Tadji Run

I worry like an old lady. Thank goodness everyone returned safely.

We had a mission that left on Saturday and came back this morning (Tuesday) pulling into our gate safely around 6 am. They were driving all night to get here because of the distance and the necessity to stay off the roads during the day. We spent this morning unloading cargo which will then be further transported by our team to other units in our area. I’m working those follow-on missions now while this crew gets some needed shut eye.

This really is a small country. While my team’s mission is to transport cargo, everyone is too busy fighting their own war to get missions for us, so a large part of my job is to set up the missions. Eventually that’ll be an Iraqi responsibility but we’re still in training mode and any mission we can get for them is less time practicing in the motor pool and more time on the road.

I spent my first 9 months here making these kinds of contacts, so I got on email and started asking. I hit a big one with the National Depot looking to send 32 pallets our way, a perfect size for my group based on the size of trucks that we have. We don’t have long haul carriers (flatbeds) because when they created this “army”, they didn’t want to give the Iraqi’s an expeditionary capability (re: Iran/Iraq war) so they kept all the warehouses and depots close to the center of the country, away from the borders and kept the trucks medium sized. Unfortunately, there are legitimate reasons for going out to the borders and we’re living with the consequences. One of them being trucks too “small” to make long distance convoys economical and efficient.

I find this mission from the Depot and I’m working with them to go pick it up. I send out an email stating when we’d be coming to get it (big mistake) and while I’m cc’ing the world another group from a closer point jump in and claim my mission. (Country too small comment) Hey! They say they can come in earlier and want the mission. So I think, fine…one team, one fight, blah, blah and I let the mission go. In the meantime another mission had popped up and I grabbed it. This one was a bit simpler with a basic out and back so we ran this one and they just got back this morning. It worked out well.

It was almost 9 full trucks of medical supplies which will go to the Brigades in our area. It was a good training mission with valid cargo to make the trip worthwhile and everyone came back safely and really pumped up. The Iraqi’s were especially pumped up; this was their first major trip, this was a very visible mission and they got great response from CF people along the route and all the players they met. Unfortunately they were treated better by the CF than they were by the IA. It’s a strange culture and there’s a lot of ‘don’t be pissing in my backyard’ mentality by the IA, so a unit like the MTR that has to traverse battlespace can sometimes run into those attitudes. But they did well and shrugged it off.

I have other missions in the works, requests have been coming in and the work is starting to pile up. Some of them are dangerous runs and for each of those I’ll go over to speak with the IA leadership and see what they think as well as ask our team. The Iraqi’s have accepted every single mission, without hesitation. It then falls to us to decide if the mission is valid training and the cargo justifies traveling these dangerous roads. If those two criteria are met, we’ll take the mission. Right now I’m booked into mid July.

I’m still worried about my favorite officer, Major S. He’s been going into the hospital at night for oxygen and chest pains. I’m sure in the states he’d get an angioplasty or cardiogram or something, but all he gets here is aspirin. I’ve learned he’s their best officer and I think the world of him. My language skills are approaching the point where his bad English and my broken Arabic can get us thru independent conversations without the interpreter. If he’s on station I’ll not hesitate to go see him. I’ll check on him when he comes in the morning and then scold him for coming to work and not staying home to rest. But while the convoy was out of the gate on mission this weekend, he was here worrying about them as much as I was.

Before the convoy left on Saturday, we had the standard briefing by the Convoy Commander, an IA lieutenant. It’s the last chance to make sure everyone has water, food and ammo, gear for the trip, strip maps in case anyone gets lost and other necessities. They brief the route and speed and what happens in the event of an accident, flat tire, ambush, etc, one last chance to get everyone focused on the mission.

When they were all done, Major S. came forward and got them all to take a knee in a semi-circle around him and talked to them about the mission, how important it was, how proud he was of all of them, how grateful the Brigades would be to get these needed supplies, just talking to them to get them in the right mindset for a mission like this, a very dangerous mission where the bad guys get more bang for their buck blowing up these unarmored vehicles. These guys go out with even less armor than us, in fact we are forbidden to travel in vehicles they happily jumped into and drove more than 500 miles on this mission. You could see they worshipped him and held him in exceptionally high regard and I didn’t need an interpreter to tell me that. He’s one of their gifted ones and I’ll be heartbroken if one of these mornings he doesn’t come in.

I’ve spent the last couple of days lining up the next months worth of missions. I’m going to get my chance to ride along on a couple of them, probably the easier milk runs to meet some of the Commanders and help with the hand-over. I’m looking forward to more than just this paperwork. I’ll get the chance to practice my Arabic and I’ve also been promised to learn all their swear words. What is it about learning another language where you don’t feel truly comfortable speaking it unless you can swear like a sailor?

Best wish to everyone!