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Random Mutterings from the sand
Aug. 23rd, 2004
01:43 am - Ba-da-BOOM!
I like to go for a nice, relaxing run in the mornings. If I stretch my legs out for a few miles, let my head clear and get a little runner’s high going, the rest of the day isn’t quite so stressful.
A hundred yards into one run last week, some twit decided to drop a rocket or ten onto our camp. I turned around, trotted back to the barracks, checked on a soldier and reported that we were both okay. At that point everyone was told to get inside and stay that way- physical training was canceled for the morning.
Ten minutes later, another twit cracked several windows and startled the heck out of my entire unit by landing a rocket close by. Our gym was a hundred yards on the other side of our barracks from the impact and according to one weightlifter, the boom of the explosion was followed by the clank of every weight in the place hitting the racks and the thump of every body hitting the floor.
One wit walked outside afterwards, picked up a little piece of shrapnel, whipped out a marker and signed the thing so that when he goes home, he can tell everyone about “the one that had his name on it!”
This morning, most of the unit was woken by the sound of ANOTHER rocket landing on almost the exact same spot. Several windows were cracked and a few guys claimed they practically levitated straight up out of their beds. Personally, I was paying too much attention to the important business of sleeping to worry about incoming.
Our windows are all sandbagged and taped, so we’re not in much danger of getting sprayed by glass, and the building walls and roof are several feet of concrete. We’re not in much danger of getting hurt unless one lands practically on top of someone, but I have my own alarm clock. Thanks, but I don’t need another.
01:17 am - New places, new traditions
In less than a year, we’ve created a number of traditions in this little place that we prefer not to call home. One of the least favorite is something we fondly call “Pro-Mask Wednesday.” This is closely followed by the now-defunct “Malaria Friday” and everyone’s favorite “The Marines Lost Another Radio So We’re Going To Put New Codes In Everything Day.”
The last shouldn’t need much of any explanation, and it falls randomly on any day about once a month. The first two deserve a few details.
Malaria Friday is something that used to be observed throughout the theater. It falls on various days of the week for each brigade, and some people still practice the celebration. Back in the rear it began with a battalion-wide formation, each person carrying a 1-quart canteen full of water and a vial of bitter-tasting yellow pills. With the sergeant major, the colonel and everyone else watching, the entire bunch of us took one tablet (share with your buddy if he forgot) and a swig of water. Eventually it got to the point where nobody had the time or desire to watch you pop the pill and responsibility devolved to the individual soldiers. Every Friday you had to come up with one of those nasty-tasting pills, find your immediate supervisor and make him watch you swallow it. You can imagine our delight at this tradition.
After about two months of this we were told to collect up all the remaining malaria pills and turn them in to the medics. It turns out that the risk of harmful side effects from the medication is higher than the risk of getting malaria. FYI: We’re sitting the middle of the desert. Malaria-breeding mosquitoes usually live in areas like swamps, ponds and stagnant water. Given that information, the average 3rd grader can give you a good idea of our risk of getting malaria.
Pro-Mask Wednesday is something that started when the Marines administratively took over this camp. We have an entire brigade still here, still conducting the majority of the missions, but they’re in charge. It’s an interesting combination. Because of this, when a Marine general decided that all of his troops would wear their chemical protective mask every Wednesday to show that it was readily available, we had to do it too. Last Wednesday I walked into the chow hall, my mask carrier firmly attached to my left hip. Not a single Marine was wearing a mask. Did I miss a new order or something?
01:16 am - New places, new traditions
In less than a year, we’ve created a number of traditions in this little place that we prefer not to call home. One of the least favorite is something we fondly call “Pro-Mask Wednesday.” This is closely followed by the now-defunct “Malaria Friday” and everyone’s favorite “The Marines Lost Another Radio So We’re Going To Put New Codes In Everything Day.”
The last shouldn’t need much of any explanation, and it falls randomly on any day about once a month. The first two deserve a few details.
Malaria Friday is something that used to be observed throughout the theater. It falls on various days of the week for each brigade, and some people still practice the celebration. Back in the rear it began with a battalion-wide formation, each person carrying a 1-quart canteen full of water and a vial of bitter-tasting yellow pills. With the sergeant major, the colonel and everyone else watching, the entire bunch of us took one tablet (share with your buddy if he forgot) and a swig of water. Eventually it got to the point where nobody had the time or desire to watch you pop the pill and responsibility devolved to the individual soldiers. Every Friday you had to come up with one of those nasty-tasting pills, find your immediate supervisor and make him watch you swallow it. You can imagine our delight at this tradition.
After about two months of this we were told to collect up all the remaining malaria pills and turn them in to the medics. It turns out that the risk of harmful side effects from the medication is higher than the risk of getting malaria. FYI: We’re sitting the middle of the desert. Malaria-breeding mosquitoes usually live in areas like swamps, ponds and stagnant water. Given that information, the average 3rd grader can give you a good idea of our risk of getting malaria.
Pro-Mask Wednesday is something that started when the Marines administratively took over this camp. We have an entire brigade still here, still conducting the majority of the missions, but they’re in charge. It’s an interesting combination. Because of this, when a Marine general decided that all of his troops would wear their chemical protective mask every Wednesday to show that it was readily available, we had to do it too. Last Wednesday I walked into the chow hall, my mask carrier firmly attached to my left hip. Not a single Marine was wearing a mask. Did I miss a new order or something?
Aug. 4th, 2004
04:56 pm - Damned _____ drivers!
