day of bugs and the slovak woman

Eleven years ago I wrote a story about a man who was slightly crazy and lived with a praying mantis that had taken up residence on his window sill. Tonight as my friend Angie and I sat on my front steps talking, one of these noble beasts flew across my chest, bounced off her knee, and landed between our feet. She thought I’d thrown down a cigarette. The we stood up and studied the five inch mantis, pale like a wax bean.
Today was a day of nothing significant so maybe it was the day of bugs. This morning while inventorying at the Convention Center I watched a young Iraqi janitor kick a large cockroach across the marble floor like it was a soccer ball. I don’t know why he didn’t step on it. He just kept kicking the cockroach with the inside of his feet, driving it toward some goal, what I don’t know.
Or was it the day of the Slovak woman. A pretty Croatian girl named Yvonna accompanied Bill and I on the inventory today. I said Dorbra din, dorbra jutro – words Janka had taught me. I tried to say naz- the Slovak word for cheers but got it all wrong.
We talked nd she convinced me to go to Croatia to really experience the Adriatic, pristine still from the 50 years of industrial tourism that has plagued the rest of Europe.
We had lunch in the Al Rasheed once again, a nice break from the DFAC. I had a club sandwhich which was good except for the fried egg on top. Bill had a lamb burger and vegetable curry, and Yvonna had mezza salad and half a grilled chicken (on the bone) whixh she slathered with ketchup. Slovaks must love that stuff. Janka put it all over her pizza. She said it was Italian style.
I told Yvonna I’d bring her back to the National Restaurant one night and I’d buy her a bottle of red wine, even if it was French. The best reds around here come out of Lebanon…very dry. But she told me to try Croatian wine too. Okay, twist my arm.

Jewel, dates, and knives

Well, that answers that question. Now I know why last week whenever I’d try to peel a boiled egg half the egg cam eoff with the shell. Way back on a work up cruise on the SACRAMENTO I remember Wade saying to me, Billy, that egg is kicking your ass because the shell came off in little flakes and white started tearing away as well. But the past week whe I’ve peeled the eggs the shell has come off in broad patches – ideal. The Marine master guns who sat with me this morning told me he brought the bad eggs to the contractor’s attention last week. He told them how to shock the egg with cold water immediately after boiling it . It worked.
I think I’ve been extended in Iraq, at least that’s what the email said. Not very good news. This ultimate gated community I live in isn’t too unlike a minimum security prison and we’re the ones locked in.
I sat out last night processing this information, listening to Jewel and Cowboy Junkies (infusion of Margo Timmins therapy), staring at the tops of the date palms over the T-walls. The moon is one day past full so the night was blue bright.
I spent yesterday at the convention center inventorying. Once again the personnel over there blew off the preparation I’d requested they do so it is and will continue to be a long, tedious process…for KBR. I mostly walk in the offices, act as liason then sit and talk with the prettiest girl there while KBR counts.
In one of the offices yesterday they had dates fresh off these $25,000 palm trees. The red/brown wrinkled ones were mushy and tasted like ripe plums with syrup poured over them. The yellow green ones which one of the locals assured me was ripe was soft and brown at the bottom but very fibrous and crunchy to bite into. It was just as sweet as the red ones however.
At lunch I walked over to the Al Rasheed looking for deals. I found a 100 year old karanji(sp) knife from Oman. The guy wanted $1000 for it. He told me he paid $700 in 1998 for it. I looked those knives up on ebay but nobody is selling one so I’m not sure what its worth. Their prices tend to run high at the Al Rasheed. I’ve found ivory around here for pretty cheap but the Rasheed’s is high. But I don’t buy ivory.

41 and a wake-up: in the arena

I had yesterday off but couldn’t bring myself to do much for the most of the day. Working seven days a week, and now six days a wekk drains a body, and when I have any down time I just crash.
Eventually I pulled out my Thoreau and a notebook and went and sat in the sun by the pool. But Thoreau bored me even though, as always I found a couple of classic ideas to hold onto. I wrote some in my notebook but what I’d intended to be an essay on the dichotomy of me and Thoreau and military culture turned into yet another rant, self realization that I don’t want to work more than six months a year…someday, if I aspire I will be partially unemployed. Unfortuanetly that means unpaid as well.
So I just pulled out a dried out Cuban cigar and smoked it, watching the lithe girls in the distance run up and down the length of the pool…as the teacher who spent 8 weeks with us on my last cruise and became a friend of mine once said, Billy, you and I were the kids who spent too much time in time-out in kindergarten.
He’s right, I’ve always resisted jumping into the arena. As a kid in Chantay Acres I have somewhat fond memories of crawling down into man holes to stand in the sewer. But when my friends wanted to do it, roll the cover off the man hole, I said we ought not. Only when I saw they were going to pick up that heavy metal lid anyway did I help. Looking back now I guess it could have fallen on us and cut off our fingers…would drastically slow down my typing.
So I made up my mind, stubbed out the foul cigar and walked back to my trailer to change into my swim trunks. I got to the pool and dove in. I flopped and languished and just as I was about to get out to dive in again my friend Andy(rea) swam up. We talked I told her I was afraid to go off the high dive. She got out and dove in from the sort of high dive but I just stayed in the pool and floated on my back. Then I talked to the Dutch girls that are here for NATO. I invited them to the Chinese restaurant with me and Andy, Johnnie, and a navy Master at Arms I’d met while floating in the pool. They said they had to work but maybe next time…maybe next time. I like the Dutch women, with their brown hair and dark eyes. I still need to make it to Amsterdam sometime.
So there was Chinese afterwards, pleasant but filling. Now I’m getting ready to head over to the Convention Center and try to account for U.S. government property. But really, the only thing I’m counting is the days. Forty-one and a wake up.

