More Classes, More Dust...

Greetings dear readers. As you have no doubt noticed, there was no update last Friday. This is because the regularly scheduled DONSA was shanghaied, hornswaggled, and hog-tied into submission. Hopefully this week will prove better. The days since have been not filled to the gills per-se, but enough so that I could not get all my feces collinear for coherent posting. I did get the photos picked out and photoshopped on Saturday, but then life intervened and here we are. No real highlight for any of our team this week, just some class photos and an interesting series of an inbound dust-wall.

We had another class. After the 'everybody was late' fiasco of the previous lesson, we showed up a half hour early expecting to have to round up the jinood (plural of jundi, an Iraqi soldier if you haven't caught that yet). Lo and behold, what should we find when we get there but:


On with the class then! SSG(P) Moncree knocked out the "Actions on" portion of the class, with the help of one of our interpreters.


We then moved out to the 'lane' portion of the class. CPT Stangle shadowed the IA LT who was in charge, but since he's one of our more squared away counterparts, he didn't need much help playing his role on the lane.


The Juggernaut and I shadowed the two 'squad leaders' during their runs, the first of which was a bit of a pain. We were doing an IED class, and of course since they had just gotten the classroom portion, Everything on the back 40 became an IED, to include some random pipe, a water pump, and a bunch of c-wire.


Afterward, while waiting on the small demonstration by EOD, we got the usual 'jundi-swarm'.


God help you if a camera comes out, because then EVERYBODY wants to have their picture taken. It's worse when out in the population with kids around, but not much so.

Of course it wouldn't be a complete week without a patrol, and this week was as normal. However, while out on the checkpoints we noticed that the weather was beginning to turn, and that the southern sky was darkening pretty rapidly. We rolled back in at the FOB just as the reason for the dark sky made its presence known. Upon seeing this as we rolled up at the fuel point, we thought discretion the better part of valor, and decided to top the truck off later. I got the 240 down and buttoned up the hatch just as it started raining mud. I wish I had shot these 3 from one spot so I could stitch them together, but I barely got them snapped as we were pulling into the fuel point, and couldn't waste any time taking more shots. Oh well. They work pretty well as a series too:

Reflections on the Suck

First off, let me say this is going to be a long post, so get some popcorn and settle in. There's a pair of inter-related but divergent reasons that the post will be so long. The first of which is that like I said last time, I have a bunch of good pictures and they each bear some explanation. The second is that some of the back story to the pictures sparked the oft ill used neurons for rational thought, and I've got somewhat of a diatribe on the state of The Suck rattling around inside my head. Funny things, thoughts that bounce around inside your head. Comedian Lewis Black once joked that it's not some physical abnormality that causes aneurysms, but instead some thought that has no logical explanation, and thus bounces around inside your head until you're found dead in your bathroom.

So, in order to keep the thoughts dribbling out of my head in some semblance of well, order, I think I'll go through the pictures chronologically, and if the diatribe leaks out in between, so be it. If not, I'll finish up at the end. But then again, that would make sense, and things don't really make sense over here, so it may turn out that this is all some disjointed ramble. When looked at in retrospect, I will wish I could just blame it on PWI (Posting While Intoxicated), except that while it's probably just what this whole damn country needs, alcohol is not readily available over here. At least not to me anyway. But enough sidenoting. The first picture comes from waaay back on the 3rd, and was taken by the boss while over in the land of Hajj (one of our nicknames for the IA side). I have seen dust devils this large before while out in AZ, but not this close. It was apparently quite the event:


Next up, we have the lunch which the IA BN Commander threw for us. Mutton and bread with rice, the standard 'banquet' dish over here (apparently), same as we had for the previous team's going away dinner. Standard is everybody stands along both sides of the communal tables, and scoops food with the right hand. No utensils or napkins in sight. This sheep was a lot fattier than the last one, and thus affected some of our team's digestion a bit more harshly. I pretty much steered clear of the gelatinous stuff, and made out alright. The bread over here is actually wonderful, so getting that soaked in mutton juice and filled with rice is quite the delicacy. First the jundis had to set up:


Then everybody dug in:


We had two patrols, sort of. The first was during daylight hours, and though the following picture and the story behind what's actually going on could by itself fill a post 3-4 times the size this one looks to be, I can't / won't go there.


What I will go into is why we call him "The Juggernaut". While we were training at Ft Riley, we had a CLS (Combat Livesaver) training lane. During said lane, we were in full battle-rattle, just as he is in the picture above. One of the roleplayers had recieved 'mortar shrapnel' in his leg, and therefore couldn't walk. So, rather than get a couple more guys in the room and buddy-carrying said roleplayer out to the LZ, CPT Daly hoisted the dude into a fireman's carry and toted him down a flight of stairs and across the training area. A conservative guess would put the guy's weight at 220+. Later, the moniker was reinforced when he dead lifted our S-6 (who at the time went about 270+ with his gear on) and put him feet first into the back seat of a humvee while training in Kuwait. Mind-boggling.

Of course earlier in the day, he had mistakenly thrown one of the set-screws for our helmet lights away, so he had to go and retrieve it. Little did he know I was toting my camera...


The second patrol was a night mission, and we went out to work with one of the CPs. It was dark. Like wicked dark. I could focus fine through the monocle, but I couldn't get the camera to focus through it, as there just wasn't enough light. If you'll recall the photos I posted from the training range at Ft Riley, they were crisp and clear. 2% illum and overcast means friggin DARK:


Of course when route clearance comes through, they've got more lights than the second coming (and rightly so). From inside the CP, it makes for some surreal light shows:


The next day, one of the jundis brought his little sister in to see our Doc at sick-call. She has a scalp issue, so Doc took some high-res photos of her head to send higher for a dermatologist to look at. I waited until that was done and she had put her head-covering back on before I snapped some shots.


