Sunday, August 21, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
I am BRAVO team leader.
********************** WARNING NOT FOR SENSITIVE EARS!!!***********************
This video is of a dismount op we did. The first three minutes is us dismounting and going into the village. The next three minutes are of a conversation with an 8 or 9yr old Iraqi kid . The last two minutes are of us mounting back up.
It was very dark out so you wont be able to see much but worth a listen.
This video is of a dismount op we did. The first three minutes is us dismounting and going into the village. The next three minutes are of a conversation with an 8 or 9yr old Iraqi kid . The last two minutes are of us mounting back up.
It was very dark out so you wont be able to see much but worth a listen.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Rough start good ending
Woke up this afternoon very tired from having not slept well. I got to work and saw that we had a mounted brushback mission so I took the least involved position of being a passenger in the back of the MRAP with the medic. We get all loaded up and and roll out from the ready room and headed for our exit checkpoint. As we are cruising through VBC the driver of my MRAP jumps on the brakes and brings us to a very abrupt halt, after peeling my face off the air conditioning system I ask the driver wtf that was all about? He informs us that a pack of skinnies to our 9 had kicked a soccer ball into the road and stopped to avoid running it over. After the TC(truck commander) and driver look around to see if they could see the ball but couldnt, they called it clear and we continued on. We make it out to our check point and go on with our mission that ended up being a uneventfull cruise through the red zone and then we returned to our ready room. Once there the gunner of the truck behind us let us know that we had in fact ran over the soccer ball. Well apparently this did not sit well with the skinnies cause they started yelling, throwing stuff and flipping the bird to them. Then he points to our white board and someone had written MRAP 1 soccer ball 0. We all had a good laugh over that.
After a few hours rest it was time for us to pull our tower duty which was as eventfull as it sounds. I passed my time by messing with the Ugandan, his name is Robert.
Me . . . So how long have you been in Iraq Robert?
Robert . . . 3 years.
Me . . . Have you shot anyone?
Robert . . . No.
Me . . .You have been in Iraq for 3 years and aint shot anyone?
Robert . . . No sir.
Me . . . Look at me Robert. Now pay attention. You are leaving at the end of this year cause VBC is shutting down correct?
Robert . . . Yes sir.
Me . . . Before you leave here, you HAVE to shoot someone!
Me . . . Shoot an Iraqi.
Me . . . Its required that you shoot someone.
Me . . . Its in the Geneva convention, look it up.
I crack myself up.
My relief shows up and I update him as to what activity I had seen and then head down the 7 flights of stairs to the dirt road below, then walk about 300 meters down the road to my pickup spot. Its about 0430hrs at this point and dawn of the new day is progressing nicely. I have some time before my ride shows up, so I take a seat on a jersey barrier, turn on my hajipod, pop in my headphones and enjoy watching the little brown sparrows swoop through the air after the morning bugs as well as watching a slight breeze sway the tall grass and reeds that line a small creek in front of me. While im sitting there enjoying this I think to myself how freaking cool this is! Sitting on a jersey barrier alone, in full body armour, with weapon, listening to music, watching nature while the sun slowly lights up the sky in IRAQ.
After a few hours rest it was time for us to pull our tower duty which was as eventfull as it sounds. I passed my time by messing with the Ugandan, his name is Robert.
Me . . . So how long have you been in Iraq Robert?
Robert . . . 3 years.
Me . . . Have you shot anyone?
Robert . . . No.
Me . . .You have been in Iraq for 3 years and aint shot anyone?
Robert . . . No sir.
Me . . . Look at me Robert. Now pay attention. You are leaving at the end of this year cause VBC is shutting down correct?
Robert . . . Yes sir.
Me . . . Before you leave here, you HAVE to shoot someone!
Me . . . Shoot an Iraqi.
Me . . . Its required that you shoot someone.
Me . . . Its in the Geneva convention, look it up.
I crack myself up.
My relief shows up and I update him as to what activity I had seen and then head down the 7 flights of stairs to the dirt road below, then walk about 300 meters down the road to my pickup spot. Its about 0430hrs at this point and dawn of the new day is progressing nicely. I have some time before my ride shows up, so I take a seat on a jersey barrier, turn on my hajipod, pop in my headphones and enjoy watching the little brown sparrows swoop through the air after the morning bugs as well as watching a slight breeze sway the tall grass and reeds that line a small creek in front of me. While im sitting there enjoying this I think to myself how freaking cool this is! Sitting on a jersey barrier alone, in full body armour, with weapon, listening to music, watching nature while the sun slowly lights up the sky in IRAQ.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
New crap hole to live in and new stuff to do.
Well my mission at FOB prosperity ended and my command didnt want us sitting around for the next month or so, so they got us a new one which required us to move to a new FOB. I am currently living and operating out of the VBC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Base_Complex . The place itself sucks cause there is no trees or shade producing anything here so it gets amazingly hot. Plus since VBC is a highly targeted place almost every mission conducted buy us troops requires us to wear full body armour which makes the intense heat even more taxing on our bodies.
Me and most of the soldiers on my shift go to bed shortly after our shift. When we wake up in the mid afternoon we go to the gym and then shower before changing and heading off to our ready room for our shift. By the time we get to the showers the water tank outside has been in the sun long enough that turning on only the cold faucet produces almost perfect temperature water for showering and shaving. Turning on the hot water knob aint even a possibility cause it would just burn the crap outta you.
My first sunday here I didnt go to the gym since its my rest day so I set about sweeping and mopping my room. Afetr the sweeping was done I was contemplating the best place to get water for my mop bucket, and I figured that the pallet of bottled drinking water just outside my room would be warm enough to mop with. So I go grab a 12 pack of 1 liter bottles and bring it back to my room and I start pouring them one by one into my bucket. After the third or fourth one my hands couldnt take it anymore. The water was so hot that I had to give my hands a few moments to cool down before I could open and pour anymore.
I am back on the night shift again which makes life a little more pleasant but also includes us in a lot more missions cause it falls on the times that insurgents are prone to attacking. Plus trying to sleep during the day is hard enough to do without apache and blackhawk helicopters flying directly over top of our CHU's along with the KBR hacks coming in and doing inventory of our rooms or testing out the smoke detectors and checking the fire extinguishers. Im not even gonna get started on ranting and raving about the KBR pukes cause it just pisses me off.
Anyways our new mission has three parts to it. 1. QRF 2. Tower guard 3. Brush back.
QRF(quick reaction force) for us is basically sitting in our ready room waiting for something to happen on VBC such as mortars/rockets that have landed inside our walls or providing security/overwatch at an ECP cause of a suspected item/person/vehicle.
Tower guard is just what it sounds like. We sit in a tower with a Uganda, African on top of the wall seperating our base from the rest of Iraq. There is a road just on the other side of our wall that is used frequently buy US forces and Iraqis as well and a wall on the other side of that for an Iraq village. We are keeping an eye out for suspicious activity such as insurgents digging in either walls or the ground trying to plant an IED which they have successfully done as recently as a month ago. We also keep traffic flowing by not allowing people or vehicles to dawdle for more than a few seconds without putting our ROE(rules of engagement) into effect. We are also in place for IRAM( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lob_bomb ) mitigation by scanning our sectors as far out as 700 meters. A FOB not long ago had 4 soldiers killed by a 240mm IRAM cause the towers then were only manned by Ugandans and they didnt fire a single shot till after the IRAM was launched. Because of the Ugandans hesitancy and lack of training no insurgents were killed or captured and now this is why we are in the towers with them making sure they stay awake and do their job.
Brush back means we patrol the road adjacent to our wall outside the wire looking for IED's or signs of someone trying to prep an area for an IED. We patrol the same section of road that a month ago 2 uparmoured humvees were blasted with an EFP(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator) and killed 2 northern Idaho soldiers. We will also dismount our MRAP's and me and another NCO will take our squads into the villages as a presence patrol as well as IRAM mitigation by talking to the local people trying to get intel on unknown/known or suspicious people in their village trying to launch ordnance into our base from there as well as searchign their village for signs of insurgent activity.
