Unfortunately none of Marla Turk's challah made it to Balad or Tikrit while I was there. However, Balad was lucky enough to have SSG F who made us great fresh Challah that was ready just in time for the kiddush each Friday night.
Aug 31, 2010
Aug 27, 2010
Aug 15, 2010
In Kuwait City International Airport
A bunch of us are stuck in Kuwait City International Airport because our airplane seems to be broken, so we will have to get to Camp Arifjan by ground transportation. The plane we took here from JBB was a regular C-17 that was carrying a full compliment of passengers and their cargo. The plane was also carrying the remains of a soldier for burial in the US right there in the back right next to where I was sitting. When they transported the deceased soldier from the plane to the truck that will carry him or her to the flight to the US there was a brief ceremony that was both quick and moving. We lined up in 12 man a formation at the rear of the plane on either side of the cargo ramp. Six airmen carried the flag-draped casket off the plane and we rendered a slow 4-second salute - the last one the soldier will ever get - as he was placed onto the truck. We were then dismissed. The whole thing took about two minutes, but it was a very moving two minutes.
Aug 14, 2010
Back at JBB
I have left COB Speicher for good and I am now back on JBB. I do not expect to be here for long, just long enough to tie up some administrative loose ends. My job in this country is done and I am now set to come home.
If only getting home didn't take so long.
If only getting home didn't take so long.
Aug 4, 2010
Aug 1, 2010
The smell of the air and other random thoughts
I was struck by the fact that when one walks out the door of their CHU, especially in the summer, the first thing that hits you, and hits you hard, is the brightness of the sun and the heat of the air. Both are painful for the moment until you get used to it.
The stars in the sky, and the wind are all rather prominent around here. The sky seems lower; the moon seems bigger here than anywhere else I have ever been. You always see Venus nearby too though I don't recognize most of the constellations, though I am not sure I'd recognize the one's I can see in NY either. Many FOBs have a blinking "star" that is on the blimp with the camera that floats high above the FOB watching the nearby city. The moon rises quickly. You can see why the heavens and the weather were so important to the ancient peoples here. They stick out, they are not just details that can be passively ignored. They physically touch you.
The very air is odd. Sometimes, especially around Tikrit, the air is orange or red or even brownish, sometimes it is a fog colored gray. It is always dust or sand and it limits visibility sometimes to a few feet. That weather always grounds the helicopters and sometimes airplanes too. It is painfully obvious why Arabs wear the head coverings they wear. It is certainly unhealthy to breathe without something filtering out the sand in this climate. In the right weather when you walk around your clothes accumulate a fine layer of sand after walking a mere few hundred feet.
Once in a while there is a whirlwind of sand that is maybe 20 feet in diameter and a kilometer high and you can see it coming right at you. I was once in a parked car and one of those came right at us, and for about 10 or 15 seconds completely engulfed the car in a mini tornado. It was quite a cool sight to behold. From the car, we just watched it slowly lumber toward us and engulf us, and then, seemingly uninterested in consuming us, just continued on its relatively benign way.
I am in Mosul this week. There are two FOBs on Mosul: Marez and Diamondback. Diamondback sucks. Everywhere had the smell that you experience when you are stuck driving behind a garbage truck in the summer and your car has no air conditioner. Marez is considerably better. The smell is far less perceptible, the DFAC is better, etc. Diamondback has one or two interesting shops, but that's all. One of the main Iraqi roads leading from the north to Baghdad runs between the FOBs and so a checkpoint separates them.
The foliage is uninteresting on FOBs, though Mosul has some lush mountains off in the distance and when you are up against the Tigris or Euphrates rivers there is a lot more green. Some scattered trees and bushes and things like that. But they are always covered in dust. Lots of desert and nothingness. I sometimes see tumbleweed just rolling across a field like in the old westerns. Once in a while a pretty weed manages to erupt from a crevice. On Marez there is so much dust that a truck drives around spraying water on the road so that the vehicles don't kick up too much dust.
There is the occasional hare that hops by and some foxes that I am getting used to seeing in the early morning and late night. There is a red fox that apparently lives near me and some mangy looking tan and gray ones too. This morning I woke up and there was a gecko on my bed. They are fairly common, but today was the first time one crawled into bed with me. There are the usual assortment of insects too and now it is bee season again. There was a long period when it was mosquito season - that sucked.