Peace is a Vacuum

I sat in my hooch last night, half reading James Hillman’s The Terrible Love of War, half thinking about my recent close calls. Just as this good but slightly dull book was putting me to sleep another helicopter flew over, shaking my trailer like a tornado, albeit a small one.
24/7 they fly 100 feet, 50 feet above my trailer, above my office in the palace, bringing in the medivaced wounded. They shake the thin aluminum wall, they rattle the windows. Tuesday I was going to walk down to the hospital with my roommate and visit the wounded soldiers and Marines, take them beef jerky, candy, and lemonade mix that I have left over from care packages.
But I didn’t go. I couldn’t think of what to say. Inherently I’m not a talker with people I don’t know…when there’s no reason to talk I don’t talk. But I also knew if I went I’d draw on my officer skills, ask the soldier how he was doing, give him a forum, a chance to say whatever was on his mind.
But I didn’t go. I went running instead.
In his book Hillman says peace is a vacuum – an absence of, a freedom from. Nature hates a vacuum. What will we fill it with? The sound of helicopters flying low and fast.

the bunker bar - a speakeasy

Last night was my roommate Jim’s going away party. He’s almost completed his arduous three month Air Force tour. I will admit he put in a lot more late nights than I ever would.
We had his party at a place called the bunker bar which we formed a small convoy of unarmored vehicles to take us there. The best part I thought was getting to talk with mine and Shane’s friend Suha. We always see eachother and say hello in passing but I’m awful about stopping to talk to people when I work so I don’t think we’d ever had more than a two minute conversation.
We drove down the road toward BIAP but not far and turned onto a small side street, you know the one: it’s the one where the Iraqi guy sells beer under his carport from the back of his van…there’s an overturned boat in the yard. We stopped by a small window and Iraqi guy stuck out his head. “We’re here to see Tony,” yelled Jim out the window of our Suburban. With those words a large metal gate slid open and our convoy drove into the compound. Inside the Bunker Bar as its called the walls were white bathroom tile and lined with an assortment of automatic weapons, rocket launchers and unexploded ordinance. There were pictograph signs instructing children of varying nationalities not to touch anything that looked like this because it may blow up. Invariably the kid threw a bomb into the air then the last frame would be a blast of fire with the kid’s head and shoulders sticking out. The gentle side of war, taking care of the children, helping them play nice.
Early on Jim broke out the Romeo y Julieta Cuban cigars but only he and I smoked them. They were dry so he got a small tumbler of cognac to dip the ends into. After dipping I stuck mine in my mouth but nearly gagged when a stream of the foul liquor shot into my mouth like I’d bit into a sponge. After a couple of minutes it soaked in and the cigar became smokeable.
Although they had a pool table I never got to show off. I spent most of the evening talking with Suha about our blog pages, the Iraqi neighborhood where her dad lives and stuff. She grew up in Iraq but after high school spent several years in the states, going to college in the Midwest. She told me she’d talked to the journalist who’d just been released by kidnappers. She had met him at the Convention Center where he had been working on a documentary. Independent filmmaking in the new Iraq can be a hazardous enterprise but luckily his adventure turned out alright.
We came back to the compound before midnight and I went to bed. I was sleeping well until some kind of blast shook my trailer and woke me up. I didn’t sleep very good after that. I had expected celebratory fire but never heard any. I don’t know how Iraqs soccer game against Paraguay turned out.

fire fire fire

Yesterday I walked to work looking at the black smoke rolling up to the sky. I figured the Haji flea market with its fifty wicker booths had finally bit the dust – Persian rugs offered to a Persian god. But I got closer and saw that it was the palace. I little shack we built on the second deck mezzanine was fully engulfed in leaping orange flames. The water trucks still hadn’t shown up. A total loss.
By the time the fire was completely out the area was destroyed. The chandeliers had crashed down and the fascia stone was falling off, concrete flaking off revealing the cheap, forced construction Saddam had mandated when he rebuilt this place in 1991. “Rebuild what the Americans destroyed in three months or I will kill you,” was his mandate, or something like that.
Once they let us go inside I walked up to my office thru swishing water and heavy smoke and saw that two rooms inside were totally gutted by the fire – all plaster and wood completely charred. My office was unharmed except for the smoke smell and lack of AC. What could have been a bad situation turned out to be not so bad as it could have been. The DFAC had to serve MRE's for lunch. I got cheese tortellini, among my favorites from the governments collection. And peole carried on with what they had to do. I chaired a meeting to establish an SOP for submitting work requests. And the IT's did a great job. Despite their offices being destroyed by the fire they had the palace back online in a matter of hours.
Nothing further to report.
When I walked to work this morning there were high white cloudes in the sky. They turned the sunlight a grey pink in places where it passed thru them. I haven't seen anything like that in a long time.

