Iraqi Scouting

I was able to meet and work with Iraqi children today for the first time and it was an outstanding experience. I joined an Iraqi Scouting group that meets every Saturday afternoon with anywhere from 30-80 local kids, ages 2-17. There are usually 20+ U.S. volunteers, some interpreters, and several of the Iraqi Army parents. In the long run, the group is trying to get the Iraqi parents to run their own program, so they can be certified by one of the big international Scouting organizations, get uniforms and sponsorship, etc. They have built a pretty awesome scouting compound: walled in, with activity tents, storage, playground equipment, sporting fields, etc. All of this, just so we can enrich their kids once a week.

Attendance was fairly light this Saturday...around 30 kids...since many of the Iraqi parents thought it was a little too cold (50s and breezy). We started with an opening ceremony in which the older boys raised their "scouting flag" and all the kids recited the Iraqi national pledge. We then broke them up into groups to do archery, soap carving, paper crafts, and field games. I coached the archery group and had a blast teaching kids how to shoot without the benefit of an interpreter. It must have worked, because two of my kids won the "tightest grouping" contest at the end! We closed the afternoon with a reverse of the opening ceremony, then all the kids climbed around one of the U.S. soldiers who was going home soon so he could get pictures.

It was a great afternoon and definitely on my future calendar for as many as I can attend. All of the Americans were "charged up" just from doing something different and being around kids again. The Iraqi "scouts" were a great bunch of kids, who obviously relished the hands on attention and getting to do something completely different and outside their normal experiences. Just doing our part to help the next generation grow up as well off as possible.

At the range and Medal of Honor

One advantage of carrying a weapon around all the time and being in a war zone, is that you get to go shoot it fairly often for "proficiency". So when we get the urge, we just ask Master Guns (Marine Corps for Master Gunnery Sergeant, or E-9) to get us some range time. We went to the range late this afternoon and worked through about 60 rounds. Of course, now I have to clean my weapon, but it is a small price to pay. While we were on the range, the Marines were also playing with some of their robots, including an experimental one with a small machine gun mounted. Those were pretty cool.

On the way back, we stopped to do a GeoCache. One of the Medal of Honor sites in Iraq just happens to be on Camp Victory, beside the road to the Baghdad International Airport. Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith, 3rd Infantry Division, gave his life to save his soldiers during the initial combat operations back in April 2003. He fought off over 100 enemy soldiers, defeating an attack and allowing the safe withdrawal of numerous wounded soldiers. You can read about it all at this great web multimedia presentation from the St. Petersburg Times. The historical site we actually explored is a tower surrounded by some walls forming courtyards and has become an informal soldier's memorial. Many soldiers have honored SFC Smith's sacrifice with their words on the walls of the tower. Someone was also dedicated enough to place a GeoCache here. Inside the cache is much of the information from the web presentation I linked above. SFC Smith was definitely deserving of the Medal of Honor. A great and worthwhile stop.

Christmas in Iraq

I suppose it is mandatory to post on Christmas. Today was a beautiful day...sunny, blue skies, and about 65 degrees Fahrenheit. We all took it easy today on a "holiday routine". Over here in the war zone that doesn't quite mean "don't come to work" , but it does mean don't spend all day there. Stop in, clear your emails, get a little work done, then get out. That's the plan I followed. I did watch a few movies in my off-time, "Get Smart" and "Four Christmases", which were both entertaining (all they have to be over here).

The Dining Facility (DFAC) put on a great spread - every meat you can think of, shrimp cocktail, yams, stuffing, egg nog, special desserts, and over the top decorations...including an 8 foot tall angel made of butter. Santa and Mrs. Claus even walked around during dinner, posing for pictures. I already had my Santa picture, so I concentrated on the food. The only down side was that I tried to overeat and stuff myself to bursting, just like at home, but I couldn't do it here...not sure why. Okay, maybe that wasn't really the down side, I was able to walk out the door instead of going into an instant food coma.

I missed being home with the family, but all in all, not a bad Christmas. I did get to call back home to say Merry Christmas to everyone and since I estimated the time incorrectly, I caught Cam in mid-present opening. Needless to say, he was excited and not in the mood to talk on the phone until later.

I left my hair in Iraq

I decided to give myself a Christmas gift...a really good haircut, as in all of it. It was thin on top anyway and what better place to try a shiny head than in Iraq?

