Birthday

Today was my 27th birthday, but surprisingly the first I've spent in Iraq. Iraq is a pretty good birthday-having location, but some things are a little different than back home. For instance instead of those little confetti poppers and noise-makers at the party, the EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) guys set off gigantic explosions that shake buildings and produce mushroom clouds not unlike this one:

Instead of going to a nice restaurant you can walk a half mile to the BX and have Pizza Hut prepared in a tiny trailer by people that do not speak English. Instead of birthday candles you can take a trip to the trash burn pit, which is a gigantic hole in the ground filled with trash. And fire.

Other things are the same though. The crew from my base took me to Pizza Hut and got me a nice card and some alcohol wipes, which you can never have too much of around here, then we played some cards at the Hot Spot, it was a pretty good birthday considering. Missed being with family of course, but from what I hear they had a nice party without me.

I forgot to bring my camera, so I didn't get any pictures of these events. Bummers. I have it with me now though, so you might get some awesome pictures of me following around a garbage truck today, watching him empty dumpsters.

I guess the Super Bowl is early Monday morning here, and a lot of people are excited about watching the game. It's also easy to tell who the alcoholics are, as we are allowed two beers during the game as long as you don't have to carry a weapon in the next eight hours. I'd say most people are more excited about the beer than the game. The dining facility is decorated in Super Bowl paraphernalia and there are parties going on all over base for those that aren't going to partake of the beer. (In case I never said it before, alcohol is forbidden in deployed locations, so no one has had any alcohol since they've been here, which could be a year for the Army guys.)

My college classes start tomorrow, which will be nice. Will have something else to do to occupy my time and actually have something to show for my time here. Depending on how hard they are I may pick up another one next month and try to knock it out as well. If I can work ahead in the classes it will be extra nice as I can probably finish them pretty quickly, but that just depends on the teacher.

Does anyone have any questions about what it's like here or want to know about anything in particular? I feel like I'm running out of things to say and don't want to bore people with things that aren't interesting. Just leave a comment or email me and let me know if you have anything in particular in mind.

Concrete

Got a picture of the Iraqis mixing concrete on the ground today. It's funny but also kind of sad that they don't have the right tools to do their job. They improvise well. Some people would probably just say they can't do their job without the proper tools, but they find a way to make it work.

The Chuck Wagon that brings our food to us at some sites came back after making all of the rounds to the AF personnel and we gave all of our left over food to the LNs working on my site. They had already eaten whatever it is that they eat, but were happy to take some chicken fingers and burgers and cookies and soda from us.

I also have an update on the Iraqi bathroom process. Though I am still not 100% sure what they do with the water bottles, I'm pretty sure they just rinse their hands with it. But, that's not really the update. They don't stand up to pee like guys in the US do, so urinals are worthless to them. Instead they back up to the toilet, put a foot on either side of it, squat and pee that way. You can tell by the boot prints on either side of the toilet, and also because there are stains on the wall of the reservoir in the port-a-john closest to the door, which would be very difficult to hit if you were standing up in front of the toilet.


Had an exercise today so we had to put on our IBA (Individual Body Armor) and sit in the closest bunker for about 45 minutes. We had just pulled into the parking lot so we had to sit in the one there. If it had been 10 minutes later I could have just sat in my room. Oh well.

Today I did something completely different.

Instead of sitting in my truck like normal, I sat on this barrier for the whole day! Gave me a totally different view of the LNs (Local Nationals) I was watching.

These are Iraqi birds. They are brown just like the dirt. They like hamburger buns. Everything is brown here. I've seen a few square yards of green grass, and I think it was just growing from a leaking sewer line.

This is an Iraqi Beetle. It vibrates. I'm pretty sure if I decoded the vibrations into morse code it would say something like "Dirka dirka! Jihad dirka!".

I got two packages today, one had my sunglasses that I ordered. They are ballistics rated which means they are BULLETPROOF (for really small bullets and shrapnel anyway). So that means you can SHOOT ME IN THE EYE and I will only laugh at your puny attempt to harm me. Also, no, I do not make my bed. Take that mom. And also SSgt Vega who tried to teach me to make it perfectly in Basic Training. What a waste of time.