happiness kills

Last night I went outside after work and watched the Olympics. I meant to just pass thru but wound up staying for an hour because eit was really entertaining. I watched womens’ pole vault (fascinating how the stick bends and they don’t fall off), womens’ swimming, and womens’ running. There was a mens’ running event as well but I wouldn’t give you fifteen cents to watch mens events. Sort of like I watch baseball sporadically but I remember one time really getting into the womens college softball championship a few years ago…I don’t know why, I just do.
So apparently the Iraqi soccer team was playing and winning at the same time. They must have won. Around ten o’clock the sky over the compound lit up with tracers streaking thru the sky, the air snapping and popping with the sound of jubilant AK-47’s. Celebratory fire…fairly common lately. Most of us sat out watching the fireworks and continuing to watch the games but I noticed the fire was coming from all directions and converging over our heads. These Iraqis’ were happy but they must have some idea that happiness kills so from around the city they aimed for our compound.
I stood out with a major who was trying to catch the streaking sky on his digital camera but decided I’d walk on back to my hooch and change clothes and maybe come back out when all this was over. The Giant Voice switched on: WE HAVE REPORTS OF CELEBRATORY FIRE – ALL PERSONNEL ARE ADVISED TO TAKE IMMEDIATE COVER. I continued walking. Then in thesand five four feet to my right I heard a dull thud. I little cloud of sand swirled a foot above a small hole. I looked up and thought maybe it was a date. But I pulled out my minimag flashlight and found the projectile from an AK-47 round. It was half an inch long, copper or brass, scraped by the rifling on the barrel. Good souvenir.
I never thought about how dangerous a falling bullet was before I got to Iraq. I figured they just fell. But then I talked to people who’ve had rounds fall into their trailers. That means it pierced a thin metal roof and particle board ceiling before plopping down on someone’s bed. Thin metal and particle board aren’t much of a barrier but then neither are our bare heads. One specialist came running by me last night to take cover. In June a falling round went through his cell phone and hit him in the face. When I went back out last night showing off my near miss one lady told me the success of the Iraqi soccer team had put nearly fifty people in the hospital due to celebratory fire. And its simple really – just remember your physics: terminal velocity for falling objects is 32 feet per second (sq?). Not nearly so fast as they fire out of a weapon but plenty fast none the less.
So I’m not terribly excited about this good Iraqi soccer team. I hope they do well, give a destroyed country something to rally around. But I temper that with the thought that happiness kills.

damage assessment and Nick Berg

Last night around nine o’clock the KBR rep and I went up to the room where the mortar hit to assess the damage. Clean up had already started and plywood applied and the real heavy work will begin today. Missle damage freaks people out if they look at it too long.
I was technically there to assess what kind of work orders would be put in for the repair work but lets face it…we love to rubber neck and gawk. I’d always imagined rockets and mortars scratching the surface and then bouncing around on the palace roof/ But this one blew a two foot hole in the roof then blasted out an eight foot whole thru the plaster and rebar of the ceiling. My jaw dropped, not the least because this happened 60 feet from my second story office. When I walked into the room I couldn’t believe the people lived thru it. In fact the only reason the woman wasn’t killed is because she had walked over to the copier.
After looking at the damage and being amazed that the AC was still flowing thru the smashed up duct work I walked on back to my hooch. I sat outside drinking Tuborgs with my neighbor Mike. He’s an older guy, retired Air Force who is here now as a contractor. He told about being in Somalia and Vietnam then we talked about Iraq and rebuilding the infrastructure etc. Then we laughed at all the people who work in the compound and carry around pistols, even when they don’t go out. I told him all I carried a hunting knife because no SOB was going to cut off my head. He said he carried a machete in Vietnam for the same reason. “Speaking of cutting off people’s heads I worked with Nick Berg back in the winter. We were up in Mosul together.”
He said that Nick came to their compound and stayed with them for a few weeks.
“He was a free spirit, well, read and smart but he didn’t have any sense…One day we were out looking at the comms tours up around Mosul and he said he was going to climb to the top of the tour to check out the wiring. I told Nick, you can’t go up there, there’s an inch of ice on every rung of that ladder’, well he climbed it anyway, part of the way then came back down and told me I was right.”
Berg had an uncle by marriage who taught at the university in Mosul. He went out to visit him sometimes, said he’d just catch a cab. I told him not to do it. I said, “Nick you got curly hair and that Jew nose, and light skin, you’ll stick out like the balls on a dog. But he went anyway.”
Mike said he couldn’t believe it when he saw Nick Berg on television, being held hostage.
So often Iraq seems harmless but then you have to do damage assessments, figure out what needs to be done, and how much Americans will have to pay.

