

#EIGHTEEN From the Fab Five in NYC

Nance, Manders, Suter (Female-type), Karen, Christie sent on the essentials: Popular Science, Silly Putty, magic cards, gum… I think they are trying to tell me I should build something out hereJ The Ginger snaps were amazing! A buddy and I scarfed them down and we did not even have any tea from the cutesy place on Washington with the monkey in its name! You guys rock!

I also appreciate all of the pictures you all have sent on to me. They have made my wall locker and brings you all 4000 miles closer:

#NINETEEN from My sis and another Attempt from Spanky

Mom and my sis got together for some cookie baking! Sweetness. Spanky tried again to get some pictures off my camera and sent on a 6-in-one PCM-CIA adaptor for my memory card. 6-in-one! Who’da’thought they would not have compact flash be one of the six?!?!?!?!?! Keep trying Spank. They also included my billsL The cookies were fantastic, , my little nephew, Nolie-polie helps with the batter – mostly with the spatula licking but somehow the cookies are always a little sweeter this way.

#TWENTY Vitamins out of the blue from Utah

Not sure where they came from, but the Kids will probably eat them…

#TWENTY-ONE From Farmer Mark and Silly Sue

Everyone should have super friends who own, operate, and party on their farm. Mark is the only guy I know to take his shirt off at a wedding;-0 Thing is, I’m the only one who did not see it coming! Sue&Mark are the best and live in a state where they have great cheese and the Velveeta flows like wine! Being so close to 3M they passed on Non-Johnson&Johnson Imitation Band-aid products, and gorp. Love you guys! Is it too early to start Apple-Pick-Fest 2007??!?!??

#DOUBLE DEUCE from my Old Army Buddy Kevin and Carol down in Fla
Kevin and I used to travel around the globe doing water projects for the Army. Apparently while I was having beers in the hotel lobbies, K was busy stealing all the complimentary hotel toiletry products. I know this because he sent a big box to me to give to the kiddies. I thought there was going to be a hotel-chain FBI bust when I stashed the goods! He is also my water knowledgeable goto guy and has helped me over here. Thanks Big Man!

#TWENTY-THREE From another Army Bud, Brad, Pittsburgh
Brad is the one guy in class who also has something on the back burner. To say he has a poker in the fire would be an understatement. USMA Ball player, HBS grad, McKenzie Consultant… I am hoping he will hire me someday… B passed on some hats for the kids, munchies, some reading material (have not got to Mice and Men yet but my eye is on it…). B is also an avid Blog reader, because he will most likely be following me over hereJ Don’t worry bro, I’ll hook you up with a nice cot by the ACJ Thanks B!!!

#TWENTY-FOUR From Diane

D is a friend in Cincy. A real pet lover with a huge heart for God’s Creatures. She asked about the plants, animal, flora, fauna….. Iraq has some weird ones. Plants are no big deal but we have snakes. About 15 different kids that are poisonous, about 10 of these are “two-steppers” (meaning you will get about two steps before you fall over dead), good thing is we have anti-venom for about 7 of the 10, bad thing is, most of them are made in Iran…. We don’t play with the snakes..

We do however play with the Camel Spiders. Search for some pics on the net. These are truly weird. They are called camel spiders because the climb up the back legs of camels, dispense some kind of antiseptic, anticoagulant, analgesic (won’t infect, won’t clot, won’t cause pain) cocktail and then eat their flesh. They pretty much stay away from us, but there have been a few reports (rumors) of some getting into a sleeping bag – they don’t each much though. Rumor also has it they can run about 10 MPH!

We got scorpions of all types. They are very bootable though. Rats, mice, wild boar (thanks to the Brits when they were here), bats, sand flies, sand fleas… typical desert stuff… Nothing I’d go zoo starting over though.

#QUARTER From Meg (one of the Manhattan Ave Trio)

Meg conveniently sent very moist, oh so good, brownies (with nuts) that didn’t make it through the night (these things are best eaten right away. A note that rocks (like she does). Thanks Meg!

#TWENTY-SIX From my Pops!
Dad always comes through in a pinch. In this case it was with crucial supplies to help me restore the early 1970’s Russian UAZ- 469B I dug up. I needed almost the whole tube of gasket maker! The classic car mags were to help me find my next project:-) Thanks dad!

#TWENTY-SEVEN From a blast from the past!
Brian was a high school bud who, with Lupe, would help me argue over which brand of ice-cream to get for our midnight pre-movie run to Food-4-Less. A true Neapolitan man, Brian was hanging around Cleveland while I was out west. Keeping in touch happened but was rough since we had a bizarre informal rule that one could not call the other unless he was in a baseball stadium with a beer, dog, and great seats to rub it in on the callee that he was not here…. Love you man. Let’s do better. I’ll call if I can find a phone in a ball park here.

#TWENT-EIGHT From the other amigo in high school, Lupe
He has been ‘Lupe’ since sophomore year of Spanish in High School. We have been conversing badly in Spanish ever since! My tightest friend from High school we have stories that go way back to where I took him out back and ran back in forth with a football in his yard while he tried to tackle me (like a school girl). He lost the bet, but somehow managed to redeem himself with frozen Ho-Hos and being the tie-breaker at Food – 4- Less so I could get Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream.

Lupe passed on snacks and stereo speakers. However I forgot to tell him that they are on 240Volts over here and have outlet configurations that defy any kind of logic. I think every time a country came into Iraq to stabilize the area they brought their own outlets. We have four prong, three prong, about 3 different kinds of two prongs… It is maddening. You should see some of our Tim the Tool-man Taylor Rigs we have going… you know you are in trouble when someone asks for an outlet strip and some duct tape… Gracious Amigo!

#TWENTY-NINE From Boston Dave
Davey sent on some hats to rival the Yankee caps I’ve been getting. Looks like there may be a change in the black market here. We have some Iraqi’s who help out around the grounds and I gave him one. Man they love em. Thanks Bro. Congrats on the Big M!

#THREE-OH From Gayle of the Manhattan Ave Three
G sent on barrettes for the kids (or were those for me?), writing tablets and pencils. Funny but these kids in the villages seem to know the word “pen” very well. They always ask for them. The Sparkly one is going to drive them crazy! I did not get a chance to give out much on the last trip. But should soon. Thanks G! Beccster, thanks for the letter too!

#THRITY-ONE From Darin and Heather in SC

Former NYCites in our bible study, D&H moved down south so they could drive to the grocery store like old times:-) Besides sending a toys and snacks, Heather could not find army styled hankerchiefs so she hand made some! Way cool and now I don't get yelled at in formation:-) Thanks Guys (and little Charlie).

That is all for now, I have probably missed a few if I did not have a battery for my camera (hmmmm, Still don’t have that memory card!) or my notebook handy to remind myself later. I am very thankful for your prayers and involvement in this. We truly have a great way of life don’t we?

Write you soon!

Not even an "Invisible Pinky"

2005-09-01T22:56:00.000-07:00

During an Econ Minor at The Ohio State University, we came across a metaphor of "The Invisbile Hand" in Adam's Smith's "Wealth of Nations." What was that metaphor meant for...? His intent - at least in my B+ understanding of him - was that in a captialistic economy, there are multiple self-guiding 'forces' that tend to cause the Economy to run without any outside help from the Government. A submeaning was that this self-guidedness promotes efficiency.

It is abstract, and probably something Americans take for granted without ful understand - afterall the price of lemonade from a kid on the corner has been adjusting for decades (I would bet it is 100% in line with the cost of CountryTime Lemonade mix!). Becuase learning on a topic has always been enhanced by both the presence and the absence of the object, I now find myself appreciating (at least a little more) Smith in his 1776 treatise by my time here in Iraq where the invisible hand is struggling to raise a pinky.

I totally dig the mission of the Civil Affairs. Ours is simply to aid the recieving party in whatever way, shape, or form necessary. This, at least here, has taken the form of instruction in Public Health and Economic aid and we seek to "teach to fish" on both. Mine own little corner has been the intersection of both goals with water infrastructure projects.

The biggest impediments to this project management on economic stimulus has been finding Iraqi leadership who see the vision, understand the economics on to run a company and have the commitment to see it through (Hence my sig file quote for my tour: "The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on." - Walter Lippman).

The Buzz on these obstacles? Allow me to enumerate (I should note here that all of these opinions are my own):

1. The Arabs have a culture where they have been given everything without working for it. Under Saddams's Baith'st (basically Communistic) regime, the main revenue for the goverment was oil. Resources (food clothing education) were given to the people by the goverment. No tax existed, so the people's direct involvement in government spending was not 'felt.' Incentive to dig yourself out of your current socio-economic state did not exisit since you receved the same pay and rations based on your politics. Simple as that. Plus, ambition = notice = scrutiny ~= potential death.

2. The coalition has created a subculture of "get rich quick" Iraqis who become 'contractors' to complete projects for the coalition. These projects are arguably overpaid, highly skimmed, and underexecuted. It is just impossible to track the amount of projects and money that change hands in this case. I have 'interviewed' with multiple contractors who are always asking for projects regardless of their skills (we "can do anyting you need... anything"). The pay given to these folks drives the inequality that becomes a disease in the economy.

