My brother

I was talking to Mo (Mohammad) last night; he’s one of our full time interpreters. We had gotten up around midnight to let the convoy in our IA gate. He’s invaluable to me; he’s the best of the group. He told me last night he still keeps in contact with the previous MiTT chief we replaced. Before they left, they had asked him if he was going to stay on for the new team (us) and he told them he’d see how well the new team treated him. He’s still here, so I guess we passed. Either that or he’s pulling my leg to get a raise. We’re still feeling each other out, but he’s worth his weight in whatever he’s getting paid.

I think we found the outer radius of our convoy operations for these MTR’s. We had two vehicles break down on our 3 day mission and both were towed back by recovery vehicles. It originally had been 4 days with multiple stops, then Baghdad got ugly and we decided on more stops in between which would have made it 6 days and it just got to be too much, I cut out an entire leg. As it happened, 3 days on the road for them showed a lot of the problems they’re going to encounter as they’re turned over to IA Division control, not even counting the vehicle breakdowns.

First of all, I cannot believe how terribly they’re treated by their own Army. We have a hard time taking IA convoys onto CF bases and usually can’t do it without a lot of prior planning. Showing up at a CF base at 2 in the morning with an IA convoy toting armed gun trucks is usually frowned upon and usually denied just because of how jittery everyone is around the Iraqi’s Some places make them stack arms and go without their weapons to get into DFac’s to eat or just to drive around the base. Everyone here still remembers the DFAC that was blown up in Mosul in December 2005 by a suicide bomber in an IA uniform and no commander wants to be the nice guy that could potentially bring disaster on his watch. It’s a valid concern but it’s tough on us. We look for IA bases situated next to CF bases and then split off, letting the Iraqi’s take care of Iraqi’s while we hunker down on the CF side.

We found one and called them up to alert them. It was late, but I spoke with the MiTT and we had a workable plan on the table to let the IA support them. As the convoy returned home, though, I found out they made our IA troops sleep outside on the ground and didn’t feed them or give them water. There are a number of problems here, first of all was my workable plan shot all to hell.

The host IA unit didn’t take these soldiers under their wing and support them. For whatever reason, they don’t or won’t. Second, our IA leaders need to be more forceful in taking care of the Jundee under their care and they need to get in the mode of demanding support if it’s not provided. They consider it a loss of face to ask for help, even for their own soldiers and won’t ask. These are junior officers but officers nonetheless and they need to understand how important it is to look out for the troops under their control.

Third, our Division needs to get involved and work this at the Army level so that everyone understands what to do when one unit travels into adjoining battlespace. The Commanders at all levels need to recognize them and support them. I haven’t comprehended yet how deep this secular division is, but even in the Army and the same religion, there’s this sense of turf. I see it a lot now and I’m perplexed how to get them over it. We’re bringing it up at our meeting with the MTR and Division next week, I don’t think anyone has a good plan to get over it.

Speaking of secret warehouses… A couple of days ago I visited with the Brigade Commander here on post. There are 3 brigades in the Division and we met the 2 star in charge of this one (U.S. Brigade Commanders are usually a Colonel). After about 15 minutes of pleasantries he asked if the MTR could go north to their warehouse and bring back materiel for the Brigade. I had no idea what warehouse he was talking about.

Working with COSCOM, MNSTC-I and MoD for all these months has helped me understand where all the warehouses are and all the equipment for their military. I’ve never heard MoD or anyone talk about these so now I’m curious what they are and what’s in them? I’m thinking I’ve found the lost WMD, but I could be mistaken. I’m probably not that curious to go look, but it’s interesting to speculate nonetheless. I’ve since been told they’re staging warehouses for when the Kurds break off from Iraq, but that’s speculation, too. They’re too far north for this unit to go visit; I’ll have to wait for the breaking news from MSN.

Best wishes from Iraq.

Pawns

Here's a picture of our last convoy heading out the door for a mission. The IA have purchased a lot of U.S. HMWWV's and definately a way for our economy to recoup some of the war costs. When they buy stuff, the mantra is 'Buy American'.

