So Iraq, huh?

I won't say that things haven't been busy here, as they have; but they haven't been busy enough that everyone is at each others' throats looking for a minute away, looking to be just left alone.

Iraq. Just saying the name brings so many emotions to mind. The cradle of civilization, a land with a proud people, a proud history, and a bloody present - Iraq. The whole experience of getting here, looking back on it, seems surreal. At what point did we all finally pause, take a breath or two or three, exhale, and whisper under our breath, "This is real." All of the training, all of the games that surround Army life, and here we are at the Championship - operation New Dawn (as reported by the Washington Post in February of this year, so no OPSEC requirement). This is real.

Stepping on to the plane that brought us here from Kuwait I felt that I should be taking the situation more seriously than I was. I kept thinking, "think about the mission" while at the same time it was my first flight on a military aircraft, and all that I wanted to think about was, "What does that button do? Why does the Air Force wear jumpsuits? Did they hang those two American flags up just for us? Do they think that we're all children - why are the seats so close together? The ramp has rollers on it - watch your step on the way out so you don't trip like on the way in! I wish there were more windows! I think it's time to play the Army Strong song on my phone for everyone!" My mind raced at a thousand miles a minute and I even ended up finding myself singing, "Blood Upon the Risers" to some of the members of the company...until the Air Force loadmaster was kind enough to offer me her headset so that I could sing over the loudspeakers. After that I was much more quiet.

The flight was quick, and we waited so impatiently to get off the plane as even a short flight wearing full battle rattle is too long - and the M249 wasn't made to be carried on a military flight. We stepped off the ramp (didn't trip!) and started walking towards the room that everyone was being guided towards. I tried to pause for a moment just to smell the air - every place we've been seems to have a unique scent to it, and Iraq is no different. Even at midnight, the air smelled like it had been full of sunlight a few hours before, the dust tickled my nose and the I could taste the sand on my tongue. It is completely different from the sand that I've been exposed to before. Ocean sand has a tang to it, and the sands from the various deserts I've found myself in all have their own qualities. Iraq's sand tastes burned. I continued shuffling towards the briefing room, still wondering how I ended up carrying so much stuff and cursing myself for it as my laptop bounced along my sideplate, my SAW bruised my right thigh as I walked, and my assault pack dug into my shoulders through my IOTV. I just wanted to sit down again once we reached the briefing area.

The brief itself was, well, brief. Before we knew it we were outside unloading the pallets with our sea bags and duffels on them so that we could reload them on to trucks. Then it was another walk over to billeting where we would finally be told who we were rooming with and what kind of housing we would have. After standing there for nearly an hour I went through with SGT McLaughlin and found out that he and I would be sharing a CHU (Container Housing Unit) together. It sounds bad from the name – like we’re some off-brand of sardines (Canned Soldiers in spring water, quantity per container: 2) but the billet is actually pretty nice. I first thought that maybe these were Air Force rooms at first, but after wandering around the Air Force side of things, they definitely aren’t. Our room consists of two wall lockers, two beds, two night stands, two lamps, an AC unit, and an overhead room light that doesn’t work. We have one window that is between the two beds, and until the rest of our gear gets here, it feels like we have plenty of room. We put together our room as best we could before finally getting to bed at about 0530 in the morning.

We all got to sleep in (with a few exceptions – some soldiers had class) and after going to chow (the food is actually pretty good here, but still nothing like at home) I was relaxing a bit and figuring out if the internet here is really worth $88 a month when Sgt Mc peaked his head in the door and asked my help with carrying some things. I walked along and was stunned to discover that he’d found some soldiers who were going home and had bought their tv, fridge, dvd player, power strips, etc. And he’d done it for CHEAP! Since then Sgt Mc has amazed nearly everyone on a daily basis with his ability to scrounge up whatever it is that he’s looking for – from RipTide Rush Gatorade to chairs, folding stools, coolers, etc…It’s a talent that I want to learn!

