Friday, September 29, 2006

Guard Duty

Yesterday I pulled guard duty for 24 hours. Interesting experience really. Random thought and notes from this experience:

1000 hours: Reported to the Sergeant of the Guard. Recieved the briefing and was given the ROE (rules of engagement) and EOF (escalation of force). Also the passwork/countersign.

1130 hours: Was assigned to tower XXX (SECRET). Left a humvee and arrived at tower at about 1158 hours. I have with me my weapon, and a full combat load of ammunition. I am prepared to kill. Haha. Not really.

1200 hours: arrive at tower XXX...recieved briefing from the soldiers who we are replacing. I begin scanning my sector for all suspicious activity.

1205 hours: I see farmers in the field

1207 hours: I see a woman with a shovel.

1225 hours: A little boy is yelling from a truck. His father is in the field.

1227 hours: The woman with the shovel is digging in the field. She is making a ditch. PERHAPS TO HIDE A MORTAR TUBE OR AN IED???? I look carefully...naaaa...just digging an irrigation ditch.

1245 hours: I see children playing. A little girl and a little boy. Cute little buggers. HMMMM...perhaps human bombs?....play on our emotion and then when we reach down to say hi or give them candy...BLAMM...who knows....wish i could get a pic of them.

1247 hours: a man is bathing in the field...in the middle of the field. Proof that Iraqis do in fact bath. I knew that they did. But all my buddies dont think so.

1252 hours: I am watching two young girls working in the field. They are working on the irrigation ditch. Working hard....where the hell are the men? One girl...maybe she is 16 or 17...is playfully tossing leaves up in to the air.

1254 hours: The playful girl looks up at me in the tower. She yells to me something in the arabic. My friend says she is saying to not stand up in the tower or they will shoot me. Awww...she likes me. She struts away with a purpose. I wish I knew what she was really saying.

1300 hours...one hour down...confirmed kills to this point: 0

1305 hours: there is a beautiful field filled with sunflowers...I feel happy at that moment.

1307 hours: dark blue vehicle heading toward the fence...OMG...truck bomb????...naaaa...just more workers from the farm.

1310 hours: the Iraqi girl is back...I think she likes me. I think she is flirting with me. Or maybe she is just fucking with me.

1320 hours: she is digging again...damn hard worker. she is singing...nice voice...dont know what she is singing though...I wish I knew.

1340 hours: she speaks once more to me...takes her finger and point for me to come down and help her dig.. I wish I could...she looks at me and give me the "crazy gesture"...she thinks I am crazy. She is a fiesty one. I think I like her.

1400 hours: spotted in my sector so far: birds, in the distance sheep, 4 or 5 man...4 or 5 woman...2 or 3 kids. Confirmed kills: 0

1420 hours: the girls are back...working and digging away...I see a man in a red headdress...he approaches the girls...he sees me and waves...we wave back.

1500 hours....a purple truck is heading our way...WE GET READY...then it turns off the road and into the field to drop off more workers.

1530 hours...my Iraqi girl is back...now she is playing peek-a-boo with me. I pick up the binoclers and she mimics me looking at her...she smiles...i chuckle...

1540 hours...my Iraqi girl is playing hide and seek with her boss or brother...He walk down the field looking for her...she looks at me to help warn her when he approaches...its fun...she laughs and so do I....i am in on the joke...

1600 hours...my first shift ends. I have made contact with an Iraqis and I have not had to use deadly force. This is a small victory. I think I have won this battle...who knows what will happen next time...

This first shift was the busiest...the other two were not as exciting...I guess thats ok. So anyway...how did you all spend your last 24 hours??