Our mission is to get this unit out on the road and trained to function as a transportation and support unit. It’s a dangerous mission but very necessary and the key piece to the logistics function of the IA. This piece allows the IA to function autonomously. The Iraqi Army can patrol the streets all they want, but if they can’t get fuel or food or water or clothes or ammunition to the Jundee in the field, they’ll never be independent, they’ll always rely on the coalition for support. If the MTR’s provide independence, we can go home. That’s the plan, anyways. This unit and the others like it across the country have a lot of visibility and each of the Divisions have one Motorized Transportation Regiment (MTR).

When I got here, I started calling around looking for missions and knew this guy (who knew a guy, who knew a guy) that handled medical supplies for the IA out of Baghdad. Talking to him, we organized a trip down to their warehouse to pick up a boatload of Med supplies. I didn’t go on this first trip but they returned successfully with great fanfare. The medical personnel divided up the supplies to the Division and because the 3 brigades of the division are in 3 different locations, we organized a follow-on mission to one of the brigades co-located at division headquarters. Long story short, I went on the second mission and found out how badly my IA soldiers had been treated on the first trip, being turned away by the very IA Division they support while trying to get fuel (CF provided it across the street), but how well they were received on this second trip when they showed up with cargo. I guess it has something to do with demonstrating your worth, but I wasn’t too happy about it and talked to the MiTT’s from the Division. Note - The CF has MiTT’s all over the place, at every level of the IA and we provide parallel planning to make sure that stuff like this doesn’t happen, or shouldn’t.

The Division gave us 16 motorcycles to bring back for the 2nd Brigade (I'm expecting the first casualty shortly) and 700 uniforms for us, one for everybody in the unit and apparently a gift from the Division. I have to write about the Kurds secret warehouses up north, don’t let me forget.

The Division was ecstatic to receive the supplies and the MTR was hailed. It was a great accomplishment for them and all returned safely. I wish I could take credit for their training but the MiTT we replaced did a fantastic job. Since they’re safely back in the states, I’ll acknowledge Major McGurk and his team for their fantastic accomplishment preparing the MTR for transportation and supply operations, a job well done. Our mission now is to take them to the Regimental level and conduct movements on the road, which we’re doing.

There is a criteria for accepting missions. As a priority, we ensure that the mission tests their skills in convoy operations, transportation, supply operations and cargo handling. We also ensure that they only go out for valued cargo to transport. We’re not going to send them (or us) out on the road just to drive around; it’s too dangerous.

In the middle of all this, I get an email from one of our GO’s (General Officer-US) who wanted to talk about the MTR and the successes they’ve had. He came in Friday. You have to understand what a goat rope we go thru for a GO visit, its spin city. It shouldn’t be, but they’re a distinguished visitor based on rank and you end up preparing power point presentations to review your operations and let them know what’s going on.

He came in with 9 people (they travel in packs) and blind sided me with their plan to accelerate the transition of this unit to the IA division. The original plan was to train them to the date marked on the wall and then give them to the Division, independent of CF. He wants to move that date “left”, to accelerate the transition.

He works for the gaining IA unit and I work for the MTR under another GO and what this does is put me in the middle to admit that they’d be ready by the earlier date (they will be) and that I should suggest to my GO to move the date left. Tricky business, this working with Generals is. You do your best to protect the turf of your own GO, but the spin begins and by the time I crafted my email to my boss (part of this post), two of their emails had already gone out praising our unit and suggesting what a great idea it would be to accelerate the transition. I’ve been battling those emails all day, but it’s a loosing battle and looks like the stampede is about to begin.

My worry is that the IA Division commander is going to parcel out this unit to each of the Brigades and let them use them as they see fit. That would destroy the integrity of the unit and all the hard work they’ve accomplished. But if that’s the case, then so be it. The Iraqi Army is free to use Iraqi units as they see fit and if that accelerates the departure of the CF from this theater, then that’s what we do. I just need to get over the personal issues of the officers I’ve met and worked with and trust in them like they trust in themselves. En’shalla, whatever happens will happen.