Me and most of the soldiers on my shift go to bed shortly after our shift. When we wake up in the mid afternoon we go to the gym and then shower before changing and heading off to our ready room for our shift. By the time we get to the showers the water tank outside has been in the sun long enough that turning on only the cold faucet produces almost perfect temperature water for showering and shaving. Turning on the hot water knob aint even a possibility cause it would just burn the crap outta you.
My first sunday here I didnt go to the gym since its my rest day so I set about sweeping and mopping my room. Afetr the sweeping was done I was contemplating the best place to get water for my mop bucket, and I figured that the pallet of bottled drinking water just outside my room would be warm enough to mop with. So I go grab a 12 pack of 1 liter bottles and bring it back to my room and I start pouring them one by one into my bucket. After the third or fourth one my hands couldnt take it anymore. The water was so hot that I had to give my hands a few moments to cool down before I could open and pour anymore.
I am back on the night shift again which makes life a little more pleasant but also includes us in a lot more missions cause it falls on the times that insurgents are prone to attacking. Plus trying to sleep during the day is hard enough to do without apache and blackhawk helicopters flying directly over top of our CHU's along with the KBR hacks coming in and doing inventory of our rooms or testing out the smoke detectors and checking the fire extinguishers. Im not even gonna get started on ranting and raving about the KBR pukes cause it just pisses me off.
Anyways our new mission has three parts to it. 1. QRF 2. Tower guard 3. Brush back.
QRF(quick reaction force) for us is basically sitting in our ready room waiting for something to happen on VBC such as mortars/rockets that have landed inside our walls or providing security/overwatch at an ECP cause of a suspected item/person/vehicle.
Tower guard is just what it sounds like. We sit in a tower with a Uganda, African on top of the wall seperating our base from the rest of Iraq. There is a road just on the other side of our wall that is used frequently buy US forces and Iraqis as well and a wall on the other side of that for an Iraq village. We are keeping an eye out for suspicious activity such as insurgents digging in either walls or the ground trying to plant an IED which they have successfully done as recently as a month ago. We also keep traffic flowing by not allowing people or vehicles to dawdle for more than a few seconds without putting our ROE(rules of engagement) into effect. We are also in place for IRAM( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lob_bomb ) mitigation by scanning our sectors as far out as 700 meters. A FOB not long ago had 4 soldiers killed by a 240mm IRAM cause the towers then were only manned by Ugandans and they didnt fire a single shot till after the IRAM was launched. Because of the Ugandans hesitancy and lack of training no insurgents were killed or captured and now this is why we are in the towers with them making sure they stay awake and do their job.
Brush back means we patrol the road adjacent to our wall outside the wire looking for IED's or signs of someone trying to prep an area for an IED. We patrol the same section of road that a month ago 2 uparmoured humvees were blasted with an EFP(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_formed_penetrator) and killed 2 northern Idaho soldiers. We will also dismount our MRAP's and me and another NCO will take our squads into the villages as a presence patrol as well as IRAM mitigation by talking to the local people trying to get intel on unknown/known or suspicious people in their village trying to launch ordnance into our base from there as well as searchign their village for signs of insurgent activity.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
pics
time to share some pics ive taken recently. A couple pics of me and some IA guy that says i smell like a rose. The crossed swords parade ground where Saddam would parade and berate his army. And pics of the Tomb of the unknown soldier.
At 1335hrs it is currently 123 degrees out.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Gettin jumpy
A few days ago we started training the IA(Iraqi Army) to take over for us in protecting the UN compounds because we are leaving soon and everything is getting turned back over into Iraq's control.
Needless to say everyone was pretty apprehensive about it and for good reason. We all know the way things are around here and in the week prior there have been 3 seperate stories in the Stars and Stripes of US units getting gunned down by their local counterparts. Granted these stories were in Afghanistan but just as likely to happen here.
Our first night was a tense one. We were plused up on personnel and weapons and took every precaution available to ensure things went smoothly. There was 4 Iraqis, 3 of us and 1 interpreter on every shift at every point. With space at the ECP's already at a premium before, it was really crowded now and I saw a potential for everything to go wrong with the over crowding and everyones tension already spiked.
We show up for our first shift and during the turnover the previous NCOIC(Non Commissioned Officer In Charge) and me are exchanging info and he tells me that the IA are pretty cool and to use the terp in swapping stories and BSing. For about the first hour things were very quiet and somber and im just waiting for a GREASE knife fight to happen or an altercation thats turns it all into a blood bath. Finaly I started utilizing the terp and talking with the IA.
sidenote: our interpreter sucked! He is a lot like the terp Meesh in the HBO mini series Generation Kill. If you havent seen it then you should, its pretty good.
After awhile asking questions back and forth between the IA and us, everyone gets into it and the next thing you know everyone is involved with swapping stories, telling lies to each other having a blast and laughing our asses off. But we still maintained our guard and will never allow our backs to be turned to these guys.
At 0534hrs that morning one of the US soldiers that was new to ECP's and was there to help plus us up asked me when the booms start? So i looked at the clock and tell him that they are usually either at 2330 or 0530 and that it looks like we might be in the clear today.
At 0600 sure as shit a morter hits,boom! All 8 of us clam up and start looking around when we hear a very strange sound and I start thinking to myself, you know that sounds really familiar to the sound I heard just befor the first explosion, OH SHIT INCOMING! Everyone else must have been on the same wave length cause we all dived for the nearest bunker and make it in before the next boom. As we are standing in there i stated that it was really strange that the morters were close enough to hear them coming in but yet we never got any warning from the IDF alarms. After a few minutes of waiting for something else to happen, but didnt, we all came out and finished up another normal day.
The past 2 nights have been really quiet and both the US and IA have scaled back their troops to just 2 of each per shift per point and no terps. Its been pretty entertaining having a conversation with the IA without a terp but somehow we make it work. I have been teaching them some english and they have been teaching me some arabic.
At 0600 this morning BOOOM!!! I mean this explosion was so loud and/or close that I damn near jumped out of my skin and pissed myself at the same time! This stuff keeps up and Ill be just like my buddy SGT Grivet. He is one skittish dude with the 2 deployments before this one. The slightest sound and he was up and running for cover before HE even knew what was going on. Im talking prison bitch jumpy. I always used to laugh at him and have fun with it, but now im starting to feel his pain and im not one to ever startle easily.
Needless to say everyone was pretty apprehensive about it and for good reason. We all know the way things are around here and in the week prior there have been 3 seperate stories in the Stars and Stripes of US units getting gunned down by their local counterparts. Granted these stories were in Afghanistan but just as likely to happen here.
Our first night was a tense one. We were plused up on personnel and weapons and took every precaution available to ensure things went smoothly. There was 4 Iraqis, 3 of us and 1 interpreter on every shift at every point. With space at the ECP's already at a premium before, it was really crowded now and I saw a potential for everything to go wrong with the over crowding and everyones tension already spiked.
We show up for our first shift and during the turnover the previous NCOIC(Non Commissioned Officer In Charge) and me are exchanging info and he tells me that the IA are pretty cool and to use the terp in swapping stories and BSing. For about the first hour things were very quiet and somber and im just waiting for a GREASE knife fight to happen or an altercation thats turns it all into a blood bath. Finaly I started utilizing the terp and talking with the IA.
sidenote: our interpreter sucked! He is a lot like the terp Meesh in the HBO mini series Generation Kill. If you havent seen it then you should, its pretty good.
After awhile asking questions back and forth between the IA and us, everyone gets into it and the next thing you know everyone is involved with swapping stories, telling lies to each other having a blast and laughing our asses off. But we still maintained our guard and will never allow our backs to be turned to these guys.