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Welcome to "Mortaritaville"

For those of you who have never been to war...or to a military base in a combat zone....there are little things that we get accustomed to after a few days. First thing you notice...the noise. It is always loud here. We are near the airfield, so all day long aircraft are taking off and landing. Sometimes you hear it at night and it sounds like its landing square on your roof. Now I know it loud near civilian airports, but rarely do F-16s (which break the sound barrier) land at Albany International. Around here.....all the time. The next thing you notice is the constant security to get in and out of everywhere you go. If you lose your ID...well that sucks. You can't go into the mess hall...in to the gym....to the PX...the movies....nothing. And we carry our weapons with live ammo with us everywhere we go...including the shower. We do this for a reason of course...because there are attacks on us almost everyday. The attacks come from outside the wire...and usually miss. Sometimes they don't. The favorite weapons of the insurgents around here is the mortar. In the early months of the war, so many mortars hit inside the wire that it was called "Mortaritaville". The name stuck. Since we have been here...we have been hit...many times. For reasons of OPSEC, I can't say how many. There are security procedures in place to keep us safe (which I will also not detail) and almost all the time, they work. But you never can be too sure. We have to fight everyday to make sure our soldiers do not get complacent. We have to remain vigilant. Its for this little bit of inconvenience that the Army feels a need to give us $225 dollars extra a month. That's what we call combat pay...Or in the Army's language...."Imminent Danger Pay." Whatever you call it....$225 per month is peanuts to put yourself on the line the way some of these guys do. But really...What is a life worth anyways? I don't think you could ever give enough to someone who was truly reluctant to go to Iraq. And most of the soldiers that come here, don't come here for the $225. I include myself in that. I didn't come here for the money. And if they took the $225 away...I would still have volunteered. The things I have learned and will learn are worth the risk. The experiences alone...worth the inconvenience. So even though they call it "Mortaritaville"...this place is still 1000 times better then what the average Iraqi is going through. Most of them live in fear every moment...every day. This holy season (Ramadan) will not be what most of them hope it will be...prayful, peaceful, joyful. It will be bloody, and violent and deadly for many. That makes me sad. I pray that they will experience the same joy I get when I spend the holidays with my friends and family. In the meantime, I will wear my kevlar and vest everywhere I go...just in case some insurgent wins the lottery and I am on the receiving end of it. Haha. Peace.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

My Winter of Discontent - Life With Winslow

Or was that Winthrop? I can never remember that. This post is a tribute to my good friend and my oldest friend in Albany...Warren. Warren and I met in 1992. We met through a friend's sister who was dating Warren at the time. We hit it off right away because we both loved the Cowboys and loved baseball even more. He was a Mets fan and I loved the Yanks. Anyway, Warren and I even tried to start a band. He was a bass player and I was trying to put together an Elvis Tribute band. That never panned out but we did get together often to go to sunday brunches and parties at our mutual friends house. And also to watch the Cowboys win a few Superbowls. Those were fun times let me tell you. Around 1996, Warren decided that he needed a change and he packed up and went to San Francisco to live with his brother. That lasted a few weeks and then he headed back to Albany. His girlfriend suggested (strongly I suspect) that he needed a place other then hers to stay, so she called me and asked if I needed a roommate. At the time, I was unemployed so I said, what the hell...why not. So Warren moved in with me and we developed our a close relationship. At first things were great. I was collecting unemployment and we would stay up and watch sports and play board games and eat. But eventually the unemployment ran out and Warren was having a tough time finding a decent job. I ended up taking a shitty traveling salesman job and he started working at a deli at the mall. Well it was bad. The holidays sucked and in January our power was cut off and we were getting eviction notices from our crazy and I mean crazy Greek landlady who lived up stairs. The two of us even went down to Albany County Social Services to see if we could get the welfare...haha. But they said we made too much. Huh? I remember saying to Warren..."something is going to break for us" and he said..."its already broke." So we sold my PA and his bass amp and that gave us half the rent we needed. Well we had to move out of the apartment and find a new one, which we did and when we were moving our stuff, we dropped off one load and went inside to get our more stuff and came out to find that my car was gone...repossessed!. Shit. Well needless to say, I felt totally beaten at that point and didnt have any prospects. But I went to the lady who owned the car dealership and she gave me the car back and told me she had a job for me if I wanted it. I took it. It sucked. But it paid the bills. So Warren and I eventually moved to a better place and we both had jobs and things got alot better. In the meanwhile, we got the opportunity to work on new ventures. Warren was a writer and he wrote a short play. His play was selected to be a part of a new play festival at Albany Civic Theater. He asked me to audition for this and I reluctantly did. I won a part and the rest is theater history. More on that in other posts. I don't know why I wanted to write about him today, but I guess its because he and I went through alot and we have remained friends through tough times. I miss him. Favorite things I remember about our friendship: baseball, cowboys, sunday brunches, watching All in the Family, and performing a play he wrote. I loved performing his stuff. My greatest moments in theater have everything to do with the stuff he wrote. He brought the best out of me as an actor. Damn I miss that. When I get back, Warren, make sure you have a good part for me buddy. Anyway...GO YANKS. Ha ha. May the great Iraqi lizard bless your Mets! Full lizard power to them (unless they play the Yanks). Later dudes.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