I’m being booted from the manifest for today’s trip. It’s a trip down south to drop off IA soldiers from one base to another but my emails indicate otherwise. They want the transition plan put together so the Generals can brief each other. It’s also a better idea for me if I work with the MTR staff on what exactly this early transition does to them and start getting them prepared to work with a higher headquarters.

Otherwise, all is well. It’s a great environment and we have a good team. We picked up 3 new interpreter’s yesterday and we’re breaking them in. They’re locals who are hired by a U.S. contracting agency vetted for security, communication skills, etc. I worked with one of them yesterday. He’s a little nervous around us yet, but he should be fine.

Puppies are getting bigger, still two of them left.

Best wishes from Iraq.

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!

Female MiTT's?

It’s Friday morning and the water’s been off since Tuesday. It’s not just the base; it’s upstream at the pumping station that apparently has a 1950’s era transformer that blew. They’re trying to rewire it and the prognosis last night was 48 hours. It affects a wide swath including the local city. I’ll check later to see if the CF can offer any assistance, but we’re told its just getting the parts and rewiring.

Our IA has plenty of bottled water for now, good to go for drinking and cooking. We had to get them to increase the allotment to the soldiers here, they were limited to two bottles of water per day and they had to get it out of the DFAC and only then when the DFAC was open. They sometimes need prodding even with 117 degrees yesterday. The trick is to get them to be proactive without us looking over their shoulder. They did fill up their water tankers (non-potable) and use it to hose down anyone that wanted a shower outside; I should start bringing my camera everywhere I go.

It doesn’t always feel as hot as it says. I take a quiet hour at the end of the day to sit out back as the sun goes down and smoke a cigar (sorry girls, they’re Cuban and too good to pass up) and have a near-beer. It drops into the 90’s and gets nice. I’ve really come to enjoy the mornings and evenings here, I could easily get accustomed to hot weather like this instead of battling snow.

I got in late last night, about 2:30am after taking 3 of our soldiers in for their R&R flight, 3 left and 3 came back. They fly them down to Kuwait to go home. Friday is our “lite” day. The IA take Friday’s as their holy day, our Sunday, so we adjust to them. We have a back-brief this afternoon for our movement this weekend. We’ll man the radios 24 hours from when they leave until they pull back into the gate, and since this is their first major move as a unit, the back brief this afternoon to the Regimental Cdr (and us) will be detailed to say the least, can’t afford to have any missed detail overlooked as they head out into dangerous country.

I got a couple of emails to address, the first one from my favorite big brother Pat who reminded me that even though I grew up on a farm and claim I can drive anything, he really can. And he’s right, he’s driving an 18 wheeler and transfer cases are nothing new to him. I bow to his superior knowledge, as I always have. His son Paul just completed his second tour here with the 3ACR and I think Pat is more proud of him that he is. Much love to him and all the family.

The other email came from incoming replacements for the MiTT’s here in country. That’s good and bad, in that Google hits for MiTT’s are picking up this site and I was trying to stay a bit under the military radar. His question was pretty generic about what we do here and probably a subject that I should be addressing since it wasn’t clear to him from my posts, so instead of answering him directly, I’ll post it here.

His first question was about female MiTT members. Bad idea.

They tried it once; the 1st MTR had a female LTC in charge and there was an alleged assault on her. I have no official knowledge of this, never spoke to her, but she was apparently pushed to the ground by the Regimental CDR who tried to kiss her. That’s all second hand, can neither confirm nor deny, etc, etc., but its an additional issue with groups like us who are out in remote locations away from the larger bases. It’s not just the Iraqi Army; it’s living this close in small teams with females in general.

I know it’s done with Civil Affairs team, Water purification teams and lots of areas where U.S. forces are co-ed. It’s just outright a pain in the ass on top of everything else that goes on here to have to police the young troops with hormones gone wild. I know U.S. military females are professional and can do anything males can do and many times better, but we live and work so very close and it’s just hard on everyone to have the distractions that come with working and living with both sexes. It’s already being done and we should be like the Israeli’s where this isn’t a big deal, but it’s still somebody’s daughter that you have to call if something goes wrong. Maybe I have too many daughters myself, maybe its because I was one of "those” boys and remember those days. God got his revenge on me with four daughters, that’s for sure.