A VERY SKIPPABLE NOTE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF 'THE MIDDLE CLASS.' In economics there are two main measures of money D1 and D2. D1 money is the measure of the amount of money in the economic basket. D2 money is the measure of the VELOCITY of the D1 money. A middle class is crucial to increasing this velocity so that the money does NOT lie stagnant in the hands of the few. It kinda works like this: Say my familiy is a closed economy with the total amount of money (D1 money) in the economy equal to $100 (sorta felt like that growing up:-).

CASE A: In this economy, my Mom holds 90% of the wealth (not an understatement) that leaves $2 for each of us ($10 total). We each have needs of $5 per month, but the underlings obviously cannot afford that so we spend $2. Mom owns all the business so we get an allowance of $2 back each month.

In this case (No Middle Class):
D1 Money = $100
D2 Money = $5 (Mom)+2+2+2+2+2 = $15
The rest of the $85 my Mom puts under her Mattress (she thinks she is hiding it:-)

CASE B: Wealth is more equally held with Mom holding only 25% of the wealth (leaving $15 each).

In this case (Mostly Middle Class):
D1 Money = $100
D2 Money = $5 (Mom)+5+5+5+5+5= $30
Now Mom puts $20 under our mattress and we each have $10 to start up that family singing group we always wanted. Velocity is greatly increased.
END OF SKIPPABLE NOTE.

3. The strain of the many "stakeholders" (cultures, religions, races, and a new one for us tribality [I think I made that word up]) of the area causes inefficeincy. There are many obstacles to conducting business here. Basura (bribes) are the mainstay. Transportation provides an interesting example. One of our project officers was working a project to distribute product. To get the product from one end of Iraq to the other (East to West - the short axis) the driver had to pay basura every time they crossed a tribal boundary that he did not belong to. It does not take a very big envelop to do the math on the back of to show that this kills just about every shipping project (the 'rates' are not fixed but are based on the value of the cargo hence, if you are shipping plastic buckets worth $5, they will ask for $1 at each stop. If you are shipping gold bracelets worth $500, they will ask for $250.) Every stop is a painful negotiation, at every stop they attempt to extract the entire "consumer surplus" of the product.

Additionally, animosity among groups causes ieffecient redundancies in the system. At one town, we constructed a votect center to train automitve repair, masonry... with the intent on creating a sustainable middle class. The town directly across the river has a differnt people group (separated by religion). They will not drive 5 Km (I've run races that far) to attend the votech center in the other peoples town. Clearly the correct answer here is for us to build a
completely reduntant, and 100% equal structure for the second town! Maybe we should just disappoint Grandma by turning the car around and going home.

5. Incomplete understanding of the capital creation and distribution system demotes drivers to a national economy. In order to have a sucessful National Economy, there must be a trusted and understood economic drivers: Captial accumulation, Capital Creation, and Capital Distribution System. Iraq- under it's previous regime- had all of these except distribution. But Saddam held all the keys. (Note: capital can have many defintions, in the economic sense, it is what
we measure when we try to determine our "Net Worth" [Cash, cars, collectables...]).

The current state is that there are not any developed banks to promote Capital Accumulation. Nay, there is not even a system of charging interest so there is not a "gold standard" on wealth accumulation (the risk free rate [i.e. the savings rate at banks - the hurdle we stock market players are all trying to beat] does not exisit, nor is there any incentive to doing anything with your money today, becuase it will be the same amount tomorrow. The safest place for you money, if you are an Iraqi contractor, is an uncollected account with a coalition project manager (like myself). One project payment officer enforced this when she told me about the Iraqi contractor who came in to cash a $500,000 check that was given to him in mid 2004!

Clearly, there are not many opportunies for wealth creation or our 'rich' contractor friends would be more anxious to use their money in other investments as opposed to letting them sit around in the US Goverment Checking account (I bet the US Secretary of the Treasury was Ticked off when his check book did not balance last year). The opportunies are there but there are many risks (transportation risks, theft, insurgency, doing too well so everyone wants a taste...) of doing business in Iraq today that the risk premium often outstrips the reward (e.g. If you are an egg seller the costs of losing chickens (to chickentosis) and breaking too many eggs in transit outstrips the egg revenue at the market).

If you do manage to store some wealth and find a way to make a buck you would be in good shape, however there would not be anyone (the Middle Class Argument) to buy your product becuase the capital distribution system is not robust.

Under the old regime, you just got stuff. The concept of working on your own, selling product and taking cash out of the business to 'pay' yourself is not main stream. Case in point. For my project we asked a 29 year old male with 4 kids and no job if he would like to run our factory. He was an engineer and bright so we thought he would fit the bill. We told him we would give him the equipment, put him in a building, teach him how to make it, give him his start up materials for 4 months, AND we would guarantee him we would buy 400 widgets per month at $10 each. If you can find some business risk here please shoot me an email... He kept asking how he was going to get paid and did not catch on that he could take it out of the busness (in spite of my diagram drawing ability)...

Besides the fact that he did not want to sell these life saving water purification devices to his fellow Iraqis (the whole point of the endeavor), he wanted an additional $5000 per month! (This is about 60 times the average earnings and about 20 times more than the General of the Iraqi Army). Ummm, we had a major disconnect and had to send him home without lunch.

Adam Smiths' book came out in 1776 at a time when we were trying to address many of these issues here for our just established country. The times are painful here as they were then, but there is progress on the economic front. Maybe we can discuss an invisible knuckle or two in the next blog.

One more Blog, Inshallah

2005-08-25T23:47:00.000-07:00

I was working with an Iraqi contractor this week and came across an interesting qualifier: "Inshallah". Something I am getting used to hearing. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Salaam [hold hand over heart in 'peace' gesture] "Do you have this widget available?"
He: ???
Me: This thing.. [Hand getures, drawings, and charades...]
He: "Ahh, Yes, We have. Not here.
Me: Can you have it here tomorrow?
He: Ahh Yes, stop by, tomorrow, we have it for you here Inshallah.
Me: Great! Socron (Arabic for 'Thanks'). See you tomorrow.

At this point, in my Americanism, I am planning my next day around picking up, paying, and utilizing the widget for our project. Of course the widget is on the "Critical Path" (the path that determines either the sucessful completion of the time to finish the project. [for example, when you are shopping at a Military Post eXchange (PX), waiting in line is ON the critical path. The sooner you get in line, the sooner you get out the door. Browsing the magazines while you are standing in line is NOT on the CP - you can look at 5 or 50 and your time will not be impacted. Therefore, for the effectively astute, one brings a partner to the PX to stand in line while you grab some shaving cream and then jump in line with them.]. Getting the widget enables me to carry out the project, not getting it holds me up until I can aquire it somewhere.

The following day, with great anticipation, I hitch a ride to the contractor and ask to pick up the part.

Me: Salaam, allaykum
He: Salaam.
Me: I here to pick up the widget.
He: ?????puzzled looks all around.
Me: the Part we discussed yesterday, were you able to bring it???
He: Oh, One second, Sir... [Arabic exchange with partner]
He#2: Salaam, Sir. What is it you need?
Me: [Insert conversation with first guy from the previous day]
He#2: Oh, One second, Sir... [Arabic exchange with partner] . We no have here today. Have here tomorrow, Inshallah.

At this point, this is not the first time I have heard this so I find out from our interpretor that it means "If Allah wills." We have a similar phrase in the states and it is not uncommon to hear someone qualify their word with "Lord Willing."

Where the difference lies, I believe is the import and destiny we attach to the phrase. In the States, we would say "Lord Willing" thinking that the promise would be fulfilled unless there is a hurricane or flood of some kind, there is mechanical problem with the plane, or the price of gas goes upto $2.60.

Here in Iraq, their Allah has much more control. He is involved in minute day to day: when they get up, their five times of prayer, if their car starts.... if they should remember to swing by the warehouse and grab a part on the way to work.

The human brain, it appears, needs to have reassurance in life - whether by understanding and directly manipulating a process, or by having faith that the One who does understand the process and will indirectly find us favorable. The less control we have over our surroundings, the more need there is to place trust in God. The Iraqi's I have met have very little control over their own lives and ascribe quite a bit of faith to Allah to help them cope with the tenuous nature of their own existence. We as Americans have moumental control and understanding over our course and therefore give a higher deity His due with the things we cannot control: the weather, biologic lifecycle, and the cyclical probability of airline part failure.

Direct Control and Faith seem to wrestle it out quite a bit in my life. Engineer training and bible study exploration seem to both lend their own answers. The scientist would tend to explain away the probabiliy of a bridge failure, the impact of political policy on oil prices, the meterological causes of a good midwest afternoon thunderstorm... The loyal bibleologist in me wants to say God knows the number of hairs on my head (not many and His job is getting easier) and causes the bridge to stay in place, the supply of oil ready, and the downshift in a warm front to make us retreat to our lawn chairs with the garage door up to watch the shower.

