Vote

I simply couldn't pull the trigger for Obama. In the end it came down to the fact that I could not support the amusingly-named "Employee Free Choice Act" - ie: "card checks" for union organization. This is one of the worst ideas that I've ever heard of in my brief 29 years. It is worth all that the baggage that McCain comes with merely to ensure that "card check" does not pass. Not that I really think that McCain is going to win but here's to hoping...

Rain

I'll try and get a picture of the mud later on...it truly defies description.



This is the water pouring off of the roof...or should I say this is the mud pouring off of the roof...

Full moon must be early

The natives have been restless today...

1) Woke up to a fair amount of SAM (small arms fire) today. I hear quite a bit of gunfire as my CHU is right near one of the training ranges. I suppose the upside is that I can now distinguish range fires with shit going on outside the wire. Likewise, it is pretty easy to tell who is shooting at the larger caliber AKs etc that hajji uses make a much different sound than the M16/M4. Definitely not range fires this AM. I guess I can say I actually learning something during my trip here. lol.

2) Something big went off somewhere later this morning. I was outside taking a break and was not only able to hear it go off but I felt the pressure wave. Good times.

3) Three hours later the "incoming" alarm goes off...which normally is cause for a big yawn. Today, of course, I was taking a shower after chow and was walking back to my CHU in a towel and flip flops. Extra annoying.

My people need to talk to Brother Hajji's people to see if we can schedule a time for them to fire off all of their shit that is more convienient for me. Walking around in a towel and flip flops is a red line.

Christmas in October

Yesterday my television, ipod dock and assorted other things arrived in the mail (thanks mom and dad!). It's amazing what some simple things in the mail do to boost morale...and the Dunkin Donuts coffee certainly didn't hurt.

I had to scrounge some parts from various "vendors" on the economy (various shops that aren't outside the wire but certainly not inside the wire...sort of a DMZ, I guess) to get everything working. Was up until about 0300 0100 getting everything setup. 'Tis nice to not have to watch my CHU-mate's television - particularly since he's always watching the local arabic channels.

Likewise, when I woke up this morning someone had left a beach umbrella (I guess you'd call it) outside my CHU. I have a chair outside to sit in so I guess some anonymous benefactor decided to off-load some gear prior to shipping out. Requires a picture when it is light out.

Good times.

[Update] all of this allowed me to watch the Pats last night. I did wonder, while watching Monday Night Countdown, if folks back home were out and about watching the same thing around 1900 Eastern.

Absentee ballot...how to vote?

I have a few days before I drop the thing in the mail (the one thing that the military ensures will 1) actually get to the US and 2) get there on time) and I'm actually somewhat conflicted.

Clearly I'm going to vote Mark Warner for the Senate. Who in Virginia is not? Seriously...if Warner pulled 70%+ of the vote I would not bat an eye. It would not surprise me if he received more than half of the Republican vote (given the alternative of that idiot Gilmore).

However, when it comes to voting for the bubba that gets all the marbles...I'm finding myself conflicted.

I really dislike Obama. I find him to lack substance and I really get annoyed when people start running for President the minute that their ass hits the seat in the Capitol. Joe Biden is enough to queer me from the entire thing...Biden puts Obama's narcissism in a box. The fact that the rest of the world is so in the tank for The One is almost reason enough to pull the lever for McCain just to tell everyone else to go pound sand, thank you very much.

I've got a McCain sticker on my car (unless my parents have removed it) though it probably is pretty lonely up there in the People's Republic of Massachusetts. If I vote for McCain I'm really going to have to hold my nose. The McCain of 2000 is gone and has been replaced by someone that I really don't recognize...the solution to everything is not to lower taxes. McCain has been correct on his assessment of what needs to be done here in Iraq - and was correct when it was unpopular and when Obama was flat wrong. While it clearly was a principled decision - and even somewhat maverick (bottoms up, people) - I'm not sure that McCain should be given the benefit of the doubt on every decision (*koff* Palin *koff*) simply because he made a good one in the past. Granted, it was the biggest decision on one of the biggest issues of our day. Plus, the crazy Christian right scares the bejeezus out of me.