It is usually quiet on FOBs. Every place is different. On JBB you always hear the loudspeaker telling you something about "incoming" and "all clear"; you learn to more or less ignore that after a while. Some of the smaller bases like Warrior or Warhorse are dark and quiet at night and not much happens. Mosul too is quiet at night.
There are usually people going to and from somewhere at almost any time of day or night and it almost always feels safe when you have to leave your room at odd hours to go to the bathroom or something. We have no indoor plumbing in most rooms. You have to be pretty special to get that. But it usually is dark. Not all FOBs are well lit. Warhorse is not, neither is FOB Warrior. Flashlights are de riguer.
This place does present a stark contrast to everywhere else I've ever been.
The stars in the sky, and the wind are all rather prominent around here. The sky seems lower; the moon seems bigger here than anywhere else I have ever been. You always see Venus nearby too though I don't recognize most of the constellations, though I am not sure I'd recognize the one's I can see in NY either. Many FOBs have a blinking "star" that is on the blimp with the camera that floats high above the FOB watching the nearby city. The moon rises quickly. You can see why the heavens and the weather were so important to the ancient peoples here. They stick out, they are not just details that can be passively ignored. They physically touch you.
The very air is odd. Sometimes, especially around Tikrit, the air is orange or red or even brownish, sometimes it is a fog colored gray. It is always dust or sand and it limits visibility sometimes to a few feet. That weather always grounds the helicopters and sometimes airplanes too. It is painfully obvious why Arabs wear the head coverings they wear. It is certainly unhealthy to breathe without something filtering out the sand in this climate. In the right weather when you walk around your clothes accumulate a fine layer of sand after walking a mere few hundred feet.
Once in a while there is a whirlwind of sand that is maybe 20 feet in diameter and a kilometer high and you can see it coming right at you. I was once in a parked car and one of those came right at us, and for about 10 or 15 seconds completely engulfed the car in a mini tornado. It was quite a cool sight to behold. From the car, we just watched it slowly lumber toward us and engulf us, and then, seemingly uninterested in consuming us, just continued on its relatively benign way.
I am in Mosul this week. There are two FOBs on Mosul: Marez and Diamondback. Diamondback sucks. Everywhere had the smell that you experience when you are stuck driving behind a garbage truck in the summer and your car has no air conditioner. Marez is considerably better. The smell is far less perceptible, the DFAC is better, etc. Diamondback has one or two interesting shops, but that's all. One of the main Iraqi roads leading from the north to Baghdad runs between the FOBs and so a checkpoint separates them.
The foliage is uninteresting on FOBs, though Mosul has some lush mountains off in the distance and when you are up against the Tigris or Euphrates rivers there is a lot more green. Some scattered trees and bushes and things like that. But they are always covered in dust. Lots of desert and nothingness. I sometimes see tumbleweed just rolling across a field like in the old westerns. Once in a while a pretty weed manages to erupt from a crevice. On Marez there is so much dust that a truck drives around spraying water on the road so that the vehicles don't kick up too much dust.
There is the occasional hare that hops by and some foxes that I am getting used to seeing in the early morning and late night. There is a red fox that apparently lives near me and some mangy looking tan and gray ones too. This morning I woke up and there was a gecko on my bed. They are fairly common, but today was the first time one crawled into bed with me. There are the usual assortment of insects too and now it is bee season again. There was a long period when it was mosquito season - that sucked.
It is usually quiet on FOBs. Every place is different. On JBB you always hear the loudspeaker telling you something about "incoming" and "all clear"; you learn to more or less ignore that after a while. Some of the smaller bases like Warrior or Warhorse are dark and quiet at night and not much happens. Mosul too is quiet at night.
There are usually people going to and from somewhere at almost any time of day or night and it almost always feels safe when you have to leave your room at odd hours to go to the bathroom or something. We have no indoor plumbing in most rooms. You have to be pretty special to get that. But it usually is dark. Not all FOBs are well lit. Warhorse is not, neither is FOB Warrior. Flashlights are de riguer.
This place does present a stark contrast to everywhere else I've ever been.
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