Visiting the IZ

Today, I got to venture beyond the confines of Camp Victory to conduct business and explore the International Zone (IZ) in downtown Baghdad. They used to call it the "Green Zone" and it is the secured area of U.S. and Government of Iraq (GoI) operations in Baghdad. We turn it over to the Iraqis on the 1st of January, so I wanted to make it down there before more of it becomes off limits. The U.S. will continue to operate in the IZ, but we are consolidating into some smaller compounds (a.k.a. Forward Operating Bases - FOBs) while we turn over things like the Republican Palace which we used as the U.S. Embassy. From Camp Victory, you get there by helicopter or an armored bus called the "Rhino". I took the Rhino convoy and was downtown in no time.

The first thing you notice about the IZ is that there is more green in the form of trees. Granted, these are usually sticking up over the tops of giant T-Walls, so mostly you see concrete everywhere, but it is still greener. When looking at the fancy sidewalks and some of the buildings you also notice that this area used to be (and can be again) very nice. It is also bigger than most people realize, some distances are walkable, but you really want a vehicle or shuttle bus to get where you are going. Despite all the security, there is an immediate sense of being "out in the open" in the middle of a city full of Iraqis. This is a big mental change from being in the middle of enormous U.S. dominated FOB like the Victory Base Complex. I realize it is nothing like really being out in the open in the "red zone", but it is still an adjustment.

I spent some time visiting with our LNO (liaison officer) at the Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq (MNSTC-I) and getting familiar with the operation there. MNSTC-I is charged with the mission of training the Iraqi Army and Police and getting them ready to stand on their own. This is a much more involved job than just teaching them how to be a soldier or police officer, we also have to teach them how to run an Army/Police Force from administration to medical support to logistics and maintenance. That is actually the hard part.

I also popped over to the Joint Contracting Command - Iraq/Afghanistan (JCC-I/A) which runs the contingency contracting for anything and everything we need to support the mission that is not provided by our national supply chains. I met up with my friend Shane from my Athens days and we took the opportunity to walk down to the Republican Palace/Old Embassy for lunch so I could see it before it is turned over to the Iraqis in a few days. It is a very "nice" and fancy building in the typical Saddam gaudy style. After lunch, I paid a courtesy call on the commander of JCC-I/A, who is a Navy Supply Corps Rear Admiral. She also has a DLA background, so we chatted for a while about DLA and people we both know. My buddy, Shane, then took me on a quick tour of the IZ, hitting most of the FOBs, the Hands of Victory War Memorial (crossed swords) and Unknown Soldier Monument. These last two were Saddam's monuments to victory in the Iran-Iraq War. The current GoI has indicated they intend to remove at least the Hands of Victory to put up some "less belligerent" monuments. We'll see how that goes.

After a full day downtown, I took the Rhino back to Camp Victory in the dark. Dark buses are always great places to take a little nap. I am glad I was able to visit the IZ before we start turning it over to the Iraqis. We are about to turn another corner in our mission in Iraq and keep getting a little closer to Iraq standing on its own.

Christmas Party

We had our command Christmas Party tonight. MNF-I CJ1/4/8 threw a party for the staff in the front "lobby" of our building/palace. We easily fit about 200 people at tables in the room if that gives you an impression of size.

Preps for the party occupied a decent part of last week as we scoured the base for tables and chairs. In the fine tradition of Supply Officer scrounging, we (the staff) are now the proud owners of 40+ 8-foot tables at no cost, by virtue of finding a transferring unit trying to dispose of their supply before going home. Needless to say, the tables were a hit. The notion of eating dinner while sitting on the cold marble floor wasn't all that appealing.

They brought in dinner from the Dining Facility (DFAC) for us...steak and crab legs. Good meal, though King Crab legs are difficult without the proper tools. There were quite a few Gerber and Leatherman Multi-tools in use...something you would never see at a restaurant in the states. The 10th Mountain Division Woodwinds played holiday music for us during dinner and we also had a large white elephant exchange for about 40 people. That's probably a little bit too large, so it went on for way too long. I ended up with an ornament shaped Coke bottle...woo hoo! So, as the evening came to an end, we can chalk up a successful office party without all the usual issues caused by drunken office-mates. Of course, that also means we don't have any good stories to tell either...

I can't tell you who's coming...

