medicating in the sun, pinch doses of laudanum

Well, summer is officially starting to come on in central Iraq. We've entered month three without much of a hitch, with the exception of the monotony, it's not all that bad. It's getting rather warm here on a daily basis. Since we're working 11:30 pm to 11:30 am, we get to experience a bit of the famous Iraqi sun. My hands and face are starting to get a bit of sun. I imagine by the time I'm home on leave, I should have a pretty swell "army tan."
Anyway, it starts getting warm here by about nine o'clock in the morning. Lately, it's also been a touch humid. We're on the tail end of the rainy season, so on occasion it will spit for a few minutes and then quit. That makes it positively miserable. I can't wait for the real heat of summer. Not that I'm anxious for it, but I've never quite experienced 130 degrees before. It'll be a "life experience," or whatever I decide to call all the little milestones in this collective rock pile.

In other news, we got a new copier at the CRSP. I know, in the real world that's kind of hum-drum, but here that's monumental. It makes my life a thousand times easier and a million times more efficient. Instead of laboriously researching and printing off the convoy commanders' paperwork, I can now quickly fire out my approvals, and make copies for them, so they have records for their higher-ups. Yaaay!
We also had to call the fire department because the KBR forklift driver punctured a drum of hydraulic fluid. Nothing really cool happened, except for the fact that a fire truck came, and you all know how much I like fire trucks. The KBR data entry clerk, Jamie, was positively enamored with one of the firemen. I guess it made her day.
Aside from all that, I guess the only news is that my promotion packet went winging its way to Cleveland last week, in hopes that the promotion board convenes sometime soon, and I haven't missed it. Not to worry, though, because my First Sergeant is working dilligently to get me promoted, so I'm not worried. If I have missed the Cleveland board, then we'll be seeking someone's approval here. The Army's promotion system is whack. I won't go into great detail here, that's for another rant. OK, I'm going to go soak up some AC and take a nap. It's going to hit 108 this weekend.

I once had a kitty named Noonish!

Ok, there's been an update on exactly what happened last week. I guess it was actually a VBIED that blew up nearby. It was really loud all the same.
It can, on occasion, be kind of placid here. Each morning I take the long walk down the Class VII (major end-items) lane and take a look at any inventory discrepancies from the night before or see what is or is not in the yard. If you stop and listen, you can here the honking of horns and the hustle and bustle of Baghdad. It's really not that much different than any other city, except that every once in a while it gets punctuated by a mortar being fired.
I was out there the other morning, about five days ago, checking on a vehicle that needs to leave the yard, when I heard a dull thump and a very nasally whistle. Several moments later there was a boom and a puff of black smoke over on antenna hill, which is in Camp Liberty. Almost instantly after the first was fired, a second thump and zhweeeee! and of course, the boom at Liberty. Next thing you know, a gun fight breaks out over at ECP 4.
It was kind of neat.
Anyway, in other news, it's been getting warmer, which usualy means the insurgents get a bit bolder. Night time is a good time for them to attack, and they've been trying to get their jollies off occasionally lately. We don't get a lot of hits at all, but Liberty and Victory get hit relatively often. Of course, with the "surge," everyone is targeting the smaller patrol bases that aren't necessarily as well fortified as the FOBs are. That's where the messes up in Diyala province and around Baquba is occurring.
There's always a little bit of good no matter what, though, since about a week ago we found these little guys:

i promise they're not dead

We haven't named them yet, but I'm thinking of naming one Dusty, since it's so dusty here. They're both males. Unfortunately, the white one got bit in the chest the other day by a much larger cat, but I've been treating the wounds to try and prevent an abcess and he's looking good.

this one got hurt, but he's getting better

They came in on a crate from somewhere, and we think they either got abandoned or separated from their mother. Since we're technically not allowed to have pets or mascots, we keep them hidden near the rear guard shack.

pfc proctor manning the rear gate, i told him i'd give louisville a "shout-out"