Anyone who has traveled has gotten the opportunity to experience a variety of driving styles. Midwesterners tend to be very laid back. Merging three roads into one, driving half a car length away from each other at 70 MPH, it’s all good. New Yorkers, as the stereotype goes, really are rude and inspire much profanity. This is mainly confined to NYC and environs, as the rest of the state doesn’t differ much from the norm. New England drivers have an uncanny instinct for maneuvering around a dozen rotaries on their daily commute, through two dozen totally unmarked streets. They will also try to do it before you can, even if you’re doing ten miles an hour above the speed limit. Californians and the west coast have managed to redefine the term ‘lead foot’. They’ve got places to go and fuel to burn.
Just about every region of America can be distinguished with a little bit of time behind the wheel. I haven’t done much driving outside of the US, but a little bit was enough for me to divide the driving styles into fairly distinct categories:
1. America and countries like America, where you grew up surrounded by automobiles, you went down to the DMV or equivalent to get your license, and the country as a whole has had experience with motor vehicles for the last century or so.
2. Countries that are not like America, where you finally saved enough money become the first in your family to buy the local model last week. Seat belts, catalytic converter and headlights were options that you decided against. All those American movie stars hardly ever crashed their car, so it can’t be that hard; you got right in and drove it off the lot.
Some places have made the transition from the second category to the first fairly recently. Just like in America, a car is a status symbol anywhere you go. When a country’s economy takes off enough for the average guy to buy a car, Darwin leaps into action.
One common stereotype in the States is about Asian drivers. My theory is that they grew up as part of category #2. Thirty years ago, a car in every family wasn’t part of the deal. You learned to drive when Uncle Kim died and left his rustbucket to you. When that person is driving on the American highway system, those driving habits are the ones still in use, to the disgruntlement and occasional horror of everyone around. When an American is driving on THEIR highway system, all I can say is good luck and watch out for the “Terminators”.
Americans had their own brush with that style of driving. Ever wonder why there are still really stupid laws about automobiles on the books? When your state legislature decided you must have a person in front of your car ringing a bell after dark, they weren’t doing it out of boredom. It was because the average driver had the experience of a 16 year old and reflexes of a 50 year old, and creamed their aunt Katherine one night. That’s right, once upon a time even the most car-happy nation on the face of this earth was filled with people who made Evil Knieval look like a safe driver.
Iraq is decidedly in the second of those two categories. Since Saddam went out of power everyone has been trying to get a car. In case you were wondering, a “Terminator” is slang for Korean industrial dump trucks. Just like the T-800, they’re big, they’re solid, they don’t stop, and they’re deadly to anything that gets in their way. Iraq has no Terminators. What they do have is Bradleys and Abrams. They fill much the same role in Darwin’s little hierarchy of traffic.
The only reason I can think of that someone would cross anything that weighs upwards of 30 tons when they’re driving a little Kia is sheer inexperience. That much mass doesn’t stop easily and when it meets something smaller, Bad Things happen.
That can be used to our advantage at times. While on patrols in the middle of nowhere, rolling down little trails, our guys got very, very good at using 'brake checks' to throw a shower of dust and gravel over their friends in another Bradley. When someone has abandoned their car to go noodle around off the side of the road, watching a brake check performed at 40 MPH in front of their vehicle inspires them to jump in their car and get moving. Now.
Sometimes people get lucky. In one case an unusually bold commuter decided to cut off an Abrams. An M1A2 is one of the half-dozen or so most massive main battle tanks on the face of the earth. It’s arguably the toughest. An Abrams can take RPGs as easily as hailstones and is quite capable of plowing through a house as if it’s not there. This guy’s sedan didn’t even make a decent speed bump as the tank went past. It did make a nice lesson in defensive driving afterwards. Where the tank had gone through it, the car was absolutely destroyed. The devastation extended from the front bumper all the way back to the firewall. In layman’s terms, this guy practically lost the soles of his shoes. Allah, God, fate, whatever it was, he was literally face to face with death that day.
The tankers weren't amused at having "a piece of car stuck in your tracks." That crunch... crunch... crunch as they went down the road must have been irritating.
Other times, luck isn’t with you. When you’re not looking where you’re walking and there’s a 120mm gun hanging off the side of a tank at head level, the result is unpleasant to say the least. Stay on the sidewalk and wait until it’s past, or at least duck. I'm going to leave the rest of this incident to your imagination.
Finally, remember who’s going to win when the other guy’s engine weighs more than your car. Hint: It’s not you. A family couldn’t wait until a Bradley pulled out of the left lane, so they decided to squeeze past and cut it off. On the left side. Pops managed to bounce off the guardrail at 70 MPH, ricochet his sedan off the Bradley, hit the guardrail again, just about rip off his front bumper and skid to a stop behind the track. He had been attempting to cut the Bradley off, but underestimated how fast those things can actually move. The Bradley driver never even knew anything was wrong until his commander started yelling over the intercom. Amusingly, the Iraqi wanted to file a claim for damages afterwards.
Jul. 21st, 2004
06:06 pm - “Beat the heat, Drill Sergeant, beat the heat!”
The above is the chant that basic trainees must recite several times before emptying their canteens of water in the middle of a southern summer. Maybe it’s meant to drill the concept of forced hydration into the trainee’s heads. Despite what it sounds like, forced hydration isn’t a bad thing. It just means that you and your soldiers must drink a minimum level of water to suit your environmental conditions, work load and equipment. The Army has guidelines; if you’re wearing all your combat gear, working hard and it’s above 100 degrees, you’re going to need at least a certain amount of water. The military also has guidelines concerning work/rest cycles, untucking your trousers from your boots and a few other things that are good for a laugh as the newest private asks which Heat Category we’re in.
My current battalion even has a standing policy; in garrison, in the field or in a wartime environment, regardless of the temperature, your sleeves will NEVER be rolled up as it shows a lack of professionalism. Personally I think the incredibly high alcohol-related incidents rate in garrison, the frequent arrests of soldiers living in the barracks and the constant struggle to meet re-enlistment goals show a greater lack, but I’m sure that’s my inexperience talking.