enviro-musings and army money

Last night I didn’t put in any extra time after the eight o’clock knock off time. It had been a slow day, sometimes physically painful to stay awake. And I’d accomplished my mission for the evening:
I’d called Washington D.C. and got a DoDAAC – which is what the Army uses to charge items against. In the Navy we call it a line of accounting. LtCol V. was sort of surprised all this could be accomplished over the phone without me ever having to prove who I was. I had them create both an agency UIC and DoDAAC just because I asked politely.
Afterwards I walked out to the pool where MWR chick Andy was showing Monty Python’s Search For the Holy Grail. A funny, funny movie even if it is British humor. My favorite line is where they guy says the witch turned him into a Newt, “I got better”. I watched it for and hour but have seen it many, many times so walked back to my hooch.
Back at the hooch I sat outside talking with the guy next door. Chris came in and wanted to show me his new gun. I went in his trailer and he handed me an Iraqi made version of a Berreta 9mm. Pretty cool weapon but the only thing “different” about it was the Arabic writing engraved on the barrel. He said he knows of one legal way to get it back to the states and he’s going to try that before he resorts to illegal methods.
Over in the corner were 14 boxes of books. I looked thru them…all title about free speech in Australia and how to evade the tax codes in Canada – donations from some organization. I did find one called It Takes A Hero – the Grassroots battle against Environmental Oppression. I could tell by the title I wouldn’t agree with much of it but I took it anyway. I always like grassroots movements…I’m a Populist like that.
The first story was about a guy in Idaho who fought for the right to ride his motorcycle on public land. No problem. I agree we should have designated areas for off road vehicles…they are lots of fun. Of course as much as I love the ying ying ying ying ying of a two-stroke engine they are loud. Motor vehicles of all kinds should be kept out of hiking and horseback riding areas. We can’t all play together…I refuse to. Give me a gun and I’ll shoot the sign that tells me I have to.
The next story was about logging in the Shawnee National Forest. The loggers claimed the forest needed the maples and hickories cleared out because the oak trees needed full sun and this would make for better wildlife habitat. Well, I think anyone interested in trees in the southeast and Midwest knows the climax community is the oak hickory forest. I really think forestry is the only science people know the answers to before they do the research – the prologging camp says health is in the clearcut and the environmentalists say leave it alone…lets create a fire hazard.
I am actually sympathetic with the loggers these days in most circumstances. We have lots of protected forest land. We need wood…save our old growth (or at least second growth) in the protected areas…responsibly cut the rest. Of course in Washington the sick little farmed out trees (last harvest 1985) and clear cut scars across the land drives home the point that there is a better way.
A few years ago in February I was between ships so I drove down to northern California to camp in the redwoods. I love it down there. But the rain started on the second day so I found stuff to do inside. In a brewpub in Eureka I watched vintage NASCAR racing, cr 1974 and got to talking to a logger named Jess. He said he was probably the youngest old growth logger I’d ever meet…he was in his early thirties, solidly built, big guy.
He lamented the loss of logging in NORCAL, the death of the little mill towns. He blamed it on people from outside coming in and telling them how to run their communities. He claimed Redwood National Park was the least visited park in the country and though I disagree I will say that on rainy days in February I’ve never seen many people there. But apart from the natural bitterness that comes when your livelihood is taken away he also expressed an appreciation for the life he was able to live, out in the woods. I asked if he was familiar with that girl who sat up in that tree called Luna for two years.
Yeah, I know ol’ Julia he said with a grin. You know she claimed to have stayed in that tree for two years but my buddy saw her several times in bars in Fontana during that same time.
I heard she got pregnant in that tree?
Yeah, that’s what they say. He smile, not saying the rest.
Jess also told me about the guy who was killed a few years ago during a tree sit.
I know the guy that felled the log that killed him and he felt really bad about it. He never meant to hurt anybody.
I suppose not but it takes a hero no matter what side you’re on. One thing is for sure – in the U.S. we have more natural beauty in our land that any other country on earth could ever dream of. How we use it is our legacy to the world. Jess needs a job and college students with time on their hands need a cause.
Later that same night I was a place in Arcata talking to this girl who was a photographer. I came here to be an activist she said.
Why?
Because these people here don’t know what they’ve got…they need us here to show them.
Jess, I fell your pain ol’ buddy.

lunch at the palace

Issues the last couple of days with the palace dining facility – D-Fac. The people with the new contract an’t keep up, can’t get their act together. I went down at noon today to pick up an MRE but there were about three hundred people in line. No thanks. I won’t stand in that line. But I did see the super hot (in a quiet way) Army captain. She has blonde hair and is very plain. With the crowd the most I could do was cut in front of her and say hello. It would have stupid to stand there beside the line talking…filling up the silence.
So I walked back up the grand staircase and went back to my office. I had some homemade, hot hot beef jerky somebody sent in from Texas. I also had ruffles and French onion dip and Pepsi. And a box of raisins.