After a day of obviously increased security measures and everyone playing "I have a secret", I was in the crowd at Al Faw Palace for the Presidential Visit. We had to wait for several hours, but he arrived a little after 10pm, gave a 15 minute speech and then spent at least the next 20 minutes shaking hands in the crowd. Definitely, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

There was one humorous note from tonight. If you have seen pictures of me, you know that we in the Navy are now wearing the Army Combat Uniform (ACU) in theater instead of the old, very pale Desert Camouflage Uniforms (DCU) that the Navy traditionally wore. So, in a big crowd, we look just like the Army soldiers. When they were selecting 40 military personnel to sit on the bleachers behind the President, they wanted to present a multi-service "joint" image. They then scoured the crowd for some of the few remaining Sailors in DCUs so they would stand out on camera as Navy. So which is more joint service - everyone in a different uniform or everyone in the same uniform? Of course, you still have the Marines in their desert MARPAT and the Air Force in their tiger-striped Airman Battle Uniform (ABU), so it is a lost cause anyway...

Baghdad Bad Boys, Tea, and Santa Claus

From the title, you would wonder what each of these things has to do with the others. Mix them all up on a patio of Saddam Hussein's Al Faw Palace, realize that the Bad Boys are a Bluegrass Band made up of Soldiers, the tea is served on Saddam's tea set, Santa is a KBR contractor, and everyone at the party is armed...and it gets even weirder. I arrived here because one of my buddies who works in the Palace invited me to join him for a Cultural Tea that the interpreter cell throws periodically. So, in addition to drinking tea served in a dictator's tea cups, there were various local delicacies to sample (many involving dates...yum), Christmas decorations, a Palm Christmas Tree, and a great view over the lake. We didn't stay very long, but it was this event, one week into my stay, that represented for me how different this deployment was going to be...

Real Christmas Tree in Iraq

Someone actually shipped us this real tree for Christmas. A little sad looking and quite dry, but it's real! Anything for a little spirit of the holiday season.

Finally made it to Baghdad!

After a horrendous night of travel (courtesy of the Air Force), I finally made it on the ground at Baghdad International Airport just before 6:00am. Very tired. We were met at the airfield by the Marine Corps officer that I am relieving. After lugging our 4 heavy sea bags each to the pickup, we were off for a quick tour of the base. First impressions: huge, lots of dirt, rocks, horrible roads, bad construction, temporary structures, etc. But then, after transiting around the airfield, you get to Camp Victory itself and while it still has all of the above, it gets "jazzed up" a little with palaces, lakes, and some date palms. The largest palace is Al Faw, headquarters for Multi-National Force - Iraq...I am sure I will post more on that one later. My branch of that staff is in another building, which is, in fact, the second largest palace (pictured). Pretty ornate inside and our office bay is very nice. It will definitely be interesting working here and all-in-all quite cushy for us compared to the real warriors out on the less-developed FOBs (Forward Operating Bases).

After a quick drive around tour, I took a little "freshening up" nap in my quarters (more on those later too), then joined everyone for our first lunch at a Dining Facility (DFAC) in Iraq. I was definitely impressed. There were tons of choices, the food was very good, and the servers were enthusiastic. I am going to have to be careful not to get fat here...

Kuwait - 2 days of training crammed into 8

After a midnight arrival on the ground in Kuwait, waiting around in a sand lot, and a long curtains-drawn bus ride in body armor, we finally arrived at Camp Virginia, our home for the next week. Rolling right into a 0430 "Welcome, here are the rules" briefing, it was nearly dawn when we got out. We formed a mass working party to unload 400 very heavy sea bags from the trucks, dragged them and ourselves to the tents, and attempted to rest while severely jet-lagged.

The next five days were a lot of "white space". Mass amounts of free time surrounding two or three minor briefings. We worked out, watched movies, read books, wandered around, ate lots of food, and tried not to be bored. Everything was sand and rocks. We were ready to get out of there and get to Iraq!

After the five day interlude, we shifted back into non-stop training mode and spent the next 2 nights, 3 days at the Udairi Range working more small arms training and actual tactical convoy movements through the desert. All of this culminated in a large convoy exercise with hundreds of local "actors" portraying people interacting with our convoy. These last two days were very cool, it is just a shame we had to waste 5 days to get to them.

We shifted from Udairi Range back to Camp Virginia and much needed showers and hot food, only to find out that we would be leaving that same evening for Baghdad...

