Galaxieman's Garage

Merry Christmas from The Suck

Strangest Christmas yet, however we're making the best of it. The DFAC staff are always very good about celebrating holidays and trying to get everyone in the holiday spirit, and the command groups from the units on base did a good job with the serving line, which is always nice.

The guy checking IDs was on the lookout for Ho, Ho, Ho...

A certain North Pole resident was sighted, in the need of some people fuel:

Reindeer parking was apparently allowed inside the building:

They had a couple of manger scene decorations out:

Later, after the sun went down, I stopped by Camp Dracula (the Romanian section of the FOB) and got a shot of their Christmas tree lights:

Since my mom sent me some Connectrix to occupy my free time, I felt inspired by the season:

Daly and Stangle were also in the holiday spirit:

All in all, a most surreal Christmas experience. Glad to have a couple of friends here to eat Christmas dinner with, and really weirded out by the weather, but still missed being around family. All I can really say at this point is blatant theft from Dickens' tiniest character. "God bless us, every one."

Same circus, different clowns

Following our re-mission from points further north, we've finally settled into a routine here. Daily training occurs with the assistance of some CF troops from our partnered battalion. The IA unit is newly stood up, so there are the associated growing pains, but progress comes in leaps and bounds instead of inch by inch. We're trying to get some of the baseline systems and procedures in place as they're standing up, since it's easier to shape a thing from the start than to re-shape it after it's constructed incorrectly, but it's definitely no picnic.

No good blog post would be complete without some pictures, and this one will be no different. Doesn't matter what army you're in, if they have a PT manual, rifle PT is in there. It sucks, big-time, but hey, that's what it's supposed to do. Witness the duck walk, in all it's glory!

The Romanians are an incredibly competent unit, and their soldiers are very squared away. Here they demonstrate 360-degree security when regrouping at a rally point after breaking contact.

The IA squad looks similar, with a little coaching:

This picture was taken inside the shelter on the training area we were using to demonstrate house clearing procedures. Simple 4 man stack, assume a square room, etc, etc. I went inside to observe after we'd done the demonstration, and was struck by the shadows cast on the corrugated plastic walls by the assembled entry team outside.

With the exception of my leave post from back in the states, I generally just have pics of other guys doing the training, since I'm usually the one behind the camera. I handed off the Canon to SFC Shuck while I was acting as a demonstrator for the 4-man stack, and he got a couple of really good pictures. That it's me in the photos is just a cool bonus.

4-man stack outside:

1st man in:

Note: before any of you tactical types leave comments about what we're doing wrong, remember we were training inside and outside actions for each man. Door orientation, what to do with windows, etc, etc... not covered yet.

Ur

Like where Abraham was from. We're there. Do a Google Maps search for "Ur, Iraq", and we're about 3 miles northeast of the spot that comes up. Work continues, more on that later. For now, here are a couple of edited images of the Ziggurat just northeast of the main post here. They're sized for native viewing on a widescreen, at various resolutions:

1024 x 768