I do walk and drive around the post with just an interpreter and when I go to some of the sites where their English is good I don’t even take an interpreter. I’m treated extremely well. But I’m under no illusion that it’s not dangerous here and that there hasn’t been infiltration of these units by bad guys. Bad guys don’t always mean Al Qaeda, either; it could just mean someone who’d like to shoot ranking officers, Iraqi or U.S. We’re armed and aware of our surroundings, but to mix in females with all the daily dangers and issues already here is just a bit much. I know we’ll do it eventually and they’ll be very successful, but its just one more daily issue to combat and one that I'd rather read about when I’m gone.

We’re planning a shower run into the CF base maybe later on tonight. Best wishes from Iraq

How dry I am

We have no water today. We had none this morning and its still off and it's after 1PM. Good thing I was a slug and hit the snooze alarm this morning and didn’t work out, I’d be stinking all day. It’s been on and off for the past week, not sure what’s going on with it. The other night two of the guys warmed up some water on the stove and took a sponge bath. We can brush our teeth and shave with bottled water. The toilets don’t flush and that’s going to be a problem shortly.

I went over to the base engineer’s office this morning and they said he’d gone off post to see if he could help. He’s at the source in a small town up stream that's affecting Kirkuk, surrounding areas and this base. Kirkuk got hit pretty badly yesterday with IED's, something like 7 of them. It could be related, I'm not sure. My IA officers were pretty excited we got Zarqawi so that was encouraging. We had another incident on post of an Arab harassing a Kurd, just words flying back and forth and that's not good, our guard is up.

I get the biggest kick out of talking with these officers here. I was in to see one of the younger Captains yesterday and he has a button under his desk to ring for help. I think I already wrote about this but I didn’t realize how widespread this is in their culture. I couldn’t help but poke fun at his button and he took it good naturedly.

This morning we planned Kraz training for them and I stopped into the Regimental HQ to see who would be going out with me to watch. They were all smoking and joking in the XO’s office, it would seem that Armies are the same the world over. I had an interpreter with me, so we sat for a bit and talked about upcoming missions. The XO yelled out the door to the door guard and I ask them for the word for “buzzer”.

My most valuable phrase is 'how do you say'? From there I can pantomime anything I want, so I ask, “how do you say buzzer?” The Captain was in there and he busts out laughing because he knows I’m going to poke him. It turns out none of them have a buzzer that works (batteries dead, go figure) so they all turn on him. That was fun; my Arabic is getting a bit better, there’s nothing like the old immersion technique to either learn it or look out the window.

The morning flew by, we stopped to watch them drive Kraz’s and try not to break the clutches. I saw 5 of our crew out there helping them, but they were standing off to the side and I asked them if they knew how to drive the Kraz and of course they said no, so how could they train them? I asked the leader to let my guys drive so everyone got a chance to grind some gears. Its a terrible vehicle and they’d much rather drive the U.S. vehicles; I can’t fault them on that. The majority of their vehicles are U.S. and maybe we shouldn’t be forcing them to learn these, they broke 8 clutches in the past 2 weeks. Training is certainly the cause of this, but there’s a reason the Russians gifted these to the Iraqi’s, I would have driven them off a cliff a long time ago.

Guests cancelled again, they’ll try and come tomorrow, en’shalla.

Best wishes from Iraq.

Kraz Trucks

The funny smell here in the morning is the refinery, it’s distinctive and hits you as you walk out the door. It’s like that farmer’s response to people wrinkling their noses at the smell of manure who says, ‘smells like money’. You get used to it.

Our four visitors didn’t make this morning; I received the news as I called back to my HQ. Their transport fell thru due to weather, full flights, re-missioning, change in the winds, who knows pick one. They’ll try again tomorrow. It affects all of us here because the Iraqi’s are alerted and they get prepared, we have to arrange convoy transport to get them from the US side to our side, we have to prepare billets for them to sleep, meals, etc. It’s definitely a different perspective because I use to be the one coming in to visit and now I’m the host. You start asking questions like, do they really need to visit or are they just taking a vacation. I do like it away from the flagpole and out working with a fun mission.