bricks and mortar

Yesterday I talked with the guy I’ll probably be working for in Washington. He’s a Commander, just taking over the position. We have several mutual acquaintances but that’s to be expected with the PACNORWEST navy. So in a few days that should be set.
Just got an email from my friend Susan the other day that she is getting married, after ten years of dating, to Sam. Their wedding is mid-October and its possible I’ll get out of B’daddy in time to get to Charleston to attend. I think when people get married after being together ten years its forever. At least it would seem that way to me. I’m happy for both of them. She and the Doctor just returned from a trip to the southwest. I’ll have to pick his brain about what new stuff he found out in Abbey country. I hope he brought me back a rock.
This job has slowed down, waiting for the hectic rush thjat will come when we get the go ahead to put the new property data base online. So I sat surfing the ‘net, glazed yesterday afternoon when a guy comes in needing a CIF form to get a new helmet.
“Mine was stolen.”
Have you filled out a statement at the Provost Marshall’s office yet?
No. I’ll do that.
BTW – where did they steal it from you?
I left it at the shuttle stop. I noticed I didn’t have it so I took the shuttle back and it was gone. Somebody stold it.
No, YOU lost it.
Someone took it from where I’d left it.
No, you were negligent and lost it. It doesn’t matter to me…just don’t go to the provost Marshall to do the statement.
Anyway…that’s how these exchanges go. Me being a steward of your tax dollars.
TV’s get a big fat NO. A certain general always asks for things – air conditioning, move this wall, buy $20K worth of furniture…my favorite – replace the cardboard in that window with plywood because the dust destroys my allergies. That one I approved.
Of course lets face it: if someone really wants it after I invalidate their request they submit a waiver to my commander and get what they want anyway. But I really wonder how many of my tax pennies went into buying the nearly $50K worth of furniture in the main General’s office(s).
We build so much here then tear it down again. Its all fluid, this rebuilding of Iraq. I’ve learned more about brick laying here than ever before. But even these brick structures are shaky and built for a day. Then they’ll tear it down and chip the dried mortar off the old yellow bricks and build something else.

sundays and my cowboy ways

I had the day off yesterday. I’ve changed my day to Sunday because I really don’t like working on Sunday’s. It goes beyond the religious to the cultural…day of rest day of relaxation day when I don’t work and won’t work in the near future. This excudes all home projects like gardening etc. But no throwing any chicken in the bucket working for the Man on a Sunday. I did that at Lowes and used to find it physically painful to be at work on Sundays. I have car racing to watch, walks in the woods to accomplish.
Yesterday I continued reading The Fool’s Progress by Edward Abbey. I sat n the sun reading sweating tanning. Much the same way I did reading Desert Solitaire in 1993 in the mornings before I had to be at that air conditioning factory (that wasn’t air conditioned) in Lewisburg to work the second shift. Fool’s Progress is like finding out what Abbey was doing when he wasn’t being that solitary park ranger at Arches National Park. The funny thing is is the book takes place in 1980, poor sick Henry and his sick dog driving hss worn out pick up truck back to Stump Crick West Virginia to die at his brothers house. This book is like the dash between the born on and died on dates on Abbey’s tombstone. Of course Abbey has no tombstone…he was rolled up in a sleeping bag and secretly buried in the desrt by some of his friends. A few days later they had a Bachus like festival near the site…Ed’s wishes.
After reading and walking to the flea market I sat down to watch a movie. I put in The Godfather. I’ve started the movie several times but never have made it all the way thru. Yesterday I never got past the opening scene. It was boring. And I don’t like ganster movies – Casino, the Sopranos, anythingby that all shock no talent schmuck Quentin Tarantino – they are way tooo violent. In my old age I really don’t like useless violence. So I put on the ultimate spaghetti western, For A Few Dollars More. Its really is a great movie…drama with nice scenery. There is a buck toothed red head in the movie that I find rather attractive. I don’t know why.
The other day I watched Unforgiven because it is on my same pirated DVD disc.Thats a really good one too. Clint Eastwood understands the way to play a cowboy, a drifter, a man who isn’t really nice but not terribly mean. His character in Unforgiven kills a lot of people in the end but you get the feeling they had it coming to them. “Don’t you go cuttin’ up any (women with entrepreneurial tendencies).” He’s out to protect and serve. Unforgiven also has some outstanding landscapes in it as well. What is a movie if not something beautiful to look at.
That’s what I miss most about the United States right now. I could get in my truck and drive to some wide open space…I’m tired of saying excuse me. I’m tired of breathing everybody elses air. Three thousand people crammed in one little palace. It s kinda gross when the sewer back up.

addendum: now I know why the tracers flew overhead

In its first Olympic competition since its country was shattered by war, Iraq upset star-studded Portugal 4-2 on Thursday in a gritty, come-from-behind victory as about 200 chanting fans cheered