I have found few dichotomies in life that cannot be solved by balance. The trouble is finding where this fulcrum resides. The trouble may even be in fully understanding the tension of the two. Here in Iraq, it appears they have their answer, they are content, and coping with their difficult externalties is slightly sweetened and makes life purposeful and merchandising possible.
I have yet to recieve the part but am sure the project will continue and balance will be restored... Lord Willing.

Skiffy or Jiff?

2005-08-20T21:09:00.000-07:00

When I was small, growing up in Seven Mountains Area Pennsylvania, we had a racoon dog, Racky, who had to take a pill.

She was a coon dog with a beautiful gray and black speckled coat and a black and tan beard (we're talking "Where the Red Fern Grows" stuff here). In spite of how beautiful this old girl was she more of a house dog than a hunter. But still we loved her and she needed the pill so we coated it in peanut butter in hopes she would accept it with little effort and placed it in her food holding recepticle.

Racky, more than happy with the token, grabbed the gooey mess, sucked down the peanut butter and promptly proceeded to spit out the pill.

Welcome to Iraq.

Travel the world, meet interesting people, sleep in their beds

2005-08-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

18 and counting…

Last night I arrived at the heliport of my current destination at 0445 hours – so late it was early. The ride on the Blackhawk was both, pitch black and swoopish. So dark I was about to verify if my eyes were open and checked myself since the light deficiently negated the necessity. Fear of heights means nothing. You look out the hatch but there is nothing to let you know how far off the ground you are – you could be 50 you could be 5.

It was coolish, maybe 85 or so. The pilots tell me air temperature greatly affects power of lift. The cooler the air the more dense, the more dense the more lift is created with each bite of the blade. I am reminded of this from the comfort of the ride, the steady onslaught of hot air that typically slices at me on these rides is absent and replaced with a sharp rocking of the craft under the pilot’s control to alter the flight path.

The travel is slow and cautious. We fly in ‘black out’ and stars are absent. The crew uses night vision goggles (NVGs) that turn the night a hazy but entirely visually-coherent green. The increase of gathered and then projected light onto the retina has the limitation of reduced depth perception and peripheral vision. Having driving Hmm-Vees at night with NVGs, I can attest to this surreal practice – like steering using a video screen. The decrease in depth and limited peripheral visibility make the flight cautious – slower than usual with frequent slow downs to recover bearings. – Perfect for sleeping.

I awake to a door gunner pulling at my 5 point harness (although I have never seen the 5th strap – the one between the legs). I can hardly see him but I know that he sees me full well and elvishly green. I hold out my hand where I have written “LZ 'Wannamaker',” my destination. He gives me a thumbs up and a nod I cannot see and helps with my bags. I stumble out and grab my bags as the pilot pulls pitch and leers away.

0445 hours – I’m 6 hours late. My contact with our higher element headquarters is likely to be in bed, maybe already at PT, regardless he is not here. Crud. Fending for myself. Two heavy bags, my body armor, two weapons systems. And I have to hoof it to a place I could not even locate in the daytime. Start walking. This road looks good and well- traveled. Fortunately I am able to flag down an off duty bus. “Transient Billeting?”

The bus drops me off at billeting. The office which has the log book for which tents might have an empty cot out of 30 in a tent. Sign in, make a few Holiday Inn wakeup call & pillow fluff jokes, get tent number 80 and start off once I find it on a map. The lights are out and my flashlight is at the bottom of my duffle – Crud – I make a mental note to have that more accessible (even if my flight was to arrive in the day time should it not have been 6 hours late). I stumble though feeling for an empty bunk and find one after waking up my new neighbor.

The amazing thing about this is the commonality. Every soldier does this and expects it – happy to have a cot next to the AC and smart enough to put his sleeping bag and combat pillow at the top of his duffle (and flashlight if really smart).

As I fumbled through the dark I thought of my first night at FT Sill, Easter Day 2005, my first day back in the Army after 4 years. I scheduled a late flight so I could spend some time with my family before I took off and thusly got in late. Much the same thing – dark and fumbly, mental note to have a flashlight accessible….

Since B-Day (Back Into the Army Day) I have slept in over 18 different bunks, 5 different military installations, 3 countries, 7 Forward operating bases, a foreign Embassy and an airport terminal.

There has been sleeping bunk to bunk laterally with 30 of my best friends and there has been double bunking stacked vertically with, well just LT Renegade (his handle) an honor held only with my brothers. We have had a bunk stacked with all our possessions and we have bunked up with only a poncho-liner and the clothes on our back. And yet we still sleep.

We learn during basic training to carry a sleep deficiency with us at all times; a lack that can be filled should a 6 hour flight delay or an uncomfortable cot provide the opportunity. Oh the torture of "hurrying up to wait" and then being wide awake for the waiting!

Hollywood always depicts the barracks (or tent) as a group of guys screwing around and playing pranks on one another, Singing, being boisterous, full of energy and giving noogies…. There are these times – but they are unsustainable.

The open-bay barracks are a place of artificial privacy – of ignoring the totally noticeable without acknowledging either and yet being fully conscious of any changes in the hive – disturbances that, when announced, cause a corporate response regardless of the former state of privacy - annocements that the bus is here, time to move, chow is open... Headphones are the universal do not disturb sign. The wearer is entitled to full absolution and allowed to fade to gray. I would sometimes wear mine without volume to save my ears yet provide the space.

Pockets of activity arise, in a faithful testament to Myers-Briggs the socialite card players circle their bunks to continue their tally of Spaces, the verbal processors get together to discuss the events of the day, the isolationists grab headphones and find the marks in their books or unfold their papers, the forlorn flock to leadership for the latest assessment to allay their fears. We know each other. If asked, we could plot each person in the categories above.

Since we became permanently entrenched in our current FOB I only have one roommate. It is glorious and it is disheartening. The frequent interaction is missed. Organizing events, even going to the chow hall en mass become formidable and infrequent. The camaraderie at arm’s length is gone and replaced with planned events and “mandatory fun.” Borrowing shoe polish becomes a scheduled task. Everyday banter is now confined to the chow hall.

In at the end of the tour we reverse our process to get here. There will be more opportunity. There will be more bunks in more countries. There will be more borrowing of footpowder, joking with one another, winning at spades. There will be more time with my brothers.

#7 of 129,345: The President

2005-08-11T00:46:00.000-07:00

It is always good to feel validated.

Back when I first got my 1962 Lincoln Continental it ran horribly. I took it to one of my dad's mechanics. This mechanic took me aside to provide sagely advice. "Son, there are Classic cars... And there are Old cars. Classic cars are desirable, they hold their value, they worthwhile to restore, nurture, and love. They turn heads at drive ins, belong at an ice cream parlor on a hot Sunday afternoon. Clubs, Cultures, and old Cooters revolve around them. Old cars... well. They're just old. Your Lincoln here, son, its an old car..."

I was crushed to think that the vehicle I had spent so much time looking for to restore had been dressed down by a car guy old enough to have ridden in one right from the factory and astute enough to know and use a dwell meter - not to mention be the only guy in town who still had one. Then I read MSN.com this morning and come across this headline:

"Hot wheels: 8 sexiest cars ever"

I clicked with bated breath. The anticipation gripping my body. until I could hardly move the mouse to the hypertext of goodness. Steady, I thought, lets just see what they have to say... Then, to my satisfaction, nestled in amongst the "1962 Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato" and the "1963 Corvette C2 Sting Ray Coupe," in my most validated hour, She was there:

"7. Because sometimes bigger is better: 1964 Lincoln Continental Convertible.
The classic “Kennedy” Lincoln proved that even a massive car (5,000 pounds, more than 18 feet long) can exude a sexy sort of elegance. As compared to the Caddy, its chrome-laden competitor of the era, the Lincoln bore a minimal, modernist design and a sleekness that belied its size. Riding in a 1964 with the top down provides total exposure to the elements, maximum sensory stimulation, and style beyond compare. Jump in there with five or six of your closest friends and see where it takes you.

Ahhhh, Hail to the Chief. 'The President.' The 1962 Lincoln Continental Sedan.

I was near the Palace one day when...

2005-08-10T05:53:00.000-07:00

... My buddy took a few photos.

This is how we are dressed when we are “inside the wire” The Kevlar helmet is the new one which weighs a little less than the older Kevlar model (Good for my neck). Pistol at all times – makes me feel like Dirty Harry (don’t worry they don’t authorize me bullets so everyone is safe).

In the background (the real point of the picture) you can see the supposed Saddam’s presidential palace (we think he was here twice – once was looking for his son, the other sunning for his look). It was hit pretty hard with rockets so it is not in the best structural shape after a couple of strikes – big sun roofs in it now, but since it never rains here it is not a problem. This is a fairly interesting building on FOB so the CG (Commanding General) has placed it off limits so those of us "in the know" can have a place to sneak into and those of us who aren’t have something over which to speculate.

Rumor has it there is gold in there! Iraqi Gold! A quadzillion dollars worth, just sitting there with handles on it!