I can't believe I'm going wobbly. I wish Guliani were still around.

Decisions, decisions...

10 minutes ago

Point - Counterpoint

The stuff you get via email...

The sad tale of a bike

I've been desperate to get a bike since I've been here...even though we have two vehicles at the office which anyone can use (though one is likely going away in Nov) it is rather hard to "get away." Right now I'm basically confined to Camp Victory and I know that it is going to start gnawing at me in a while. On my day off I'd like to be able to ride to Liberty or Slayer to look around, take pictures etc. I suppose I could use the bus system but I hate waiting around. Besides, I'm tired of humping my ass 15+ minutes each way to work every day.

So, to make a long story short...I got a bike the other day. After repeatedly striking out at the PX (and not willing to purchase the gay bikes they had) I finally asked one of the guys in the office to procure a bicycle for me...the bubba is like James Garner's charater in The Great Escape (Lt. Hendley - "The Scrounger"). Within 20 minutes (and $50) of asking him if he knew of a bike that was available it appeared...complete with helmet. I suppose the saying "you get what you pay for" really is true...I have no idea where the bike came, how it was "procured" or whatever. Suffice to say I took it without a test-ride which was mistake number one...The cables that shift the gears were jammed / rusted / or something...suffice to say when I got on the bike at about 2330 that evening to ride home (in the pitch dark) I discovered the hard way that the only gear that worked on the bike was 1st gear. Seriously.

I must have looked like a complete idiot with my feet flying around as fast as possible yet going nowhere. Likewise, I was drenched by the time that I got back to my hooch. The bike was returned the next day.

The search continues.

The blog is back (sort of)

Haven't written much lately...I even received an email about it...so I guess one or two people do read the foolish thing. lol.

Truthfully I've been both 1) busy and 2) very fatigued lately. I sort of missed the jet lag effect when I came over here but for some reason it has hit me pretty hard the last week or so. Maybe it is because I haven't been to the gym in a week or so but I've found myself many nights staring at the ceiling until 3, 4, 5 in the morning. Not good.

Dow Jones

Holy shit.

No power

Good thing that I have a travel alarm clock as a backup...I woke up today about an hour late due to the fact that I had no power in my hooch (nor did the whole LSA). The most annoying part is the fact that no showers were available either.

Given the fact that it was about 90 degrees at 0930 it will be a fun experiement to see if Old Spice: High Endurance really lives up to the marketing.

Trip canx...

...damned near as fast as it was scheduled. Contractors don't rate terribly high on the Space-A lists...

Bummer.

Heading to the IZ (maybe)

Looks like I *may* be heading to the Green Zone later in the week. 1,000,001 things could come up to canx the trip but I'm hopeful...would be nice to see something besides Camp Victory.

Are we making a difference?

We, as in "I", and the rest of the public affairs staff...

Tough question and one I hear bandied about a bit every now and again. For better or worse we're not being judged on metrics per se as any old idiot could blast out press releases and be down with it...nor do we particularly care what the big-time media have to say about Iraq (crickets...).

Right now we're focused primarily on hometown outreach. A lot of the bubbas and bubbettes in the Army come from the smallest places imaginable (trust me). Whatever their individual reasons were for joining the Army (escape, travel, warfighting etc) in many cases some of these folks are among the first to ever really break away from their local communities. In many respects I suppose it is tough on them and it is probably somewhat tough on the small towns as well...particularly as many of them are on their second, third, or fourth trip to either Iraq or Afghanistan.

It is somewhat interesting, however, pitching stories to hometown news outlets particularly when the press release is just the hook to get the local media to do an interview with Private Tommy who is out in the field. Be it small town papers, local radio programs etc it is often funny to listen to assignment editors, anchors, broadcasters etc say "I've never had anyone call me from halfway across the world." Many of the folks are more than happy to do an interview with a local soldier that is deployed over in this broken country. No public affairs talking points, no story to push, no redlines...it is an interesting approach to the issue, I think. The soldiers seem to like it and the local media and townies seem to be pretty thrilled about it as well.