Loretta Lynn and Northern Lights

I got a pretty good sleep last night but I think I’m coming down with a cold. Johnnie and I hung out at the pool listening to music. She told me more details about her trip to Amsterdam…sounds like a great trip. We also knocked around the idea of me joining her and her friends in Las Vegas when I leave here and she goes on R&R but I think I’ll be ready to get back to Iceland by that point…ready for 50 knot winds, sleet, and the Northern Lights. It will actually be good to get back. Sigurdur emailed me the other day and told me it was 80 degrees but I think he was joshing me.
Last night was quiet except for the celebratory fire. I don’t know what they were celebrating, getting thie butts kicked in Najaf I guess. At any rate the pink tracers flying through the air sent us to take cover because falling bullets kill.
I talked with my detailer yesterday and I think I’ll be getting orders to Whidbey Island. I’ve been stationed in Bremerton and Everett, WA in the past and I really like the area. I want to buy a house up there and actually get a dog. Thirty one years and I’ll finally buy my best friend. Really that sounds pathetic but its not. The billet opens in July but I may can slide in in May which means I’d detach from Keflavik a month early. I’m not sure what they’ll have me doing when I get back to Kef so hitting the lava trail a little early probably won’t matter.
Yesterday I got two CD’s. One was Jimmy Buffet’s License to Chill which my mother sent me. Its really good in the Jimmy Buffet way. Though I prefer his music from the 70’s when he was an angry young man casually giving the world the finger License is his best album in years. It’ll be one I keep in my truck for a long time to come. I like the whole aging, mellowing feel to the album.
At the PX I bought Revelation by Joe Nichols. I like it sort of. He’s got a good voice and there are a couple of really good songs on there, especially the classic tear-n-beer Farewell Party. But Nichols has one half of whats wrong with Nashville’s country music these days – this album gets heavy handed with religion and preaches at times. This religious kick I guess started with the roots of country music and I like those old songs and Roy Acuff too but salvation isn’t what I’m looking for in a contemporary country song. The other kick country has sold out to is the war anthem/song. Recently online I read The Nashville Scene’s YOU’RE SO NASHVILLE IF… contest. My favorite:
You’re so Nashville if you need a war to sell your records.
Toby Kieth is a clever song writer but he seems to exploit the sentiments of Americans. Daryl Worly did the same thing with Have You Forgotten. John Micheal Montgomery’s Letters From Home is actually a bit more sincere and holds up as a good song. Alan Jackson’s Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning is far and away the best country song to be inspired by September 11 and the military action which has followed. That song captures loss and devastation and I get a lump in my throat every time I hear it.
But if you really want to hear the best country album of the year pick up Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose. Its produced by Jack White of the White Stripes and I think he captures what Loretta Lynn always wanted to sound like if Owen Bradley hadn’t of got in the way. Its raw and real.

sandbags and silent nights

Coming of a quiet night (silent night holy night) and feeling a little better rested. Though its my fault why I’m a little tired. I cleaned my trailer with Clorox wet wipes then started reading on The Fools Progress but remembered I had to visit someone’s hooch to pick something up. On the way I ran into a friend and she came back to my hooch with me and we sat out talking until midnight. Then my roommate comes home right as I’m ready to crawl into bead (dark, blissfully silent) and turns on the light. I cover up my head with my Korean blanket but eventually have to tell him to turn off his lamp. Sleep…but not enough hours.
I had sand bag detail yesterday. The idea is to sit outside supervising local nationals while they build or refurbish existing sand bag wall s in the trailer park. That worked for the morning. SrA A. and I found shady spots to sit where we actually could watch the action and track where the Iraqi teenage boys and old men who made up the detail wandered off to. Iraqis are generally hard workers. They work with a group mentality which we were briefed on before deploying. They’ve filled about 3 million sand bags in the last few months. Occasionally some of the younger kids who carried trash and tend to know more English would come over and talk with us. One kid showed me how he broke his arm in three places playing football and can’t bend it all the way back now. He kept offering me More menthol cigarettes which I puffed on with him although I don’t smoke. Its very offensive to an Iraqi to refuse an offer. Others just asked us for shoes because theirs were falling apart. If you want to do something good send some old (but not worn out) shoes to Iraq. I’ll probably leave all mine here but for my boots.
Then my friend Jackie, a pretty blonde with tortoise shell cat eye glasses wandered out of her hooch and stood talking to us while she waited on her laundry. I decided to make a picture…mistake.
The guys dropped their sand bags and surrounded us asking to have their pictures taken, mostly with Jackie, some with me because I wear gold warfare pins and they thought I was important. I’ve never ordered the subdued patches and pins we are supposed to wear and with 60 days to go I probably won’t now.
At 1145 we broke for lunch and when we came back the 130 degree heat made us drop all attempts at looking like we were supervising. Me, SrA A, a SSGT, and a Major sat in the shade of a eucalyptus tree and waited out the day.
Due to the heat the LN’s knocked off at two fifteen. All eighty of them gathered under the eucalyptus tree where they handed their badges in to a former captain in the Iraqi army. They sat their patiently, some singing, some laughing, until they were paid their $7 or $8 dollars worth of Iraqi dinar. Supervisors got $10.
I had to go back to work for the rest of the day but I think I’ll volunteer for sand bag detail again, I’d like to do it about once a week. Staring into the sun is a nice break from staring at my HP 1702 computer monitor.

