Drinking the Tigris: What I Couldn't Say 1 :: 03. 7.09
Something is brewing around here. Several flights coming in to Baghdad from Istanbul. Very irregular. Small aircraft. We usually only see flights from Jordon or Kuwait. Bunch of FBI moving. What does FBI do abroad? I know they have certain jurisdictions. I think it must have to do with the Kurds. The Turks are still bombing N. Iraq now and then. I hope we're not selling them out. Stateless people always get screwed.
We got a call yesterday to take a few sets of body armor down the street for some incoming DVs (distinguished visitors). My boss Johnny went down there, turned out one of them was Angelina Jolie coming in for a UN deal. He came back talking about how pretty her lips were. Damn I'm jealous!
Drinking the Tigris: What I Couldn't Say 2 ::
(These are posts I wrote last year, but wasn't comfortable posting for various reasons (didn't want to get canned!))
Written Feb 2, 2008
Last night was my last night shift for a while. Here's a breakdown of how it went.
Woke up at 630pm. Huge zit on forehead. Look like a unicorn. Also out of bottled water in my room, brushed teeth with mouthwash.
In the office at 700pm
Went to chow hall with Hawk, ate chicken and broccoli on rice, drank ice tea. Talked about up coming UFC fight and Super Bowl. Took ice cream to go.
900pm called Donald to let him know how many we were bringing over for the Rhino run into the IZ.
Checked television news for run up to Obama/Clinton debate in L.A.
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Drinking the Tigris: What I Couldn't Say 3 ::
(These are posts I wrote last year, but wasn't comfortable posting for various reasons (didn't want to get canned!))
Feb 2008
Today I was thrown for a loop. Most days are near duplicates of the one previous, so it doesn't take much.
First I picked up the inbound flight from Kuwait and there was a really attractive woman in the group, that was a highlight.
Then I went with my boss over to camp Dublin for the first time. Dublin is a couple miles down the road. It's the camp where the US trains a lot of the Iraqi police. There's been controversy about it being infiltrated by the militias/insurgents and also about the efficacy of the programs themselves. I'd never been there before. Over the last year we've borrowed helmets from them, so our mission was to return the 120 that we owed. Because I didn't have a pass, I hid in the back of the truck to get through the security checkpoint. Yes, that's extremely dumb, but my boss was driving and it actually seemed really funny while we were doing it. This was my view in the back of the truck.
Scattered on the floor in the photo are 120 brand new helmets in bubble wrap. The price? A whopping $38,000. I still can't believe it. It's a tiny example of the norm here. EVERYTHING costs huge money. Each helmet is over $350.00.
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Drinking the Tigris: What I Couldn't Say 4 ::
(These are posts I wrote last year, but wasn't comfortable posting for various reasons (didn't want to get my ass canned!))
Feb 2008
Now I feel bad. The other day I said Border Patrol was lame. This morning I picked up the same group I wrote about earlier, now headed out to Mosul, and they were cool guys. Very down to Earth. Though in my defense, four out of five did have a mustache.
Today I'll bust on the Air Force.
WalMart shoppers of America, when you say, "I support the troops" what you really should say is something like, "I support the Army and the Marines but if I was stuck in Iraq I'd want to be in the Air Force or Navy cause they've got it a hell of a lot easier." The Army is shouldering this thing. These guys are doing 15-month deployments. In that time they get less than three weeks vacation home. Damn! Maybe you have to be here to get it, but that is a very tall order. The Marines are legit too, but they're so much smaller than the Army. The Navy isn't around too much. Their special ops guys are in the mix I guess. But the Air Force, these fools have it too easy. Their deployment is only four months long. Army: 15 months. Air Force: 4 months. It's not the same thing.
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Drinking the Tigris: What I Couldn't Say 5 ::
(These are posts I wrote last year, but wasn't comfortable posting for various reasons (didn't want to get canned!))
Today is Feb 13, 2008. Was a long day for some reason. Here are some rambling notes from a tired body.