The second package had my two school books for the two college classes I'm taking while I'm here. They are brand new and would have cost $350 but I get free books through my school thanks to some government grant they have. So, that means that when I finish the classes I can sell the books for probably $200 and actually make a profit from going to school. Score!

I don't have a picture to show you, but I have noticed that all of the Iraqi guys take a bottle of water with them into the port-a-johns. I have not yet figured out what they do with it and I'm not sure that I want to know, but I will keep you updated on the progress of the investigation. Perhaps they just rinse their hands with it? But there is hand sanitizer on the door outside most of them. Perhaps they use it as some sort of strange Iraqi portable bidet? How would they do that with a non-full bottle? I do not understand the physics of that theory. They do like to take baths with the bottled water outside the port-a-johns though. Before they eat they use bottled water to rinse their hands and face.

Also they eat the same thing every day as far as I can tell. It's basically huge pieces of flat bread that they tear into pieces and dip into... something. And also they eat Lay's potato chips. Strange.

50,000?

50,000 jobs lost, just today? It's a great time to be in the military. If anyone wants in let me know and I'll try to put in a good word for you. Maybe I'll get a referral bonus or something. Or free cake.

I think I decided a few days ago to re-enlist. I'll try to retrain into another job probably, "Technical Applications Specialist", basically they are the closest thing we have to enlisted scientists. Each of their assignments are different usually and sometimes they are the only people in the Air Force doing their job. One assignment they could be doing computer programming, then the next they could be doing stuff with seismographs or hydro-acoustics or other crazy stuff I don't even know about. It has the highest ASVAB (military entrance exam to see how well you can learn to do certain things) requirements of any job in the Air Force and I'd have to take an additional test that is mostly about logic and math. I also hear they try to put you somewhere that will utilize your strong points, so that is nice. Should be interesting. I'd like to at least stay in until I finish my bachelors degree, which would probably be at least another 4 or 6 year enlistment since I just do 6 classes a year, but at that point I'm already half-way to my 20 year retirement, so why get out then? Of course once I finish my bachelors I could try to become an officer and get paid a ton more and have better retirement benefits which would be nice.

Who knows though! Still have another year to decide whether to re-enlist or not. Maybe the economy will turn around and be the strongest ever and people will be beating down my door to pay me $200,000 a year to fly their satellites. Or maybe I'd get out and work at McDonald's with everyone else, since that's one of the only profitable companies these days.

Random pics

Here are some random pictures I took today and a few days ago.
At one of the sites that I work at there is a bunch of Turkish guys working and they break for tea in the morning and afternoon. This is what it looks like. It smells like a horse barn to me for some reason. I think it reminds me of the hay or the grain or something. It tastes just like it smells. We usually just take it to be nice because they seem so happy to bring it out to us on a little tray and everything, but then we just dump it out later. When it's cold in the morning it's nice to warm up your hands with though.
This is the shack where they have their breaks. There is one guy that stays in there. His only apparent job is to make the tea and clean up the little shack after their breaks. He never works out with the others. Weird. The shack is on wheels so they can roll it down the road as they progress. Funny.
This is me sitting in my truck. This is what I do all day. Unless I'm standing outside of the truck doing the same thing.
These are local guys (Iraqis) building a building. They are putting up that heavy metal awning thing on the side of the building. They stood up the poles yesterday. They mixed the concrete on the ground, which was odd. Just a big pile of concrete on the ground that they then put in wheel barrows and moved around. They tried to get a front-end loader to pick up that metal awning and hold it up there but it wouldn't go high enough. So they came up with this rig of scaffolding and ropes and things. I was pretty sure someone was going to die during the process so I was thinking in my mind what I was going to say on the radio when it happened.
Miraculously they did it and the only thing that happened was that board the guy is holding fell down and hit someone in the back, but he was ok. I'll save my radio speech for another day.
It's hard to tell what's going on in this picture, but basically the guy on the scaffold is welding. With sunglasses on for protection. So he's probably going to be blind soon. And the guy squatting on the bottom, from what I can tell, is holding a wire to the metal pole to ground the welder, I assume so someone doesn't get electrocuted. Good thing I prepared what I was going to say on the radio when someone dies. Also, the welder doesn't have a normal plug on it to plug into a wall socket, it just has two bare wires that they attach directly to a huge diesel generator. Awesome.
This is the inside of the truck. It's dirty. There's really nothing you can do to help it. If you clean it it'll just be like this again in the next few days.
Flag. And loud speaker. And sky.
Me in mah truck again.
This is what I feel like doing all day. But I don't. This was simulated by a professional, not dereliction of duty! Don't arrest me!
We wear these things on our arms so people know we are FORCE PROTECTION. Super cool. It'll look good in my Iraq Deployment plaque. I attach mine with a safety pin from the inside of my sleeve so that you can't see the safety pin, only awesomeness. Other people are dirt bags and have safety pins hanging out all over the place, or little alligator clips or it just slides down their arm all the time. I guess they forgot how important it is to look sharp when you are at war.