We’re planning a move for this weekend and I’m just praying it’ll all go well. It’s the longest trip they’ve made so far and we’re spending this week getting ready for it. We have to dig for all our missions while we’re in training mode because we have no oversight from the unit that will eventually manage us. Normally, these transportation regiments (Old Russian term, the CF kept it for continuity) are a division asset. Each division gets an MTR and controls them for movements and missions and provides them support. Since we’re training them, we have to come up with the missions. My fingers have been flying across the keyboard looking for cargo to transport and I’m getting good responses. The bad news is that some of these missions are on the outer boundary of our range. These are long trips and we have to choose our vehicles wisely which means ruling out the non-U.S. vehicles.

Vehicles are not the major problem in transport units like these, it’s the parts necessary to keep them running. We have a large mix of vehicles with the biggest group being U.S. cargo trucks. We also have Russian Kraz 5 ton’s with 8 gears which are absolutely the worse. They kept complaining about them and breaking them and then had one of our convoy’s torpedo’d because the clutch broke even before it got out the gate. That’s the big problem with them, breaking the clutch and usually because they’re in the wrong gear. I took one of my NCO’s out and him and I went down to the Motor pool to see how bad they really were to drive. I grew up on a farm and pride myself on being able to drive most anything, so I hopped in and tried my luck.

Its eight gears but a strange design. It’s an H design so one to four is similar to US, but then you have to flick the switch on the shifter and go back to gear 1 for gear 5. Five to eight is then the same as one to four. If you can follow that, it’s a pain to start off in 1 because it’s such a low gear, so they’ve been starting off in 5 and breaking the clutches popping it to get it rolling. It’s a heavy cargo truck, so starting in 5 is tearing them up, in fact the Maintenance team just called to refuse to work on them anymore. I’ll have to go down there and find out how to reconcile that.

On the road we’ll stick with the U.S. Five tons to keep everything mechanically sound. There’s plenty enough trouble on the road without worrying about break downs.

So we’re planning for that and everything else seems to be going smoothly. We’ll do the next 4-5 missions with them as a group and then we’ll back away and start letting them do this on their own.

We’re usually at the front and back of the convoy’s and smooth the way for them with coalition forces. We call in to traverse the different battle space of the different units and check in with them to ensure that all is well. It’s a huge support requirement for the U.S. forces but they go thru this every day with hundreds of convoys on the road. They’re helping us walk thru our procedures. I was told that a past mission went awry because they didn’t use CF guys and took a route they found out later had been marked “black”. They saw some action and got shot at. We’ll follow the procedures on this one. I won’t be able to travel on this one, there are limited seats and I’ll stay back with the operations team and monitor and pace. Please wish them safe travels, Ma’salama.

I’m in a cycle now and loving it. I try to spend a lot of time with the MTR and their soldiers. They must be getting used to me because they’ve stopped bringing out the tea when I show up. It used to be 4-5 times a day they’d bring in the tea, now I get a can of juice if I want it, maybe a bottle of water. I usually decline. I’m working closely with Major S who's one of the senior officers of the Regiment. He’s the most gregarious of the group and knows more English than the rest. He’s the one who checked into a hospital with chest pains the other day and they told him to go home and take it easy. He still comes to work every day, en’shalla.

We had soldiers who missed some training last week; they threw them into jail for 10 days. They had one of the officers go AWOL and he showed up today, so I have to go see what they’re going to do with him. I was told they’ll just not pay him for the month, but that doesn’t make sense. I’m more worried about where he went as opposed to why, we include the officers in very sensitive conversations and need to ensure he’s a “good guy”.

Best wishes from Iraq

Wildlife

Here's some of the wildlife I was talking about earlier. These are two of the puppies left over from a litter of five that have been hanging around our area. Mom hasn't taken them out of the compound yet even though she takes off for a couple of hours each day. Dad comes around once in a while and while they're all "tame", they're very dirty and we don't do much with them except watch the puppies nip on Mom's ear and try not to feed them.

