Night Flight

THE MIDDLE EAST, AP- Today, in world news, a shocking new piece of evidence has come forward in the United States' supposed "prisoner flights," moving detainees and other prisoners resulting from the war in Iraq. An unknown insider has come forward with pictures and some seriously incriminating evidence regarding the treatment and eventual living quarters of these fated souls.
It has been well known that for some time the US government has been using stops in Europe and the Middle East to shuttle detainees to "secret" camps all around the world. What isn't known is the abuse and neglect that these people face in these horrid situations. They are taken to strange and unknown places and put onto planes like cattle, forced to stay in the cargo hold. They are intimidated by the presence of live ammunition, though most of them are too tired and weak to fight. Furthermore, on their arrival, they are placed in cold, hard camps, reminiscent of old German stalags. See for yourself:

middle of the night... perhaps Ali al Salem?

cattle live better than this

eek!

my "street"

our house

send me stuff!!

Address!!

Hey everyone, I'm currently working on getting a whole bunch of pictures posted, but in the meantime, I finally received my address in Iraq. Here it is:

Michael Muntifering
68th CSSB
192 QM Co
APO AE 09344

I'll get all those pics up as soon as possible!

Valen...Valentino?

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!! It's a lovely February day here, especially if you've witnessed it since 3:30 in the morning! You can see below how happy PV2 Witt was with the situation.

We spent the night in the field again last night, much to our chagrin, only this time we were practicing snap TCP's, which are nothing more than really quickly assembled traffic control points. They are mainly used in a combat patrol situation, where a small group of vehicles can block traffic and possibly interdict enemy movement. We began training for this yesterday afternoon with some classes and such. This morning we got up nice and early and went out to do them for real. I was the medic in the bunch, and also the patrol leader's driver. This meant that all I had to do was sit in the Humvee and be ready to move.

rollin' and tumblin'

Since it was the leader's vehicle, we also had the interpreter with us. He was a nice chap, from Egypt. We chatted all about soccer and stuff, and we told him about Valentine's Day, which he had no previous knowledge of. After struggling through the proper pronunciation, we finally hit the nail on the head: a day where guys spend alot of money to impress women that otherwise may pay them no heed whatsoever. He seemed pretty impressed, and maybe was even a bit eager to come to America to woo a few ladies for himself! He kept taking our rifles, pointing them into the air and shouting, "I'm a tourist, I'm a tourist!" It was quite funny.

me, Van and the translator

We saw some neat sights on the road, mainly these dirt mounds:

The big ones are all old Iraqi tank emplacements from Desert Storm back in '91. What's funny is that we're in northern Kuwait, not far from the Udairi Range, and the emplacements all face northwest, which is back towards the Iraqi border. We invaded from Saudi, which from this point is more due south than anything else. No wonder they lost the war.

Here's a few more good pictures from the day:

not what you want to run into

you'd want to run into this even less

beef ravioli MRE...hmmmm

I have one last complaint to speak of. Notice in the MRE above, there are two boxes. One is the main dish, and the other is usually some kind of side or dessert. In this case it is really bad mixed fruit in syrup. Now, after eating this, would I really want to fill out the postcard on the back and send it to someone? Plus, MRE's are meant to be eaten in a field environment, and the last time I checked, the field doesn't include any post offices to speak of. Especially not in places like Iraqistan. Funny, that's all.

Field of Dreams

We just got back from three days in the field. This wasn't all bad, except for the fact that we practically are already living in the field, and this was more of an inconvenience than anything else. Plus, all that they're training us to do is herd these guys:

Here we are in action:

Just kidding! We left midday Saturday, went to a classroom about 16km away from camp and had convoy operations classes until about 6:00pm. We had risen early that morning to go to a briefing on how not to shoot your friends, which was given by a very thickly accented Briton. Did you know that the Mongolian Army has a presence in Iraq? I think that it's somewhere in the teens. From what I've gathered, all that they do is sleep and eat, and then sleep some more. Every once in a while, they try to storm a camp or two, but I think the Great Wall truly broke their collective spirit many, many years ago.
Anyway, back to our field expedition. We got out there at about four in the afternoon, and had some convoy classes. After that, we didn't get any decent food, because we were down to only MRE's, which are a bad last resort. I, needless to say, skipped dinner.
After removing all the chairs from the classroom, we laid out our sleeping bags and were made to sleep on the floor. Keep in mind that this is a very small classroom, measuring only about thirty feet by fifteen, and we slept forty-six people on the floor. Not cool.

can't move... must turn over!

