HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. When I was a kid my brother and I made a haunted trail in the woods behind our house, the Trail of Terror, and had the neighborhood come through. Our second year we got a little ambitious and planted a couple of kids in the audience who we would pull out on the trail as if they had been abducted, terror ensued. I remember one particularly whiney kid complained that my brother ruined his coat with an oil stain when he got too close with the chainless chainsaw. You all will have to fill me in on what the trite, ubiquitous costume is for this year. The George Bush mask? I remember one year in college several would-be-clever philistines spent a month growing out beards to go as Richie Tenenbaum from the film, The Royal Tenenbaums. Too bad they showed up to a party with like fourteen other Richie Tenenbaums. That year I went as a cardboard robot on rollerskates-- still my all-time favorite costume. Another year I made a horrid costume interpretation mistake: I went to a concert on Halloween night in which everyone was in costume. While waiting in the venue’s lobby, I saw a guy in what I thought was a brilliant Stephen Hawking costume! I was awestruck at the lengths this guy must have gone through to get one of those remote control wheelchairs, he even wore the obligatory sweater and tie with blue blazer, just like Stephen Hawking!
I had worked up the nerve to go over and offer my regards for a job well done, but my buddy stopped me short, insisting the guy’s mannerisms were too real to be a costume. I game him the benefit of the doubt, but I still left thinking I had been in the presence of a true Halloween Genius. Month’s later, at the same concert venue, I saw the same guy in the wheelchair.

War, non-fiction

I recently returned back to my home at Speicher. The aforementioned chimpanzees at another base were having some serious issues, and I went to offer some assistance. I had originally intended to catch a helicopter down to see them, but extenuating circumstances prevented me from getting on the flight request. So I caught a ride with one of our combat patrols heading south. Flying is the fastest and safest way to travel here, but I suppose we all can’t get our way. The trip was about a three hour jaunt south of here to a base near the city of Balad. Most of our trip was spent on a major interstate of sorts which ran parallel to the city of Tikrit and other satellite villages. The traffic was fairly bustling at first, but Military convoys take precedence on the roads here and it wasn’t long before vehicles scattered to the shoulder. I was in the lead vehicle and our driver laid on our puny horn which was more embarrassing than authoritative, a real clown honker. The landscape here is scattered with countless half-built homes, many with scaffolding still up. I often saw the same thing in Ramadi and wondered the circumstances for so many unfinished homes. Did they just give up? Did they run out of money, or was it the war? Zombies? We eventually turned off the interstate onto a much smaller, more dilapidated road filled with potholes. Potholes have become the bane of safe driving here because they are so often used to conceal roadside bombs. In addition to the potholes, the road meandered through a good amount of shrubbery, creating blinds that could be used for an ambush, terrific. We passed several Iraqi police/army checkpoints, manned by Iraq’s finest. They would jump to attention as we passed and rendered a salute of sorts. Some of them looked on rather contemptuously, as if we were no longer needed. They were a ragtag looking bunch—and tactically they were just sitting ducks. Which makes one think, how much incentive do they have to play both sides of the War? It would be too easy for them to cooperate with Coalition forces and then turn a blind eye to some insurgents planting IEDs. They have nothing to lose; they get a paycheck from the coalition, and they don’t get there heads chopped off by the insurgents. Who knows, but facts most often promote my assumption.
PART TWO COMING SOON