Ahem, where were we? Oh yes, beating the heat. Forced hydration keeps you from inadvertently letting yourself become dehydrated by waiting on thirst to make you drink something. By the time you realize you’re thirsty, you’re literally a quart low. If you’re sweating out two quarts an hour, you’re going to be hard-pressed to get that much water down your stomach at one time. If you force a soldier to take a break and empty his one-quart canteen every half hour even if he says he’s not thirsty, you can keep him hydrated.
Camelbacks come in very handy for hydrating. We were issued one before deploying over here, then another after eight months and they’re used constantly. With the drinking tube hanging on your shoulder, it’s easy to duck your head and take a few sips every minute, polishing off the half-gallon bladder before you know it. Because drinking is so convenient, it sometimes makes forced hydration redundant- the soldier will often have already emptied his bladder before the hour is up.
In Iraq, there’s two primary methods for dealing with the heat:
1. Drink a lot of fluids. I repeat, a whole heckovalot of fluids. Polishing off a gallon of Gatorade in fifteen minutes is not a problem if you haven’t been forcing yourself to stay hydrated. The locals sell 50 pound blocks of ice for a dollar each, so everyone who’s in a stationary observation point usually has cold water. Camelbaks, Under Armour shirts and sweating a lot are key to this one.
2. Stay in the air conditioning. This is the widespread favorite. The difference between indoors and outdoors, depending on how much sandbags, cardboard, tinted glass and concrete you have between you and the big furnace can be up to 75 degrees. Try that in a heat wave in the States and you’re liable to get frostbite.
I came up with a short-lived third method. On the way up here from Kuwait we were issued bags of potable ice, the kind you get at your local gas station. After every five gallon cooler was filled up (we checked to make sure), a few of the more foresighted types filled up their Camelbaks, their canteens and drank off as much water from their coolers as they could, then refilled those with ice. We still had more ice left over.
This was in the middle of a Kuwaiti summer, in the middle of the day. First we were given a fifteen-minute hold. Then another. Then we were told to stand down for an hour. It’d mid-afternoon now, the temperature isn’t going anywhere but up, and we’re not going anywhere at all. The ice truck came by again, and the crew warned us that unless someone took the ice, they were going to have to dump it; there were no facilities here to keep it cold overnight.
I snagged the last four bags. The first went to top off my truck’s cooler once again. The second could be tucked into a shaded spot inside of my mattress pad for insulation. The other two I kept in the cab, having no better spot for them. They felt so wonderful sitting beside me, all cold and wet in the middle of this hot, dry desert. Within five minutes I was popping crushed ice cubes into my mouth. Within ten, the bags were sitting in my lap. After fifteen minutes, one was inside my halfway-opened vest and I was curled up in the seat against the door. My driver returned from chatting up some friends to find me blissfully smiling in the middle of 155 degree heat, still wearing my helmet and equipment.
The man he would be spending the next four days with was clearly insane, because only a crazy man would be wearing that Kevlar heat-trap if he didn’t have to. Then he noticed that I wasn’t even sweating. I popped another ice cube into my mouth, took a drink of ice water from my canteen and asked what was wrong. Looking at it from his point of view, there wasn’t much right at that moment.
My driver looked me up and down again and asked if I was feeling okay. I felt fine! Never better! Got no complaints about this place!
At this point my compatriot was certain that it would be a long, long 600 km to our new camp. Thankfully he has a good sense of humor. I was warned profusely about how I would never live down getting frostbite in the middle of the desert, that if he had to drag me to the aid station for hypothermia that *I* was going to be doing all the talking, and that if the ice bag in my lap resulted in any sort of cold-weather injury to sensitive parts of my body, he would make sure it would follow me for the rest of my military career.
Those bags of ice didn’t melt until after sundown. That was one of the best days I’ve had here.
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rushed06:02 pm - Dear Grandma, thank you for the wonderful sweater...
After almost a year in the Middle East, we get semi-regular queries about what we'd like to receive in care packages. Most people assume things like soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste, baby wipes, razors and other hygiene items are high on our priority list. In just about every other conflict I'm aware of, that would be true. Here, we knew we'd be in-country for at least 6 months from before we even left the US. Veterans of previous deployments assured everyone that resupply would be a chancy thing beyond the basics of MREs and water.
I brought something like 2000 baby wipes, and while that was slightly above the norm, I know of others who brought many, many more. Everything else was on a similar order because you never knew when you'd get more.
I know people mean well, but it's sort of awkward to open another box addressed to my unit and see another 50 toothbrushes and 20 bars of soap inside (as the one I opened yesterday contained). Someone went to the trouble of finding out where to mail the stuff, went out shopping and used their time and money to send something that any reasonable person would assume is needed out here.
A few days ago I talked about all the improvements that have been made to this place. In spite of all that, there is one thing the soldiers absolutely adore getting in the mail - drink mixes.
During the cold season that starts in late November, it gets down to a damp 40 degrees or so. Your laundry takes a week to dry on the line and by then it’s starting to smell more than a little funky. By March, that silliness is over and done with.
I don’t think anyone would have predicted that Gatorade, soft drink mixes or Crystal Light would be the best thing we could receive while we were back in the rear. I don’t think many of us really comprehended spending much of the day in temperatures and humidity suitable for making beef jerky either. If you’re just standing around in the shade while wearing all your equipment in that weather, you’ll only go through about two gallons of water during a day. Actually do some work while out in the sun and you can go through up to two quarts of water an hour.