This afternoon a skinny guy with a goofy looking shirt showed up at our door. He was Senior Executive Service, which means he's pretty high ranking in the State Dept. He wanted his own room but we wouldn't give it to him. Of coarse we could of, but since he was so proud of himself, seemed like he needed some humbling. He said repeatedly that he was the civilian equivalent of a one star general. I thought that was a jackass of a thing to say. A lot of State Department personnel are cool, but plenty of them are whiny. Not much grit. Anyway, the guy went round and round for an hour and a half looking for a crack in the system. Damn. Wore me out. I wanted to grab him by the collar and tell him to buck up a little and drop it. One star generals don't cry.
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Drinking the Tigris: What I Couldn't Say 6 ::
(These are posts I wrote last year, but wasn't comfortable posting for various reasons (didn't want to get canned!))
From July 4, 2007
In the cafeteria last night, they had a huge Statue of Liberty cake for the Fourth of July, thing was about five feet long and I got served the left armpit. Pretty fresh. They had the wrong arm up in the air. I think the cooks, who are almost all from India, are being subversive. Very, very subversive.
I hate all the "I love what your doing over there" commercials for the "troops", they seem patronizing, but I have to say I'm pretty blown away by the sacrifice "the troops" are making, the Army people in particular. They're rolling around in 110 degree heat, in full battle rattle, they're getting shot at, blown up, don't make much dough and they have incredibly long deployments. These Air Force people have it made. They're mainly working in support, have a deployment around 4 months long and they're out of here. The regular Army is doing 12 months plus and loads of them are on their third round. If the bad guys every come over the wall (or even get close enough that I can see them on the horizon) I'll be voting with my feet as I haul balls out of here for the Army base where the guys with the working guns are.
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Drinking the Tigris: What I Couldn't Say 7 :: 03. 8.09
(These are posts I wrote last year, but wasn't comfortable posting for various reasons (didn't want to get canned!))
From June, 2007
Got some news from reggae musician Fitzgerald in Malawi today:
"Hello cy
Fine
thanks for the cash you sent it reach me and helped to pay hospital bills
for my son.
my silence is b coz l went out now am back but my son condition has improved
lhave restarted my album kadundulu 3
6 english songs 3 chichewa 1 tumbuka songs lwill be in studio from first week of
august you will haer more soon how isit there. fitz and edo
tisanganenge."Thanks to those who kicked down and bought Kandandulu 2. I'm going to help Fitz out a little more to get him through the rest of the record. If you haven't seen it yet, the video I made with Fitz is in the April 07 archive.
Also, a big enthusiastic thank you to everyone who bought a copy of The Troubles in Zolokere. To date the DVD has raised $1300 dollars, most of which Jake has already put into the school project (see the Malawi Jake link). The story behind the DVD is pretty good. One of Jake's closest friends funded me to make the DVDs and he's been selling copies out of his family business: an auto body shop in Newark, New Jersey. Damn I love that. An artsy advocacy film about women's issues in Africa and a Peace Corps volunteer being hustled out of a body shop in New Jersey and out of a closet in Imperial Beach toward the same end. Tony, I love you man. Thanks for helping me help out. Jake, I'm going through the footage and there's lots of the school in there, be proud man, be really proud.
So around here things get weirder and weirder. As I got ready for work yesterday there were three explosions.
Continue reading "Drinking the Tigris: What I Couldn't Say 7" »
Drinking the Tigris: Final Reminder :: 03. 9.09
If I needed any reminders of why I'm leaving Iraq this Sunday, I got them this week. Two nights ago our area was hit with a rocket; big one that landed somewhere just outside the base parameter. It's been more than six months since we had incoming. Took me a second to register it, then bail for the shelter. It was only one shot, but a thumper.
Tonight is a bad dust storm. Kind of a mix really. A tiny bit of rain mixed with fog and loads of dust. With these storms comes gooey eyeballs, allergies, headaches, and massive delays and cancellations of flights, so the whole rhythm of the air port goes to pot. It's a great time to get out.
This page contains all entries posted in March 2009. They are listed from oldest to newest.
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