Monkey Gone To Heaven

Firstly, I would like to thank all who have sent emails; I really appreciate hearing from you. Secondly, I would like to apologize for not updating my blog on a more frequent basis; I’ve been busy, with the war and all. A lot has been in the works since I last left you. I moved into Iraq to my new home at Speicher around September 25 and began what will probably be the most painful part of my tour over here, getting settled in. For those who aren’t in the know, I am a Battalion Signal Officer. My job consists essentially of supervising the communication support of an Engineer Battalion (550 soldiers). Communication support can be defined in two categories: automations (computers) and tactical systems (radios, satellite navigation etc). While this definition may still be too vague for some of you, I offer this scenario. Close you eyes, and imagine taking a bunch of radios and computers to your local zoo and issuing them to some chimpanzees (in this case, the chimpanzees are all armed, and angry, and they haven’t had any bananas for awhile). Your job is to make sure all these chimpanzees can talk with all of the other chimpanzees in all of the other zoos. But you also have to ensure that the evil baboons in the zoo can’t infiltrate the chimpanzee communication network, because this could be catastrophic to the chimpanzee mission. You have some help at the other zoos from other humans, but more often than not, you will find that the other zoos have nothing but chimpanzees! This makes communication very difficult. Startling to think, but that is in essence what I do. As far as living conditions are concerned, I am living in what I think is quite posh for Iraq. Compared to my previous assignment in Ramadi, I am quite well off. We are living in old concrete houses previously occupied by the Iraqi Army. I have generator powered electricity in my house and even running water (unheard of at many bases). I eat at a dining facility run by Kellog Brown and Root, a government contractor whose food is considered the gold standard for Iraq. We even have a fairly good sized PX stocked liberally with wartime essentials like TVs and DVDs, but you can’t seem to find frigging dental floss anywhere. Don’t get me wrong though, this place is still a desolate hell hole. The majority of the buildings here are dilapidated shacks covered in sawdust thin sand; the ever present aroma of steamy hot feces is a constant reminder of where you are, posh nonetheless! Keep it locked....more to come.

Driving in Kuwait; Inshallah

This update was actually written on September 26, but due to work constraints, I wasn't able to post it until now.

Today was an eventful, dare I say, exciting day in Kuwait. To preface my story, I must explain that I have three bosses. Bosses #2 and #3 essentially have equal control over me—blowing off one for the other has little consequence since they are the same rank (though boss #2 writes my evaluations). Boss #1 has total control over all I do, a real “you beckoned sire!” type relationship. He also has control over bosses #2 and 3, often resulting in my detriment. Anywhoo, more on bosses later. So boss #3 and I had to drive from Camp Buehring to the Kuwait International Airport to pickup boss #1. Leaving the gates of our compound we traversed through a barren wasteland that resembled Luke’s home planet from Starwars (please stop reading this blog if you knew the real name). The majority of this territory is used for military purposes, both American and Kuwati, and for animal husbandry (camels, sheep). The road was virtually deserted as far as one could see. On the roadside we passed sundry garbage piles in which wild dogs scavenged about. We also passed a half eaten/half rotting camel corpse; situated on the pavement as if one half of the camel had been cut entirely away.
Further down the road we came across another pack of wild dogs who were circling ‘round what appeared to be a small human baby! Fearing the worst, we pulled over and fired some warning shots to scare off the dogs. I quickly ran over to find a small baby girl wrapped in swaddling clothes, seemingly unharmed! Miles from any sort of civilization, and unsure of exactly what to do, boss #3 and I decided to sell the baby on Ebay, and donate 15% of our profits to charity. Continuing south on Highway 80, we approached the outskirts of the town of Al Jahra. For those uniformed readers, Highway 80 north of Al Jahra is the site of the “Highway of Death” in which some 1,400 Iraqi vehicles and accompanying soldiers were slaughtered on a bottlenecked portion of the highway. The incident garnered quite a bit of media coverage because of the implications of war crimes—the Iraqi's were allegedly retreating and were engaged with weapon systems of considerable disproportion (a violation of Geneva Conventions). The Kuwati’s, in there infinite wisdom (read: indolence) have decided to leave the wreckage virtually untouched on the side of the highway for all to see. I suppose it could be a war monument of sorts. As we closed on Kuwait City, traffic picked up quite a bit and the highway expanded into 6 lanes. Driving in Kuwait would be like driving on an American road where only teenagers and raccoons were behind the wheel. There is a pervasive ideology in the Kuwaiti (Arab) world known as “Inshallah”. Translated it means “if God wills it” and it is used in replace of any sort of rational judgment. So in Kuwait, God is actually the pilot, not the Copilot. To put it bluntly, Kuwaitis drive like real assholes. Luckily (inshallah?) we made it to the airport unscathed and picked up Boss #1.