You start risking overhydration at 12 quarts of water. What that means is that you’ve sweated out all your electrolytes and can become ill or even die. That’s part of why the Army makes its soldiers eat even when they don’t want to. Well-salted MRE food is especially good for replenishing electrolytes. It’s also the last thing anyone wants to touch. Sugar-free drink mixes and soft drinks like Kool-Aid make chugging down a gallon or two of water more palatable, but they don’t actually do anything for your electrolyte balance. The sports drinks mean you can do nothing but drink liquids for as long as you’re in the heat.
So if you’re wondering what to send your soldier who’s going to be stuck out here next summer, there’s your answer. Send him a box of Gatorade mix. He’ll appreciate it more than the next five hundred toothbrushes combined.
rushedJul. 16th, 2004
09:57 pm - Turing Test
(This and the previous two entries were intended to be a bit more spaced out. Instead, I was spaced out by the end of the day and my journal entries sat on my datastick.)
Most people reading this have probably heard of something called a “Turing test.” For those of you who haven’t, it works something like the following: You sit someone down in front of a computer and they strike up a conversation. It’s sort of like Instant Messaging, but there’s a one minute lag time to make sure whatever is on the other end has enough time for a response. There may be a person typing away on the other side, there may be a computer. After a short period, you’re asked which one you’re talking with. Repeat this little experiment multiple times. If your computer fools half the people, you (or your program, this is where the artificial life thing starts to get debatable) has passed the test.
What does this have to do with Iraq?
One of our section leaders walked up to a group of poker players today. Holding up a large magazine pull-out of an extremely attractive young woman in a swimsuit, he called out, “Hey, check out this hot chick!”
Wolf-whistles, lewd compliments and varies forms of male appreciation ensued. Then one unusually perceptive card shark frowned. “Something doesn’t look right…”
He was assured by the rest of the group that there was NOTHING that didn’t look right about this woman.
The section leader asked them if they remembered seeing her in that movie. Nobody knew what movie he was talking about.
“You know, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within?”
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amused09:56 pm - Funny seeing you here...
A group of fellow soldiers were standing around discussing an engagement in the barracks a few nights ago
“Yeah, you could see the rounds bouncing off the pavement, three round burst, right into the chest,” one sergeant recounted.
That was the mildest part of the discussion and it got more graphic from there. The conversation went around the circle for a few minutes as the guys recounted tidbits that might as well have come out of a slasher movie script.
After a brief but spirited debate about whether a man got an RPG round off before a tracer messily spirited him into the hereafter, one mechanic glanced up at someone hovering at the back of the group.
The conversation was instantly over when he loudly greeted the newcomer with an “Evening sir! How are you doing tonight, chaplain?”
amused09:50 pm - Prime Targets
Another soldier and I were studying for a promotion board when our commander walked in. He paused to listen to us reviewing facts and statistics.
“What is the maximum effective range of the M16A2 rifle,” I asked.
The other soldier rattled off the book answer, 550 meters for a point target, 800 meters for an area one.
Our commander chuckled and asked him what he would actually be shooting at from 800 meters away.
My friend thought about it for a moment.
“A group of officers?”
amusedJul. 11th, 2004
05:37 pm - REMFs, II
Once again, I hate REMFs. I despise them. It's not so much a job classification as a mentality. It's the group of people who wear the same uniform I do, but manage to keep it crisply starched by refusing to work more than an 8 hour day. It's the ingrained concept that whatever the regulations say is correct and what needs to be done can be changed to fit the regs. It's the idea that people come to you for you to regurgitate the rules at them, not for you to assist them.
I've said this before, but it's happened once again. At certain internet centers at my camp, meatsticks, thumb drives, USB drives or whatever you choose to call them, are prohibited. Why? Because they could allow people to send home OPSEC violations or pictures of dead Iraqis and suchlike. Not that we'd ever think to burn them to CDs and mail them home by the gigabyte, or print them out and enclose them in snail mail, or even slap a floppy disk into the computer when nobody's looking.
I can see the merits of the concept. A 128 megabyte drive is a LOT easier to store huge amounts of Bad Stuff on than a 1.44 meg floppy disk. You can download porn as fast as you can get it through the pipe.
I carry one of those little drives around as routinely as I do my ID tags these days. Need a personnel roster? I have it. Last newsletter to the families? Right here. Need the latest maps for our sector? Lemme upload them to your desktop. Yeah, I can see not wanting those plugged into an unsecure network.
All the same, it's a serious pain in the ass when some computer monitor walks up to me in the middle of downloading 120 megs of records from St. Louis and tells me I need to unplug my drive because our battalion's policy prohibits those.
No problem. I ask him to download them to his computer and use the printer next to it to give me hardcopies of all 50 scanned pages.
Whoops, can't do that. Printer's broken.
I'm a computer geek. We have standardized printers across the battalion and everyone has one or two that are down, including my company. I'd be MORE than happy to install the broken parts from a scavenged printer.
Can't do that. He's not allowed to let anyone else touch that printer.
Alright. Is there somewhere that I can go to have them download everything for me, search through the muddle for the required pieces of paperwork to prove that the Army owes me $2000, and print it off?
Oh, there sure is! Battalion commo would be the place to go...but wait. It's Sunday, they don't work today (I'm on my dinner break at this time, ready to head back and finish my 12 hour shift). Maybe you can try tomorrow, during working hours. You know, 9-5.
I start work at 0600. I get off sometime between 2100 and 2230. My blood pressure is kept in check by twice daily runs, but those are NOT HELPING MUCH RIGHT NOW.
Alright. Let's assume, for the moment, that I would really, really like to get a copy of these records, since the Army has a habit of just writing off debts when they build up for a while. Since commo isn't available, where should I head next?
Uh...there is no other place. But maybe your training room could help you out.