At 0534hrs that morning one of the US soldiers that was new to ECP's and was there to help plus us up asked me when the booms start? So i looked at the clock and tell him that they are usually either at 2330 or 0530 and that it looks like we might be in the clear today.
At 0600 sure as shit a morter hits,boom! All 8 of us clam up and start looking around when we hear a very strange sound and I start thinking to myself, you know that sounds really familiar to the sound I heard just befor the first explosion, OH SHIT INCOMING! Everyone else must have been on the same wave length cause we all dived for the nearest bunker and make it in before the next boom. As we are standing in there i stated that it was really strange that the morters were close enough to hear them coming in but yet we never got any warning from the IDF alarms. After a few minutes of waiting for something else to happen, but didnt, we all came out and finished up another normal day.
The past 2 nights have been really quiet and both the US and IA have scaled back their troops to just 2 of each per shift per point and no terps. Its been pretty entertaining having a conversation with the IA without a terp but somehow we make it work. I have been teaching them some english and they have been teaching me some arabic.
At 0600 this morning BOOOM!!! I mean this explosion was so loud and/or close that I damn near jumped out of my skin and pissed myself at the same time! This stuff keeps up and Ill be just like my buddy SGT Grivet. He is one skittish dude with the 2 deployments before this one. The slightest sound and he was up and running for cover before HE even knew what was going on. Im talking prison bitch jumpy. I always used to laugh at him and have fun with it, but now im starting to feel his pain and im not one to ever startle easily.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Captain Planet, saving the world one pack at a time!
The other day me and my battle got relieved from our shift, so we grabbed our gear and loded up in the HUMVEE. I was driving and as we were approaching our FOB we came up on a bit of a traffic delay. There was a string of KBR service and delivery 18wheelers on the right side of the road and on the left side at the front of the line was an MRAP(mine resistant ambush protected) vehicle with a U.S. soldier on foot signaling for traffic to stop. The traffic consisted of a white haji car and me behind him.
The white car either wasnt paying much attention or didnt care becuase it didnt seem to want to stop for the soldier, but it finally did. I was paying attention and where I stopped there was a good 2-3 car lengths between me and the white car. Once that was over the soldier started waving the KBR convoy on, after half of them had gone by he stopped them and signaled for another MRAP to move in the middle. Then he signaled for the rest of the convoy to proceed and he jumped in his MRAP so that they could take up the rear.
At this point we have just been sitting there minding ourselves when I see the white car throw an empty pack of smokes out his window. I look over at my battle and say: I should make that guy pick that up. To which my battle replies with a laugh.
After sitting there for a long second I say F this, jump on the gas and as i start moving another car tries passing me on the right. So I hit the horn and swerve right pinching him off and pull up short behind the white car. I throw the HUMVEE in park, undo my seatbelt, jump out and close my door then jog over and pick up the pack of empty smokes and throw them back in the white car which scares the crap out of the haji driving. I then stare at the driver for a long hard second then I say with a pointed finger "KEEP BAGHDAD BEAUTIFUL".
I return to my vehicle put on my seatbelt, put it in gear and almost take off the white cars bumper getting around him cause of how close i parked. Once we were on the FOB and driving back to our ready room, me and my battles conversation went like this
battle: so what did you say to him?
me: I told him to keep baghdad beautiful.
battle:(laughing) that was freaking awesome! I think you are my new favorite hero.
me: I should have had him pick it up at gun point.
We both have a good laugh after that.
So of course my battle has to tell the rest of the squad what happened and later on in the gym one of my troops comes up to me and says "hey Captain Planet". For a sec there I was huh? then I was aaahhhh BWAHAHAHAHA goooooooOOOOOOOO PLANET! with my fist in the air.
The white car either wasnt paying much attention or didnt care becuase it didnt seem to want to stop for the soldier, but it finally did. I was paying attention and where I stopped there was a good 2-3 car lengths between me and the white car. Once that was over the soldier started waving the KBR convoy on, after half of them had gone by he stopped them and signaled for another MRAP to move in the middle. Then he signaled for the rest of the convoy to proceed and he jumped in his MRAP so that they could take up the rear.
At this point we have just been sitting there minding ourselves when I see the white car throw an empty pack of smokes out his window. I look over at my battle and say: I should make that guy pick that up. To which my battle replies with a laugh.
After sitting there for a long second I say F this, jump on the gas and as i start moving another car tries passing me on the right. So I hit the horn and swerve right pinching him off and pull up short behind the white car. I throw the HUMVEE in park, undo my seatbelt, jump out and close my door then jog over and pick up the pack of empty smokes and throw them back in the white car which scares the crap out of the haji driving. I then stare at the driver for a long hard second then I say with a pointed finger "KEEP BAGHDAD BEAUTIFUL".
I return to my vehicle put on my seatbelt, put it in gear and almost take off the white cars bumper getting around him cause of how close i parked. Once we were on the FOB and driving back to our ready room, me and my battles conversation went like this
battle: so what did you say to him?
me: I told him to keep baghdad beautiful.
battle:(laughing) that was freaking awesome! I think you are my new favorite hero.
me: I should have had him pick it up at gun point.
We both have a good laugh after that.
So of course my battle has to tell the rest of the squad what happened and later on in the gym one of my troops comes up to me and says "hey Captain Planet". For a sec there I was huh? then I was aaahhhh BWAHAHAHAHA goooooooOOOOOOOO PLANET! with my fist in the air.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Riddle me this . . .
Well not much exciting has been happening around here lately.
Is that a good or bad thing?
One thing I am currently having to deal with is that one of my soldiers failed his diagnostic PT test and so now the lieutenant is making me and 2 other NCO's run with him 5 days a week. Now I really dont wanna get into specifics of this, but maybe it will help cause im in a pretty foul mood at the moment. Im not sure why, but I am tired, hungry, and have several things going through my mind all the time and none of them are happy happy joy joy inspiring.
Anyways back during Annual Training in the desert of idaho I was near my 1SGT when he informed someone else that there would be no PT tests during our deployment cause the army was tired of seeing failures. This was good news for us since it would be one less thing to worry about interfering with our mission.
February rolls around and our commander says that we will all be doing a diagnostic PT test. My personal opinion on this is that the commander had been seeing most of us in the gym and making changes in our body shape and in seeing this for a few months was bragging us up higher in his chain of command and decided that a diagnostic was a great way to have numbers to back up his praise.
Now in the mind of the average joe a diagnostic is not a record test and does not require much effort be put into it. Which is exactly what happened and 75% of the unit failed. This set command off and new policy came down that whoever failed must be babysat at the gym 5 days a week and take another PT test every 2 weeks till passing then the restriction would lift but everyone would still have to take a monthly PT test. This pissed the troops off. One really good reason why is because the types of workouts being done to lose body fat and/or gain muscle mass are not ones that help with a PT test, so now everyone is losing momentum on their personal improvement and they all have to take 3-5 days off before the test to give their bodies time to recover and heal from the intense workouts they have been doing in order to be ready to do their best on the PT test.
After a few months of this go by and I would say 95% of the unit is passing now, the commander puts out that if a soldier passes with 70% or better in each catagory(60% is minimum to pass)then they no longer have to do a PT test while they are here. This makes us less angry. So a lot of us kick out our 70% and use that as a big fat finger to command.
Which brings us to the soldier i have to deal with. He has failed every PT test taken and was on the 5 day a week plan up until i left for my R&R. Apparently while i was gone that had been forgotten and not enforced. Well he took another test recently and failed again and this pissed off the LT and in a meeting I wasnt aware of said that all the NCO's in the squad(this includes me) failed and that all of us(me, the 2 other NCO's)must run with the failing soldier 5 days a week till passing which screws up our own schedules for sleep and working out and keeping in touch with family back home. I will say that im glad i wasnt at that meeting cause i would be reduced in rank and pay right now had I been there.