I can neither confirm nor deny if I had managed to get in there on an “Environmental and Pest Management Surveillance Assessment." But if I had I would have taken pictures like this one from the internet:

This is a room that looks in pretty good shape. From 7000 miles away you might even think that it is quite elegant and it is only the debris from the bombing that makes it look shabby. Well, it is out and out shabby. We should retitle this Faux palace. Suprisingly, nothing is real. The chandalier is plastic (I guess the guy selling the oil for the plastic beat up the guy selling the sand for the glass. That is pretty much all there is here, Oil and Sand). The ceiling is that cheap stiffle stuff made out of spakle, the wood is chinsey... It is really a shame. Where was Saddam's wife in all of this?

Some of the guys from 4th ID (Infrantry Division) stopped by and must have thought the same thing cause they decided to spice things up a bit. I like this shot with a little tank in the foreground. You can almost imagine the 4 year-old with his crayon biting his lip over this intricately designed Abrams tank! I am quite sure this soldier used a stencil.

I really like the sign on the store front to the left that says "AK's WMD." Kinda clever since everyone knows the guy selling Weapoons of Mass Destruction is "Ali."

I hear there really was not much else to see. In the states you read of all the looting of the palaces but I am not sure I see that here. There does not seem to be anything to loot. If the building is that shabby, I cannot imagine what they would be stocking it with that folks would want to risk their lives to steal. Unless it was the plastic fruit...

Picture This!!!!

2005-07-28T13:17:00.000-07:00

Sweetness!!! Picture capability!

After many hours of searching, FAQing and downloading software - I have finally figured it out. You click, browse, and upload and wha-la! pictures! I am so pleased.

Actually there was a software upgrade to the Blogger site which made this task so easy and simple to do. Prior to the straightforward method using the detailed instructions above, one had to download zipped software, unzip, install, connect, click, browse, upload, position, view....

Since my connection with the Army sometime resembles a 12oo baud modem (Remember when we used to shop for Baud! [for the computer nostalgics out there - the slow connection was reminding me of the old Kermit-connect days! Hark back to when we had separate programs to handle the "handshake" on the old VAX machines. Ah the good old days, the Commodore 64 " Load * ,8 ,1" days, the days when we would start downloading email and then go to lunch days, the increase your "time out" time to 5 minutes because you are in a combat zone days!]) this process usually timed out at step 1. "Download." It was a major pain. So I never did it.

But now, oh now, Blogger has it embedded in their web page. Lovely.

Hopefully you all have Secret Clearance to view this seminal shot! It is the crack commando squad that I reside with (ok "with whom I reside" for you grammar Nazis. I did not mean to dangle a participle at you [do a Google on "William Safire's Rules of Writing" for more punny learnin]). You are seeing us prior to a hit and run job on the Battalion commander (hence the heavy arsenal of Super Soakers!).

From Left to right (I should mention, I will not put in full names in the Blog for security reasons) we have MAJ "Long Gloves 7" M, the Public Health Veterinarian; SPC "Fuzzy Dice 5" N, the Commander's driver; CPT "Dinar Plate 8" T. who does Economic Development for the Iraqis (and is my roomie on the side [North mostly]), and me, CPT N. I do Environmental Engineering, and I'm "Waterboy 6." (Note. the Dinar is the local currency - ah ha). Right now, the US dollar will get you 1464.64 Dinars (although last time we ate on the economy it would hardly get me one falafel).

This shot was taken just before the ambush. Fuzzy Dice was the Knock-Knock Man in the front, The Waterboy had first shot at the commander when the door opened, Dinar Plate was secondary shooter to mop up any scraps and Long Gloves was there for cleanup. The whole hit went off without a spill. Waterboy had the shot, took it with quick backup fire from Dinar Plate. Long Gloves lead the retreat to the rally point, followed by the rest of the squad leaving The Waterboy watching the "6."

That's when the dip into the pool turned into a dive. Fuzzy Dice crossed the streams with Dinar Plate, double crossing The Waterboy who reacted quickly with face shots (The Waterboy always fires Potable Drinking Water with a HEAVY Chlorine Residual). Long Gloves was taking the heat - which was quickly becoming extinguished as a human shield for Fuzzy Dice until all remaining rounds were spent and the Commander, with mops in hand, ended the mission.

These are the folks I live with!

So now I can put in pictures! Next Blog I may play with bolded text!!!

Out of the office

2005-07-11T20:30:00.000-07:00

Traveling in a war zone is a lot like camping with rifles (sounds like a good name for a rock group)...

I am finding in my new ‘position’ that I will be out and about a bit. This is not really a problem since one tends to get FOBitis hanging around in the camp all day long.

A ‘FOB’ is the Army’s TLA (three letter acronym) for Forward Operating Base. The military will typically operate out of a base camp (say, for example, the green zone in Baghdad) and then like a ballooning spider desirous of sending out is ‘whiles’ protrudes forth a web of infiltration into the great wind to develop into a new stronghold in the wilderness. These are FOBs which has become a wonderful new root word for us to add suffixes to:

*FOBitis ~ is the inflammation of the wander-lust gland causing the afflicted to gaze over the wall of defense and isolation to dream of what lies on the other side.
**FOBette ~ This is one who never leaves the FOB, has never had a case of FOBitist, and will have spent the entire deployment on FOB without knowing which country he was in.
***FOBenvy ~ This is what you get when you go to another FOB which has trailered, air conditioned toilettes, a chow hall where they actually cook and serve the food in the same building, showers with a hook to hang your towel (in a some of them I just keep one hand dry and hold the towel outside the stall) and has as lest one building big enough to house 20+ soldiers for movie night once a week.
****FOBrunner ~ A vehcile which has been so beat up and abused is it no longer safe to take off the FOB for fear that our enemies will find it, drive it around, hurt themselves, and then end the war, in which case we would all be out of jobs. Therefore we keep these well loved Hum-Vees on the FOB where their abuse can continue in a safe, controlled environment. My favorite FOBrunner is a beat up Hummer that has a big steel tub (improvised armour) on the back with gun ports. It weighs a ton and the springs have never really been up to the task. So it drives like a jacked up DeSoto with bodies in the trunk. I have grandious visions of loading this puppy up with fellow homies, super soakers, and water ballons and then storming the mess hall... But ever since th

Winning the war, one sock at a time...

2005-07-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

If we can't all just go home, we can at least make them all Yankee fans:-)

Hey, if you are planning on sending anything this way, I have a request. The Iraqi's are hugely into gift giving and I was wondering if you could get a group to put their heads together to think of some gifts for the adults and the kids that would be way cool.

Believe it or not, it goes a long way into helping us win the “Hearts and Minds” of the people into these processes. Case in point, the previous team was working with an Iraqi who was won over (I think they gave him a Yankee cap and a bag of ramen noodles) to peacemaking and the democratic process (not as big a point as the first). He got wind of a ‘very bad man” and tipped us off. Our folks and the Iraqi Police made an arrest getting explosives off the streets. Just one step safer for the Iraqi’s and our guys… Weird thing was, I drank Chai with that bad guy just the week previous (makes it hard to trust anyone:-(

Here is a scenario to help the process (by the numbers):
1. We get a call from a Civil Affairs "A-Team" who works with the local populace about a water/sanitation/environmental issue. Grab whatever gear/people I need and take a Blackhawk to meet them at their FOB (sorry, forward operating base). We then convoy (sorry, get all our friends with Hmm-Vee and go on a ride together) out to the people.
2. Meet with the chief (cannot do anything without their permission [Very tribal]). Plus they’ll want to know who won the NBA championship while their satellite dish was on the fritz.
3. They are a very passionate and hospitable people. If they like you (which is typically the case [I’ve grown a full mustache and have been complemented as “looking like an Iraqi man”]) we are invited in to drink Chai (very good tea… tiny little cups [darn good stuff – very sweet Tea {I think Starbucks stole it}]).
4. We talk about family. Being single with no kids I am a ‘very bad man’. Our doctor has 5 boys (“very good man”). And to think all the time we’ve wasted with school when I could have been getting by with only Y chromosomes.
5. They will try to give gifts; we try not to take anything – lots of insistence. It is an insult not to take it.
6. We return by giving our own gifts (here is where you can help us).
7. If the area is safe enough - and we have a warm fuzzy - we would also give the kids something (don't want people swarming if it is an 'active area' and boy can these folks swarm (now I think I understand why Jesus never let anyone talk about his miracles...). It can also be a problem if we do not have enough for all.
8. Smiles all around.
9. Go about our mission to give them aid (clean up their water, vaccinations, irrigation projects, dredging, glasses, pull teeth, build a wastewater plant, conduct pest management...). We have the local folks work the project while we consult (teach to fish).
10. We pull out.
11. Lots of hand waving, kids running after vehicles. It can make you love what you do:-)

Things that would go over well: Baseball hats (Yankee's, Boston whatever:-), shirts, socks, handkerchiefs, sunglasses, cheap watches with an American icon.... toothbrush/paste, lotion.... anything with an American symbol so that they can show their friends they got something from a G.I....