At that point, I noticed my hands rising in front of me, making squeezing gestures as if about someone's neck. The nice man behind the desk was giving me odd, panicky looks too, so this training room NCO turned around and calmly, patiently walked out the door to find someplace else to get his records.
enraged04:59 pm - Reflections off the sand
Independence Day rolled by a few days ago. Both it and Memorial Day were a big deal back in the States from what I heard, but most soldiers in my unit didn’t even realize there was anything special going for the latter. On the 4th we were surprised by a t-bone, lobster and shrimp dinner, so everyone took another look at their calenders to mark this one down. A number of soldiers realized what day it was at that point. Pulling workdays that last as long as 16 hours a day could have something to do with that. People are often more concerned about an extra hour of sleep or if the temperature might drop to 110 in the shade than a holiday that they can’t observe anyway.
Compared to past wars, the soldiers in this one have been given an incredible degree of luxury. I think part of that is due to the unique character of the conflict. There is no ‘front’ that the infantry, armor, cavalry and artillery trundle up to, leaving clerks and quartermasters in the rear. In Iraq, everyone is within five kilometers of the front lines. Everyone can be an infantryman, regardless of what they’re supposed to be doing according to their MOS. That doesn’t mean that a finance clerk won’t whine, dodge and obfuscate to avoid going out the gate, but most of the time they’re still going. By the same token, everyone on the same base enjoys most of the same amenities. What the REMFs and pogues get, the grunts get too.
There are exceptions, of course. Soon after we arrived, the camp underwent major reconstruction. We’d shown up to find barracks filled with human excrement, sand, trash and stripped of anything useful, down to the wiring and the brackets that held the wires. Cleanup details were sent into the barracks and we moved in two days later. They were concrete and brick shells, but they were better than sleeping on the hood of a Humvee.
Naturally, the first unit to get their living quarters and work areas redone was the brigade headquarters. I had to walk up there to drop something off one morning and when I got back, I wondered aloud when we’d get tiled floors, air conditioning and satellite TVs. My first sergeant looked at me like I was a complete moron. I suppose that was only fair, since I had asked a rather stupid question.
Only three months later, we had our quarters redone. It took another three months to get air conditioning, and we had one satellite TV for the company instead of one for the office and one for his quarters like the colonel got, but it was a lot better than it had been. We never did get those tile floors though.
There are benefits to being in a ‘line’ battalion too. When it came time to put up an internet center, someone needed to provide people for a detail to staff it. You know who was looked to first. It didn’t take too long before the guys at battalion headquarters realized something very important. Yeah, we have to give up a squad of guys to clean computers and tell people when their time is up. But that means we run this place!
There’s a sign out front for peak hours - No Marines or Seabees allowed. A few of them walked in one evening and blithely assured the specialist on duty that “our commander said we could use this place and we don’t have to worry about that sign.” The soldier smiled, nodded and agreed with them that if their commander said that, it must be true. All those marines had to do was inform our sergeant major about the change that had been made to his internet center, and everything would be fine and dandy. Go ahead, he’s right there in the building next door. Go on, he’s a reasonable and friendly sort of guy, I’m sure there won’t be any problem. Heh.
This camp has been here for the better part of a year. Longer than that if you count the original guys who paved the way for us. There’s been a lot of work put into Quality of Life programs and a number of improvements to the place. The most frequently used is the wonderful Kellog, Brown and Root chow hall that serves four hot meals a day, with a fast-food and regular line, sodas, sandwich and salad bars. When supplies are short they still try their best, even if it’s just adding a garnish to a tray of t-rat Salisbury steaks. KBR is part of Halliburton, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. It’s mainly run by a Jordanian subcontractor, using Indian immigrant workers, whose salaries likely wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone either. I really need to buy some stock with these guys.
We also have, as I said before, this internet center. There’s a smaller one up at brigade headquarters, plus one the Marines took from us. There are about 20 computers in each, give or take, with a decently sized battalion library in ours. The chapel in the center of camp has a one-room library, and some of the company-sized elements have two or three shelves of books for the guys. All of them run on an honor system, which works out surprisingly well.
On either side of the internet center is a weight room and an MWR center. I don’t know how they got their hands on a giant widescreen TV, let alone a pair of them, but nobody’s complaining. Every day there’s at least a half-dozen movies being shown in there, plus ping-pong and billiards tables, a double handful of video game systems and a homemade bar. Yessir, all the free near-beer you can drink! For those who haven't tried it, drinking 'near-beer' is like being 'almost a virgin'. Sometimes it's either yes or no and close doesn't count. It’s a nice thought, but most people prefer Gatorade or ice water. Gatorade is a buck apiece and it’s almost always out of stock.
For those who attend services and have the time, there are two chapels on the post, both air-conditioned. On a blazing summer Sunday, that alone is enough for anyone to get religion.
We’re still using portajohns, but the five-gallon canvas showers have been replaced with shower trailers. They don't always have water, but you can't have everything.
One of the improvements that surprised people the most was an influx of Morale, Welfare and Recreation funds over the winter. Those funds were used in part to pick up a video game system for many of the line platoons. That's right, in the middle of Iraq you can be in a combat situation at 2000, then playing Halo or Delta Force at 2100. The more I think about that one, the more it almost begins to make sense...
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tiredJul. 3rd, 2004
08:17 pm - The Army giveth, the Army taketh away
Interesting factoid #1 of the day: Until September 12th, 2001, soldiers were slated to get a hundred dollars per day once they’d been deployed for a certain length of time. This was put into effect to encourage the administration and military to manage operations so that soldiers were not kept away from home for extended periods. On September 12th, the current administration suspended that policy. Remarkably foresighted of them, no?
Interesting factoid #2 of the day: Last fall, another plan was passed though Congress and made into law. It gave military service members a stepped series of bonuses for being deployed for longer and longer periods of time. As you passed certain thresholds (At around the 6 and 9 month marks, if I recall correctly) you received pay increases for increased OpTempo. The day it hit the books, it was suspended.