drums and fleet footed animals

You are so Baghdad if…
After a long day at work yesterday I took off early and changed clothes. Shane’s last night in town and we were taking him out to dinner at the Al-Rasheed. We rode over with Jill in her Pajero – me, Johnnie, Shane, and Kerry from the State Department. I remember the sun made the sky yellow then darkened to orange near the horizon as we walked down the pock marked sidewalk to the Rasheed, with its beautiful fountain which Shane thinks I want to pack it up and put it in my front yard. That would be cool.
Jill suggested we play some pool before dinner. I hadn’t eaten since my salsa drenched hash browns at breakfast so I was hungry.
We played three games. Ultimately Kerry and Johnnie beat Shane and I for the championship of the world. It was getting on nigh nine o’clock so we decided to go eat. We decided to go to the Chinese restaurant instead of the fancy National Restaurant.
We sat down and ordered quickly because they were about to close the kitchen. After we ordered Jill gave Shane and I presents she brought us back from her trip to Africa. Shane got a box and I got a cool drum with an impala skin stretched across it. We passed it around experimenting with different beats – drum circle Baghdad.
The first mortar hit fairly near and loud:
Woow, that was close.
Then came the whistle – long and loud in terms of a traveling mortar. I’ve never seen plastic lawn chairs fly out from under people’s butts so fast in my life. I fell to the ground but saw Jill running, yelling GET INSIDE GET INSIDE…reminded me of a platoon leader or something. We all got in to the rickety little concrete bathroom and laughed. After two minutes the waiter brought me my change from the $50 I’d given him.
We drove back but had to park in the big parking lot because the sirens were going and the palace was on lock down. We were able to come into the pedestrian gate.
Johnnie, Shane, and I walked back to my trailer to round out the evening. I walked inside to grab a couple of Carlsbergs and found my roommate in helmet and body armor taking up residence in the bathroom. We talked a minute then he got back in bed to read. The rest of us sat with King and a Jewish lady who complained she was being hit on too much here by anti-Semitic guys. Must be tough to pick up a woman when throw out racial slurs at her. Jews, the other white people she kept saying, pleased with her sloganeering.
In a replay of the night before a few more mortars dropped in, the Big Voice said TAKE COVER TAKE COVER so we walked around the corner to the bunker but didn’t stay long.
Bored with the intrusive mortars I picked up my drum and made up a song – I’m an impala, I’m a Chevrolet. Shane’s big send off courtesy of me and Johnny, Jill and Kerry, all the people he’d had to interact with everyday in our sour customer service way…he summed it all up with a twist as I finished my song. “You’re going to miss this place,” he said.
I know. In Baghdad everything ends with a bang.

ghurkas and severed arms

Today I bought two of the infamous Ghurka knives from the guard downstairs. He wanted $90 but since I bought to he came down to $80 a piece. These are good knives, heavy steel with a crooked blade. The handle end is wrapped yak leather as is the hard the sheath. Two little knives come with it, one sharp, one a sharpener. The guy told me in broken English that these were the national weapon of Nepal.
The Ghurkas have an intimidating reputation though most of the ones that work for Global are older and a few are overweight. But, they are tough. The reason the Ghurkas don’t carry their knives when on duty is because of an incident a few months ago. A drunk American coming through a check point grabbed a Ghurka on watch from behind. Reflexively the Ghurka grabbed his knife, gave a whack and the guys arm had to be surgically reattached.
Its all part of the legend – if a Ghurka draws his knife it MUST draw blood before it can be returned to the sheath. Back in the colonial days, the British used Ghurkas for crowd control in Hong Kong. They’d form a line, fix bayonets and walk into the crowd. That’s how the Ghurkas came to be working here today.When the British decided to take over India most of the subcontinent rolled over for them. But as they approached the Ghurka region of Nepal the locals fought savagely, nearly to the last man. This gained the respect of the Crown and Ghurkas have employeed as elite units in the British Army ever since.

iraqi haircuts and ocular migraines

These Iraqis know how to cut my hair better than anybody else. They really make my head look good and that takes some doing. Its not quite as pleasant as the Icelandic girls that used to give me haircuts in Keflavik, but my hair looks better. At least as far as military haircuts can look.
The only awkward time is when an Iraqi barber pulls out the straight razor and shaves my sideburns and the wayward fuzz just above my ears, then runs that thin edged steel down the back of my neck.
So yesterday after I got my haircut I came back to crunch serial numbers some more at my desk and realized I couldn’t see. I had a white, blind spot in the left corner of my field of vision. The horror wasn’t that I couldn’t work but I couldn’t even surf the net, what I call monitoring CNN. LtCol V. said I should go to the clinic. I did, they still owed me their property record anyway.
At the clinic it got worse, a jagged line like pixles formed across my left eye. Then the periphery of my vision blurred and started to flicker. The Doc didn’t know what to do so he sent me to the CSH to see the opthamalogist. By the time I walked the mile to the CSH my vision had cleared.
The opthamalogist listened to half of my story then finished the other half for me (with complete accuracy). Turns out I’d had an ocular miagraine, not painful and very common. Still he dialated my left eye to explore.
So there I am walking back to the palace with a patch over my left eye. Though I managed to squint my way thru a meeting when I got back I couldn’t effectively see until after dinner.

an addendum for the birds

yesterday I got this crazy work request to build a courtyard, yes a courtyard here at the palce. Plant trees and shrubs and bring in loads of dirt to pour on top of the sand. Of course this flippant request will take some brass banging me over the head to get it pushed thru (I'm a staunch guardian of tax payer money). But what really gets me is they want to put up screens around the trees to keep the birds from nesting. Now that doesn't seem like a "whole earth" approach to the situation. There is a Major who always puts in these requests on the General's behalf and I sometimes wonder if its like those Life ceral commercials: "Give it to Maj X. He'll ask for it. He'll ask for anything."
Maybe I can interest them in xeroscaping...now that would be a cool way to go into business here in Iraq - as a landscaper.