After talking to this soldier about this situation he informs me that his contract with the military is up in November and he will not be re-enlisting and therefor has no disire or motivation to pass and has made this decision long ago. So now we are stuck in a situation that is F'd.
How do you force the horse to drink now that you have him at the river?
Is that a good or bad thing?
One thing I am currently having to deal with is that one of my soldiers failed his diagnostic PT test and so now the lieutenant is making me and 2 other NCO's run with him 5 days a week. Now I really dont wanna get into specifics of this, but maybe it will help cause im in a pretty foul mood at the moment. Im not sure why, but I am tired, hungry, and have several things going through my mind all the time and none of them are happy happy joy joy inspiring.
Anyways back during Annual Training in the desert of idaho I was near my 1SGT when he informed someone else that there would be no PT tests during our deployment cause the army was tired of seeing failures. This was good news for us since it would be one less thing to worry about interfering with our mission.
February rolls around and our commander says that we will all be doing a diagnostic PT test. My personal opinion on this is that the commander had been seeing most of us in the gym and making changes in our body shape and in seeing this for a few months was bragging us up higher in his chain of command and decided that a diagnostic was a great way to have numbers to back up his praise.
Now in the mind of the average joe a diagnostic is not a record test and does not require much effort be put into it. Which is exactly what happened and 75% of the unit failed. This set command off and new policy came down that whoever failed must be babysat at the gym 5 days a week and take another PT test every 2 weeks till passing then the restriction would lift but everyone would still have to take a monthly PT test. This pissed the troops off. One really good reason why is because the types of workouts being done to lose body fat and/or gain muscle mass are not ones that help with a PT test, so now everyone is losing momentum on their personal improvement and they all have to take 3-5 days off before the test to give their bodies time to recover and heal from the intense workouts they have been doing in order to be ready to do their best on the PT test.
After a few months of this go by and I would say 95% of the unit is passing now, the commander puts out that if a soldier passes with 70% or better in each catagory(60% is minimum to pass)then they no longer have to do a PT test while they are here. This makes us less angry. So a lot of us kick out our 70% and use that as a big fat finger to command.
Which brings us to the soldier i have to deal with. He has failed every PT test taken and was on the 5 day a week plan up until i left for my R&R. Apparently while i was gone that had been forgotten and not enforced. Well he took another test recently and failed again and this pissed off the LT and in a meeting I wasnt aware of said that all the NCO's in the squad(this includes me) failed and that all of us(me, the 2 other NCO's)must run with the failing soldier 5 days a week till passing which screws up our own schedules for sleep and working out and keeping in touch with family back home. I will say that im glad i wasnt at that meeting cause i would be reduced in rank and pay right now had I been there.
After talking to this soldier about this situation he informs me that his contract with the military is up in November and he will not be re-enlisting and therefor has no disire or motivation to pass and has made this decision long ago. So now we are stuck in a situation that is F'd.
How do you force the horse to drink now that you have him at the river?
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
DAMN IRAQIES!!!
At 0530 this morning we got another IDF(indirect fire) alarm but it was a shorter one than usual which left me and my battle in total silence waiting for something to hit before we call it up to higher this time.
So we are waiting and waiting and waiting and wondering if it was just a false alarm, then boom boom! 2 explosions. I jump up and call up to higher that we just had the incoming alarm sound off with 2 detonations following it to our west about 600-700 meters away.
These rocket attacks are starting to wear on me. the whole time i was waiting for the impacts, which in reality was about 1 minute or less, with every passing second my tension level was rising wondering where the impacts were gonna be. Are they gonna land on us or somewhere else? With my rising tension level im also waiting for the impacts to happen so i can either jump outta my skin and react if they are close or unclench my butthole and breath a sigh of relief. Thankfully it was the later.
About 0630 we were listening to the AFN(armed forces network) radio station and one of the DJ's reports that a fellow soldier was killed on 16 JUN 2011 from an IDF attack.
RIP brother
A little while later our relief shows up and as we are doing the change over they let us know that the IDF we had earlier had actually landed 150 meters away from another one of our ECPs.
SGT Beautikoffer and SPC Vanleuven both from my squad were manning that post at the time and were unhurt.
So we are waiting and waiting and waiting and wondering if it was just a false alarm, then boom boom! 2 explosions. I jump up and call up to higher that we just had the incoming alarm sound off with 2 detonations following it to our west about 600-700 meters away.
These rocket attacks are starting to wear on me. the whole time i was waiting for the impacts, which in reality was about 1 minute or less, with every passing second my tension level was rising wondering where the impacts were gonna be. Are they gonna land on us or somewhere else? With my rising tension level im also waiting for the impacts to happen so i can either jump outta my skin and react if they are close or unclench my butthole and breath a sigh of relief. Thankfully it was the later.
About 0630 we were listening to the AFN(armed forces network) radio station and one of the DJ's reports that a fellow soldier was killed on 16 JUN 2011 from an IDF attack.
RIP brother
A little while later our relief shows up and as we are doing the change over they let us know that the IDF we had earlier had actually landed 150 meters away from another one of our ECPs.
SGT Beautikoffer and SPC Vanleuven both from my squad were manning that post at the time and were unhurt.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
gettin warm.
this pic was taken about a month ago. since then we have had a high of 122. 140 is not uncommon though. cant wait lol.
20 JUN 2011
Well ive had an interesting few nights.
3 nights ago shortly after shift change we had the incoming alarm go off so i went to the radio to call it up to higher, just as i got to the radio there was an explosion. The other ECPs called in as well and put the impact at about 500-600 meters away from us.
The next night as i was walking back from the shower hut i saw a tree branch that had broken off and landed on a guys roof to his room and had caved half of it in while i was taking my shower. The branch was about 8 inches thick and 10 feet long. So i stopped and ooh'd n aww'd for a bit then went back to my room and got ready for my shift. Got to my ECP and did my changeover and the damn incoming alarm sounded off again, but there was no explosion this time, so either it was a dud or it was nothing.
last night as we were heading out we came upon the IZ police that had blocked off the entrance/exit to the FOB we live on, after we stopped and called it up to higher that we were blocked off, the IZ police came up and told us that the bomb dog took a sit, which means it detected something, while searching a vehicle and that EOD was on scene to check the possible VBID. So we called that up to higher as well and proceeded to wait, after a few minutes we got the all clear and were able to carry on to an uneventfull rest of the night.
3 nights ago shortly after shift change we had the incoming alarm go off so i went to the radio to call it up to higher, just as i got to the radio there was an explosion. The other ECPs called in as well and put the impact at about 500-600 meters away from us.
The next night as i was walking back from the shower hut i saw a tree branch that had broken off and landed on a guys roof to his room and had caved half of it in while i was taking my shower. The branch was about 8 inches thick and 10 feet long. So i stopped and ooh'd n aww'd for a bit then went back to my room and got ready for my shift. Got to my ECP and did my changeover and the damn incoming alarm sounded off again, but there was no explosion this time, so either it was a dud or it was nothing.
last night as we were heading out we came upon the IZ police that had blocked off the entrance/exit to the FOB we live on, after we stopped and called it up to higher that we were blocked off, the IZ police came up and told us that the bomb dog took a sit, which means it detected something, while searching a vehicle and that EOD was on scene to check the possible VBID. So we called that up to higher as well and proceeded to wait, after a few minutes we got the all clear and were able to carry on to an uneventfull rest of the night.