There's lots of dogs around here and yesterday morning we woke up the compound with all the dogs barking while we ran. Many of them have the short cropped ears and almost look like dingo's or coyote's got mixed in with the domestic's.

Power loss

I should never write when I’m pissed off, but I’m finding I don’t have a lot of time during the day anymore. I’ll slug this down and maybe edit it later. Or, not.

Power went out last night. It had been going off and on all day and went off last night for good around 9 PM. I knew they were putting in some construction on the other side of the base, en’shalla, I didn’t think anything of it. I found out this morning that it was only us; the rest of the base was fine.

There are two coalition groups here. The other CF group is responsible for standing up the base defense, life support, medical clinics, etc while we concentrate on their largest tenant, the MTR. This base is Kurd dominated while our group is Arab. That’s important to understand in a minute. After I found out it was just us, I went over to our partnered forces and asked them, what the hey? Some of them are Air Force, but at least we speak the same language and are on the same team, or so I thought.

The senior guy and I jump into a truck and go to visit the Base Engineer who’s working on the issue. We discuss it for 40 minutes including diagrams and he tells us he knew about this last night at 10 but would not/could not do anything. He calls in all his inspectors and electricians and then we caravan over to one of the transformers which tripped. Short story made longer (2 hours later), they reboot the system and badda bing, power. Now there’s no way to convince my Iraqi Colonel that it wasn’t simply directed at him to piss him off. He’s already complained that the base defense unit is disrespectful to his officers and soldiers as they come in the front gate. It’s a Kurd v. Arab issues and this just doesn’t help.

An hour later, I’m called over to a meeting on exactly this topic with the base defense commander and my Colonel. They want to talk about getting along better and I think that’s good start. They’ve been brought together by this Air Force Captain who’s one of the MP’s responsible for training the base defense unit. What I find out is, besides better relations, they want our two portable guard shacks guarding our area. They want to move them to a temporary construction site but they wanted to make sure I was OK with it first. Ahh, so, enlightenment and I decide it might be a good idea to go out and look at them.

The whole gaggle of us walk over to the shacks. On the way over I pull my Iraqi Colonel aside and ask him what he thinks and he says, En’shalla which is really not a big help because he’s not going to commit either way. However, I can see training value for our jundee that have to go there every night in shifts and practice this basic of all military operations, posting a guard. The Sergeants maintain the roster and instill discipline; it’s a good military task for us.

I decide that this Air Force Captain should have his guards sit in Waz jeeps at the temporary gate and moreover, they’re ready to move on short notice in case they have to react or something. Makes sense to me, makes sense to everyone, so I make a big production out of announcing that we’d like to keep the guard shacks for its training value if that’s OK with everyone?

This prick Captain says no, actually, they’re on my books and if that’s your decision I’ll come back tonight and just take them.

Ohh, I got pissed because I didn’t know that part and I asked him why the HELL did he go thru this effort talking with the Iraqi’s, bringing them all together if he’d already made up his mind? Especially if they were his already! I got set up and told him so and unloaded on him. This was on top of the SUV that my previous crew had at their disposal but was returned to the Base conveniently the day I arrived, nothing left for me to drive around. I let that one go, but this one made me mad. I had been told to watch out for them and now this prick pulls something like this.

So here is the rest of the story, let me tie it together with the Kurds v. Arabs.

I’m finding out we’re on a fault line. Northern Iraq is under Kurdish control while the middle and southern parts are Arab. There’s a difference which I’m still learning but if you read the story a couple of days ago about the 11 students killed last week, they spared 3 of the people on the bus who could prove they were Kurdish. Similar atrocities against the Kurds happen in the south, sectarian violence is definitely on the rise across the country.