In case you forgot what I look like - some pics






Here are some pics for you all to enjoy or throw darts at...haha: Top one is me on my first ride on a Black Hawk. Next is me and my boss sitting on a throne in Al Faw palace in Baghdad. Proof that the "King" is alive and well. Next is me defending an old guard tower. No one dared mess with me. I am holding my best friend. I call it my Jeter. Its always there when I need a big "hit". Next is a pic of the court house where Saddam was arraigned after we caught him. Bottom one is a pic of my tent in Kuwait and all my tent-mates. More to come later.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Outside the Wire

I have been in country for exactly 6 days. And all ready I have ventured off post...or "outside the wire". The Wire refers to the borders of the base that is made of concrete and barbed wire. When we are inside the wire...it means we are nice and safe and we can walk around without much fear. The real danger is on the other side of the wire...where the natives live. That is filled with danger (or so we are told). Usually when soldiers go outside the wire, they go in convoys (usually up-armor humvees) but that is really dangerous because of all the risks we face with road side bombs and snipers. But I am with an aviation unit...and we dont use no stinking humvees. We use Black Hawks. (which do sometimes crash or get shot down but not that often.) Tuesday morning I got up very early and caught a flight to Baghdad to meet with important legal folks down in the "Green Zone". That was pretty cool I must say. Then we went to see some of the sites around town, including the court house where Saddam was arraigned and one of his many palaces (which is now the home of the Coalition Forces). I went on a little tour of the palace and then took some pics. I will be uploading them shortly. Later in the day, I got back on the helicopter and headed back. I was interesting seeing this big city. But I was surprized that there was no skycrapers. Its not what I expected. Almost all of the structures were one or two floors. It looked like one really big trailer park. Haha. With about 8 million people living down there. The highest structures in town are the Mosques and Saddam's palaces. Outside the city there were many small villages that looked very primitive. Some of the mud huts had satellite dishes on their roofs though. Go figure. Haha. Overall my trip was enjoyable. I still want to meet some real Iraqis...but that could be hard to do. The ones I really want to talk to are "outside the wire" and lots of people outside the wire want to kill us. So we will see. Oh yeah...I will tell you why they call the place I am stationed "Mortaritaville". But thats for another blog.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Iraq

I am here. In Iraq. In an air force base north of Baghdad. And officially, I am in a war zone. Since February I have wondered if this day would ever come. And yesterday (September 8) at about 5:00pm I landed in a C -130 that was crammed with equipment and soldiers. It was the Army/Air Force version of a "no frills flight." No pretty flight attendants, no in-flight movie, no peanuts, no beverage services...just me and fellow soldiers crammed into seats made out of cargo nets with leg room reserved for tiny midgets. But thankfully it was a short flight. We landed at about 5 pm and then went back to tents for one last night. Today I was up at about 4, had chow, then went to a briefing (where they showed us videos of how to react to mortar attacks) and then recieved the keys to our new digs. Our homes for the next 11 months or so. Smaller then at Hood, but private at least. Iraq is much better already then Kuwait. I saw camels yesterday on the way to our flight and then I saw trees and grass for the first time since I left the country. I am working on getting my room in shape and then its back to work. I have met the guy I am replacing and his staff. He has done a good job preparing for the transition. They are all excited about going home. I am sure I will feel the same way next year. At any rate my peeps...your soldier boy has made it and my spirits are high. Love ya all. Especially you my love. Holla at your boy. ( how ghetto is that?)