Oddly, getting local network (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX) affiliates to agree to do an interview. Bizarre...I figured that they'd be the difficult ones to snag.

My office

My little corner of the Media Operations Center

Birthday in Iraq?

No booze, no bars, no women, chow hall food...what to do...?

Water balloons were the order of the day. It is the little things that make you feel normal.

Never thought I'd read *this*

Clicky

Associated Press
BOSTON -- The Boston Red Sox brushed aside the 100-win Angels in four games, dismissing their best-in-baseball regular season as last month's news.

When it turns to October, no one dominates like Boston.

WTF? I remember back in Oct 04 heading to the Rhino Bar in DC getting all drunked up with people while watching something that my father and my grandfather had never seen (though had been oft-considered).

While trophy after trophy is nice, I suppose, the Sox have come unmoored from history by all of this winning (frankly I enjoy it more when the Pats win it all). The sad thing is that all of the bandwagon mooks from 2004 now have hats that are just as faded and grungy as mine.

The only saving grace has been knocking the (Anaheim) Angels out in the first round in 2004, 2007 and now 2008...I'm never going to get tired of looking at the confused face of Mike Scioscia...that dude's team falls apart during the playoffs quicker than a drunk sorority girl.

Losing freedom to maneuver

Politically, that is...the end result of The Surge.

It is pretty clear that the surge worked as intended. Hell, it was clear months ago (the dirty secret, of course, was that the surge started way before it was announced). Violence? Way, way down. Political reconciliation? Going in fits and starts. Well, that is not 100% true as politicial reconciliation is going much better between Iraqis (as is Iraqi provincal control) out in the hinterlands. Much like the politicans in DC that believe that they are the axis upon which the world revolves, policy makers and analysts back in the States seem to use "reconciliation" to only speak of movement at the Iraqi national level.

In many ways the Surge has been too successful. I'm not sure that FM 3-24 covers the following situation:

Violence in Iraq is ticking back up in certain areas of the country - particularly where there is local Iraqi control. In these areas of the country there remains a healthy number of bad dudes and other assorted psychos. In the past Coalition Forces had the freedom to manuever, politically, to do what needed to be done to take care of the problem. Detain, kill, snatch, grab, whatever. In many of these provinces and other areas where we have "known knowns" (in the words of Rummy) the security operations now have to be pushed through the Iraqi political wickets. Suffice to say that the Iraqis are not always the best partners...CF coordinate in good faith on the one hand and on the other the Iraqis make sure that the dude(s) that we're after bug out in plenty of time to avoid capture, death etc. There are certainly ways to mitigate this (and they are being employed, of course) but trying to pacify restive areas where the local political class is disinterested at best and wholly complicit at worst is sort of like using a shovel to throw water back at the incoming tide.

Death of a soldier

Since I've been in Iraq a soldier has died almost every day in the MND-C AO. Sometimes just one soldier, sometimes two, and the blessed days where no one is killed or injured. I'm not really sure what to make of it, to be honest.

When I was working at the Pentagon the death of an airman seemed to be more of an academic exercise, for lack of a better description. Due to the AF's role in the GWOT the likelihood of dying is pretty small. This is not a criticism of the AF, of course, just a recognition of the fact that their role in the Joint Fight is somewhat different. The tip of the spear would cease functioning without the AF. That being said the death of an airman was always somewhat remote. We did talk about it, read about the deaths in the daily Ops Brief etc but it was just a number on a chart. In the Big House I'd describe the reaction as a kind of institutional existential angst.

Things are a bit different out here in the sandbox. The lens through which I view the situation is one primarily of a Public Affairs staffer. For better or worse that generally means that I'm one of the first people at higher headquarters to know when things have gone to shit. It is an odd thing to be in the office at 2330 (after a 14 hour day) and see a death notice being staffed through the coordination process.