Things to stay away from: obvious anything sexual, religious material won't go over well (and can get me in trouble), food that spoils, anything that cannot take 140F heat (rules me out), Far side comic books (I just don’t think they’d get it)…

Think about it, I think it could be a fun group thing to do. My address is on the web site and it is taking about 18 days to get a package. When I get it, I'll pick through all the good stuff, sell it on the black market, and give the rest away:-)

**** DISCLAIMER. This Post in no way expresses - overtly, implied or otherwise - an association of the United States Army with the Yankee Baseball Team****

Stuff to stuff in the stuff box

2005-06-16T03:43:00.000-07:00

The only thing better than getting in a good nap is mail call.

I have always found it amazing that a parcel or letter can start somewhere in the civilized world (Ohio included:-) and find it's way into the most remote parts of the planet... Especially those slightly tainted with a twinge of war.

The Army mail system is even more impressive in that the information typically included on the packaging is surprisingly brief (as an example, see my Iraq address in my June 8th post) considering that is has to find a solider who has moved numerous times and is living in a small tent somewhere in the middle of the desert. I am sure that a large part of the $80B supplemental (to the supplemental) goes toward designing, testing, and legitimizing a vast information management system that can handle such as task.

There is never a definite time for mail call (say, 1730 hours every day, after chow, and the work day before the meetings start…). Instead, every now and then, when the admin folks get around to it, they pull up in a vehicle and give stuff to the admin section of each unit, they in turn will ‘queue’ these stuffs until they are ready to get them out for a quick sort and delivery to the solider.

I think the mail clerk particularly likes this job because, as with the spooners at the mess hall, one never wants to tick off the mail clerk or your package could get mangled in delivery – if it gets delivered at all. I always have the sneaking suspicion that when I get my box O stuff, that it has been preshaken and inspected so that the clerk knows exactly what kind of cookies and sweet goodness lay within.

The clerk rides up on a white horse and with a sounding voice of a Norse God calls the names of those lucky enough to get a package that day. Soldiers, smelling the expectation in the air like a hound before a hunt, gather around the clerk’s trusty steed and wait hungrily for the melodious sound of their surname (oh the lovely name ‘Nardo’ that, once called, affords cookies and news of the world now gone). treasure acquired, a soldier sneaks off to his bunk for The Opening.

Typically beginning with a shake (ever so gently), and a scan of the sender (yes in that order), the mind begins to assemble an estimate of the contents: “What did I communicate last? Brownies? (oh sweet brownies), chocolate chip? Sun tan lotion? Socks!?! (oh Dear Lord, please not socks!!!!); What is the sender’s specialty: Brownies (oh sweet brownies), lemon bars, the Austin Statesmen?, the Beacon Journal? Ah, the NY Times!...”

The opener is ever questioned by the openerless (poor dogs). “Where’s it from? Your sister? You have great friends! Can I have a brownie? Wow! Can I read that paper when your done? Are you going to add that to your wall locker of pictures? Dibs on the box when it’s empty I’m making a dresser…”

Some things that draw a smile when discovered:
- Cookies, brownies (anything that can last 120+ heat for a week or so)
- The highest SPF, non greasy, sweat proof suntan lotion you can find (45+)
- Soft tan handkerchiefs (good for doo rags, cleaning, stinging my roommate Will on the keaster...),
- Gold Bond foot powder
- Non greasy hand lotion
- Pictures (for my wall locker of fame!)
- Spray "off" inspect repellent (no compressed air cause the Army post office won't take it)
- Your local newspaper would be cool as well
- Stationary (some of you may wonder if you get letter’s on ripped up cardboard)
- Anything creative!
- A note
- Your return address

- For the industrious: Size 12 super thin/light, water wicking boot socks (I brought Thor-lo’s and my feet are swelling ([they are too thick])

Life on Tattooine

2005-06-13T03:12:00.000-07:00

Made it to Kuwait. What a trip. We started by standing in formation for 3 hours on Friday night topping that off with a bus ride to Pope air force base. We all jumped out with our gear (about 75 lbs worth), got weighted on the scale and then back on the bus to the terminal. This weighing took about 2 hours (I asked the guy in charge if they could not just weigh the bus dry [before we loaded] and then after we got on and then take the difference – but he said that would be too efficient).

At the terminal, we waited for about 9 hours to load the plane sleeping on whatever was available. I lucked out with a very pleasant 1 – ½ foot wide, wooden bench. We woke up, got a hug from the woman from Lockheed Martin (she came, took pictures, and stood in line to give us all a hug!).

Once we boarded the commercial plane (one like you all would fly) we took a 45 minute flight to Baltimore Washington airport to refuel (once again I had to ask why they would being us a plane without fuel or why they would not fuel up at Pope – but the parameter we are trying to optimize is not soldiers’ time). We did have a pleasant layover at BWI and the coffee and muffin was welcome.

From there we took a flight to Germany in a small terminal arriving at 1230 AM local time for another 2 hour lay over. This could have been a bummer had the local Germans not opened up the bar and duty free for us and we partied maxing out our 2 beer limit (I ordered for me and a newly promoted Sergeant using every German word I know “Drie Warsteiner, Bitte und eine pretzel”), pretzels that were amazing, and European chocolate (which is like our sans wax). Back on the plane for the final leg to Kuwait.

Kuwait is… at least what we are seeing…. Just like Tattooine from Star Wars. I am sure George Lucas came here looking for a Forsaken part of the planet to convey in his movie as the only landscape Darth Vader would never think to look. It is hot. Yesterday was at least 95… Inside with the A/C on full blast. Outside it went to 126. Fortunately, there is a steady breeze of 10 MPH (you really notice this when you struggle to open the door against the torrent). Unfortunately, it is super hot and blows up the sand. It is like being in a sand blaster inside of a convection over. Truly horrible. How can a whole people settle here????

We are living in a tent (with A/C!). The chow hall is great and everything is serviced by Pakistanis. I have yet to see a Kuwaiti because they never do labor type work. Since there are not many of them in this country, and because it is a very rich country – due to one of the richest oil reserves in the world (which happens to be right between Iraq and Kuwait [they share a part of it {although not very nicely]). Everyone lives on a health stipend in a grandeur that would give our Hollywood stars a lesson in how to spend their coin.

The doctor on my team, Maj K, has been to Iraq/Kuwait before and was once invited to go on a boat ride with a Kuwaiti. It was a 36 foot yacht that was regarded by the owner in much the same way as we would regard a nice aluminum canoe.

So here we are, hanging in a tent on Tatoonie, waiting for a bird to come and take us away. We are totally on stand by. Yesterday, we would told a bird was ready for us and the buses were coming at 1810. We assembled, sorted, packed, carried, piled and waited… and waited. The flight was canceled. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

So now today is tomorrow, and we wait some more……..

Address for my new home!

2005-06-08T16:31:00.000-07:00

Not there yet but will be soon. Send brownies (extra moist with nuts) to:

[Removed. Please email me for address]

Address is now active

Livin in a Dream World…

2005-06-04T15:23:00.000-07:00

I wake up and do not know the date, Today, Saturday, means nothing in the general workweek order rhythming-sense, I smoke and joke with my new buddies about distant memories, only to knee jerk a remembrance that it was yesterday.

As I enter into my 3rd month back into the machine I have settled neatly into my place, working diligently to ensure that duties are well-carried out, and focused on the greater good.

Every day, I wake up in a room full of snoring men, shuffle to the sinks (yes there are 7 in a row) and begin “The Ritual:” shaving, leave the mustache (I am growing one so I garner more respect from the Iraqi’s), teeth, change, stumble to morning chow veering at every oncoming soldier to determine if I am the saluter or the salutee. As I enter the chow hall, I smile at the receptionist show my ID card, and sound off with unit and last 4 of my SSN.

Nod at the Lieutenant Colonels already at tables eating (they are early risers – I’ve never even seen one at the sinks [rumor has it they ordered their stubble to “stand down” as Majors and have not shaved since]). Through the line: one Styrofoam cup (to take coffee togo), one tray, one each of spoon, knife, fork, another cup (for OJ). Smile at the mess hall cooks (spooners, become friends and you are in good shape – cross one and you are never getting seconds [or 3 starches]):

Spooner: “Whaddaya have” [taking tray – don’t even think of having your silverware on the tray. I did that as a newbie and got a cold stare and spooning halted]
Me: “good morning Ma, am, sure is hot this morning, Can I have some eggs? [They make them right in front of you, only scrambled  I’ll kill for some over easy]
Spooner: What else?
Me: 5 Tator Tots please?
Spooner: Just 5? [Scowl – after 4 weeks it still throws them off of their rhythm]
Me: Yes man, 6 and I’m a wild man!
Spooner: What else?
Me: One piece of bacon, Ma’am and I am good to go!
Spooner: Just one? Hmmf [scowl, spoon, hand tray back]

Turn the corner and I am at the self service line, Grab my coffee, 2 pieces of cantaloupe, spoonful of grapes, yogurt (raspberry if I can get it), ketchup. Off to the drink line where I balance my coffee on my tray while getting OJ.