*Update!* I just went to turn in my weapons and saw a guy in there with a 2 inch long safety pin on the OUTSIDE of his brassard AND an alligator clip hanging out the top. Classy.

Best thing ever

This is the greatest thing ever. Drawn by my best buddy Kevin, thanks man! Love it! Wife, it must be printed and framed for when I get home! Big version.

Cats & Calzones

The group I came here with from my base invited me to supper at one of the little restaurants on base to get a break from the dining facility. We went to a little italian restaurant called Ciano's that is of course operated by a bunch of Indians or Turkish guys. I honestly can't tell most of the nationalities apart. They all look pretty similar and all of their languages sound like gibberish. If they sound like Apu from the Simpsons though, I know they are usually Indian.

I got a "Number 67", a vegetarian Calzone with olives/eggplant/mushrooms/tomatoes/cheese. Except I'm not a huge fan of olives in the first place and these ended up being whole olives with the pitts still in them, meaning it would be very easy to break your teeth on them. So I left those on my plate. Honestly it wasn't that good and I wish I had just gone to the dining facility where the food is better and also FREE. But it was ok to try somewhere new at least.

 

Here's a little tiny can of Pepsi that one of the guys paid a dollar for. It's the size of a Red Bull. Rip off! Especially since the full 12 ounce cans are free at the DFAC (dining facility). Dummy.

This one looks like a Sprite. And it's a regular size can for the same money.

The group from my base. I know, I should start getting them to take pictures of me since I'm the one that you know, not them. Maybe next time. Look how awesome and safe we are in our reflective track suits. 

Iraqi cats do not say meow, they say "Dirka dirka, Muhammed! Jihad!".

We've been told multiple times in briefings not to feed the wild life around base, so of course the first thing everyone in my group does when seeing this cat is to call it over and start petting and feeding it. 

Here are some old bunkers around the flight line on base. It is quite obvious they have been there for a long time.

Everyone paints the big barriers to represent their squadron/branch whatever.  I'll try to take a picture of ours and post it as well.

The bunkers are all falling apart. Hard to tell if it's just from age or from actual attacks. Some have gaping holes that look like they were probably caused by some sort of rocket, but it could just be a cave-in. According to Wikipedia the bunkers were built before 1985 and were heavily damaged in the first Gulf War.

Also, here is what the base looks like from space, because I know you were all staying up at night wondering what that would look like. As you can see it looks like a huge pile of brown dust with a flight line and a fence around it. Which is quite accurate.

Roaches

Before each shift the people doing my job have to arm up, which means a trip to the armory to receive and load our M16, extra ammunition, ASP baton, radio, etc. After arming up we have to stay armed for the rest of the day, until properly released. This means taking the M16 with you to the bathroom, the dining facility, fitting it inside of the truck, taking it to the BX, everywhere. Ever since basic training when we received our M16s (they were  special ones that didn't fire) to carry around with us during training, we've been taught to keep it within arm's reach at all times. There were severe consequences if a training instructor ever got hold of your weapon because you left it leaning on a tree or something when you went to the bathroom. But anyway, that is beside the point. My point was that we have to stay armed up until released, which means that even if we are technically done working and all of the people we are escorting have gone home, we have to stay armed until we are released. We can go to our rooms or to the Hot Spot to play games or pool or something, but we have to keep our weapons and stay in uniform. We all have radios as well. So at the end of our shift, everyone is sitting around with their radios waiting for the call to be released. The point of my whole story was that it is quite comical to hear the release call on the radio, step outside of my room and see FPs (Force Protection, my job) scurrying out from doorways all over the place like a bunch of roaches. They come out of trailers, they come out of bathrooms, they come from the smoke pits, the Hot Spot, the chapel, the laundry room, everywhere, all headed back to turn in their weapons and radio so they can go back to their room and change into our PT (physical training) clothes and go eat or go to the gym or just goof off. It cracks me up every day so I thought I'd share it.

