Hello. I'm still in Iraq. Sorry I haven't updated the blog in a long time. I was finishing up my two college classes and had a 10 page paper to write for each class, so that took up most of my non-working time. Plus I'm kind of running out of things to talk about. Things are very much the same day in and day out here. You go to work, get off, do whatever it is you do in your off time, then repeat. Of course it's the same back home, but you have a lot more options of what to do with your free time there. Here are some random photos. My photo taking has died down a lot too. Everything is just brown. Brown dirt, brown sky, brown people, brown rocks, brown brown brown.
This is the bootleg DVD store at the "Ur Market" which is a little building just outside the interior gate of the base where they sell such things. Sorry for the really blurry pictures, I didn't want to use the flash in case they didn't appreciate me taking pictures.
The production values are actually quite high, considering they are all downloaded off the internet or ripped from commercial DVDs. They come in nice cardboard boxes with gold embossed lettering. You can buy an entire series (series, not season) of a TV show for about $20. For instance, every X-files that ever aired, or every Everybody Loves Raymond, etc. I have not purchased any to see the quality but from what I hear it's pretty good.
They also sell collections, usually by actor. So you can buy "The best of Brad Pitt" or "The best of Angelina Jolie" or even "The best of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie" and each one will have about 30 of their movies on it, probably for $20 or less. They have some crazy collections like "The best 700 Disney cartoons", etc. They come in huge boxes with like 40 DVDs.
They also have brand new movies, usually as soon as they come out in theaters, as camera rips. It's the same stuff you can download online but they just charge you $2 for the individual movies.
The Ur Market sells other things as well, like electronics, knives, trinkets, etc. The main draw is the movies though. Some guys love to go up there and barter with them and get them lower their price to a fraction of what it was. I suck at bartering though.
This is a sign in one of the cadillacs warning us to wash our hands or face the runny poo. There's a little picture of Mr. Hanky on the bottom. For those that don't watch South Park, he's a little piece of talking poo that comes around Christmas time, bringing presents to good boys and girls that eat food with a lot of fiber. Wikipedia, of course, knows all about him. He is also pretty hilarious.
We had another dust storm storm bad enough to turn the world orange again the other day. Very very windy as well. Luckily the site I was working at that day was mostly inside. Again, those pictures are unedited, it really did look that orange when you stepped outside. That is of course if you could see at all because your eyes would be full of dust as soon as you stepped out the door.
More dust.
Here's the little kitty that hangs out by Ciano's, the Italian restaurant. The Iraqis I was working with today thought it was cute and motioned for me to take a picture of it.
Again if anyone has any questions about anything over here let me know. I'll answer if I can, though a lot of things are off limits for obvious reasons.
Today is my 2nd Air Force anniversary. On this day two years ago I got on a plane, got off a plane, rounded a corner, met my first Military Training Instructor, thought "what the hell did I get myself into?", and started a new life, career and journey.
Here are some things I've done in the past two years:
Raised my hand and repeated the following:
I, Derek Rose, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
Completed basic training, received a small coin that represented my hard work from the past month and a half. Some people actually enjoy the experience, I did not. It is much easier to look back on it and only remember the easy or good times, and forget the bad. It's nice that memory frequently works that way. Some bad things at the time have become good memories though, like going through the gas chamber. Doing jumping jacks in a room full of tear gas doesn't sound fun, but looking back on it it's nice to remember.
Completed tech school. This is where I learned my actual job and transitioned from the insane environment of basic training back to real life. Was happy to learn that the Air Force doesn't make you fold your clothes that way forever.
Got re-married to my sweetie-face on the beach with three guests and a minister. Went out for french toast after. Good day.
Went back home and got to see family and friends and the recruiter that brought me into the military. On the way, in the airport, noticed a group of lost looking kids carrying a brown manila envelope much like the one I had taken to basic training a couple of months previously, and smiled to myself.
Arrived at my first duty station, met "real" Air Force people and breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn't going to be like basic training or tech school forever.
Found out I couldn't even enter the building where I would work until I got my full security clearance, was assigned to the Protocol office, which basically handles the events involving distinguished visitors such as Generals, high-ranking civilian government officials, etc.
Unfurled a giant American flag at a Colorado Rockies baseball game in uniform in front of thousands of people.
Provided security at a giant music festival and a Denver Broncos game to raise money for organizations on base. Got to sit right next to the field and watch the game, which was very cool even though I don't care about football.
Provided security and assistance with a visit from the then-President of the USA, George Bush. Saw Air Force One, hung out with Secret Service Agents, got one of their special pins, saw George Bush as he scurried from his car to the plane and gave a weak wave to the crowd of 300 military members standing outside freezing for a chance to shake his hand. Got a box of special Air Force One M&Ms candies.
Spent a week learning to be an income-tax preparer for military personnel, helped process almost a million dollars of tax returns for people at my base. Also manned a helpline for the local news station answering tax questions to represent the military. Learned that IRS agents have a weird sense of humor, if any at all.