Move to the table, quick prayer, orient tray, commence eating in order of receipt (my own crazy nuance – allows me to work counter clockwise around the tray, of course). Breakfast chatter including the “tot report” (where we discuss consistency, greasiness, crispiness, and temperature of the self named), seconds of OJ, Coffee, look at the donuts (don’t touch). Out the door dropping off the tray on the way.

Walk back to barracks and prepare for morning formation (anytime between 0600 and 0700 depending on what we are doing today).

After formation, we are off to the days’ task, moving stuff, cleaning weapons, going to the range, clean the barracks, watching briefings….. This of course will be interrupted by lunch (11:00! We eat more by noon than most people do all week long) which is much the same as breakfast except for the contents of the spoon.

Back to training. With, of course, Dinner at 4:30. I feel like I live at the mess hall.

The evenings are usually spent relaxing for a couple of hours – unless you have a duty then you have meetings. And prepare for the next day which will be sure most like be as indistinguishable as the first.

In getting used to this one becomes lightly numb to certain things that – in all cases – were taken for granted in civilian life. One of these, probably the most missed, is the opportunity to be completely alone. I went out with my Old NCOIC and found myself enjoying the drive so much I did not want to stop. It was a blessing to be going somewhere and leaving everything else behind – now that is progress! Everywhere you go there is people, you sleep with them, you eat with them, you train with them, they are in the bathroom at the same time, we go to the same places to relax, we have the same hours to call home and find ourselves standing on the corner warped into our own little piece of space right next to another guy doing the same.

Home begins to lose context. It is familiar, like something read in a good book. But intangible. Driving to a store? Unthinkable! A refrigerator? full of anything? Unimaginable! Sleeping in your own room? now let’s get real here!

A side effect of this unreality is the development of this closeness to another human being. We learn each other’s tells, their idiosyncrasies: when they wake up (LTC M can be found up sitting in his chair near his bunk at 5:00AM!), who snores (there is a list and I would hate to incriminate anyone here ), Who is most unlikely to find their bunk underneath all of their crap thrown on it (CPT C), who has the best DVDs (Sgt P has 100+!), whose sister makes the best brownies (thanks Beth!)…..

At the drop of a hat, I can have the opinion of a Veterinarian, a trial lawyer, multiple police offers, a politician, petroleum engineers….. Not one would withhold any help. If someone finds out something that makes life easier (like little chairs for $7.99 at the Px) everyone knows, cookies from home are passed around, supplies are cross leveled, weapons of those on detail are cleaned….

Anything we get, everything we have, all of our news… is contained within these four little walls creating our own little world.

This is my Rifle...

2005-05-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

The M4

Bryan, an old Army buddy, has asked me what I think of the new M4 (at least new to me – it has been out since at least 1997). It seems every time the US Army goes to war we have to develop a new weapon (Can’t goto war with the same gun as our Pops! – where’s the progress in that!!). The M4 is basically a shortened version of the M16 rifle…

The barrel is shorter and the stock is collapsible (great for different shooting situation – The fully extended [same as fixed stocked M16] is great for the firing range without all the gear on, the med range is great for shooting with the body army on {body armor adds about 3 inches in depth to my chest {better than hitting the gym:-}, and the fully collapsed stock is good for maneuvering in a Hmm-Vee and the chow hall {don’t want to hit your buddy on the head:-}). The M4 is also 1.3 pounds lighter than the M16. Does not sound like much, but try putting picking up a gallon of milk (the weight of an M16 – I think the Army developers were thinking of the Farm Boys from Wisconsin), holding it at arms length for 10 minutes…. I’ll take 1.3 pounds less thank you.

A Ranger buddy of mine while I was in ROTC taught a trick I have been using ever since. Basically, to make it easier to quickly acquire the same sight picture (view of target while looking through sights), he told me to put my nose on the charging handle every time. That way I always have the same image through my sights and can concentrate on other things that keep me from winning any marksmanship badges (like breathing {or Not, since you should hold your breath when firing}, stance, grip…). Although with the collapsible stock things change a bit for the “nose on the charging handle” trick. I tried it with the stock in the collapsed position when we were on the Convoy Live Fire Range (riding around in a Hmm-Vee shooting pop up targets – Way Cool, just like Starship Troopers) and really beat the crap out of my nose. My cartilage was more like cartiless. My eyes watered like I was peeling and onion. Guess I will have to go out and get the “M4, charging handle, sight picture, nose adapter.”

For the first time in my short Army career, I was issued a new weapon. It was amazing to see a pristine piece of engineering that had not been widely abused by countless, cadets, privates, and junior officers who would be using it for one time during a range and then never see the same weapon again. Rental cars are treated like kings in comparison.

So as I am cleaning my M4 (an almost daily occurrence), Hereby known as, “Four of Nine” (Seven was already taken), I get to see how the parts interact and wear on one another in a way that is completely unique to my rifle. Every exterior blemish, wearing of a cam pin, and part jiggle is known to me in a intimacy that no one else can experience.

A silver lining to chase the gray day away!

2005-05-15T05:49:00.000-07:00

There is always a silver lining to every gray day. While this call up thing has been slightly disruptive to life, I have had the opportunity to bump into some great folks from many walks of life.

I am currently hanging with a high school buddy and his brother in NC. Totally cool to be with these buds and pretend we are still back at good ol’ Stow High School (although Jim is looking over my shoulder right now – so I am compelled to tell the world about the time when we were playing football in his back yard and I basically ran back and forth between the houses past him while he tried to tackle me – repeatedly. It was like playing with a 3 year old. To this day he still has yet to tackle me…) complete with lots of ice cream, stogies, and a showing of “Young Frankenstein” – although we are now too old to make it through the entire move without falling asleepJ.

Good Old Rusty!
I also ran into an old NCOIC (noncommissioned officer in charge) when I was a young LT at Denver and Seattle. I was at the health clinic at Bragg going through yet another Soldier Readiness Center (SRC – all the stuff you need to do prior to deploying: shots, medical appointments, dental, standing in line on your head for hours…). I had actually done this already when I was at FT Sill (as had 95% of the folks in my Battalion) so all of this was a repeat – but I am finding this fits with the motto of my command: “Don’t do it right, just do it again!”

So anywho, there I am in the clinic. It is the job of the clinic to make the soldier go through and check all 700 boxes on his SRC sheet. It is the job of the soldier to scam, complain, muddle about, and generally try to get out of as many box checking visits as possible (hence checks and balances…) So I went to the med screener, station #2 (#1 was check sheet handout and sit in Gym for 5 hours – I watched a movie on a Major’s DVD player!), who told me I needed a hearing exam, I said “What”, and she repeated “you need a Hearing exam” (she said she always falls for thatJ ). Me: “But I just had that at FT Sill”, Her: “but it is not in our system. Did they give you the results?.” Me: “No, they said they would put it in the system”. Her: “Well, I don’t have them, you are going to have to take it again!” Me: “Doooooohhhhh”.

So I stuck my head in the audiology department door to get my hearing test and lo and behold, there sat a civilianized Rusty T – my old NCOIC and hockey buddy from Denver and FT lewis!!!!!! We looked at each other for a second and he said “Dang Sir! What are you doing here!!!!” I almost cried. I last saw him when he got out in 2001. I called in 2003 but his wife told me he was in Iraq. They moved, I lost their info, and I could not find him in the Army system because I did not know his first name (he goes by his middle).

We went out Friday night for the update on his kids (3 great ones, his boy used to play hockey with us!), life, and what we’ve been up to. As all soldiers do, he passed on some hints on Iraq and getting by over there (take a trunk full of ImodiumJ. Every Lieutenant needs an NCO like Rusty to have squared him away!

The LFMers in LA
I also had the chance to meet up with some grad school buds from Boston when I was in CA. Three of them work as a DOD defense company in LA and hang out regularly. I had a chance to break free for a weekend and swung down to LA. These guys live everyone’s dream: In LA, good jobs, live 100’ from beach, driving old convertible car, sunset, surfing, golfing, lots of friends to carouse with….. The classic car culture in LA is amazing!! My buddy, Eric, Found a 63 Lincoln Continental and we did a drive by (there was a piece that did not come with mine. I ordered it from a guy on Ebay and it did not seem to fit right. Looking at the part on the 63 confirmed that the guy on Ebay sent me the part from the wrong year [I thought It was me – whew!]).

It was total testosterone weekend. FRI: Went out to a bar in Hermosa where the beer flowed like wine. SAT: went to a rifle range (where we blew 1000 holes in paper targets [we sent it to “Jason with love”] and ’71 Pontiac Lemans Convertible cruise. SUN: deep see fishin and fish fry. We caught more rock fish than we could eat and fried them up. Good stuff!!!!

These are the memories you put in your pocket for a year. Look forward to more on the back end fellas!!!!

Army Buds Galore!
The heart warming does not stop there! Besides Trevor, whom I have been going through this process with from the onset, I’ve bumped into Shannon, a peer I was stationed with at FT Lewis and Eric and Marty – both from Ohio State ROTC (had not seen them since 96!). Marty and I got Scuba qualified together on an ROTC Scuba Trip to Key Largo. We also played Pinochle every Tuesday night during undergrad. It’s a small Army.