She's 9, and was very shy. [diatribe warning] Why she had suffered with the condition for 2 months before she got brought in to see Doc (she had already seen a local doctor, but only a week earlier) is completely beyond me. One of those things without logical explanation again. But as I said before, things here don't make sense.

Why are we doing missions with the IA the way we are? Don't think about it, your head might explode. Difference of cultures? Methinks not. It's not that they're apathetic, it's that they just don't care. One of our guys (name withheld to protect the innocent) has mentioned that if it came into existence following WWII, they (the IA) don't need it. I tend to agree. I once heard a LTC attending the AF War College state: "Alexander the Great conquered the known world without the use of a computer. I think we can do this without Powerpoint." Now I know, it's not all of them. Some of these guys do get it. A couple of them are pretty sharp. But a lot of them are just existing. What does that mean? I don't know. I can't tell yet. I do know it bugs the shit out of me, but I'm not exactly sure why yet. I ran across the blog of another soldier here in country, a LT with a Stryker unit. Completely different flavor of suck where he is, and probably a stronger flavor too. However, I think he'd agree that one of the elephants standing in the room is the complete lack of sense in lots of what happens here. Check out his blog here:LT G. His situation requires a tighter reign on OPSEC stuff, so he's got nom de plumes for his guys and their AO. He's a good writer, but be advised his stuff is a bit more flavorful than mine. Not that our conversational English is probably any different, but his use of expletives in the written word is a bit more prolific than mine. Anybody reading this (or his) that has been to the suck will understand. A lot of you will just go "huh?". It's ok.

So, in order to segue between the diatribe and the end of this post, I'll put up a picture of the how. How do I deal with the suck? I work on the calluses on the fingers of my left hand...


Lates. I'm gonna stop thinking now.

Doldrums?!?

If you haven't figured it out from my disclaimer at the bottom of the page, I'm a biker. The boss however is a sailor, i.e he races sailboats. He will probably give me a good ribbing over the use of the above post title both because I'm probably 'out of my depth', and he might disagree that we're in a rut. Last weeks post had truck 3 literally in a rut, but this week it's mostly just me. However, unlike a sailboat stuck on the wide water with no wind and no real reference points during the middle of the day, we as humans can recognize the mental ruts and do something about it. I got a little depressed that we're just spinning our wheels with our counterparts, but a couple of good "Inshaallahs"(Arabic word meaning "If God Wills It") and I felt better.

While I've got some good pics from this week, the 1 week delay means I get to post the mixed bag from last week. The first pair are a highlight of our S4, and his ability to get us good gear. We got M24 binos from the last team, and while they're better than nothing, they leave a lot to be desired. In some weird karmic twist, CPT Ryan ordered the exact model I was thinking about as an upgrade, Bushnell 10x50s. The following two pictures are from my turret, the first is camera only, max zoom. The second is camera through one side of the binos, still at max camera zoom. The 50mm objective lenses gather enough light that you can even use them in front of night optics for some serious long-range night observation. Most excellent.




Next we have some more improvements in the ongoing local area beautification project. The boss and I were pretty much baking in the afternoons, as our two front windows were bleeding in enough heat to overwhelm our AC unit. A little camo netting and some spray paint, and voila! Instead of setting the AC at 18* C and praying, now it's at 22*, and holds the temperature down all day. Also, one of our interpreters got some rosebushes and we've 'emplaced' them in various 'flowerpots' around the CHU area. One already bloomed, but I didn't get a picture of it. I'll have to be better about that when the next one does.


Finally, thanks to SFC Shuck's wife, we got some marshmallows in the mail. Well we would be remiss to not send photos of those being put to good use at the firepit, so here one is:

On a mission

Okay, okay, I'm delinquent again. I actually took the day off on our DONSA, and did pretty much nothing productive. I managed to spill CLP while cleaning my CHU, so that'll take a while to air out. Oops. I still haven't managed to get the stacks of papers under control, but at least it's organized chaos in here now. Yesterday it looked like a concussion grenade went off under about 3 reams worth of assorted papers.

So anyway, enough about my pathetic CHU, we went out on a mission! An honest to God linked up with a Coalition Forces unit and were one of the pawns on the chessboard mission! A bit melodramatic, I know, but nonetheless it's good we got rolling out the gate for something other than just checkpoint inspections. I'm not going to say where we went, or what our task and purpose was, or any of that operational stuff. I won't because A: I at least try to practice good OPSEC, and B: We may be going back near there because of the high Abu Jackass per capita rate in that area. So without further ado, here's our storyline for the week:

We left to infil during hours of darkness, and had to pick up the scout platoon on our way out the O'Ryan gate. I apologize for the blurry picture, but anything further than pic 2 had lots of dust flare from where we had just driven the trucks in the area.


Here are a couple of our guys ready to go. One of our local national (LN) interpreters asked that I not post his face in photos for his family's safety. I am of course more than happy to oblige.



Our position was adjacent to a canal, at a crossing point. Of course the 'crossing point' was a 2x4 and plywood 'bridge' that I wouldn't trust to hold a squad of US soldiers at once. It protested my 'me plus bodyarmor' weight of less than 250#. But it worked.


Can't complain too much, as though our area was swampy, where truck 3 was headed the road itself was over-hydrated (read: soft). With the 25-ton bunker on wheels, the result was pretty predictable. It's good that we had only the week before gotten all of our tow-strap procedures and attachment arrangements squared away.


This adventure didn't dampen the truck 3 crew spirits:


Next, we have some of the Jundis (enlisted soldiers) on the way out, clearing across a field:


This of course brought some of the locals out to see what was going on:


Edit: I was remiss in noting that the truck 3 element pics were not taken with my camera, but were in fact provided by our own CPT Ryan.