adrenaline and birds and bats

It came in with a thin whooosh right as I walked out the door of my trailer. Then the crackly boom. I got the immediate grab-n-go adrenaline rush for seven, eight seconds then continued walking to the d-fac for cantaloupe and coffee, Rolling Stone Ray Charles memorial issue rolled up in my hand.
One day I’ll get tired of reporting the mundane details of mortars and rockets but one day even farther down the road I’ll look back on it and say, Man, that was a trip.
Still working on the property book though the KBR rep didn’t show up for yesterday’s post inventory. I called and griped about it but hell, if I wasn’t making $100,000 a year I wouldn’t show up either.
“Uncle Hank I failed outta cosmetology school and got a job at KBR.”
“The Wal-Mart greeter stood at the door handin’ out KBR applications today.”
“What experience have you got?” I got booted out of the Army for smokin’ pot. “Prior military. You’ve got leadership skills, we’ll put you in management.”
SO much for my KBR tirade. When you skim the bottom of a barrel you don’t find lucidity material to work with. That’s why the KBR employees who are competent work really really hard. There are a few of them.
The government pays KBR $400 per person per day to billet, feed, and give office support to contractors. Yours and my tax dollars at work.
But I grow weary with this rant. Lets talk about birds, shall we?
I like the birds around the palace. The large bird population in conjunction with the large feral cat population pokes about a million holes in that theory that outdoor cats have a drastic effect on wild bird populations. These scrawny little felines here have no regular food so if any cat was going to eat a lot of birds these wood.
Still, the trees are full of birds. The last two days I’ve sat under the big tree by the pool taking a break they have left their droopingsing on my DCU shirt and yesterday on the top of my boots. Maybe in all this camoflauge I blend in too well because I don’t think they’ve targeted the Iraqi workers who rest under the tree as well.
But here’s the kind of birds I’ve seen:
Many many sparrows crowd under the shade of the picnic tables out by the pool.
And there are these birds, I want to say a sort of towhee, with grey bodies, brownish grey wings, black heads with big white cheek patches. And there is a dove, often getting into territorial fighting matches where its coos turn to screams. These are regular grey doves with a wavy black ring around their neck and a white patch at the end of their tails.
There is a crow like bird as well. Its call is very human sounding trilled “aarrrr”. Its mostly black with white feathers thought I haven’t seen many of them.
These birds hang out in the trees all over the compound, shuffling in the dried palm fronds, leaving me to wonder if it’s a rat or a bird until you see the dove fly out.
There are also small bats which zip around at dusk when we go out to watch a movie at the pool. They fly low and have almost run into me before but I guess they know what they’re doing so I don’t worry about it too much.

the Brits

Yesterday was a typical Sunday in Baghdad – a lazy day that felt like a Tuesday when you don’t do much work but you have to be there anyway. As always it was accentuated by bomb blasts. This time at that Armenian Church. No mortars which is goof. The last a couple of nights ago caused me to sit up in bed but then go right back to sleep. Whatever it hit must have already been in bad shape – no one could identify a location because nobody could find any damage.
A British guy came in yesterday for a fuel card so I asked him the location of the British pub that 1LT H. had told me about. His accent was thick and hard to understand but I pieced the information together. Then we just shot the breeze for awhile. He told he thought US PSD’s and CIA’s wore too much gear. He told me he’d been in the British special forces over 20 years then said, “I’ve done my time at Hereford.”
I gave him a puzzled look so he explained he was part of a crew that crawled in thru a window at the Iranian embassy in London in 1980 and killed a slew of would-be hostage takers.
Later in the evening S. and I walked down to the British Pub. We passed thru a Gherka checkpoint then a Royal Marine and were on British soil in Baghdad.
The guard told us they weren’t supposed to let Americans in anymore but he thought that was mostly Army and since we were Navy it was okay.
We walked to the heart of the compound and saw they most wonderful outpost of British empire building – the thatch roof cabana bar. It was all homemade – the tables were cable spolls sunk into the stand. The barstools were sections of date palm that had been cut to height, as were the four corners of the structure. Little did they know those treess cost $20,000 to replace. I figure that little pub cost them about $160,000 to build if the Iraqi’s make them replace the trees. I hear that’s what they’re having us do.
A British corporal came over and sat with us. He was only 22 and had a degree in Electrical Engineering. He said there were lots of benefits to being enlisted which is why he didn’t go officer. He also said the money for enlisted was better than most of his college mates made. That’s a big difference from the U.S. military. Our junior enlisted personnel don’t make much and could qualify for food stamps.
His best story was about him and one of his buddies riding around in a taxi at their home base in Northern Ireland. They’d been instructed to not let anyone know they were soldiers so they told the taxi driver they were students and wanted to see the sights.
At one point this guy’s friend had to take a leak so he gets out and pees on this wall full of grafitti dedicated to Bobby Sands, the great IRA leader. He gets back in and the driver tells him, “If somebody saw you do that and thought you were a British soldier you’d be dead and there’d be riots.”
You gotta love the Brits and their sense of adventure. They are old hands at this overseas service. We build our camps and set up a PX but the Brits bring a little of the old empire everywhere they go. You could almost imagine Rudyard Kipling sitting at that little thatch roof pub making up one of his bad songs about soldiers.