This base is the southern edge of Kurdish control and has changed hands a number of times over the years. Saddam sent Arabs north to push the Kurds out of this area in the 90’s. When the new government came to power, they encouraged the Kurds to come back south and reclaim some of the land. Both transactions were bloody. Now as the new government is being formed, the census will determine the representation of this area, so it’s important to both parties that one of them, Kurds or Arabs, control this area. Last man standing will be the representative party so there’s a lot of pushing going on which in this culture, means killing.

The unit I’m training is Arab because they were formed in the south and moved up here. The rest of the base is Kurdish. There’s no love lost between the senior officers and thousands of troops stationed here, either Arab or Kurdish. We don’t feel we’re in any direct danger, but we do have plans in case we’re caught in a cross fire. It’s important for me to make sure all the coalition forces are speaking the same language as we address the Iraqi’s and I feel this Air Force guy blind-sided me on this issue. Oh yeah, they leave next month, so they could give a shit which is the reason he pissed me off so bad.

These days fly by. I got a run in this morning but we had some dogs chase us. They were more puppies then anything and ran away when we turned on them. We run in pairs here, we’re totally on an Iraqi base. I’m making great friends with the Iraqi Officers I’m working with; they’re hard working and want to be successful. One of the senior officers in particular I’ve bonded with but he had chest pains last night and went into the local clinic. He’s back at work today, very different than if that happened to us in the states.

We’re short Iraqi officers and NCO’s which makes it difficult to train. We were talking to one of the Company Commanders last night looking for July’s training schedule which he does all by himself. When we tried to make the point about letting his section officers create the training schedule while he provides oversight, he replied that there were no section leaders. Hmm, point taken. One more item for the SITREP to go forward.

I’m floating in Chai tea, I’ve had more tea this week then I’ve had in years.

Best wishes from Iraq.

What was I thinking?

After the first great Iraqi Army lunch the other day and not experiencing any "issues", I went back today with some of the other Iraqi Officers with great expectations wondering what would the menu be? I'll be damned, it was the same menu as the day before...I'm such an American.

CPX

VERY interesting day, they’ve been waiting for us…

This CPX was the culmination of months of training and was designed to show off the unit and staff for the incoming crew.

Usually, the MTR’s train at the company level which means that sections train independently as a transportation unit. The cargo trucks interspersed with gun trucks that go out as a team and each vehicle has an assignment to accomplish in the event of an incident. These battle drills are practiced over and over here on base so that when they get hit on the roads they’re not standing around like tourists. We got the briefing last night on the plan for today and it went very well. They move as a unit, they know what to do when the “IED” went off and they had some casualties they had to address while providing security and getting the downed vehicle hooked up to another vehicle. They did a good job with that. They took small arms fire and drove thru the kill zone.

The main training effort wasn’t just one company conducting a single mission, this was multiple companies commanded by the Operations section who juggled transportation movement requests that came at them every two hours. They had to configure the request and use available assets to fill, figure out how many trucks were available, what cargo could fit on the trucks, drivers, dispatches, etc. This was 9 missions with convoys leaving every two hours or so (jaunt around the base and thru the kill zones takes about an hour) and they couldn’t use the same crews twice. This was really a test larger than just a single mission, this tested the Regiment as a whole. This would have challenged a US transportation unit, so it was a solid demonstration of their capabilities and well done.

The Iraqi’s do not want to be embarrassed in front of the Americans, so they put their strongest players into the key leadership positions: radioman, convoy commanders, operations officer are all used over and over, nobody else had gotten the chance to learn (or fail). This put soldiers who’ve never had the chance to be in charge…in charge.

Our army does the same thing but we do it on the fly, we’ll “kill” the senior leader in charge and turn to the second in command and ask them what they’re going to do. It’s very good training at all levels and really very advanced training. The operations center was a bee hive as the radio operator relayed significant acts (SIGACTS) to the Ops team and they kept track of convoys as they passed “checkpoints” in the training and encountered an incident. It was well done and far exceeded where I thought their training was. The ultimate step will be independent operations on Iraqi roads and this training went a long way proving they’re capable of missions like that in the near future.

I even ended up being part of the play. The outgoing commander and I attempted to drive thru a checkpoint but were stopped at gunpoint, searched and segregated while they searched the vehicle (they found the fake IED in the trunk) and then were processed as the criminals we are. Excellent training and very thorough.