Friday, June 10, 2011
09-10 JUNE 2011
well last night was not a boring one. in case you dont know my platoon mans the ECP(entry control point) for the United Nations compounds here in Baghdad, Iraq. right now im on the graveyard shift which is 2330-0730hrs. yesterday(thursday) was the start of "day of rage part 4" more on that later.
me and my battle buddy had pulled in to the UN compound and turned the HUMVEE around so we could off load our gear and do our shift change when i hear the incoming alarm going off which indicates mortars and/or rockets are coming in. so the guys we are to relieve get in the bunker and me and my battle stay in the uparmored vehicle. i start looking skyward as im waiting for the all clear announcment when i see a flash in the night sky and then over the radio i hear one of our other ECPs saying that 7-8 mortars had just detonated in close proximity to them but far enough away that they were safe. this was great news since there was 5 US soldiers killed a few days ago from a rocket attack not far from where we operate.
we finally get the all clear and do our change over. for the rest of the night me and my battle are pretty on edge. but we prepped our checkpoint to make so nothing could sneak up on us.
at about 0500hrs there was a large explosion to our north west and some gunfire directly after it. im assuming a VBID(vehicle born improvised explosive device) had been detonated at or near an ECP leading into the IZ(international zone) where we operate. if this is true then it would be the second time that has happened since ive been here, the first one will be in another blog post. but it also could have been some douche in a suicide vest as well.
explanation of the "day of rage"
the prime minister of iraq over around 100 days ago told the iraqi government to get their shit together in 100 days or else. during these 100 days the locals have been staging protests and when they do that the IZ gets locked down so that there is limited movement within the IZ so that anything out of the ordenary is more easily spotted as well as lessens casualties in the event the IZ gets breached. there have been a few times where the IZ has been locked down 100% and no movement period which means for those of us on the ECPs a 36 hour shift.
anyways the first day of protesting had an official name and i think it was called the day of redemption or something like that. all i kknow is that it started with an R. so we started calling it the day of rage and just started parts for every one that we had to suffer through, which brings us up to "day of rage part 4"
me and my battle buddy had pulled in to the UN compound and turned the HUMVEE around so we could off load our gear and do our shift change when i hear the incoming alarm going off which indicates mortars and/or rockets are coming in. so the guys we are to relieve get in the bunker and me and my battle stay in the uparmored vehicle. i start looking skyward as im waiting for the all clear announcment when i see a flash in the night sky and then over the radio i hear one of our other ECPs saying that 7-8 mortars had just detonated in close proximity to them but far enough away that they were safe. this was great news since there was 5 US soldiers killed a few days ago from a rocket attack not far from where we operate.
we finally get the all clear and do our change over. for the rest of the night me and my battle are pretty on edge. but we prepped our checkpoint to make so nothing could sneak up on us.
at about 0500hrs there was a large explosion to our north west and some gunfire directly after it. im assuming a VBID(vehicle born improvised explosive device) had been detonated at or near an ECP leading into the IZ(international zone) where we operate. if this is true then it would be the second time that has happened since ive been here, the first one will be in another blog post. but it also could have been some douche in a suicide vest as well.
explanation of the "day of rage"
the prime minister of iraq over around 100 days ago told the iraqi government to get their shit together in 100 days or else. during these 100 days the locals have been staging protests and when they do that the IZ gets locked down so that there is limited movement within the IZ so that anything out of the ordenary is more easily spotted as well as lessens casualties in the event the IZ gets breached. there have been a few times where the IZ has been locked down 100% and no movement period which means for those of us on the ECPs a 36 hour shift.
anyways the first day of protesting had an official name and i think it was called the day of redemption or something like that. all i kknow is that it started with an R. so we started calling it the day of rage and just started parts for every one that we had to suffer through, which brings us up to "day of rage part 4"
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Kuwait to Iraq
we spend a few days in kuwait shaking off the jet lag and getting acclimatized while doing a bit more training such as more IED(improvised explosive device) identification training, both mounted and dismounted. as well as some more shooting with the M4, 240B, 249, M2, 9mm, and 320. i suppose i should explain what all those weapons are.
M4 is similar to an AR15 or M16 and shoots a 5.56 round either single shot or 3 round burst http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine
240B is a full auto machine gun and shoots a 7.62 round and is belt fed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M240_machine_gun
M249 or SAW(squad automatic weapon) is a full auto machine gun and shoots a 5.56 rounds and is belt fed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M249_light_machine_gun
M2 is full auto or single shot and shoots a .50 cal round and is a monster! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Browning_machine_gun
9mm is your common pistol
M320 is a hand held grenade launcher that shoots 40mm ammo. it can be a handheld weapon or mounted to the bottom of the M4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M320_grenade_launcher
so then we get to finally get to fly into iraq which is about a 2 hour flight and we get to do it in a cargo plane, yay!!! to make it even more wonderful we get to do it with all our body armor on, 1 computer bag, 1 back pack, and your weapon. some of the unlucky f!@#$%s(of course this includes me) get to do it with an additional weapon which happens to be the 240B, yay!!! we start walking up the ramp into the plane and i see the plush and luxurious seating we get to recline in. first you need to imagine how cramped the normal civilian is on a normal flight and no one wants to be in the middle of those 3 seat sections, now imagine our reality of 6 seats side by side per row with as much leg and elbow room and seat quality as the cheapest seats available on a normal commercial airliner, yes we still have our bags, weapons, and armor on us and yes it all has to be in the seat with us and on us, yay!!! so we get all packed in like 10 pounds of s#*t in a 5 pound bag, hit the taxi way and take off which is really smooth. so im screaming at the guy to my left telling him how smooth i thought the take of was and he screams back "YEAH, JUST WAIT TILL THE COMBAT LANDING!". why are we screaming you ask? cause we are in a huge military cargo plane that is not insulated and is powered by 4 propeller engines which requires us to have earplugs in. i dont feel like losing my voice trying to find out what a combat landing is so i just sit there and imagine that it will be an aggressive landing, boy was i mistaken.
so as we level out to our cruising altitude of to high to live from a crash, i find out that these wonderful seats we are sitting in are on a pallet system which means that 120 seats are bolted to a piece of metal and then the metal plate is slid into channels on the belly of the plane with stop locks mounted in front and behind the slab of metal we are bolted to. i figure this out cause as we level out, we all slide forward about 3 inches on our plate of metal from the rear stop locks to the front ones.
eventually one of the flight crew that is in a chair facing us gets over the loudspeaker and announces that we will be landing in 15 minutes. thank god! my body is screaming from pain after being packed in like a 2 pound trout in a sardine can. so with about 10 minutes left in our flight, the combat landing begins.
first we do a dive bomb, and as we are hurteling towards the earths surface and im trying my best to not scream like a 12 yr old girl, i think to myself that as long as there are no flashing lights or warning sounds/sirens/buzzers then everything must be ok. so i keep a close eye on the one flight crew person i can see to judge my panic level based upon his reactions to the unfolding events. he is cool and calm even though we keep diving and diving and diving and diving. after what i feel is way to long in this death dive, i start silently screaming at the pilot to PULL UP MOTHER F$%^&R, PULL UP!!! and i swear to god it had to be the last possible second before we all became a smoldering crater that he finally does. so now we make a vertical U turn which slams our pallet of seats to the rear 3 inches but feels like 2 feet and we are now going straight up and the G forces are so strong that it feels like my guts are gonna get squished right out my brown star fish! eventually the pilot starts to level us out,just before the engines stall out im sure, and the G forces start to return to normal i think what else is in store for us? just as i finish that thought the pilot banks us HARD to the left. if we had windows to see out of im sure that on the left we would see nothing but ground and the right nothing but sky cause im pretty damned sure we are 90 degrees to mother earth now, and then we go to the right, HARD! at this point im thinking to the pilot, dude this aint a f*&^%$g fighter jet! when the pilot levels out again i conclude that the crew member ive been watching this whole time has been sitting back like he is at home watching tv and that all this is normal, so me and a few others start getting into it and throwing our hands up in the air combined with whoops and hollars as we go through the aerobatic manuevers. others in our group didnt look so joyful and im pretty sure there were a couple that started crying and maybe even one crap their pants, but surprisingly no one puked. after 9 minutes and 30 seconds of going up, down, left, right in various differnt ways we actually start our landing decent . . . . which means we are falling like a rock! but this time the planes nose is elevated sightly above horizontal and we are gonna slam ass first and end up looking like a smashed beer can or at the very least we are gonna bounce hard and who knows after that. the landing ended up being the smoothest one ive ever had, but i still needed help pulliing my fingers out of the seat in front of me.