Interesting factoid #3 of the day: Another law has been recently passed, stating that soldiers who are in Iraq for longer than the ‘365 days, boots on the ground’ policy requires will receive a thousand dollar a month bonus for the extended deployment. A few days ago I found out that I’m no longer going home at the one year mark, but closer to a month after that. I’m not happy about it, but I’m not going to whine and moan. There are guys who’ve been here for much, much longer than myself. What I am going to do is keep a keen but jaundiced eye on my monthly pay statement to see what happens.
We’d already heard rumors of staying another week or two, and a few of the more cynical soldiers were suggesting that those rumors put the time for wheels up on the last plane at 11:45 PM on the last day of the month. But if we stay for a week beyond that, we could be in for a nice windfall. Besides the above, if you’re in a war zone at any time during a month you get a federal income tax exemption and some very spiffy bonuses. Some of those aforementioned cynical soldiers, which would certainly not include myself, suggest this may explain overnight fact-finding visits by senior officers on the 31st of alternating months in their previous deployments.
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hyperJun. 29th, 2004
05:01 pm - Our good friends...
In my original post to this journal, among other things, I said that I’d discuss our close friends out here, the Marines. We have all sorts of affectionate names for each other. They call us wannabes who only wish we were as high-speed as a Marine. We call them dumbasses who get shot too much.
Don’t get me wrong. We’re very, very glad that they’re out here. If they weren’t, we’d have 30,000 more Army soldiers somewhere in the desert, which means that the average Army soldier (including yours truly) would be spending even more time here. Anyone who does that for us is okay in my book.
All the same, they’re starting to remind us of that one guy in basic training who was always behind the learning curve. Let me give you a few examples.
Last winter, a platoon was sitting out on a major road, clustered into the same hundred meters or so of a highway, breaking down a traffic stop. They’re fixing to head out and hear small arms fire zip through their position. Everyone does the natural things- duck and cover, get ready to shoot back and figure out where it’s coming from. There’s nobody around… except for a group of Marines over the river. These Marines are a thousand meters away from them, maybe a bit more.
Nobody else seems to have a weapon near this platoon. Everyone realizes that either that was a stray round or the Marines accidentally shot off a few, or-crackcrackcrackcrack!
Unbelievably, the fire was coming from the Marines. Marines who were shooting at soldiers wearing a Kevlar helmet, ballistic vest, riding around in Humvees, wearing standard-issue camoflage. The platoon radios up, and the message gets up to the brigade level quick, fast and in a hurry. Those are friendly forces you guys are engaging, cut it out, NOW!
The firing tapers off. Everyone exhales and gets ready to stand up. THUMPTHUMPTHUMP! That wasn’t a standard 5.56mm round. That was a 40mm automatic grenade launcher! At this point, some of the platoon is getting pissed off. Not just “this isn’t funny” pissed off, but “I’m going to kill every last one of those guys and watch them bleed” pissed off. One sergeant radios up that either these Marines remove their head from the other end of their digestive tract, or he’s going to see how they like it coming back at them. His commander told him to keep down and keep his weapon on safe.
An hour, over a thousand rounds of ammunition ranging from M16’s to .50 caliber machine gun and 40 mm grenade launcher, and precisely zero hits later, the Marines decide for some unknown reason to pack up and move on.
One member of that unit suggested that should there be a next time, they should just report up that they’re taking fire at the edge of their own weapons range, and ask if there’s any artillery available. No muss, no fuss, no more trigger-happy Marines.
There was a rumor floating around later that last winter, a Marine squad had lit up the backside of a Bradley with AT4 anti-tank rockets. The Bradley crew, after realizing that they were still alive, somehow maintained enough restraint not to swivel their turret and reply with 25mm cannon fire or a TOW missile. When questioned, the Marines said they’d mistaken the Bradley for a Soviet BMP. This was in the middle of last winter. Local wits suggested that the Marines had suffered a cold-weather injury to their brains.
We eventually had to conduct joint patrols with the Marines. Iraq, after 25 years of consistent warfare, has become one giant weapons cache. In the United States, everyone has a cell phone. Over here, it’s an AK-47. We stumble over rockets, grenades, ammunition and explosives on a regular basis. In one case, a fire team of Marines went exploring an alleyway. They emerged again, their leader holding two rusted objects in his hands. He walked up to one of our platoon leaders who was sitting inside of his armored Humvee, raising them up to give the man a better look. In one hand, he had a standard ‘pineapple’ grenade, the type you see in every combat movie since WW II. In the other, he had this cobbled-together thing with a bunch of nails stuck on the outside. Either one of those grenades could be waiting for some decade-old, rusted out piece of metal inside to finally crumble away, turning them into fist-sized bundles of unhappiness. The driver, watching from the other side, mumbled to his lieutenant, “Sir…raise the window…slowly” and edged the vehicle away. The Marine stood there with a mystified and hurt expression, doubtlessly wondering why we weren’t happy about his new acquisitions.
A few weeks ago, our battalion commander was out doing a live-fire exercise with heavy weapons. He’s sitting on a ridgeline with great fields of fire, fantastic view. We’re sitting behind him on the highway, listening to the distant thump of explosions. A Marine convoy drives past and as they’re rolling through our line of observation points, one of them opens up, .50 cal and small arms shooting off to the side of the road. Our commander peered off in the direction they were shooting… there’s nothing there for thousands of meters. Since they were going past him next, he flagged down the vehicle and asked them what the heck they were shooting at. See that ridgeline over there? Yeah, we took small arms fire from it and were returning fire. Our commander looked “over there”. That ridgeline was a good four kilometers off. If you take an M16, point it up and arc a round as far as it’ll go, it’ll go around 3600 meters. An AK-47 round will hit the ground well short of that.