Completed eight college classes and one CLEP, all completely free and paid for by the military.
Finally got my security clearance and went through a couple more months of training before finally doing my job.
Did my job.
During a timed test for my monthly job training, received a call asking me if I wanted to go to Iraq. Called my wife, got the go-ahead, called him back, accepted, finished my test.
Had a busy day today, a lot of combat and a lot of killing. Scored 82 confirmed kills, as you can see in the list above (Yes, I really did kill that many bugs today, and yes I really was bored enough to document each one. My partner killed about the same amount).
It is getting hotter here, up to 95 degrees today, so the bugs are coming out. Iraqi bugs are not like American bugs. Iraqi bugs are pissed off, apparently have radioactive super-strength, and do not die by traditional bug-killing methods.
Our truck of course does not have A/C, so we have the windows rolled all the way down or the doors open, just to survive, which makes a nice big entrance for the bugs to come through. The flies here are incredibly aggressive. A simple "shoo" normally doesn't work. They'll just sit on your hand while you wave it around, most likely laughing at you in a tiny fly laugh. If they do fly off, they immediately land somewhere else on your body, undeterred by the threatening waving going on above them. They are also apparently armor plated. The bigger flies have shiny blue/green armor on, so I assume they are the soldier flies. The smaller armor-less flies are likely scouts that report back to base and bring in the heavy fighters. The flies do seem to work together as well. When we'd move the truck to a new place, there wouldn't be any flies for the first few minutes. Then one or two would trickle in, but apparently they called for reinforcements, as soon we would be swatting at them constantly.
We began the day swatting with our hats, but we soon realized that wasn't a great idea for two reasons. First, we were getting fly guts on our hats from some of the more gruesome kills, which was gross. Second, the hat frequently did not kill the flies! We would smack them, and assume they were dead, as they would lay on their backs and not move, as a dead fly should. However a few minutes later, we'd notice a wounded fly walking around in circles, as if drunk or suffering from a minor concussion. The only way to kill an Iraqi fly is to squish it until it becomes small pieces of an Iraqi fly held together only by some smeared fly goo.
A couple of hours into the battle, we acquired new weaponry. Thanks to the heat we were drinking our bottled water, and upon emptying a bottle (they are pretty big 1 liter bottles), we began to use them as our weapons of choice in the battle against the winged insurgents. The bottle, being more rigid than a floppy boonie hat, provides better accuracy and speed, which is essential in aerial combat.
Once we calibrated our new munitions, the enemy began to fall in greater and greater numbers. The bottles allowed us to make more devastating in-air attacks, with solid hits making a satisfying "thwick" sound as it made contact with the target and sent it speeding into the ground. Having learned from combat earlier that day however, we had to finish them off once they were on the ground, as we did not want any surprise attacks from a stunned, but alive enemy.
The only bugs we spared were the lady bugs, as they are not gross looking and as far as I know their diet does not consist of poo and other disgusting things.
I originally planned to document each kill with a picture, but after I realized how many kills I would have, and that there are only so many ways to show a smear of goo as a successful kill, I decided against it and went with the written scorecard instead.
I may have to try to acquire even more advanced weaponry for tomorrow. I am not above chemical warfare or electrocution.
Just got back from the ziggurat tour and it was really interesting. Took 86 pictures but have narrowed them down to the ones below.
First let me get this out of the way. It's a little video of the Explosive Ordinance Disposal guys doing a controlled detonation on base. As soon as the video starts you can see the second mushroom cloud already forming (I couldn't get my camera out fast enough to catch all of them) and then 5 or 6 seconds later you actually hear the sound. It doesn't sound loud through my crappy camera microphone, but in person it shakes everything and sounds like one of the giant 4th of July fireworks went off 10 feet outside your car.
I'm going to post the pictures in the basic order of which they were taken, so sorry if I jump around a bit.
It's the ziggurat! I thought about only posting this picture and acting like that was the only picture I got, which I thought would be hilarious. But it seemed like too much trouble to make a second post a few days from now for the maximum comedic effect, so I just didn't do it.
This is Dife (no idea how to spell it, but it rhymes with "life"), he was our tour guide. His grandfather and father helped excavate the ziggurat and other buildings and helped with the reconstruction some. He's lived in the area his whole life. He speaks 5 languages, all of which he taught himself from reading a dictionary for that language. So, his grammar and pronunciation are not the best, but it's because he was just reading a dictionary to learn the languages. Pretty remarkable. I could understand him quite well after a couple of minutes.
Here is a short video of him speaking so you can hear how is accent sounds.
These are the ruins of the king's palace. Quite a large structure. What is left of all of these buildings is basically only the foundations. The upper levels of most of them were constructed of reeds and mud, which of course rotted away in the past few thousand years.
All of the walls in the picture above had been reconstructed, I think he said in the 1950s. They used tar to put between the bricks, but they used modern oil based tar, which is in the picture above.
This picture shows the original natural tar that came from a site west of Baghdad. Dife only pointed out this one wall that was still standing from the original building, or at least that still had the original tar.