M4 is similar to an AR15 or M16 and shoots a 5.56 round either single shot or 3 round burst http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine
240B is a full auto machine gun and shoots a 7.62 round and is belt fed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M240_machine_gun
M249 or SAW(squad automatic weapon) is a full auto machine gun and shoots a 5.56 rounds and is belt fed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M249_light_machine_gun
M2 is full auto or single shot and shoots a .50 cal round and is a monster! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Browning_machine_gun
9mm is your common pistol
M320 is a hand held grenade launcher that shoots 40mm ammo. it can be a handheld weapon or mounted to the bottom of the M4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M320_grenade_launcher
so then we get to finally get to fly into iraq which is about a 2 hour flight and we get to do it in a cargo plane, yay!!! to make it even more wonderful we get to do it with all our body armor on, 1 computer bag, 1 back pack, and your weapon. some of the unlucky f!@#$%s(of course this includes me) get to do it with an additional weapon which happens to be the 240B, yay!!! we start walking up the ramp into the plane and i see the plush and luxurious seating we get to recline in. first you need to imagine how cramped the normal civilian is on a normal flight and no one wants to be in the middle of those 3 seat sections, now imagine our reality of 6 seats side by side per row with as much leg and elbow room and seat quality as the cheapest seats available on a normal commercial airliner, yes we still have our bags, weapons, and armor on us and yes it all has to be in the seat with us and on us, yay!!! so we get all packed in like 10 pounds of s#*t in a 5 pound bag, hit the taxi way and take off which is really smooth. so im screaming at the guy to my left telling him how smooth i thought the take of was and he screams back "YEAH, JUST WAIT TILL THE COMBAT LANDING!". why are we screaming you ask? cause we are in a huge military cargo plane that is not insulated and is powered by 4 propeller engines which requires us to have earplugs in. i dont feel like losing my voice trying to find out what a combat landing is so i just sit there and imagine that it will be an aggressive landing, boy was i mistaken.
so as we level out to our cruising altitude of to high to live from a crash, i find out that these wonderful seats we are sitting in are on a pallet system which means that 120 seats are bolted to a piece of metal and then the metal plate is slid into channels on the belly of the plane with stop locks mounted in front and behind the slab of metal we are bolted to. i figure this out cause as we level out, we all slide forward about 3 inches on our plate of metal from the rear stop locks to the front ones.
eventually one of the flight crew that is in a chair facing us gets over the loudspeaker and announces that we will be landing in 15 minutes. thank god! my body is screaming from pain after being packed in like a 2 pound trout in a sardine can. so with about 10 minutes left in our flight, the combat landing begins.
first we do a dive bomb, and as we are hurteling towards the earths surface and im trying my best to not scream like a 12 yr old girl, i think to myself that as long as there are no flashing lights or warning sounds/sirens/buzzers then everything must be ok. so i keep a close eye on the one flight crew person i can see to judge my panic level based upon his reactions to the unfolding events. he is cool and calm even though we keep diving and diving and diving and diving. after what i feel is way to long in this death dive, i start silently screaming at the pilot to PULL UP MOTHER F$%^&R, PULL UP!!! and i swear to god it had to be the last possible second before we all became a smoldering crater that he finally does. so now we make a vertical U turn which slams our pallet of seats to the rear 3 inches but feels like 2 feet and we are now going straight up and the G forces are so strong that it feels like my guts are gonna get squished right out my brown star fish! eventually the pilot starts to level us out,just before the engines stall out im sure, and the G forces start to return to normal i think what else is in store for us? just as i finish that thought the pilot banks us HARD to the left. if we had windows to see out of im sure that on the left we would see nothing but ground and the right nothing but sky cause im pretty damned sure we are 90 degrees to mother earth now, and then we go to the right, HARD! at this point im thinking to the pilot, dude this aint a f*&^%$g fighter jet! when the pilot levels out again i conclude that the crew member ive been watching this whole time has been sitting back like he is at home watching tv and that all this is normal, so me and a few others start getting into it and throwing our hands up in the air combined with whoops and hollars as we go through the aerobatic manuevers. others in our group didnt look so joyful and im pretty sure there were a couple that started crying and maybe even one crap their pants, but surprisingly no one puked. after 9 minutes and 30 seconds of going up, down, left, right in various differnt ways we actually start our landing decent . . . . which means we are falling like a rock! but this time the planes nose is elevated sightly above horizontal and we are gonna slam ass first and end up looking like a smashed beer can or at the very least we are gonna bounce hard and who knows after that. the landing ended up being the smoothest one ive ever had, but i still needed help pulliing my fingers out of the seat in front of me.
The plane flight from Mississippi to Kuwait. Nov. 21 2010
so i figured i would go ahead and start keeping you guys informed as to what i have been up to so far and what i have experienced and seen.
so here is a small bit for now, enjoy.
we have to wake up at OMG early and load on to buses with our 2 bags and weapon. luckily no body armor or second weapon. then we roll out for about an hour and a half to the airfield where we sit for a couple hours whle the civilian plane gets ready. during these 2 hours everyone is saying their last goodbyes on their cell phones before having their service put on a military hold while they are deployed. so yes its a total mess of emotions spreading like a disease through the hanger as everyone says goodbye to their loved ones.
we finally get the order that the plane is ready and we can start boarding so we step out into the cold, windy, dark early mississippi morning and commence boarding. thankfully the plane is huge and we have half as many people as there are seats. so everyone has space and is fairly comfortable.
the stewardess for my section comes by and introduces herself and of course being the normal soldiers that we are, we fire back with comments such as "thats what she said" and "thats the way your momma likes it". and this lady rolls with it! and even fires back a few of her own. she is very witty and sharp of tongue which pleases us all greatly and gets everyone upbeat and able to get their minds off the goodbyes they said moments earlier. after some time in the air everything starts to calm down and people start to succumb to the emotional drain they have been through and start to fall asleep, as do i.
sometime in the flight i wake up and find it to be dark and quiet with most everyone sleeping and i see the stewardess coming down the aisle handing out meals so i decide to stay awake and get some food. she eventually makes her way to me and asks me if i would like pasta or chicken? no im a fairly picky eater and not really fond of chicken unless its cooked a certain way, so i ask her what kind of pasta is it? to which she gives me an are you kidding me? look for 2 seconds and then says "honey, what do you think this is? you think we got a chef in the back throwing this stuff together? its cardboard with gravy on it."
i got the chicken.
to my surprise it actually wasnt bad cause it was a chicken pot pie type of food.
after the food and bathroom break i go back to sleep.
i wake up again due to some turbulance and look into the aisle to check everyones behavior so i can adjust my panic level accordingly. about half the soldiers are awake and i find my stewardess in the aisle again with the serving cart and she is acting normal but still doing her best to stay standing and serve drinks or something. after a few minutes the turbulance gets worse than anything i have ever encountered before and i start to get pretty concerned. everyone is awake now and the stewardess has given up trying to do her job and is now bracing herself with her back to one seat, her leg up on the arm of the seat accross the aisle, one hand on the overhead storage compartment and the other hand trying to keep the serving cart under control. i stare at this lady for probably 15 minutes straight with out blinking just waiting for her to bolt into one of the open seats and buckle herself in, cause if she does im gonna . . . . well i dont know what im gonna do but im sure it wouldnt be pretty.
after a few more minutes everything calms down enough for the stewardess to go back to her duties which allows me to breath, moisten my eyes, relax every muscle in my body and pull my fingers out of the arm rests. after doing all this the phrase "this sucks" comes outta my mouth and i fall back asleep.