If he was taking small arms fire from that ridge, someone was using some really impressive small arms. On the other hand, that looked like the general area our live-fire was shooting from, pointing their weapons in the opposite direction. Hmm.
Right about then, our battalion commander lit up the radio. He was seeing tracer fire impact near his position, and what godforsaken idiot was shooting at HIM?! Whoever it was, he wanted unit, name and what that idiot thought he was doing. Our commander got the message from his radio operator, turned around and looked up at the idiot in question. Sometimes you’re in the right place at the perfect time.
I could go on for a bit more, but you truly would not believe some of the stories. Besides, I don’t want to rag on them too much. Thanks to these guys, soldiers are going home 12-18 months after setting foot in this country, Allah, Bush and fate willing.
Jun. 24th, 2004
07:06 pm - Rant. I'm allowed these occasionally.
I had intended for this little livejournal to be a nice, fluffy, funny place, where I relate amusing anecdotes and 'war stories' from my little villa in the desert. I think two entries is a decent enough lifespan for that resolution.
This morning was laundry day. Nice thing about Iraq in the summer, by the time you've hung all your clothes up on the line, the ones you've hung up first are either dry or getting there.
We also have a washing machine that our fairy-god-supply-sergeant picked up a week ago. It's awesome, enough space to do about a grocery bag full of laundry on one side, a centrifuge to spin it dry on the other and with about 15 gallons of water, I can do a load of laundry. I used a lot more than 15 gallons today as I haven't gotten laundry done for the entire month up until now. If it's not a quick trip off to the hospital, it's pulling 12-18 hour shifts every single day. It's very rarely above 16 hours, and typically only exceeds 14 if I count PT. I don't mind doing that, really. It helps the days go by much quicker, in part because I don't have to worry about things like spare time to twiddle away. I also don't mind it because I'm not sitting in a Bradley, Humvee or foxhole for those 12-18 hours, I'm sitting in an air-conditioned office/operations center. That's right, I am a REMF. At least as REMF as you can get in the middle of a camp in a war zone. Picture the guy with the typewriter in Saving Private Ryan, tip-tapping away on the bluffs right after Omaha Beach. Now give him a bit more of a bloodthirsty attitude and a willingness to rip someone's lungs out with his bare hands. (NOTE: Ripping someone's lungs out is actually a lot harder than it sounds!) That's me.
Anyway, we have a washing machine. I had a day off today. This is an excellent combination since most of my uniforms are beginning to look like I do spend 12-18 hours a day in a foxhole and I could easily fill a very smelly duffle bag with my laundry. Today as I'm standing beside my slowly diminishing pile of clothes, our mechanics' platoon sergeant strolls up with a little bag, ready to do his laundry too. To his well-expressed amazement, yes, that entire pile there is mine. No, I haven't done laundry lately. At this point, he burst out laughing. Another soldier and I looked at each other, not getting the joke. The platoon sergeant explained what was so funny to both of us. He couldn't imagine hoarding laundry up like that. Why, he does his laundry every two days. I must be some kind of wild and crazy guy to store mine for that long.
He strolled off to the water buffalo and the other soldier and I looked at each other again. "Really funny," he told me. "That platoon sergeant has the time to stand out here every two days, and we can't make it out here while it's light out for almost a month." I nodded. "Must be his superior time management skills. We sure could learn a lot from that man."
A few minutes later, I grabbed a water bottle from our pile and was yelled at to join a "Hey you" detail. On my day off. I opened the door nearby and saw a half-dozen mechanics sitting in the AC, watching movies or playing video games. On duty. Must be those time-management skills they learned that allow them to do that.
I closed the door, turned and started walking.
annoyedJun. 11th, 2004
12:56 am - A typical soldier. Kinda.
I arrived at my unit only a short time before we landed in the desert. Having been a civilian for the previous three years, the entire military concept wasn't much more than a memory of doing stupid stuff on a regular basis, interspersed with the occasional high-speed training and some pushups now and again.
One of the first people I met was this skinny, jittery, quiet kid from the southwest who turned out to be my new roommate. Granted, I'm only three years older than him. I still reserve the right to apply the term 'kid' to anyone whose voice hasn't dropped yet.
As we prepared to leave the run-down 1950's era barracks that would soon be sorely missed, I found out that this poor guy was convinced that if anyone in our unit wouldn't make it back home alive, it would be him. Nevermind that he's in the middle of the most aggressive, gung-ho bunch of soldiers in the entire country, he knew that the odds said at least one of us wasn't going to make it. With his luck, all he could do was ask his friends to remember him with a drink when we got back.
We're most of the way through our deployment now and he's still with us. There have been a few Purple Hearts handed out, but none to anyone in his entire platoon. He still has his life, his limbs and all of his skin. His dignity... well, you be the judge. Some guys just aren't meant to be infantry.
When we first got out here, there were two options for chow: MREs, which everyone knows about, and T-rations. T-rats are more or less MREs that come in tins that provide 50 people with one serving of each part of the MRE. Here's your beef chunk, here's your spiced apples, here's your vacuum-packed spaghetti. My roommate was a picky eater when he was a kid. Still is, in fact. More than three months of mostly MREs made the poor guy absolutely miserable.
Later, we got assigned an OP way the heck out in the middle of the city. Nobody else around, not much in the way of support for what could be a very long couple of minutes in a firefight, so when our guys rolled through the downtown, they rolled deep.
A few words about downtown in Iraq. The streets are a rat-maze when you get off the main throughways and boulevards. New York traffic they do have, but the streets are only just as wide as absolutely necessary. Power, telephone and clotheslines are strung haphazardly overhead on side streets, out of the way of your average sedan. A soldier standing in the back of a Humvee is significantly taller than your average sedan. What would be far overhead for anyone on the ground or in a car, happens to be right about neck level for said soldier. You see where this is going.