This is a door hinge. It sits right next to a little opening in the walls and they think that a large wooden door had a little pivot point that stuck in the big hole on the rock to allow it to pivot easier.
More palace views. Sorry if this is boring, I know it's all just a bunch of brown bricks but it's pretty cool when you consider how old they are.
Another shot of the palace with ziggurat in the background. The ziggurat was the highest building in the city, and actually originally had another level on top plus a temple built with reeds and mud on top of that, so it was even taller than it is now.
These are the royal tombs. Unfortunately we were not allowed to go down in them for safety reasons they said, even though the tours from 3 weeks ago got to go. The tombs are where they found the kings and queen buried with all of their servants and guards, as well as all of their treasure like a golden harp and silver model ship. Apparently when the kings died all of their servants and guards drank poison so that they could be buried with the king.
Another shot of the tombs.
There are shards of pottery everywhere. When they were building the mud part of their buildings they put the broken pottery in the mixture to try to make it stronger, and now the mud has turned back to dust leaving only the shards of pottery behind.
It's me and the tombs! What do you do with your hands when you are in a picture?
Obviously my only idea was to hold them together in front of me.
Here's a much larger pile of broken pottery. Apparently some people tried to pick some up and put it in their pocket and so we got a little briefing from the chaplain's assistant half-way through the briefing that people needed to put them back before the end of the tour or the military police would be called, as we are not allowed to take them.
This is Dife in front of Abraham's house.
This is Abraham's house, or best guess that it is anyway. More correctly it is Terah's house I suppose, his father's. Like I said in previous post, this was rebuilt by Saddam so the Pope could come pray at the site, but he ended up not coming for security reasons.
The house has 27 or 29 rooms, I can't remember. It has three stairways which led to two rooms upstairs, which were made of reed and mud so they are obviously not there anymore.
This is one of the drainage holes I talked about in the last post. Basically the house had five courtyards in it, which were areas in the middle of the house that had no roof so that sunlight could come into some of the rooms from the courtyards and also so the water could drain into the courtyards and then down these drains.
In this shot you can see the holes where they stuck their fingers in the cement before it dried to create the holes.
These are shelves, the bottom of which is original, the others were rebuilt. They assume this was the kitchen, since it has the shelves and the original archaeologists found smoke residue on some stones nearby so they thought that's where they cooked.
The nice thing about Iraq not being as particular about their historic sites as America is that you can just walk all over them and they don't care.
The chaplain talking to Dife in a courtyard.
More wall walking.
Looks like some other buildings used to be around the house but they were not rebuilt or full excavated.
Dife walking around outside Abraham's house.
This is the largest courtyard, where we met to leave the house.
A little stairway leading upstairs. Very low archway. Either they were very short people or they just ducked a lot.
This is another drainage thing at another site. Kind of shows a cutaway view so you can see how it worked. There used to be houses built on top of these, but they were made out of mud so all that's left is the drainage pipes.
This was a temple and they believe it to be the first museum, as the archaeologist found artifacts from several different time periods and locations in the same room, as if they were being displayed in a museum. It was the largest building in the city but is only partially excavated.
Here's a really cool thing. This is the oldest known standing arch in the world. I took two pictures of it from basically the same place, but they were off enough that I could animate them together and they look 3D! I didn't do it on purpose at all but it worked out pretty well and actually looks 3D, to me at least.
Here you can see where the front bricks of the arch were put back on with cement, but the original arch still makes up most of the structure, which you can see with the bricks that are stuck together with tar still.
This is a view of the temple/museum from the top of the ziggurat.
Someone having their picture taken on the ziggurat.
This was inside one of the little holes on the side of the ziggurat that allows it to dry out, shift, swell with temperature and moisture, etc. Luckily there were no camel spiders or vipers in the hole to scare me to death.
This is the souvenir shop outside the ziggurat. It is hilarious looking.
Some real Iraqi rugs, not the kind they sell at the BX that are actually made in China and are probably Indian designs anyway.
This was a little Iraqi kid standing at the souvenir shop. I guess his dad ran the shop and his job was just to look cute. Surprisingly they didn't charge for people to get their picture taken with him. I think they are missing some money making opportunities.
I would have bought one of these collections of Iraqi money and stamps, but the BX wasn't giving any cash back and the finance office is closed so I couldn't get any cash. Maybe I'll see if the chaplain's assistant can buy it for me on the next tour or something.
Side of the ziggurat.
A sign in Arabic with a map of the layout of the area surrounding the ziggurat.
Overall it was a cool little tour. Not the most exciting tourist attraction ever, but considering it's the only one we have to choose from it isn't so bad. Apparently there are still miles of the city that have not been excavated. Even some areas right around the ziggurat have not been excavated yet, so who knows what else they will eventually find there. Could be more tombs full of treasure, who knows!
Hope you enjoyed the pictures. If I can get these others to stitch together right I'll post some panoramas from the top of the ziggurat.
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