i wake up again but this time to the pilot over the intercom saying that we will be landing in ireland in about 30 minutes. so we start throwing open window shutters since its daylight now and start taking in the sights that ireland has to offer. but we are still above the clouds and it takes us a few minutes to get below them. once we do we find that is raining, but we can still see the beautifull green fields, little cottages and herds of cows, sheep and goats. the pilot starts making his final approach and we are excited cause there is a 3 hour layover and we are landing at an actual airport. we start coming down and down and down and everything seems normal when all of a sudden BAM!!! we hit the tarmac so hard that we bounce back in the air long enough for me to think that we no longer have a landing gear and we are hosed! the smell of fear permeates the air in the cabin . . . maybe it was just urine and some feces. finally the pilot touches down the rear again and then the front, our "bounce" must have messed up his landing because we are hard on the brakes now and with the wet tarmac we are also sliding from left to right about 4-6 feet in either direction and the pilot is having a hell of a time keeping the tail of the plane from passing the nose and doing cookies down the runway!
finally we get under control and to our terminal so we can offload and stretch while the plane gets more fuel and a fresh crew.
we make our way into the main lobby of the airport and there is a bar there that serves food, coffee, soda, and booze. as im in line watching people get coffee, food, and soda i start thinking of how i can get a stiff drink but be discreet about it? im looking at the coffee menu board and see that a coffee and bailey's is available, score! then i notice that they have a tea menu as well and i see a drink called a hot toddy, i dont know what this is so i ask the server guy what it is before i order my coffee with bailey's, to which he replies its hot water with rum, a slice of lemon and some cloves.
i had him make me a double and go light on the water.
So now i have this strange but much needed concoction disguised inside of a paper coffee cup and so i set about taking in the sights of this foreign place im in while sipping on my soothing drink. im checking out the bathroom and i cant remember much details but its vastly different than anything ive ever utilized before. i go about my way checking out the way their signs and advertisements differ from ours and i end up in a shoppette that has all kinds of trinkets that would never be found on our shelves along with rediculous amounts of booze everywhere.
about half way through my cup i find myself at a magazine stand and im going through an average looking mag when i come upon a jean advertisement, this page is pure white with the name of the jeans up top and a model facing me wearing a pair of the jeans, and thats it! totally with out clothing from the waist up, nice! so i start going through various types of mags and they ALL have the same exquisit taste in advertising.
i start contemplating the prudeness of the american culture and its inability to embrace and display the lovely human nude body when i suddenly get bored, or maybe it was a brain cramp, and i continue on browsing with my hand full of warm rum looking at all the strange foreign stuff and finish off my warm cup of rum and water and im starting to feel better about being me when we get the call to board.
we all start making our way to the plane and as im doing so, im thinking of how the next 6 hours of flight time are gonna go.
everybody boards and takes their original seats and makes sure that their weapons and other belongings are there after the flight crew switch. everyone is good so we take off. i pretty much pass out shortly after takeoff, i wake up once maybe twice for bathroom breaks but other than that its pretty uneventfull and i sleep until we start making our final approach into kuwait. as we are coming in everyone wakes up and starts getting excited and opening the window shades to try and catch a glimpse of something but no such luck cause its about 0100 in the morning. what do troops do that are confined and have some excess energy and excitement? they get creative with their ways to expend said energy which very quickly involves every passenger on the plane.
it starts out with one airline supplied pillow being tossed and another and another and another till the whole cabin is involved in a pillow fight as we are landing. the flight crew is strapped in for the landing and powerless to do anything, i doubt they could have if they werent. so now we have pillows flying everywhere, getting stuck in the ceiling, the overhead shelves, everywhere is just total caose. then one soldier gets creative and takes one of the airline supplied blankets and wraps up about six or seven pillows into a big ball and throws it into the air behind him and yells GRENADE!!
of course the grenade happens to land in my seat, about 5 rows back from the tosser and explode, i cant breathe im laughing so hard!
so now we have grenades flying through the air along with individual pillows, total mayhem.
moments before touching down the cabin finally calms down and then we land and taxi in. as we are standing up and securing our gear i notice that my left side above my belt line feels kinda weird, so i reach back and feel it and i scream"OW WTF!". SPC webber in the same row but accross the aisle to my right says whats the matter SGT bailey? i look at him and say idk but that my side hurts and i turn around and pull up my blouse and shirt and ask him if he sees anything? to which he replies HOLY SH!T SGT you have a huge blister! im like wtf? so i gingerly touch it and as im doing so im looking at my seat for protruding objects and feeling my belt for an explanation when i grab my surefire flashlight thats clipped to my waist and realise thats its warm, no hot, no really f'ing hot! and thats when i come to the conclusion that as i was sleeping i must have been laying on it in such a way as to be pushing the momentary button long enough to burn me and now i got this huge blister, of which to this day i have a nickel sized scar.
anyways we offload and wait for the baggage detail to unload the plane of our main gear(aka the 400 pounds of stuff per soldier we had to bring) and load it onto an 18wheeler for transport. once done we all load onto the scooby doo buses and are transported to an outdoor holding area to wait for another set of buses to take us to our final destination.
scooby doo busses are these tiny little buses no bigger than a 15 passenger van but someone found a way to fit 30 seats in the damn things and so people automatically assume 30 joes can be packed into this thing with their 2 bags and weapon . . . . yeah about that. foreshadowing anyone? well for me it could have been but not for you guys since i put this in after the second sardine fest.
anyways there we are in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night cold, tired, hungry, excited, and for some people(smokers) a serious nicotine deficiency.
we get told that we have a 45 minute wait till the buses get there so people start milling around bs'ing, hydrating and getting their nicotine levels back up.
Finally the real buses arrive and we load on them and head out on a 3 hour drive to where we will be for the next few days acclimating before going to iraq.
im wired and cant sleep so my head is on a swivle trying to catch a glimpse of something middle eastern. i see a few road signs with their crazy writing on them and some traffic but nothing amazing.
we roll into the FOB at about 0500, get broken into different lines and we have to pass our ID's forward. then we get taken into a tent for a mind numbing death by powerpoint briefing. finally done with that, we get loaded on more scooby doo buses and driven to the 70 man tents are that we'll be staying in. go inside, get assigned a cot, drop what bags we have then go back outside to sort through everyones gear to find your own stuff and then drag it all back to your cot. after doing all this we are told that we can finally relax which most people immediatly pass out. a few of us decide to rush to the chow hall to get some breakfast before they close.
For the next 3 days we rest and acclimate to the sand/heat/time zone/cultural diversity.
so here is a small bit for now, enjoy.
we have to wake up at OMG early and load on to buses with our 2 bags and weapon. luckily no body armor or second weapon. then we roll out for about an hour and a half to the airfield where we sit for a couple hours whle the civilian plane gets ready. during these 2 hours everyone is saying their last goodbyes on their cell phones before having their service put on a military hold while they are deployed. so yes its a total mess of emotions spreading like a disease through the hanger as everyone says goodbye to their loved ones.
we finally get the order that the plane is ready and we can start boarding so we step out into the cold, windy, dark early mississippi morning and commence boarding. thankfully the plane is huge and we have half as many people as there are seats. so everyone has space and is fairly comfortable.
the stewardess for my section comes by and introduces herself and of course being the normal soldiers that we are, we fire back with comments such as "thats what she said" and "thats the way your momma likes it". and this lady rolls with it! and even fires back a few of her own. she is very witty and sharp of tongue which pleases us all greatly and gets everyone upbeat and able to get their minds off the goodbyes they said moments earlier. after some time in the air everything starts to calm down and people start to succumb to the emotional drain they have been through and start to fall asleep, as do i.
sometime in the flight i wake up and find it to be dark and quiet with most everyone sleeping and i see the stewardess coming down the aisle handing out meals so i decide to stay awake and get some food. she eventually makes her way to me and asks me if i would like pasta or chicken? no im a fairly picky eater and not really fond of chicken unless its cooked a certain way, so i ask her what kind of pasta is it? to which she gives me an are you kidding me? look for 2 seconds and then says "honey, what do you think this is? you think we got a chef in the back throwing this stuff together? its cardboard with gravy on it."