Our convoy goes rolling down the lane, every pair of eyes searching and scanning for a local who has an RPG or AK-47 and is unusually stupid or drunk this morning. Some pairs of eyes are scanning more alertly than others. As the third or fourth truck passes one spot, a .50 cal gunner standing in the back calls out to the others on the Humvee, "Hey ya'll, duck."
"Huh?", replies my roommate.
"Wire, duck."
My roomate glances around with a confused expression. "Huh?"
The gunner nods to the strand, now passing over the hood of the truck. "Wire, right there."
"Huh?", a third time, and my roommate stands up to get a good look at whatever has the attention of the gunner. At this point, the gunner is mostly focused on letting the wire pass over his Kevlar, and only a small fraction of his mind is watching my roommate position himself absolutely perfectly to catch the oncoming wire under his jaw.
A strangled "Erk!" emerges from my roommate as he commits a perfect clothesline, feet flying up into the air, hands outstretched and M-16 clattering to the ground. Somehow he manages to flip himself over onto his stomach on the way down. The gunner watches my buddy land in the truck bed beside him, boots twitching, body limp and thoroughly convincing everyone around him that his pre-deployment premonitions of doom have just come true.
The convoy halted as the soldiers behind watched one of their own go down, knocked off his feet with shocking violence. One scrambled to get the weapon laying in the middle of the street, another ran up to check on the prone soldier, others took up security positions. My roommate managed a choked whimper as he was rolled over. The gunner incredulously explained what had happened to everyone around and the general mood shifted from adrenaline-keyed combat reflexes to embarassed amusement. You know, the kind of amusement you get when your not-particularly-bright younger sibling tells you how he traded that wrinkled old dollar for a shiny new quarter.
He managed to get through a few more weeks of truck bed rides without further incident, then the mission changed again. Now he's watching a road, basically part of the most heavily armed highway patrol you've ever seen. Several times a day, they'll see travelers pull over in random spots, disdaining to use the shaded rest stops scattered every twenty-five miles or so. Usually it's just someone who wants to stretch their legs. Every once in a while, it turns out to be something more.
Many Iraqis have lost both their initial gratitude to the Americans and their fear. They know we're part of a kindler, gentler Army, one that's here to help them, not occupy their country. When a trio of Americans barely out of their teens show up and tell a dozen of them to move along, they don't have any particular incentive to hurry. What are we going to do, shoot them? Ha-ha, silly Americans.
They could be waiting until we're not looking to do something stupid. They could just want a rest break and not care what we'd prefer they do. They learn quickly that it doesn't matter what they want, they're going to get moving.
One group of truckers decided to ignore the first move-along, delivered politely and respectfully through an interpreter. Five minutes later they were still standing around, smoking and joking. My roommate and two others were told to see them off.
No problem.
One of the others took charge. They pulled their Humvee over behind the line of trucks while another team watched a little ways back. "When I say to, everbody lock and load. Make it loud too. Don't worry about why, just do it," he told the other two. They walked up the side of the trucks, out of sight of the chatting Iraqis. As they came to the cab of the last one, he stage-whispered, "Now!" to the pair beside him.
It was evening, the sun was going down, everything was finally cooling off and the truckers were having a good time up until that moment. A loud, repeated, and absolutely unmistakable CHA-CHACK sound echoed from the other side of their trucks, and then three foreigners with assault rifles and full battle-rattle came running at them. Every conversation was silenced, every cigarette hit the ground, every hand went for the sky in the same split-second.
"Alright, ya'll didn't want to do this the easy way! Every one of you, in the trucks, on the road, right the F--- NOW!"
My roommate backed him up. "You guys know you're not supposed to be here, get mo-"
The last word was intended to be "moving." Halfway through, his voice broke and reached for ranges Michael Jackson could only hope to hit.
Every hand lowered. Every tanned face was split by a wide grin. The quiet gave way to scattered snickers. Two camoflage-capped heads turned to disgustedly stare at my roommate. One of the soldiers quietly spoke to him.
"You're a great guy man. I appreciate the help, I really do. But shut the hell up."
Some guys just aren't cut out for the infantry.
rushedJun. 5th, 2004
08:03 am - From the land that water forgot...
At one time, I debated keeping a diary. I decided that ultimately there was no point in it.
For one thing, privacy is a moot point for a teenager. You live in your parents' house, they grow instincts that you're probably doing something wrong (You're a teenager, so they're right about that, of course!), they randomly comb your belongings for evidence of misdeeds. So much for your 'secret diary.'
For another, I was a teenager. Unlike most angst-filled adolescents, I had the tiny shred of wisdom to recognize that a) 99.99% of my life is the same as everyone else's and b) very, very few people really care about that other 00.01% unless you happen to be a best-selling author.
After I was done being a rebel just like everybody else, it was time to grow up and join the real world. I puttered around with a college education for a while, learned some more about how to make computers do what I wanted them to, and dabbled in French and Latin.
Recently I've done two things that majorly altered my life. I rejoined the Army and married a beautiful, wonderful woman. The Army decided I would be spending my first year of marriage away from my wife, scratching sandflies and learning appreciation for indoor plumbing. You can imagine how that influenced my views on the military. It also gave me something interesting to write about. It takes a certain perspective for incoming mortar rounds to become no big deal, for exploding showers to become normal, and for air-conditioning to become a blessing from the heavens.
But you know about that sort of thing already. You read Yahoo.com's news, you watch the evening broadcasts and you read the papers.
You still don't know about what happens when you cross an Abrams with Iraqi traffic, or let Marines drive around unsupervised by adults. You haven't heard about all the ingenious ways people injure, maim and destroy themselves while trying to kill a horrible, occupying American infidel. And you've never experienced Malaria Friday.
But you will.
tired