When they get older, they'll have free run of the area and will probably hunt the mice and rats in the yard. They're going to become our natural pest control, and it's my personal mission to make sure they escape euthanasia. They've come a long way since they got here. When we found them they were mangy and had really matted fur, and were, frankly, kind of sickly. A bit of milk and lots of water and canned poultry has solved that. Now I'm treating the white one's wounds with a daily hydrogen peroxide wash and some triple antibiotic ointment. I don't have anything for the cat internally, since the only antibiotics I have are 500mg amoxicillin, which would do so much damage to the felines internal flora that it would more likely make it much, much more sick than any better. Good wound treatment and ensuring proper eating and hydration is usually the best medicine.

this one might be dusty

Thus, if anyone has any suggestions for their names, I will gladly take them. Like I said, I think I'm going to try and name one Dusty (on Kristen's suggestion). But, I'll take anything that you have to offer!
I guess we had Earth Day the other day. Of course, the Army doesn't really care too much to try and improve the environment. We are still using giant diesel generators for all of our power needs here, and there is absolutely no decent infrastructure set up. I kind of understand it here, since this probably isn't going to be a permanent installation, but I certainly hope that up in Balad at Camp Anaconda, which is possibly slated to be permanent, they have some better things set up in terms of power geration. You could most certainly make good use of both solar and wind power here, and to some degree, hydroelectric. I'm not sure exactly how the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates are, but there seems to be enough water to push a few turbines. Anything must be better than constatly burning diesel and JP-8, not to mention the prohibitive cost of all this fuel. Someone's pockets have to be lined, I guess.

Oh well, happy *belated* Earth Day, everyone, and just be sure to remember that we don't have anywhere else to live.

UPDATE:
4-26-07 Well, I guess they found the kittens today. I'm not sure when they took them, but my supervisor said that they did. Hopefully they either get them good homes, which is unlikely, or they quickly and painlessly euthanize them. This is stupid.

Fire on the (trash) Mountain

What an eventful day! I came in to work the other evening, since I work 11:30 pm to 11:30 am, and it was kind of sprinkly. Shortly thereafter, it became a torrential downpour, complete with thunder and lightning. This continued on most of the night. We had to suspend operations on account of the lightning, and a convoy didn't want to download because of the mud. We use a RTCH (Rough Terrain Container Handler) to pick up and move our shipping containers. It weighs a whole lot, so when its loaded down with a 60,000 pound shipping container it doesn't exactly stop on a dime. Not much was done last night.

slop

i'm sinking!!

If you want to see some good pics of the great flood of '07, go and check out Dan's blog. He got some good shots this morning, while we had some thunder of our own to worry about.
We work fairly close to the edge of the base, near Entry Control Point 4, the construction materials yard, an up-armor yard and the dump. Lately, information has suggested that the insurgents were testing defenses at various points around the perimeter. With a thunderstorm on, it was the perfect time to lob in a few rounds, since from a distance, the explsions might be mistaken for thunder. There we were, at about 7:30 am, when all of a sudden a tremendous BOOM! shook the entire trailer. We all stopped and looked at each other, and headed for the bunker. From outside, we could see the smoke from the round detonating about 3-400 meters away. It was kinda neat. Shortly afterward, the chatter of machine guns and small arms fire filled the air. After about ten minutes of wearing all of our gear and waiting at the ready, we were given the all clear.

it's not much, but at least it has a view

Now, some of you might be worried by this. Don't be, because the insurgency trains their mortar gunners to be deadly accurate and to always plot and hit their target head on. I think that in this case, there was a particulary threatening piece of trash that had to be eliminated, because their intended target was the dump.

tactically speaking, this is the most important part of the base

Iin other news, we have decided to open a coffee shop here at the CRSP. We have made friends over at the DRMO (Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office) Yard and they gave us a couple of nice high-top cafe tables and four chairs. If anyone would like to donate an espresso machine, it would be greatly appreciated. I also need a few green Starbucks aprons.