The long flight to the desert

Our combat training completed, we had a date with an airplane on Thanksgiving night. As is common for these chartered flights to Kuwait, we headed to the Columbia, SC airport late in the evening, with an expected take-off around midnight. We had a nice surprise when we got to the airfield. Despite the wonderful Thanksgiving meal they had already put together for us, the outstanding civic groups of Columbia all showed up to send us off. They set up food, drinks, goody bags & other giveaways, and generally made us feel at home while we waited to fly out. As we all lined up to head out to the plane, they stood in a long line with American flags to shake every one of our hands and thank us for our service. It was awesome, but at the same time we were all humbled by their profound support. Americans can be wonderful people when they put their mind to it.

Despite the long hours in the airplane, I won't complain about the flight at all. As one of the senior officers, I actually got to sit in business class, which was very nice, especially for sleeping. Back in Coach, Sailors O-4 and below were crammed together 6 across because a couple hundred of our seabags had overflowed the cargo compartments and were filling the last 15 rows or so. It was not a very pleasant flight for them at all.

Halfway through the flight, we made a fueling stop (about 2 hours) in Shannon, Ireland. Looking out the window as we made the approach to land, I finally got first hand knowledge of why I've always heard about the "green hills of Ireland". It was beautiful country and is now high on the list of places to someday visit. Once on the ground, we were able to roam the terminal, shop, make phone calls, etc. While there, we actually ran into the Secretary of the Navy who was heading back to the U.S. Some of us got to talk to him for a while after he figured out we weren't Army guys and that the tags on our "Army" uniforms said U.S. Navy. Then it was back on the plane for the final leg to Kuwait.

The time difference to Kuwait from the East Coast is +8 hours. So add about 16 hours of flying and layover and you get there a "full day" after you left. We landed just before midnight on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Our body clocks were pretty messed up! We had arrived.

You're in the NARMY now...

Since I started this blog well after my stint of combat training, I'll use this one post to capture the entire experience. Before the Navy sends one of its Sailors over to support the Global War on Terror (GWOT), it sends us through the Navy Individual Augmentee Combat Training (NIACT) course. This is a three-week course taught by Army Drill Sergeants at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. They run the course every 3 weeks, training about 200 Sailors from E-4 to O-6 each time. Multiply that out over the year and add in similiar courses taught at other Army bases and you are quickly dismayed by how many Sailors are augmenting the Army in support of the GWOT. More than 15,000 Sailors have been through this course and deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and other locations. Since the training is Army-led and Army-focused, someone long ago christened those who go through the training as the NARMY - short for Navy-Army. The joke goes so far as to paraphrase Army sayings, like "NARMY Strong". I came up with a new one: "An Army of One...plus a few Sailors."

While at Fort Jackson (actually Camp McCrady in the far corner of the base), we all lived in old-style 40-person barracks, complete with rows of military bunk beds. We had some serious snorers in our class, but with ear plugs, you get used to it fairly quickly. We were also generally so tired at the end of each day that the extra noise wasn't an issue. It was quite an adjustment from shipboard life though.

Given the Navy's shipboard, non-ground combat focus, the bulk of the training is designed to build familiarity with small arms, body armor, combat first-aid, and tactical convoys. Once they issued us our M-16 rifles and M-9 pistols on the 2nd day, we were required to take them everywhere with us, including meals. The idea was to rapidly increase our comfort with the weapons and get us prepared for that same requirement to carry them at all times in the war zone. During the training, we had a ton of range time with the weapons, firing more than 600 rounds each in familiarization, grouping and zeroing, known-distance, qualification, reflexive fire, and stress fires. I shot very well and was able to qualify Sharpshooter with my rifle (missed Expert by 1 shot) and Expert with my pistol. It was all pretty intense non-stop training and our war-experienced Army drill sergeants were outstanding. We did eat far too many cold battle-ration Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) though.

One of the nice parts of the training was the people of Columbia, South Carolina that "adopted" us while we were there. The civic organizations put together a huge Thanksgiving meal and entertainment for us on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. The food was very good, the desserts incredible, and the people were supportive and heartwarming. The day was made even better since my parents were able to join me for the dinner, to experience the support with me and also meet my new Navy friends from training. My parents had come down from Charlotte to see me for the weekend with my sister and her family and were able to stick around for the special dinner too.

A few short days later, our combat training was over, it was the real day of Thanksgiving and it was time to head to the war zone...