Succot in Kuwait

CPT Jonathan Gross' story about Succot in Kuwait.

. . . and prisoners

I really appreciate all the work they did for me and many other Jewish soldiers when I was deployed. Apparently they work with prisoners too.

Torahs for the military

The Army is looking for Torahs. I know that there is one in JBB and the Jewish Chaplain in Baghdad had one. I wonder how many others there are in theater.

In NY

As many of you know by now, I am back home in NY. The deployment is over. I will still continue to post stuff here that I and I think some of you who read this might find interesting, and some stuff that I didn't post during the year for one reason or another.

Thanks for all your support over the year.

Iraqi Torah

Iraq seems pretty concerned about its torah.  I am glad that there are already ministries up and running with time to do things like that. 

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.