it's certified free trade, even in the third world

Now, in other news, we have a new chariot to ferry us back and forth from the CRSP Yard to Striker. It's a bus!! We had a bus when we first got here, but when the other unit left the bus was taken away. We spent our first month having to ride in the back of a Humvee. I guess it's kind of like hazing....maybe? Anyway, now we're living the good life...with A/C, a radio and real seats, albeit covered with plastic, in case we make a mess. I guess none of us ever truly grow up, at least in the eyes of dear old Uncle Sam.

one word: de-luxe

Lastly, I wanted to wish Mom a happy belated birthday (it was the eighth), and I also want to send out my condolences to everyone who knew Toby, who got put down the other night. He was a good kitty, and I hope that he and Guinness find each other in kitty heaven and play a lot. We also have to mourn the passing of another American soldier, one who's company I really enjoyed, though we never served together. He too was something of a malcontent, but his war was far more just. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr died the other night. We'll all miss him! Go to the library! Read Slaughterhouse Five! (It's about his time in a POW camp during WWII, sort of) Read Breakfast of Champions! Read all of them! Peace!

1922-2007

Baby, You Can Drive My Car

Well, this week I decided I would show you a little more of what we do at work. This focuses mainly on the cooler end of the job: the vehicles. You all saw earlier in the blog that I got to drive a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, but I also get to play with other vehicles to. Hence, this will be my "Tribute to the Vehicles of the U.S. Army."

We use a lot of different vehicles, especially when at war. There are the more common warfighter vehicles, but what a lot of people don't understand is that there's a very large logistical footprint needed to support the fighting force. That's what we do, basically.

Just about everything we use is armored. Take this bulldozer, for example. It usually has an open canopy, but it has been up-armored to help protect it against small arms fire. Most of the time, when a new base is being built, they don't get access to concrete blast walls like we have, so until those come, they have to build large, earthen berms. That's where Mr. Dozer helps out.

We also up armor other civilian-style vehicles, like semi trucks. As I'm sure you all know, the military is spread very thin here, so we use many contractors, like third country nationals. They are called "whites," and they drive mainly Mercedes and Saab Scania trucks, all up-armored. It's funny to see, since the only thing that they preserve when they put on the armor is the badge on the front of the truck. There's a gaudy brown truck going down the road, and what catches your eye is the shiny Mercedes logo.

Aside from the civilian style vehicles, we have many vehicles that were designed exclusively for use in the Armed Forces. Perhaps the most familiar is the M998 High Mobility, Multi-purpose, Wheeled Vehicle, more affectionately known as the Hummvee. This old workhorse has been in service for about twenty or so years now, and has gone through many lives. The most recent incarnation is the M1114 Up-Armored Humvee. It is retrofitted with "frag 5" blast resistance kits, which I believe are a type of reactive armor. It increases the overall weight of the vehicle by about 3 or 4,000 pounds, and makes each door weigh about four hundred pounds. The addition of all the armor and ballistic glass in the turret makes it really top-heavy, resulting in the infamous "roll-over." We had all those simulations in Kuwait, and I have been in an M1114 for less than a mile in the country of Iraq. Good training.


Now, the Humvee can serve several roles. Most of the time, it is a "gun truck," or more simply, convoy security. Other times "gun truck" can mean a vehicle on a combat patrol. Either way, they are still the same vehichle with a really big gun on top (usually a M2 .50 cal machine gun).
When it is serving as a convoy support vehicle, it is usually escorting "whites," or it is escorting "blues," which are us and all of our allies (Britain). I already told you about the civilian trucks, so let me enlighten you on a few of the systems we use for moving cargo.

The first is the M915. This is just a simple bobtail semi tractor that is used to haul flatbed trailers. Not too special, but necessary nonetheless.
An upgrade to that is the M1070 HETS. This is the Heavy Equipment Transport System used in today's military to haul the real big stuff.