For those that don't know, this is what an M16 looks like.



It weighs eight or nine pounds when loaded, so it's a pain to carry around and deal with and it's nice to get rid of it at the end of the day. Yes we are at war technically so we should be carrying weapons, but the enemies we are facing are cowards that put bombs inside of dead animals on the road or drive a car loaded with explosives into a building, they are not the type to mount a full ground assault on a base. They also randomly launch unguided rockets at our bases hoping to get lucky and hit something important. They are not going to line up in a formation with their AK-47s and attempt to storm the base, requiring us to fire back with our M16s. But, when we are on duty it is a different story of course. We need protection and having an armed rifle on your back goes a long way to keeping the peace without ever having to use it or even threaten to, when dealing with the people we are escorting.

Dust

Another big dust storm today. This one was closer to an actual dust storm than the last, the last one was basically just wind blowing the dust that the earth movers were stirring up, but this one was all over the base.

An insane Army girl running in the dust storm. With nothing over her mouth. I have no idea how she breathed.
Dust.
More dust. Visibility during the big gusts is only about 15 feet.
Edited version that looks cooler but doesn't show the dust as well. Apparently it gets worse than this though. Sometimes it just comes in all at once like a wall of dust. That would be cool to see. I'll be sure to always have my camera for when it does.

I should note that it's difficult to get a good picture of a dust storm, as dust is very small and just makes it look like I have a crappy camera or that it was overcast. When I took those pictures it was pretty close to noon, so it should have been super bright. Instead I can only see about 15 feet in front of me and everything else is completely obscured in the dust.

Not much else new to report. Just sitting in trucks, watching people work. Yup...

Shave and a beating

Today is my day off, so after working out at the gym I dropped off my dirty laundry with the laundry service lady, went to eat and then went to the BX for a haircut. The barbers are all Indian or Pakistani or something, and apparently have very different traditions than Americans about haircuts.

The first thing that threw me off was just having hair all over my face, as the barbers at the BX at home have vacuum attachments hooked up to the clippers so that everything they cut off is immediately sucked away and sold to the hair clipping gnomes, who use it to make rope. Regardless of where the hair goes, it does not go in my face, which is lovely. I also discovered that the numbers on the clipper guards are different here than they are in the states, so when I told him I wanted a "3" on top, the clippers didn't even cut my hair because the guard was too long. So, we went with a two, for future reference.

The haircut proceeded as normal, except that he cut from the top to the bottom and they usually do it the other way around in the states, but at the end, when I thought he was done, he started punching me in the head! I had heard some strange slaps in the room from other barbers but did not see what they were doing, as I was looking straight ahead while my  hair was cut. But apparently it was part of some sort of scalp massage, perhaps it is common in their country? He basically punched me in the back of the head a few times and then started punching it from all sides with his hands cupped in a way that made a loud popping/clicking noise. He took off the tissue paper from my neck, rubbed my shoulders a few times and then started slapping me in the back with a good deal of force as well. He finished it off with a few open-handed slaps to the back/shoulders and a "Tank you sir" in his accent that sounded just like Apu from the Simpsons. It was a most interesting experience, but I can't really say it was bad at all. Perhaps barbers in the states should start giving a massage after a haircut! I didn't really understand the slapping or punching, but the rubbing on my shoulders and scalp was nice.  He also put some aftershave on my head, I suppose to avoid razor burn, but I swear it smelled just like paint thinner. I should probably avoid open flames for the next few hours, just in case.

I also bought a little travel mouse to use with my computer on my desk, which has improved my clicking speed and accuracy by a great deal. Expect to see a lot more clicks from me in the future.

