Challah

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. 

More beard issues in the Army

I wonder how this will play out.

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.

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.

The Army is looking to buy a sefardic torah

Here is the contract the army is looking to bid on.

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.

Benjamin MeTudella in northern Iraq

I have spent the past few days in Mosul (a city on the Tigris in northern Iraq) sitting around waiting for convoys to arrive from Irbil. Not very exciting stuff. But by coincidence I have been reading the travel diary of Benjamin MeTudella a 12th century Jew who traveled from Spain the middle east, then Asia and North Africa.

Like "D" and I on our last trip through Spain, he passed through Barcelona and Gerona on the beginning of his journey.

Here is what he has to say about Irbil and Mosul:

[From the place where Noah's ark is, near the synagogue of Ezra where Jews come to pray on the 9th of Av,] it is two days to Mosul, which is Assur the Great, and here dwell about 7,000 Jews, at their head being R. Zakkai the Nasi of the seed of David, and R. Joseph surnamed Burhan-al-mulk, the astronomer to the King Sin-ed-din, the brother of Nured-din, King of Damascus. Mosul is the frontier town of the land of Persia. It is a very large and ancient city, situated on the river Hiddekel (Tigris), and is connected with Nineveh by means of a bridge. Nineveh is in ruins, but amid the ruins there are villages and hamlets, and the extent of the city may be determined by the walls, which extend forty parasangs to the city of Irbil. The city of Nineveh is on the river Hiddekel. In the city of Assur (Mosul) is the synagogue of Obadiah, built by Jonah; also the synagogue of Nahum the Elkoshite.

The ruins of the city of Nineveh are now in the city of Mosul which you can see from the FOB.

Metudella stopped in scores of cities, where he enumerated the number of Jews in each one and the historical sites, artifacts and lore that each had. It is unclear what he was doing on his travels. Was he looking for Jewish havens? Was he looking for Jewish connections in other cities for trade? His motives are unknown, but it certainly must have been an exciting adventure.

Update: I am not the only one who has been reading Tudella's diary lately.

CH Goldstein

COL (CH) Goldstein spoke in our shul (B'nai Avraham) in Brooklyn Heights last Succos. He had some great Iraq stories.  He is the only person in the US Army with a full beard. It _was_ weird seeing that. Article about him here.

Canada's Jewish Chaplain

Though Canada has a pretty small armed forces, the fact that they now have their first Jewish chaplain since WWII is still surprising.

Jewish military cemetery

Oldest Jewish military cemetery. Story here about confederate cemetery.

Life on FOBs - getting around on FOBs

In case you are wondering how we get around in FOBs, we don't all drive tanks, Humvees, and MRAPS. 

 

When we are on a FOB, and some of them can be very big, it is often hard to get around.  When you are on a base in Iraq you have a few options.  Personally I bicycle when I can.  I bought a used bicycle from the Arab market on JBB pretty cheaply when I was there and have been using it ever since.  Each unit has a very limited number of vehicles that everyone must use and it is pretty tough to get access to it all the time and I hate always bothering the people with the keys.  When I take the keys it often means that the soldiers have to wait to do something that it often more important.  So unless you want to walk a lot, bicycling is a good option.  It is a bit annoying when you have to bicycle in the rain or dust storms though.  But it has not been too much of a problem for me yet.  It is sometimes really unpleasant in the summer heat when you are wearing a uniform.  My unit is kind of resourceful and we got a few "gators", so our guys get to drive in those. 

 

Lager FOBs have buses, or vans, that travel on specific routes.  JBB has quite a few, Speicher has one or two.  Some more remote smaller FOBs have none.  On Speicher there is a very nice culture of people stopping their vehicles on the side of the road when someone is walking and offering them rides.  It happens to me quite often.  Almost no one minds going out of their way to drop someone off.  The heat is oppressive and lots of people are pretty good about it.  I made an interesting friend or two that way. 

Once, on a smaller FOB I have quite literally walked up to a complete stranger in civilian clothing at the airport (what we call a PAX terminal) and asked where some place was.  Turns out it was a local interpreter who just gave me a ride straight to where I was going.  

Flying from FOB to FOB is a whole different story. There are whole procedures you go through for getting flights, and many can be quite adventurous.  I have ended up in the wrong city or wrong country through no fault of my own.  It happens.  Then you just stay where you are until they can get you to where you have to go.  Obviously I have to be sketchy on details about this and about what follows.  If you go from the FOB to the nearby city, that is if you "go outside the wire" you would almost definitely take an uparmored vehicle.  Obviously I can't give details, but it is safer than it sounds.  Same for convoys.

Burglary in monticello

Who knew that there was a JWV post in Monticello?  Too bad they are plagued with problems like this?

Qatar

I am now in vacation in Qatar.  I have a few days to relax here.  So far, so good.  It is however the hottest place I have ever been to in my life.  It took me about 3 days to get here.  I took a helicopter to Baghdad, then flew to Kuwait, and then another plan to Doha.  I slept in 4 cities (in 3 countries) on four consecutive nights. 

Rumor has it that the temperature was in the high 130's yesterday, and this morning it was over 100 in the morning.  I will try to report on what we do here. I only have 4 days before I have to get back. 

Marine funny man

Jewish comedian in the Marines. (Hat tip: NY)

Kadish at Arlington

A tour of Jewish Arlington.  Story here.