Address at Fort Bragg (good till early June)

2005-05-10T13:04:00.000-07:00

Finally got an address for my locale at FT Bragg!!! It should be good for sure until 26 May, quite possibly good until 1 June, and fair until 9 June. A distribution looks something like this:
- 15 May 99%
- 31 May 80%
- June 60%
- July 15%

Send it (i.e. cookies, gifts, money....) just like this:
CPT Nardo, Richard
652 ASG (HHC/445 CA BN)
5722 Pratt Street (Stop A)
Ft Bragg, NC 28310 - 7120

Troop Movement #4 FBNC

2005-05-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

In case you have not been keeping track and counting (like I have) I am on my 4th move in my short 40+ days back in the Army. Ft Sill, OK (for in-processing); Ft Sam Houston (for specialty retraining), TX; Camp Roberts, CA (I have no idea why we were there); and now Ft Bragg, NC (I have no idea why we are here). It seems just when I am reunited with my luggage it is time to move on.

I got tagged as the Unit Movements Officer for my Taskforce (100+ folks) and had to coordinate the manifests, weight, passenger information, and baggage to get my battalion here for training. FedEx here I come.

I would like to take this time to objectively, and frankly, provide some thoughts on the wonderful training post that is known as Camp “Bob”. I would like to take a three phased approach focusing on infrastructure, the training, and last and most definitely least – the chow.

Camp Roberts is nestled in the foothills about 2 hours south of San Fran. The naked rolling hills - verdantly covered in greenery and populated with the kit fox, ground squirrels (biggest cheeked fellas I have ever seen [almost like they had the mumps]), and chirpy birds makes for a beautiful setting to host an Army installation – and then to blow the heck out of it with artillery.

The barracks that we stayed in were in pretty bad shape, but the water was absolutely terrible. All the command could say about it was that it was potable (meaning The EPA's Safe Drinking Water Act did not require testing for the specific contaminates that made this water the wonderful chemical cocktail it was). It is important here not to confuse potable (safe to drink) with palatable (water that tastes and smells good enough that you would actually want to drink it).

This water, while passing, was metallic tasting – like licking a rusty Buick (or so I have heard). I had a glass when we first got there and I could not feel my toes for a week. But after a second glass, I had forgotten all about knowing that I could not feel my toes. We will have to chair a special congressional committee to ascertain the effects of this water on our soldiers. I am sure it is ok though cause they tell me so – oddly enough, the second to last day we where there (after 2 weeks) they flushed out the distribution system at the hydrants…..

Permit me to gloss over the training (it was good and bad = neutral so I shall afford it the space it deserves.. here [ ])

The Chow. Chow to a solider is like a pen and paper to a poet. It becomes a longing, a soul filling (was well as belly-filling) endeavor, it because a glimmer of hope and solace in a world devoid of other creature comforts (such as TV, beer, transportation, beer, a comfortable bed…) In short, Army chow is typically all a solider will have to connect him to his past and give him a time of reprieve – even if it all has to be woofed down in only 5 minutes.

Camp Bob’s chow? Craptastic, By far the worst chow I’ve had. The only good thing about it is the portions were meager and they would not give you seconds. The milk was warmish, the salad should have more simply been called “lettuce”, the coffee was burnt asphalt extract, and I am sure they are the sole reason “Gravy Master” is still in business. I sat down once to chicken and dumpings and could not find the dumplings – it worked out though as the solider across from me could not find the chicken. I am convinced all of this is a plot to depress our expectations so that our accommodations in theater will feel like a palace.

I can’t wait to get to Iraq…

Going to the Chapel

2005-05-01T20:38:00.000-07:00

It was an interesting Sunday today. Timeline:

-0445 wake up because someone had a detail and set their alarm so everyone in the barracks could enjoy the pulsating buzz
-0446 check watch and jump for glee as I have 45 more minutes
-0530 get out of the rack, personal hygiene (army speak for teeth brushing..)
-0630 goto a prayer breakfast at the Dfac (dining facility)
-0655 beat feet for 0700 formation
-0700 draw weapons (M-16s), load bus, drive to range
-0800 - 1530 Practice firing techniques (shooting on the move, changing between M-9 pistol and M-16 rifle while still engaging Paul the paper target
-1330 teach class on first aid (I have caduces on my collar for being a Medical Service Corps Officer so everyone things I am a doctor or something [I keep telling them I'm an environmental engineer but it does not seem to sink in]).
-1530 movement back to bus
-1600 - 1715 change into PT (Physical Training) uniform, sweep/mop the floor clean M-16
-1715 - 1830 run, work out at gym, stretch like it is my job
-1830 evening formation where they put out all the next days information
-1845 - 1915 grab some pizza (we ordered in!!! So Good!)
-1930 - 2030 chapel service

Pretty busy day, most seem to turn out this way. I must say the range was a good time. Some folks pay a lot of money to go through this kind of training. Almost everyone in my unit is a cop in real life and they really know there stuff.

The Chapel was great. I went with Sergeant B (my NCOIC for the Target hanging detail :-) and Specialist R. (my bunkmate). I totally dig seeing people from all ethnicities, walks of life, and parts of the nation. We sang some great hymns and prayed for our loved ones (man I love that, not one person asked for something for themselves [I could learn a lot from how selfless some of these folks are {e.g. when I was sweeping, the enlisted guys would not let me and took the mop from me. One was even going to clean my weapon for me }]).

The sermon was out of the first chapter of Jeremiah and how God calls us when we: 1) may not be ready 2) may not be confident, & 3) may not get the desired result WE want.

*** PR*** If you find yourself on your knees, pray for the familes of these soldiers. Not being married with kids I can't imagine how these guys do it. My buddy was on the phone with his wife yesterday about the finances (she took them over). He makes less in the Army than he did working for a healthcare company in Chicago and things look tight. Another guy, a Specialist, has a wife 8 months pregnant (sounds like our commander is going to let him go home for a weekend before we deploy for the birthing - I hope she is on time [no pressure:-]). Another officer, a Major, I have been with for the past 4 weeks is a vetreinanrian and it looks like he is going to lose his practice in Rhode Island (he had been out the Army for 15 years!) and his wife is the receptionist.

These folks have made some serious life adjustments to be here!

-2100 time to rack out.

Weapons Training

2005-04-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

today was weapons qualitifaction day...

One thing that you have to love about the Army is the ability to push 700 people through a firing range on 2 different weapons in less than 6 hours - complete with classes, lots of yelling, safety briefs, and an MRE (meal ready to eat [three lies in one:-]). We trained on the M-9 9mm pistol and the M-16 5.56mm automatic rifle.

Early on I knew I was in trouble when Ii violated one of my favorite tenants in the Army:

"Don't be first, don't be last, Never volunteer!"

When they asked for volunteers (of course without telling you what you were volunteering for) I double- timed over and took up my position as part of..... Yea, the target hanging team. Crud! We were the guys who stood in the sun all day long with the targets and hung them up for the next firing line.. This means we were ready at a moments notice for the day while others hung out in the tent, eating and joking (oh, the joking!). It also meant we fired last.

But volunteering does had its rewards occasionally as I was taking with the officer in charge of the range about his Iraq experience and jawed with him a bit. As a result, he let us fire off the extra round of M-16 ammo!!! Way cool, becuase were got to blow it off anyway we wanted. I choose the 3-round burst mode and changed out my clips as fast as possible (there was not a safe target for 20 meters in any direction). Shooting on 3 round burst is not easy as the rifle "creeps up" quite a bit as you aim - you really have to lean into it.

I am pretty sure I got the target - but it took 90 rounds to do it:-)

Start and End dates

2005-04-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

MOBILIZATION.
We are heading over soon. I heard our commander talking to the XO (eXecutive Officer - the 2nd in charge) today about when we are heading over there. the latest is that we move out in a couple of weeks. however, since our advanced party is heading out that week as well (these are the folks who go ahead of the main body to setup) it is likely that we will be delayed (can't show up 2 days after the advance party [who would know were all the good coffee shops would be:-]).

DEMOBILIZATION.
Supposedly I am supposed to be called up for 18 months (leaving the box Summer 2006). However, we are going over there to link up with our host unit who rotates out in Fall to be replaced by another division. I am hearing rumors that we may be asked to extend to rotate out with this second unit bringing us to - on the ground departure from 'the sandbox' - Fall 2006. We can also not forget that 2006 is an election year. If Bush claims "Victory" (for the Republicans) in 2006 then they will not send in a new division in Fall 2006 but will ask them (and hence us) to stay to "turn out the lights." Who knows how long this could take (3 months? taking us to Spring 2007?). Since there is about 3 months of demobilization. I am hoping to be home spring 2007.

I knew I was in trouble when the expiration date on my ID read 27 Mar 2008 :-).....

Adjust. Adapt. Overcome.