Even though the soldier likely died somewhere out in BFE Iraq there is a real sense of weariness and sadness I see from the soldiers around here every time one of their own is sent off to meet his or her maker. It is an odd thing and rather hard to describe without witnessing it...moments of quiet and then two minutes later it is time to drive on and continue with the day's work. I suppose things might be a bit easier if a soldier was out on patrol and simply was shot. For better or worse that fits in a neat and tidy intellectual box...sometimes that stuff just sort of happens to men at war. However, when you hear stories that Iraqi Police were detained under the suspicion of being party of the death is makes you wonder...particularly when the same guy that was killed was training the police and breaking bread with the same individuals the day before. Likewise, when the locals that soldiers have spent months getting to know turn out to be the IED makers...it can be somewhat difficult to rationalize this sort of behavior.

At the end of the day the fact of the matter is that, for me, the death of a soldier is just a number of a chart as I have no real frame of reference. I think that I expected things to be similar to reading the daily death updates in the Washington Post...there is nothing that the media enjoy more than a steadily rising bodycount. The reality is that the numbers are the same to me...whether I read them in the Post, hear about it at the BUB or happen to be on the Ops floor when the report comes across the wire. The difference, I guess, is that I'm seeing the reactions of all those that have to put next-of-kin notification procedures into motion and I see them drafting up the release that will be add to the Post's count the next day.

Even though this must be old hat for many of the people here by now it is somewhat unsettling (in a good way) to know that the process kicks into high gear to get a death notification released. The death of a soldier is still something that is cause to wake up commanders and senior leadership in the middle of the night to keep them informed and have them make decisions. In an age where many soldiers have access to email and cell phones out in the field the staff at headquarters still uses words like "solemn obligation" and "final tribute" when it comes to ensuring that a family hears about the death of their loved one from a commander first instead of from one of the soldier's buddies in the field. One often hears about the loneliness of command or the weight of command...which is something that I really don't know the first thing about. However, I can imagine that times such as the above certainly contribute to the experience. In a world where half-measures are often the rule rather than the exception I suppose it is good to know that these professional men take this awful duty very, very seriously.

I can sit here and post this on a blog that no one reads, drink my coffee and consider the state of the world. One question I have been asked from the folks back at home is: what is war like? Life at Camp Victory is really a poor substitute for life at war as nothing really happens here. War, for me, didn't have a "face" until recently. I guess if I had to describe the "face of war" now to anyone that asked I'd describe the look on the face of the soldier that has to announce "we've had another one killed..."

Something to think about, anyway.

Cat on a hot tin roof

This dude has been hanging around the MOC lately. His favorite thing to do is jump from the roof of the building on to the roof of the break area...bizarre.

The natives are getting restless...

Ramadan is basically over so the small arms fire is back...

Top 10 at 10...

Not bad to work into work and have BFBS Radio playing a block of old school Metallica and GnR.

Blowing Dust...

Dodge City South

My hooch is in an area of Camp Victory called Dodge City South. All of these pictures were taken the other day as I was walking back from chow.

On the map this area is referred to as "Central Park." At night it is used as a parking lot but during the day sometimes you'll see soccer or rugby played...it is basically one giant dust bowl.

Lookin at DCS from Central Park

This box is one of the many bunkers / shelters that they have around VBC. When "incoming" is sounded one is advised to find one most riki tik...

Looking down the "road" that I walk back to my hooch; I'm at the far end on the left

My hooch. My bed is on the right. I'm not sure if I'm going to stay here or put in for a transfer...hence my lack of unpacking. The guy that I live with is some old dude that has been here on his own for a while...he's taken up all the plugs, the cable drop etc. Plus he is always sleeping and gets up everyday around 0400. I'll see what happens, I guess.

Where is Matt?

Just in case anyone wants to know....


The blue box is Baghdad International Airport, the Yellow Box is Camp Victory and the Green Box is the Green / International Zone (click on the picture to see a larger size)

The Yellow Box is Dodge City South...where my hooch is

My home away from home

Google Earth has quite a few pictures of the area in and around BIAP, VBC etc