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

We are Safer...But Not Yet Safe.....Hmmmm

The President is saying to the American people that we are safer now then we were (I assume he means before 9-11) but not yet safe. But really, how can you really tell? From the first bombing in 1993 of the WTC until the attacks on 9-11, we did experience terrorist acts on this soil, but that was from a domestic terrorist (Timothy Mcveigh) in Oklahoma. Of course there were other attacks on Americans overseas (see USS Cole and the Foreign Embassy bombings) but most Americans did not fear a terrorist attack in this country until after 9-11. The prospects that a group of individuals would be able to use box cutters to hijack airliners was not even something most of us would have thought was possible. There had not been a domestic hijacking in the United States for decades. Yet that day.....9-11-2001...we had four. So it is true that we have not seen similar attacks since that fateful day, but does that mean it is because of our new "war on terror" or because we have just been damn lucky? The terrorist that attacked us on 9-11, prepared for years. They were creative thinkers. They learned from their past failures and they succeeded spectacularly on that day. Somewhere in this world...another group is planning the next big attack. They too are creative in their thinking and also patient. They are just lying in wait for the right time to execute. It might be under this administration or perhaps the next or the one after that. But they understand that this "war" is never going to end. They have set no timetable for its length nor set any specific guideline for how it defines victory. To them, victory is achieved by killing as many Americans as they can. Pretty simple really. So the President says we are safer...but not yet safe. But tomorrow, if another city is hit by something like what happened in NY, how could he ever claim we were safer? We eliminate one possibility and they come up with three more. Perhaps our new policies regarding air travel will lower the chances of hijackings, but what about our buses and trains? Who is to say that a person with a dirty bomb won't get on a bus in Albany and take it over and ram it into a public building? What about a bomb on Amtrak that goes off just as it approaches Penn Station at rush hour? What about the 90 percent of containers coming in from ships all across this world that go un-inspected? Tell me my peeps...do you feel safer? I don't. But that being said...I don't really fear a terrorist attack. I fear the highways. Unsafe drivers everywhere. I fear drunk red necks with guns. (especially those who become Vice President) I fear the stupid people who make stupid decisions that cost lives everyday. Now that is a war worth fighting for. Lets rally against stupid people. That...like the war on terror or the war on drugs....will be a neverending war. Most of all...I fear the lost of freedom and privacy and individual liberty that this administration says is the price we have to pay to "keep us safe." If it is the price we have to pay, they better be damn sure they do keep us safe. That's all I am saying. Because if we get hit again...maybe bigger then the last time...and we gave up most of what we were told we are fighting for...then its all very pointless. So Mr. President...keep making us safer. We are counting are you. Maybe you could start some more wars...take our minds off how unsafe we feel...oh and pick a easier target this time. (maybe Cuba....no not Cuba....ahhh...how about Haiti...oh yeah been there done that....what about......well we will let you and Dick decide)

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Something New: 5 K Run in the Desert