Another day

Someone asked what I'm actually doing over here, so I thought I should summarize it. Basically the government hires contractors to do most of the construction and manual labor on the base, things like cleaning the cadillacs (toilets), cleaning the runways, building new buildings and roads, emptying porta-potties, etc. Some of them are local Iraqis from the surrounding villages, others are flown in from other countries like Turkey, Pakistan, India, the Philippines, etc. The general idea is that if they pay Iraqis to earn a legitimate wage, then they are less likely to sell information on our troops to insurgents. It also injects money into the economy and gives some people employment. However, the threat of these people gathering intel on the base and selling it to various terrorist groups is still very real, so most of these contractors have to be escorted while on the base. The other people in my squadron and I are that escort. We follow them around on their routes or watch them while they are working in heavy machinery, etc to make sure that they aren't gathering intel on the base to sell to others. We make sure they don't have prohibited items like cameras or cell phones or anything that can be used to record or transmit information, make sure they don't attack the base, each other, try to sabotage the base, etc.

Today I tried to have a conversation with one of the Turkish heavy equipment operators. He can only speak extremely broken English but I was able to piece together enough to get the gist of what he was saying. He's apparently been working in Iraq for 5 years, on and off. He said he first came two or three months after we invaded and usually works for 6 - 8 months at a time and then goes home to Turkey to "sleep (mimicking sleeping with his hands)" for a month or two before returning home. He showed me pictures of his kids and tried to tell me about how much safer Iraq is now than it used to be but that all of the Iraqis outside the base are still "bitches" (his favorite term for anyone he doesn't like much, including his "big bosses") and very dangerous. He asked me questions about myself and home but I'd only answer in extremely vague terms or deflect the question and ask another one about him. Once you start up a conversation it can quickly turn into a very different type of conversation and they can start asking questions like "How many people are on base? Does everyone carry a weapon? How much ammunition do you carry?" which can of course all be sold and pieced together by the enemy to have a very clear picture of how we conduct operations on the base.

Other than that bit of interaction, I spent part of the rest of the day hanging out with a fly, who I found out was named Frank. He was flying around in my truck and landed on my shirt so I watched him for a while. He spent at least 5 minutes washing his hands and then rubbing his head like a cat. He didn't look any different from a normal house fly in the states, which is kind of boring. He flew down to my leg and I very very slowly (I had a lot of time to move slowly) moved my finger up and touched him and he didn't even fly away. He kind of turned around and looked at my finger at one point and moved towards it a little bit, I assume he was saying hello, introducing himself and shaking my hand. I was about to get out my camera and take a picture of him so that I could blog about him on the internet, but then he flew out my window and was gone, leaving me alone again, which was saddening.

After that, to entertain myself I spilled a little hand sanitizer on my uniform and then watched it dry, which was pretty interesting. I'm guessing it will evaporate a lot faster in a few months when it's a hundred degrees outside, maybe I should set up some sort of experiment.

Safety... last?

The Iraqis or Turkish that I work with don't have any safety regulations that I can see. The other day while watching a gate I watched one of the guys step down out of his fuel tanker and light up a cigarette right next to it. I almost backed up my truck a couple hundred feet but he started to step away as I did. I was also at another site and noticed some very interesting uses of ladders, etc. They are safe about some things though, the bull dozer driver wears a flak vest and helmet, in case he uncovers a UXO (UneXploded Ordinance). There is still a lot of it around here from Desert Storm and it gets turned up every now and then.

The actual Iraqis are a very small people. Most seem to be about 5'6" average or so, maybe, and very thin usually. When we go pick up some of them at the gate the taller guys say they feel like giants, standing a good head or two over the entire crowd of Iraqis. I haven't been out there yet but I'm sure I'll feel like that too, as I'm taller than the guys that said that.

There is a big language barrier usually when working with them, but many of them can get their meaning across with a few words and some expressive hand gestures. One of the heavy vehicle operators found a bomblet that had already been detonated and called me over and said "No problem, no problem, rocket... bomb... but already... boom! But, no problem!". He later tried to tell me that two guys needed a ride to the gate, which came across as something like "Two guys! (wild hand motions to mimick driving, squatting to imitate sitting in a truck, pointing, and smiling) but, two guys!". They all wave when driving by, and like to give a good thumbs up, which is kind of our universal "ok, everything is good, go ahead" gesture. 

Had another nice sunset today too!