This guy is a monster. It has a maximum payload of 140,000 pounds on its trailer, which is supported by load leveling, side to side independent suspension on forty tires. It even automatically steers. This has room for up to six people, and when not in use as a seat, the benches in the rear of the cab will transform into bunks for the driver and assistant. Pretty cool, huh?

Our next exhibit is the PLS, or Palletized Loading System is another cool cat. This is a variation of the HEMTT system. That stands for Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck. The PLS is the M983 version, fitted with a Material Handling Crane, which you can see in the picture.


This crane, with the ten foot boom, is capable of loading 14, 620 pounds. What makes it super cool, though, is that it loads the cargo on a flatrack, which is a platform that has a loop extending from the front, perpendicular to the surface, which allows the cargo to be raised off of the ground and placed on the truck while maintaining a constant parallel with the ground. I'll try to get some pictures of it in action. It is strong enough to lift a fully up-armored M1114 onto its back.

As all of you know, I'm sure, IED's are a big problem over here. They've been used in one form or another for years by groups like the NRA, Hezbollah, Hamas and most prolifically, the Tamil Tigers. Oddly enough, it has taken this conflict for us to develop doctrine for roadside bombs and suicide bombers. We're fighting back, though. We've taken technology and vehicles that South Africa has been using for a very long time and put them to our use. These vehicles, of which I will show you two, are primarily for the engineers and explosive ordinance disposal teams. Thew go out and sweep routes, as aptly named "route clearance teams."
The first is the RG-31, affectionately called the Cougar. This is a mine resistant, lightly armored vehicle.


It is often used in place of the Humvee in route clearance and EOD teams, since it's much better at taking the blow. If you look closely, you can kind of see the v-shaped hull hidden beneath all of the external storage compartments and fenders. It's also much stronger because it has no side doors. There is one door in the back. There's rumor that all the Hummvees will be replaced with these in the years to come.
This guy has a big brother, too. It's the RG-33, or the Buffalo.


The Buffalo is a much larger 6x6 model, also with the v-shaped hull, and the rocket resistant caging on the outside. This is the big boy of ordinance disposal devices. It has very, very seldom ever been defeated by an IED. Note the boom on the passenger side. It's got a big slotted scoop on the end and there's a camera on the top. EOD teams can pick up, manipulate and examine ordinance from the safety of the vehicle. The vehicle's resistance and boom have earned it the nickname "the Claw" by insurgents. Apparently, there are places in Baghdad where the graffiti says, "kill the claw," obviously written by foiled bomb-makers.

i'm in the buffalo

Well, I saved the best for last. When I think of Army, I think of these:

this is my favorite

This is a M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank. This, like the carrier for the Navy, is the grandaddy of land warfare force projection. I won't go into all of the wicked details about it here, but you can check out more info about vehicles at www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/index.html and see for yourself. Needless to say, it is split up into two compartments: the turret and the driver's seat. You drive it in a recumbent position, and the compartment itself is tiny.

leg room is not prime

See what I mean? Three people sit in the turret to man the guns. This thing has a 7.62mm machine gun mounted coaxially with the main gun, which in itself is a 120mm smoothbore cannon. The loader also has a 7.62mm machine gun on a skate mount, and the commander has a .50 cal M2 machine gun. Everything is super high tech computerized.

view from the top

This is a pic from on top of the turret looking down. The seat that is most visible is the commander's, and the gunner sits below and in front of him. The sliver of seat that can be seen at the bottom is where the loader sits. Both the loader and commander have hatches, so they both can sit up and man the weapons when there is no need to be "buttoned up." The commander can also aim and fire the main gun independently of the gunner, and when all hatches are closed, has 360 degree vision due to the various sighting instruments and periscopes. Here's your virtual tour:

commander's stuff

loader's chair

gunner's place

i'm a tank commander!