Everything here is a walk – although there are buses that run around the base, too. Probably the soldier with the best understanding of the bus system here is SPC Jansen. Later the first day here he was already directing us all where to go, how to get where we wanted to go, and what they had there to buy and/or eat. I think a lot of that has to do with Jansen liking to both buy and eat things! The DFAC is in one direction, the motorpool is close to battalion headquarters, but battalion headquarters is actually a little bit away from that, and the PX is in another direction from any of those, and the Iraqi market is in yet another direction. I’ve driven passed the MWR and Post Office, but still haven’t walked all the way out to them, and I really want to make phone calls home. I need a magic jack! There is supposedly a USO here somewhere, too, but where is anyone’s guess!

From many points here on the base you can see the ancient Ziggurat of Ur – and though the soldiers here are probably tired of me talking about, those of you at home don’t know what you’re missing! It is a very commanding structure just off the base, and thinking that it has stood here for nearly 4500 years (though it was only restored in the 1990s) really puts the entire region into perspective. The oldest thing that we Americans can say that we built is still much much younger!

It’s nearly chow time here, so I’m going to jump off of this for now, but later (you can be sure) I’m going to try to upload some of my pictures and talk about the great MRAPs that we fell in on as well as the M240B class I’m going to be taking. If I have to carry both a SAW and a M240B I am REALLY going to be hating life!

Until later,

Tackle Anything

Bloggin' ain't easy

And it just got more difficult. As some of you already know from speaking over the phone, the internet service here is spotty at best, and terrible the rest of the time. Our BC (Battalion Commander) has informed us all that he will be checking for OPSEC (Operational Security) breaches on our social networking pages and (I'm assuming) blogs. If he finds any, then he confiscates our laptops. I think it's a little silly because the internet is so awful here that we all go to the USO and use their laptops, but the point of the message is, don't post stuff you shouldn't.

That message wasn't clarified, so I'm going to go by what I know, which is:
No troop numbers
No equipment numbers
No dates of movement
No specific mission details

If any of that is wrong, please comment me. Until then, I'm just going to keep going as I go - there are plenty of other military bloggers out there that seem to be able to report on what they're up to (within reason) without risking the guillotine of UCMJ. So wish me luck as I drive on with this project!

We're still in the place that we've been for awhile, and I'm not certain how much longer we'll be here, which is fine with me. We've been conducting training, going to the gym, and acclimating to the weather here, which is warmer than we're used to during the day, and about as cold as we're used to at night. We've had a couple of minor-sandstorms (so say the soldiers who have done this before) but it's definitely eerie seeing the sky turn yellow and great clouds of sand rolling towards the base! Visibility ends up being about 30 to 100 feet (hence the reason these are minor sandstorms!) and the last one lasted about 24 hours, with winds picking up during the night (why does that happen at every dessert we visit?!)

The training has been good, although I messed myself up pretty good today during the MRAP rollover training. We've all gone through it now, and a few people have bumps and bruises and sore necks and shoulders from it - it's much more difficult than the humvee rollover training that we've been through so many times now! The harness is difficult to undo when you're upside down, and even though I was tucking my chin into my chest (just like a PLF, Charlie) I still hit the cieling (floor) of the MRAP funny, as my right arm didn't release from the seat belt harness (because it was stuck on the elbow pad we were told to wear) so my shoulder wrenched back one direction, my neck in the other, and my feet were the only thing to hit the floor the right way. I'm going to give it a day or two on Motrin and Water before I go to the TMC to have it checked out, but my range of motion is pretty bad right now.

I also had a fortunate thing happen today! We ran into some soldiers who had literally just gotten to this base from up North and they stopped Chalker, Kuntze, and myself and said, "Hey troops, you going up North?" We all replied that we were. "Which one of you is junior?" They asked this because we're all Specialists. Kuntze and Chalker pointed at me. "Which one of you is most broke?" As I'm most junior, they again pointed at me, "Here you go troop! It's a $150 voltage adapter, you'll need it up there!" And so I became the proud owner of a 20lb voltage adapter from some nameless sergeant from a unit that is just finishing their deployment. If he ever reads this, I just want to say thank you very much - I don't know how I'm going to store it on the journey North, but I'm very glad to have it!!

That's about all for now, I haven't been taking many pictures as I don't know what we can and can't take pictures of, but I really want one of the Starbucks on base as it looks like it was transplanted from any suburb in the United States and dropped here and then surrounded with Hesco barriers. It's really weird to be able to walk into something like this!

More when I have more!

TACKLE ANYTHING