i got the chicken.
to my surprise it actually wasnt bad cause it was a chicken pot pie type of food.
after the food and bathroom break i go back to sleep.
i wake up again due to some turbulance and look into the aisle to check everyones behavior so i can adjust my panic level accordingly. about half the soldiers are awake and i find my stewardess in the aisle again with the serving cart and she is acting normal but still doing her best to stay standing and serve drinks or something. after a few minutes the turbulance gets worse than anything i have ever encountered before and i start to get pretty concerned. everyone is awake now and the stewardess has given up trying to do her job and is now bracing herself with her back to one seat, her leg up on the arm of the seat accross the aisle, one hand on the overhead storage compartment and the other hand trying to keep the serving cart under control. i stare at this lady for probably 15 minutes straight with out blinking just waiting for her to bolt into one of the open seats and buckle herself in, cause if she does im gonna . . . . well i dont know what im gonna do but im sure it wouldnt be pretty.
after a few more minutes everything calms down enough for the stewardess to go back to her duties which allows me to breath, moisten my eyes, relax every muscle in my body and pull my fingers out of the arm rests. after doing all this the phrase "this sucks" comes outta my mouth and i fall back asleep.
i wake up again but this time to the pilot over the intercom saying that we will be landing in ireland in about 30 minutes. so we start throwing open window shutters since its daylight now and start taking in the sights that ireland has to offer. but we are still above the clouds and it takes us a few minutes to get below them. once we do we find that is raining, but we can still see the beautifull green fields, little cottages and herds of cows, sheep and goats. the pilot starts making his final approach and we are excited cause there is a 3 hour layover and we are landing at an actual airport. we start coming down and down and down and everything seems normal when all of a sudden BAM!!! we hit the tarmac so hard that we bounce back in the air long enough for me to think that we no longer have a landing gear and we are hosed! the smell of fear permeates the air in the cabin . . . maybe it was just urine and some feces. finally the pilot touches down the rear again and then the front, our "bounce" must have messed up his landing because we are hard on the brakes now and with the wet tarmac we are also sliding from left to right about 4-6 feet in either direction and the pilot is having a hell of a time keeping the tail of the plane from passing the nose and doing cookies down the runway!
finally we get under control and to our terminal so we can offload and stretch while the plane gets more fuel and a fresh crew.
we make our way into the main lobby of the airport and there is a bar there that serves food, coffee, soda, and booze. as im in line watching people get coffee, food, and soda i start thinking of how i can get a stiff drink but be discreet about it? im looking at the coffee menu board and see that a coffee and bailey's is available, score! then i notice that they have a tea menu as well and i see a drink called a hot toddy, i dont know what this is so i ask the server guy what it is before i order my coffee with bailey's, to which he replies its hot water with rum, a slice of lemon and some cloves.
i had him make me a double and go light on the water.
So now i have this strange but much needed concoction disguised inside of a paper coffee cup and so i set about taking in the sights of this foreign place im in while sipping on my soothing drink. im checking out the bathroom and i cant remember much details but its vastly different than anything ive ever utilized before. i go about my way checking out the way their signs and advertisements differ from ours and i end up in a shoppette that has all kinds of trinkets that would never be found on our shelves along with rediculous amounts of booze everywhere.
about half way through my cup i find myself at a magazine stand and im going through an average looking mag when i come upon a jean advertisement, this page is pure white with the name of the jeans up top and a model facing me wearing a pair of the jeans, and thats it! totally with out clothing from the waist up, nice! so i start going through various types of mags and they ALL have the same exquisit taste in advertising.
i start contemplating the prudeness of the american culture and its inability to embrace and display the lovely human nude body when i suddenly get bored, or maybe it was a brain cramp, and i continue on browsing with my hand full of warm rum looking at all the strange foreign stuff and finish off my warm cup of rum and water and im starting to feel better about being me when we get the call to board.
we all start making our way to the plane and as im doing so, im thinking of how the next 6 hours of flight time are gonna go.
everybody boards and takes their original seats and makes sure that their weapons and other belongings are there after the flight crew switch. everyone is good so we take off. i pretty much pass out shortly after takeoff, i wake up once maybe twice for bathroom breaks but other than that its pretty uneventfull and i sleep until we start making our final approach into kuwait. as we are coming in everyone wakes up and starts getting excited and opening the window shades to try and catch a glimpse of something but no such luck cause its about 0100 in the morning. what do troops do that are confined and have some excess energy and excitement? they get creative with their ways to expend said energy which very quickly involves every passenger on the plane.
it starts out with one airline supplied pillow being tossed and another and another and another till the whole cabin is involved in a pillow fight as we are landing. the flight crew is strapped in for the landing and powerless to do anything, i doubt they could have if they werent. so now we have pillows flying everywhere, getting stuck in the ceiling, the overhead shelves, everywhere is just total caose. then one soldier gets creative and takes one of the airline supplied blankets and wraps up about six or seven pillows into a big ball and throws it into the air behind him and yells GRENADE!!
of course the grenade happens to land in my seat, about 5 rows back from the tosser and explode, i cant breathe im laughing so hard!
so now we have grenades flying through the air along with individual pillows, total mayhem.
moments before touching down the cabin finally calms down and then we land and taxi in. as we are standing up and securing our gear i notice that my left side above my belt line feels kinda weird, so i reach back and feel it and i scream"OW WTF!". SPC webber in the same row but accross the aisle to my right says whats the matter SGT bailey? i look at him and say idk but that my side hurts and i turn around and pull up my blouse and shirt and ask him if he sees anything? to which he replies HOLY SH!T SGT you have a huge blister! im like wtf? so i gingerly touch it and as im doing so im looking at my seat for protruding objects and feeling my belt for an explanation when i grab my surefire flashlight thats clipped to my waist and realise thats its warm, no hot, no really f'ing hot! and thats when i come to the conclusion that as i was sleeping i must have been laying on it in such a way as to be pushing the momentary button long enough to burn me and now i got this huge blister, of which to this day i have a nickel sized scar.
anyways we offload and wait for the baggage detail to unload the plane of our main gear(aka the 400 pounds of stuff per soldier we had to bring) and load it onto an 18wheeler for transport. once done we all load onto the scooby doo buses and are transported to an outdoor holding area to wait for another set of buses to take us to our final destination.
scooby doo busses are these tiny little buses no bigger than a 15 passenger van but someone found a way to fit 30 seats in the damn things and so people automatically assume 30 joes can be packed into this thing with their 2 bags and weapon . . . . yeah about that. foreshadowing anyone? well for me it could have been but not for you guys since i put this in after the second sardine fest.
anyways there we are in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night cold, tired, hungry, excited, and for some people(smokers) a serious nicotine deficiency.
we get told that we have a 45 minute wait till the buses get there so people start milling around bs'ing, hydrating and getting their nicotine levels back up.
Finally the real buses arrive and we load on them and head out on a 3 hour drive to where we will be for the next few days acclimating before going to iraq.
im wired and cant sleep so my head is on a swivle trying to catch a glimpse of something middle eastern. i see a few road signs with their crazy writing on them and some traffic but nothing amazing.
we roll into the FOB at about 0500, get broken into different lines and we have to pass our ID's forward. then we get taken into a tent for a mind numbing death by powerpoint briefing. finally done with that, we get loaded on more scooby doo buses and driven to the 70 man tents are that we'll be staying in. go inside, get assigned a cot, drop what bags we have then go back outside to sort through everyones gear to find your own stuff and then drag it all back to your cot. after doing all this we are told that we can finally relax which most people immediatly pass out. a few of us decide to rush to the chow hall to get some breakfast before they close.
For the next 3 days we rest and acclimate to the sand/heat/time zone/cultural diversity.
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