I think that wraps it up for this time around, but I'll post again soon. I've got some quality of life issues to address. Talk to you soon!

Muddy, Minus the Waters

It rained not too long ago. This normally would seem like a pretty trivial event, but it throws a few wrenches into things here.
I'm not too sure about you, but when I think of the desert, I tend to think of one of two things. First, I think of the obvious: something like the Sahara, the Kuwaiti desert or the Anbar desert to the west of here. Secondly, I think of the high desert, like the Chihuahuan or Sonoran deserts in New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico. Baghdad, on the other hand is neither of those. We have trees, and some vegetation, but mainly we have dust. Nothing but dust. We call it moon dust, due to its resemblance to the fine powder that coats the surface of the moon. It gets everywhere, and it's not even the hot and dry season yet. Back to my story, however. It rained here.

proof of life

When a fine powder gets wet, several things can happen. You can get too much water, and a slurry is formed, which is what happens when there is a lot of rain. You also can get lucky, and there will be so much water that all of the powder will dissolve and run off. Not likely, but ti could happen. lastly, which seems to be the occurence here, is you get a very dry mud. Sticky, gloopy, smelly mud. Now the military, in their infinite wisdom, decided that it would be a good idea to put gravel down everywhere. Seems sensible enough, until your boots get muddy. You might as well put on five pound ankle weights at that point, because the mud causes the gravel to stick to your boots and then you walk funny. It kind of helps get a little bit of the mud off, though.
You all have seen a picture of the CRSP yard, where we work. It is all dust and dirt. When it rains there, it gets gross. Mud gets everywhere, and we just don't care. It's kind of cool, actually, to just be able to stomp your feet as you walk in the door, knowing that you're making a huge mess, like this one:

only part of it is mine

It's neat! I've also got a few pictures of the muddy CRSP yard:

it's kind of soupy sometimes, too

this thing is worthless

In other news, we went back to twelve hour shifts, because people can't follow simple instructions and relay messages between the three shifts. Hopefully it's just temporary until we get some standards set. It's not as though we're working hard, it's just that twelve hours takes a lot of time out of the day, for things like PT and getting stuff done. So, speaking of work, I have a few pictures of where I work:

my desk

what i see each night

this is what the customer sees

the view from our "chariot"

And lastly, since Kristen was chiding me for not having more pictures of me here, here's a shot of me "hard" at work:

workin hard, hardly workin, hey man, you know me

Well, I think that's about it for now. Oh yeah, I am at a critical low on hot sauce. I like the more flavorful sauces, not the vinegary ones, like Tabasco and Crystal. Send sauces like Cholula or Melinda's, ok? Bye!

AFN doesn't stand for Awesome Fun Network

Yeah, I know I said that I wouldn't wait a week to post, but I'm in a conflict zone, and I can do what I want. Anyway, there have been a few new developments here. We've gotten some "assistance" at the CRSP yard, so now we are down to eight hour shifts. I say "assistance" because most of the people are lazy bums. We still do most of the work, but it's getting better. I don't think that active duty army likes getting bossed around by reservists. Especially not when they outrank me, and I'm doing the bossing! Ha!
So we went down to eight hour shifts, which is nice. I now have time to work out, which I have been doing more of, and time to do absolutely nothing, which is even nicer. My main sources of entertainment are my PSP (the best investment I've made in a while), books (obviously), and the pitiful Armed Forces Network. We get something like eight channels, but they're not very predictable. Imagine having all the channels currently available on TV, selecting one show at random from each channel, and placing it somewhere in a lineup on a small variety of networks. We get Bill O'Reilly back to back with Wolf Blitzer, Katie Couric next to Sportscenter, and AFN Movies has the worst selection ever. They played The Big Chill the other day. Most of the people here weren't even born when that movie came out, I think. Anyway, at least we have some variety, but it's still a propaganda machine. You should see some of the commercials.
Well, I digress. I was talking about work, which is going ok. We seem to be having one technical glitch right after the other. About two weeks ago, our database crashed. As soon as it seemed as though we were going to get things running like normal again, some yahoo goes and runs into a telephone pole, thus knocking out all internet to a better part of the Seitz Annex part of Camp Liberty. This wouldn't be too problematic, except for the fact that our database is hosted on a network drive, and all of our phones are VoIP. Hence, no internet=no working CRSP yard. But, the show must go on, so we've been doing everything on paper until the lines are repaired and we get service back. It should happen soon. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that pretty soon I will have a phone number here, so if you want to call me, I am usually around between 1:30 and 3:00 am eastern time, or 10:00 am to 2:30 pm eastern. My number is (513)407-9295. I'll let you know when it's working. It's Vonage, so I get local calling anywhere in the world that there's an internet connection. You people had better call me, because the internet here is $65 per month!!
Last but not least, I have a few pics of the lunar eclipse that happened about a week and a half ago. They're not great, but then again, my digital camera's not too hot about taking nighttime pictures of something that's 230,000 miles away. My lens only gets 3x optical zoom.