Upon waking the next morning at 4:45, we went to the close quarters marksmanship range, which is just a series of targets placed 25m away. This is the kind of stuff we do to help prepare us to kick down some doors if needed. We practiced turning and firing, walking and shooting, and several other movements. I shot pretty well, as you can see here:

dude talked some smack to me

Here's a far away shot of the range itself:





After firing, which is cool and fun, they remind us that we are still in the Army, and still have to do menial tasks by making us pick up all the expended brass on the range. That's alot of little shells to pick up.

can you see them?

close up on the brass

Did I mention that they forgot to go and pick up our hot breakfast? They did, in fact, leave to get our breakfast around ten or so, by which point we were off of the range, and primed for a good brunch. Dinner was also a fiasco, but more on that later.
After lunch, we returned to our classroom/sleeping quarters for another class on convoy ops. We did that, and then pciked up our trucks and went out to practice the route for the next day's training lane. Upon returning, we had learned that our food had once again been forgotten about, and when we tried to eat some MRE's, we were chided and told that hot food was on its way. We ate at ten o'clock that night, and it was dissappointing to say the least.
Angry and tired, I once again made my home on the floor, and bedded down for the second worse night's sleep I have ever had. The single worse was the preceeding night.
Anyway, the next day we awoke and rolled out on our convoy. It went well, and the sunrise was neat. There's absolutely nothing out here, it kind of makes me wonder why anyone would want to live here, much less try and survive on a nomadic lifestyle, like the bedouins.

if there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from

After the convoy was done, we returned our trucks and boarded the buses to come back to Buehring, but again we were fooled. We waited on a cramped, hot bus that smelled of Juarez for over two hours. Not cool. But once we did get home, we had a nice lukewarm shower and decent hot food. I felt as though I hadn't eaten in days, which I guess I hadn't really eaten in days, to be honest. I also uttered one of the most vile and heinous sentences of my life:

"man, it's good to be back at the DFAC, where we can at least get good food..."

noooooooooo!

I was nearly hanged for that one, and I would have tied the noose.
I think I'll be off now, but check back soon, ok?

eat, drink and be merry

Now, we've all been to Mexico and the likes, some to Europe and beyond, and one thing is usually consistent: dual language product marketing. It's not at all different here, but it's a bit odd to see everyting in english and arabic script. Take this Coke cup, for example:

Is there even a word for "Coke" in arabic? Not too sure here. The same applies for the Lays and the Doritos:

snack food jihad

We also have very disturbing ice cream. Don't get me wrong, it's very tasty (did I mention that there's an ice cream bar inside of every dining hall? It's Baskin Robbins, but I digress...) but the wrappings on the non BR ice cream are kind of weird. It reminds me of bad Afghanistanimation. Here's a nice photo of Dan and me about to "enjoy" a bar apiece:

The duduks' moaning tunes are slowly working their way into my ears.
I also got a picture of a fire truck (for those who don't know, I really like fire trucks):

Aside from that, the food's not all bad. We have some decent living arrangements. We all live in a giant permanent tent, and I have a nice little piece of the action.

Fun, eh? It's like camping, but in a giant tent with 50 other people and power. They say they're climate controlled, but it gets really cold here at night. The thermostat registered 58 degrees at one point this morning, after the sun had come up. Quiet, all you midwesterners, I know you just got 6.4 inches of snow, it's still cold for Kuwait.
Oh well, we have to get up early tomorrow to go do some weapons work, so I'll be off. Au revoir!

PS Happy 2nd Birthday, Mikey!!

Kuwait is Ku-wet

Well, we made it to Kuwait after a nice long plane ride. We left out of Killeen at about 5:30 pm on Monday, the 5th and landed in Kuwait City at approximately midnight on the seventh, I think. After losing nine hours of time and making two stops, one in Bangor, Maine and the other in Hahn, Germany, I had no reference for time whatsoever. I wish we could have had a bit of time to hang out, though. When we landed in Maine, I made all of my last minute phone calls, since cell service is either nonexistent or ridiculously overpriced over here. After a five and a half hour flight, we landed at the former Hahn Airbase near Frankfurt, Germany. It was not the idyllic little European town one might think it to be, unfortunately. Being a former American base, it looked more like the remnants of a concentration camp. Apparently, from what I have gathered online, it is called Frankfurt-Hahn, but it is miles away from Frankfurt itself, and it's not even on the rail.

Hahn is in the middle, but no Frankfurt to be seen

Anyway, we got ushered off of our plane, which was a rather aged DC-10 run by Omni International Airways, and were shuttled to a holding lounge that had a pitiful little Duty Free Shop, a typically touristy Gift Shop, and a couple coffee and snack kiosks. I bought a Coke, which unlike most other foreign Cokes I've had, was kind of dissapointing. I liked the bottle, though. I also got some postcards, one ofwhich will be going to Arnold's, and I'm undecided on who to send the other one to. Don't despair, people! All of you will get mail at some pont. We get free mail here, and I plan on thoroughly abusing that privelige.

everything is a little sideways in Germany...

After liftoff from Hahn, we flew another five hours to Kuwait City, Kuwait. We got on a bunch of buses that had casino carpet for uphosltery and were sent to another holding point (at this time we were beginning to feel alot like cattle). We were made to drink some Arabic water, which I was pleased to see is ISO 9001 certified. It was also only slightly hard, having a mere 50 ppm of hardness. I have been told that a good few people have had kidney stones from the hardness of the water in Iraq. I'll have to find a good way to counteract that.

crazy!