The last few weeks has given me the opportunity to do a few new things. My first time "overseas", the first time I have walked in heat that exceeded 110 degrees, and yesterday, the first time I ever ran a 5 K run. And in the desert no less. Now I did not win the race, but I did complete it. In a less then "the speed of light" time of 28 minutes and 5 seconds. Thats a little over 9 minute miles, but like I said, I finished the race somewhere in the middle of the pack of about 800 soldiers, airman, and sailors who participated, so I am satisfied. I have decided that I want to continue improving on this and I understand that when we get to Iraq we will have these races every holiday. It was actually quite fun to do it and we got free t-shirts...yahoo! We started the race about 6 in the morning and it was a cool 95 degrees. In the mornings I actually get chilled. Can you imagine? When I get back to the states sometime in February, I am gonna be hurting I am sure. Because, no where, but no where is as hot as we have it here right now. New York will be...well forget New York. Florida will be chilly....I mean most of you will be wearing shorts and I will be wearing a parka. At least for the first few days anyway. I will just have to cuddle with my baby....maybe Elvis too. Haha. I have a few more days here in Kuwait and then its short flight up north. Its cold up north. (115 vs. 133) At anyrate I understand you folks back home have gotten rain and chilly weather. I miss the fall. It has always been my favorite time of year. Oh well, I plan on being home next fall. Until then, I will just have to keep dreaming of apple picking, walking in the woods on those crisp fall mornings, and planning for thanksgiving.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

The Hard Life of an American Soldier - Kuwait Edition

It is hard to believe that I have been here since the 23rd of August. It seems much longer. It seems like I have been here a life time. But its been less then two weeks. Ten days of Heat, Sand, and Laying around. But its no vacation. My days right now consist of waking up at 5:00 to do PT, going to breakfast, showering and shaving, then back to the tent I share with 15 other guys. We sit around and bullshit and wonder when the hell we are leaving Kuwait. Around 12 we go to chow again and then I check my email. I then go back to the tent and lay around and talk with my tent mates and talk about woman, sports, and nothing in particular. Then we get tired and nap until our 5 oclock formation. After formation we go to chow. (eating is the only thing we really look forward to these days). After the hard day, we go back to our tents (also know as our "hooch". ) Half the time we cant tell you what time it is or what day it is. Holidays? This monday is a holiday? Why everyday is a holiday in sunny - hazy crazy - Kuwait. The sandstorm was a big disappointment. I mean I bought 5 gallons of goats milk and 3 dozen eggs just in case we got trapped in our tents. Just like in the winter at home...they promise us 16 inches and we get 2. Here they promise us a 5 day sandstorm and we get 4 hours. I feel really cheated. A soldier (regardless of which war) is faced with two major things he must learn to deal with. The "war" action. Things blowing up, people shooting at you, ect., (which rarely happens) or the boredom. Long hours of sitting or laying around waiting for something to happen. (this happens most of the time) These days we get many more choices as to how to deal with this tedium. But after so many videos, music, and video games -- the tedium continues. We can't work because most of our equipment is in Iraq already. So its just waking up and doing the same old thing everyday. I would guess that the guys in past wars had to deal with the same thing we have to. But I am sure that those who rushed the beaches on D-Day and saw the carnage they saw....would never again complain about be bored. I just have to keep that in mind. I know my family and friends all want me to have a very boring time for the next year. Ha ha.

Friday, September 01, 2006

This is for my Baby

I think of you and I smile....and my heart skips a beat...and I close my eyes and thank God for giving you to me. This poem is for you:

At Last
by
Elizabeth Akers Allen
At last, when all the summer shine
That warmed life's early hours is past,
Your loving fingers seek for mine And hold them close—at last—at last! Not oft the robin comes to build
Its nest upon the leafless bough
By autumn robbed, by winter chilled,—But you, dear heart, you love me now.
Though there are shadows on my brow
And furrows on my cheek, in truth,
The marks where Time's remorseless plough
Broke up the blooming sward of Youth,—
Though fled is every girlish grace
Might win or hold a lover's vow, Despite my sad and faded face,
And darkened heart, you love me now!
I count no more my wasted tears;
They left no echo of their fall;
I mourn no more my lonesome years;
This blessed hour atones for all.
I fear not all that Time or Fate
May bring to burden heart or brow,—Strong in the love that came so late,
Our souls shall keep it always now!
I love you so.