early on

a little further on

it's eating all the moon cheese!

totality, the coolest part

CRSP-y Critters

Hello, everyone! As I'm sure you can see and have heard, we've made it safely to lovely Camp Striker, Iraq. It is part of a compound called VBC, which stands for Victory-BIAP Complex. It's nothing more than a fancy name for all the camps that surround the Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). We are in Striker, which is the more remote of the three major camps here. The other two are Camp Victory and Camp Liberty. I got to see them in my quest for a Playstation Portable, and are they nice.
I understand that it's been a week since my last post, but trust me, things have been busy. We had a little "incident" regarding the database at work and that's had me working like mad to get it caught back up. Now, back to the story...
Liberty is where the biggest PX and Bazaar are, so it's more of a shopping destination than anything else. (I got the PSP, by the way, but I had to order it from Amazon, stupid PX.) Either way, both of the posts have trees and vegetation, where we have concrete and rocks. I guess that's because we, at Striker, live about 300 meters away from "the wire," or the external boundary of the Complex. Apparently, the last unit that was here said that mortars used to get shot over their heads towards the airport, but fortunately no live rounds landed here. They had one dud hit the ground, though. All in all, I guess it isn't too bad.
We work at what is called a CRSP (pronounced crisp) which stands for Central Receiving and Shipping Point. My platoon also runs a Class I (sustenance items) warehouse. I work at the CRSP. We deal mainly in containers, large loads and Class VII (major end-items) stuff. I work in the office. I practically run the place on many occasions, being the principal data clerk for night shift. Since we work with class VII, we usually get in new vehicles that are going somewhere in this general area. Alot of what we get are up-armored Humvees, but occasionally we get really cool stuff, like this Bradley Fighting Vehicle that I drove around a bit:

grrrrr!

It was neat. Oh yeah, this is what the CRSP looks like:

that's cargo section. guess what goes there?

It's not too much to look at, but it's something to do.
The other day we had to go to Victory for a short class on CMST (it's a container management system... more work stuff) and the class was held inside of one of the buildings of the Al Faw palace complex. The entire complex was built as a hunting and relaxation retreat for Sadaam to commemorate the Iraqi victory over Iran in the Al Faw peninsula. That's down south, where Basrah and Umm Qasr are, on the water. In order to "faithfully" recreate the feel of being coastal, there are several man made lakes here, and the palace is sitting smack in the middle of one of them. Here are some pictures:

the water smells

i think that's a mosque

yes, that mural's of their entire army

al faw palace, it's on a small island

hey honey, i bought us a house!

Anyway, that's about all I've got for the moment. We had a pretty cool total lunar eclipse here the other night, and I got some ok pictures of it, but I really could've used my 35mm to capture it perfectly. Oh well, I'll still put up the pics that I have.
Oh yeah, I promise that I won't wait a week to post anything new, ok? Check back soon!