Next we embarked on a two hour drive up to Camp Buehring, which is nothing more than a bunch of semi-permanent structures in the middle of the desert. And, in typical fashion, consistent with this deployment, it looked like this:

trust me, it's wet

We brought it here from Ohio, I think. This was also taken at about six in the morning, and we stil hadn't slept.

After breakfast, which is leaps and bounds better here than in Texas (honestly, how is it possible to get a Mexican omelette half way around the world, but I can't get one two hundred miles from the border?), we were allowed to go to sleep for a while. Then I got up and explored the place, which like I said, is a tent city. Most of them are semi-permanent quonset huts reminiscent of old hangars. We do have some decent facilities, though. I am in a free internet cafe right now. We also have a movie tent, several post exchanges, three dining halls, and many phone banks. The only downside is the sheer flatness of the place. There is absolutely nothing to puctuate the horizon. It's nearly impossible to tell where the sky and land meet. I'll try to get some good pics up of it. That's the only thing that will bother me, I think. It seems as though living in places like Cincinnati and Las Cruces has accustomed me to mountains and hills.



Well, I think I'll wrap this up, and don't forget to check back frequently!

here and gone

Hello everyone! Welcome to the Doctor's office, the blog of Mike Muntifering: deployed soldier and unofficial health care provider to the 192nd Quartermaster Company out of Milan, Ohio. I've been gone since November 8th, 2006 and have traveled to Fort Hood Texas, Fort Harrison, Montana, back to Fort Hood, and this Monday, we head to Kuwait. This is me:

"battle rattle" as they call it

Yes, I am wearing body armor, and that is a rifle slung across my back. Notice I am also drinking coffee. We do a lot of that in the Army. On this day, in particular, we had our farewell ceremony, and our MACOM (major command) commander came down from Minnesota to see us off. He's a Major General, two stars, and apparently does a lot of important stuff, like this:this man commands over 10,000 people, and this is what he does with his day...

Hooray! Coffee for all! These are your tax dollars hard at work, ladies and gentlemen.
Let me fill you in on some of our back story. Like I said, we were deployed from Milan, Ohio on November the eighth. From there we traveled to North Fort Hood, Texas. It's kind of desolate here. All of the buildings are poured concrete floors and cinder block walls, painted a boring white. My friend Dan Van (you can access his blog here) says it is a crappy eggshell, about 40 degree gloss. He's a paint salesman. All of the windows are at eye level, which makes me feel like I'm perpetually in a basement. here's an example, but I doctored the photo a bit to make this seem like a pleasant place:

Pretty, pretty sunset. After a few days, some briefings and shots, and a generally horrid time doing paperwork, we departed for Montana. The post was Fort Harrison, which is just outside of Helena. We were living the life of Riley there, with our single man rooms and the like. It was a good time from the start. Here's my room:nice and organized

It was nice. After a while we began to have "circle meetings," as they were called by Spc. Simmons, where Dan and I drank PBR and listened to Simmons rant about various things.disheveled and fun!

As with all systems' tendency to drift toward chaos, my room followed the laws of entropy. It was also the central meeting point for these "circle meets." Note the empty 18 pack of Miller High Life. It's a good thing that you can't see the trash can, because in all likelihood it was overflowing with beer cans and Bacardi bottles. Not a lot to do in Montana, you see.
At any rate, after a month of all this stuff, which included some really neat times, like climbing nearby Mt. Helena and seeing lots of mule deer, we had to go, our new job skills in tow.

high atop the mountain top

this would make me scared of deer

After a fun time in Montana, we left to go back to Fort Hood. We were there for a week, and then we got to go home!
Upon returning to Texas in early January, we began lots of training to get us ready to go to Iraq. We did things like rifle qualification, combat patrols, convoy exercises, force protection, the gas chamber, and again, lots of paperwork and shots. This time it was dreadful because I had to get my smallpox vaccination. For anyone who doesn't know how this works, it's dreadful. Most vaccines are made from an attenuated virus and injected into you. The virus is attenuated through serial passage, which is a kind of selective breeding for viruses. Not with the smallpox vaccination. It essentially hasn't changed since Edward Jenner gave the first one waaaaay back in 1796.
They take a small needle with two tips and jab your non-dominant shoulder three times. After inducing a small amount of blood, they swab on a paste containing live cowpox virus (a close relative of Vaccina virus, hence the term "vaccine") and proceed to bandage it up. After a few days, it gets gross, like so:

this is real fear

I think that it's going away, however.
That pretty much brings us up to speed, so I'll have to get back to you when something eventful happens, like us leaving. As of now, we fly on Monday on one of these:

That's a DC-10. I had to pull this picture direct off of the Boeing website, under the "out of production category." Thanks again, Uncle Sam. The last one of these bad boys rolled out in 1989. It should be fun.