Dust

I'm currently working at a site where they are doing a lot of excavating and moving dirt around, so thanks to the high winds today we got quite a little dust storm right around that area. From what I hear the "real" ones put this one to shame, but it was still pretty annoying in our little area, down range from all of the dirt.



Here's a shot of the dust, you can kind of tell how bad it is. Before I edited the picture it looked just like a grey, washed out photo because of the dust, but I think this looks better. At the heaviest times I couldn't see beyond 15 feet in front of my truck. Usually the gusts didn't last that long though.



There are piles of water bottles like this all over the base, so people can stay hydrated. This one is very dirty from the dust blowing on it.



Even in my truck you can see all the dust that accumulated on my M-16 after only about 30 minutes.



They left a poor guy out in the storm to watch the gate. I felt bad for him but I couldn't let him in my truck for security reasons. He took that desk out of the guard shack and put it out there to huddle up under. They eventually came and got him and put him to work somewhere else, out of the dust.



The sunset was nice at the end of the day, even here in Iraq. 

Here is a video of the dust blowing, you can kind of see it anyway. You can also see the little guy huddled in his previous spot before he moved.



Being deployed is kind of how I expected the military to be before I came in. Mostly in the way that everything is free, housing, food, snacks, water, rides, etc. It's a self-contained little city and you can just take whatever you want because the military provides everything. But, that isn't how it is back home. You get a couple hundred bucks for food, which doesn't cover what you need, then you get a little pay for housing, which doesn't cover what you need if you live on base, you have to pay for snacks and all food because they are fund-raisers for the squadrons, you have to buy your own uniforms after basic training, unless you deploy, etc. In that way I enjoy being deployed. It's nice to eat what you want and it all be paid for, get free snacks and water, free movies, free bus rides,  etc.

As I've moved around the base I've seen a few convoys on their way out for a patrol, I'm definitely glad I don't have to do that. The trucks they use in the convoys now remind me of some sort of crab that just finds any random object on the bottom of the ocean to live in and carries it around on its back. There are all kinds of things on those trucks that look like they were just randomly welded on. It's quite clear that the overall design was not there from the beginning, they've just pieced things together as they became available, adding extra armor here and there, various antennas and jammers, etc.

I've had a little interaction with the Army as well and am glad I picked the Air Force. They are much more "military" and it's just a completely different culture than the Air Force, especially the Space Command that I work in. We are probably some of the most laid-back in the AF as far as military behavior is concerned, so even a little interaction with the Army is strange. They swear that they know all about our secret "fan-girls" in our rooms that fan us while we lounge on our bed, and bikini parties on the weekends. Obviously they feel that we are pampered and spoiled compared to the Army quality of life, and we probably are in comparison to what they go through. But hey, they weren't drafted, they could have tried to get into the Air Force instead and enjoyed the same benefits!

Internet Back

Hooray, the internet finally came back on in the rooms. Hopefully it'll stay on for a while this time. Here are a couple of pictures.



The group from my base.



Some Iraqi palm trees and a giant fork lift.



"Cadillac Row". The restroom trailers are called cadillacs, and this is the row of the compound where most of them are.



Tents.



Inside the "hot spot", the morale tent. Has ping-pong, pool, game room, internet, movies, etc.

As you can see, everything is surrounded by huge concrete t-walls. They surround pretty much everything so it's really hard getting around at times because everything looks the same. You can't tell what a building is by its architecture or anything because they are all surrounded by the barriers. The barriers are to protect against shrapnel from rocket attacks. If one were to hit it would hopefully be contained to one building or land outside a building and not hit the building itself, only the t-walls and sandbag walls.



Some nice blisters I've been developing from my boots. Every step is a delight!



My closet.



Desk. The TV and microwave are my roommate's, so I won't always have them.



Door out and closet.



My bed with fashionable blanket.

It's not a bad room. It's clean and plenty big for one or even two people. Much better than a tent full of 10 people. The cadillacs are pretty gross, I don't understand why people are so destructive and disgusting. I'm not a super neat freak myself, but being too lazy to even raise the toilet seat when you pee is another thing entirely. Half of the toilet seats are broken off, the urinals are broken, there is always water all over the floor and toilet paper laying in the water causing a soggy mess, bleh. Good thing I bought shower shoes in Qatar.