Battle Buddy Blues

2005-04-27T20:27:00.000-07:00

Every tactic in the military is built upon the essential relationship of the battle buddy. In truth, it is Army doctring to never send a solider to to anything alone . Your battle buddy goes with you every where you do. You watch out for one another, pick each other, and dust each other off. The Army is too big to care about you on this specific a level, and the mission is too critical and essential to allow just one person to screw it up (i.e. you need at least two soliders to screw something up:-)

When I first got to Ft Sill, OK 27Mar05, I bumped into an old Army buddy, Trevor. I was at the sink our first morning, shaving, and a ghostly image (mostly becuase my glasses were off, not becuase he was pale white [he is, but that is beside the point]) walks up to me and asks increduously what I am doing here, I look up and say "Trevor, they got you too huh?" We went to Officer Basic Course and the Principles of Military Preventive Medicine together back in 97.

Needless to say, we spent the next couple of weeks taking care of each other. Making sure we got the right equipment and uniform at the right place at the right time, he was the navigation to my driving, the joke to my laugh, the light for my midnight reading, He picked me up at the airport, I drove his car aound Austin, TX while he was home visiting his wife and kids, I looked at his kids' pictures, he looked at the picture of my 62 lincoln....

Unfortunately, all this came to an end when we got to Camp Roberts. While we are both in the 351st CA Command, 364 Brigade, Trevor went to the 401 Battalion and I am with the 445th. Toally different barracks, training schedule, and location in Iraq. It appears our schedules totally conflict also. Bummer

So I've got a new opening for a battle buddy...

General Update (from last week)

2005-04-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

here is what I have pieced together....

Looks like we are going to Iraq for sure which is a little bizarre. The way the IRR (individual ready reserve) is supposed to work, is: I go stateside, like say Hawaii, and back filll a solider going to Iraq. But things are a little different with this war since the humanitarian mission is what is going to win us the GWOT (can't win by attrition can we?). That is the company line anyhow. Because of this, the US Special Operations Command (USSCOM) has asked for a full MTOE (list of a units' poeple and equipment) to support the mission. The Civil Affairs and Pyschological Operations Command (my new employer) needs Environmental Engineers (my former job) to help with water infrastructure and public health programs for the Iraq people.

I will be on a 5 person (1 Preventive Medicine Doctor [think Dustin Hoffman in 'HotZone'], 1 Vetrenarian, 1 Env Engr, 1 Patient services Sargeant, 1 health care sargeant) publich health team with the 445th Civil Affairs battalion out of Mountainview CA. Our job will be to assess and identify programs to aid the Iraqi people. This could be anything from vaccination programs, to water treatment, to setting up small health clinics. These programs are to be Iraqi - led and we act as consultants.

Living in Iraq can be quite normal but depends on where you are assigned. If you are in a FOB (forward operating base) you can live behind 10 foot thick walls, and never even know you are in a war zone until you leave the compound. Currently, the biggest threat are IEDs (imrpovised explosive devices) and sniper fire. There is also mortar fire, however I am not hearing that this is an issue. These are only a problem if you leave the compound. If you are not in a FOB than you can be living in a iraqi fortified building somewhere. We won't find out where we will be until we get there. All my army buddies who have been there tell me it is "not Hell... but you can see it from there:-)"

I am currently in Ft Sam Houston, San Antonio. We have been doing Environmental Engineering and Public Health refresher training (which is good since I flushed all of that information). We started off the 2 weeks with a stack of books and references on water stystems, wastewater systems, field hygiene, entomology, iraq medical threat briefings, Humanitiarn aid requirements and standards. Unfortunately, none of this tells me what to do with excessive POL (Petroleum, Oil, Lubricants) issues in water, and I have no experience working with desert hydrogeology (all of my experience has been Kansas karst systems and Colorado clay-confined systems) but I bought a Salvato (the Environmental Engineering bible) which will help (hopefully they will have a 'water systems in hot as hades environments with frequent sandstorms and 500,000 year old deep sand water').

Next week, we have a movement for Camp Roberts, CA. Here, we will meet our teams and train on the humanitarian mission (i.e. keep out of the Green Berets' way while we do our humanitarian thing). Now that we are in USSOCOM we will work alongside the special forces folks who work on counter insurgency and provice our security force (I plan on becoming good friends with these folks:-)

After that, we head to Ft Bragg, NC. Home of the 82nd Airborne, Delta Force, Special Forces, Pawn shops, and the testosterone center for the Army. There we will be in the barracks that were built for temporary housing for soldiers training for WWII which should have been ripped down as soon as we won that war. But they are still up. They are so old and crappy that we are not allowed to use water when we mop (or the water will drip through to the floor below) and must have a 'fire guard' awake at all times through the night in case the building (made entirely of 1940's super combustable NC pine) decides to spontaneously combust...

This actually deserves more elaboration, since, have done 42 days of Advanced Camp in these barracks in 95, I have some experience. The way this works is each person has one hour of duty through the nite between 12 - 5am. Hopefully you get the first or last shift to increase the odd chance of getting some R.E.M. sleep. When your shift is over you goto the list and find the name of the next guy to take his/her turn. You go over and wake them up, wait, wake them up again, reason, cajole, wake up again, threaten, grab pillows and blanket, dodge punches, and then inform the now convinced solider it is time to get up for fire guard....

But I digress, the purpose at FT Bragg is to get our main issue of advanced combat uniform, armor, weapons (hopefully we get the newer M4 [a shortened M-16 rifle]), load bearing equipment, boots, camel back.... this looks like a trip to REI on steroids. If only one person could carry all that gear by themselves. I typically show up in boxers and just put stuff on as I go through the line and get issued them (this can be a bummer if boots are issued first:-)

Also at Bragg, we go through typical soldier drills to keep us safe over there: convoy operations, react to ambush, react to sniper, react to IEDs, combat life saver training (where we get to stick each other with IV's the last time I did this I 'rolled a vein' on a 6' - 4", 280lbs Senior Enlisted solider who, I was sure, was going to make me pay when he did my arm. Word to the wise - get stuck first), and marksmanship. After Bragg - and this is speculative - I think we are off to Kuwait for aclimitization (heat, area, language...) and more training. I hear this will be about 2 weeks, and then we goto Iraq. That is about all I know at this point, and everything could change. In general things are going well, I have bumped into a bunch of old Army buddies and we are moving through this together...

Gear getting ready night

2005-04-26T21:52:00.000-07:00

I must post a retraction- my new unit did indeed provide me with bedding and some field gear. I then spent the rest of the night cleaning and putting all of the web gear, mountain packback, sleeping bag... together. It was quite a mess as the guy just ahead of me turned it back in (not sure where he was heading off to) and he looked like he was more than happy to get out of dodge (he is going to miss all the fun).

Gear is such an important discipline in the militiary, it was an art I had almost forgot about (J&J did not really give me much opportunity to practive). Keeping it clean, serviceable, and - most importantly - custom tailored to the individiual (that would be me) is crucial. Especially if you want to look good. The Ranger creed even mentions: "... Gallantly will I show the world that I am a specially selected and well-trained soldier. My courtesy to superior officers, my neatness of dress and care for equipment shall set the example for others to follow. ."

I also found out where my unit, 445th CA is heading in Iraq. Looks like we will be in North Bagdad near Saddam's hometown. I hear we have already dumped a ton of $$$ into the infrastructure (not to mention it was Saddam's focus during the rebuilding after the 1980's Iran/Iraq war and the 1990 Kuwait invasion [I've been reading 'The Idiots' Guide to Understanding Iraq) so I am not sure what they need us for.... could be a reoccuring theme in these posts.

On a lighter note, it is close to Bagdad, where I have an Army Buddy stationed (he owe's me dinner from 1999 - I plan to claim [of course will will probably go to the free mess hall {but I'm getting double dessert!}]).

Long Overdue Update

2005-04-26T16:02:00.000-07:00

WellllLLLllllLL. Finally got around to setting up a blog. It has been an interesting month in the Army , and I apologize for not getting it on sooner. Training has been the old hurry up and wait scenario and I did have some time to type some stuff up but unfortunately I did it on my laptop and have not had a way to get it on to the net.....

... Enough excuses....

I am currently at Camp Roberts, CA (Camp "Bob" to those of us ' in the know') but is this place something. I thought Ft Bragg was a little rough looking. No one had put any cash into this place in a while. Hilarious. The barracks are are the big open bay kind with a coule of toilets and 4 shower spigots for the 2 floor building (about 30 folks). I do have a footlocker and wall locker to call my own, but i dont have any bedding (apparently we were supoosed to bring this, but no one ever issued it and no one told us to bring it - hilarous). Fortunately, soldiers take care of soldiers and one of the other guys who has been here for a week let me borrow his sleeping bag liner. That plus my 'Wubby (camo punch liner)' and I should be OK.

I will have to take some pics of the place and pass them on (if this site allows it, and if I can find someway to get them onto the PC [my thumbdrive does not seem to be working]). Hilarous. You really do have to have sense of humor.

Sometime this eveing, after I get back from the PX (post exchange [like a Target store]) - where I need to buy my own TP - I will meet the folks who have been out on training all day. I will join them tomorrow and link up where they are in the training plan. They are doing common taught tasks that everyone in the Army should know how to do. We will see if I can remember any of tis stuff.

Gotta scoot the line behind me is growning....