For lunch, I ate in the DFAC with the Iraqi officers. The food was good, it was a large serving of rice covered in a tomato based gravy with baked chicken on the side, actually quite good. They had some baked bread that was as good as anything I’ve had in a long while. I haven’t gotten sick yet so that’s a good omen. The team here said to eat at lunch because they take more care with the noon meal.

I’ve been around to meet all of the leaders on this base. I’ve had enough Chai tea to keep me awake for a while. They serve it in small demitasse cups with the bottom third of the cup filled with sugar. You stir the sugar into the tea; it’s a very sweet and not unrefreshing treat that's pretty good. They don’t seem to have a problem stopping whatever they’re doing to kick back and drink Chai tea with you. John (guy I’m replacing) finally had to put his foot down and decline the offers for tea because they would spend the afternoon drinking Chai. Certainly a different culture...

Best wishes from Iraq!

Day 1 - FOB life

I’ve arrived and I’ll be damned if there isn’t a war still going on. I’ve been so sheltered and have absolutely been a rear-echelon-MF (RIMF is a term going back as far as WWI, maybe before). I sure am going to miss the creature comforts I thought were so mediocre where I came from.

I came in late last night on a C-130. We’d been delayed taking off from Balad because of a crash of a drone on the runway. These drones are remote controlled by an operator on the ground so there’s no telling if it was a mechanical failure or the operator just flew it into the ground. We got here about 1AM and I performed the inevitable bag drag to meet my contact. That’s one thing I will never do again (I wish, I have plenty more bag drags before I’m thru here) and that’s to enlist the copious aid of bag porters. When I get out of here, from now on, I’m going to pay bell hops to carry everything including my fanny pack. I’m going to tip generously too.

I met three of the guntruck crews last night as they came to pick me up. There’s two FOB’s here (Forward Operating Base) with the airfield in the middle and of course the FOB I’m on is the other one. So to traverse the space they need to convoy between the two even though it’s just a few short miles. That means gun trucks with a minimum of three crews with .50 cal’s, NVG’s, jamming devices, the whole bit. I’ve been to places like Tadji where everyone throws their body armor in the back seat of an open Toyota truck and we drive away, but not here. It’s full body armor and headset/mike’s to communicate with the team as we drive. It’s late but there’s still friendly chatter going on with the crew. They’re leaving in less than 2 weeks, so their spirits are pretty high. We go thru security check points in and out of both FOB’s and finally reach their compound. I find out their FOB is totally Iraqi. The Coalition FOB has the airfield. We’ve gone thru two Iraqi Army checkpoints and the guys were all appreciative that the IA guards were awake and alert.

My group has their own compound inside the Iraqi area and they have to unlock the gate to get into it. They lock the gate for the night behind them when all the vehicles are inside.

Even though it’s late, I get a quick tour. It’s an Iraqi building, so the bathrooms are Eastern style (squatting, no toilets) but at least there’s showers in the building. He shows me the kitchen where they cook all their food and I ask him about the Mess Hall, if anyone eats there and he says no, they have too much dysentery (!). So, they draw rations from the local U.S. unit and take turns cooking at night for themselves. This is going to be interesting but he says they’re well stocked and even pull steaks as needed. Now to me, that’s good news because I haven’t had a rare steak since I’ve been here, so I’m looking forward to that. The bad news is that everyone here has lost weight because they don’t always take time to eat. With a Mess Hall, you can stop in, eat and leave but they don’t do that here, they’ll work late and grab a muffin.

I got up early this morning to get a head start and take a look around during the morning hours. I asked last night if they run PT up here and they do, so that’s good, at least I’ll be able to keep running. I leaned they always run in pairs.

My room is good, I have my PC plugged into an internet cable in my room, but so far it doesn’t connect to anything. I’ll have to wait until the rest of them get up so I can get a proper orientation. I’ve been rummaging around and been outside and I hope it doesn’t get as hot as it did yesterday. The official temp yesterday was 115 and with the wind blowing it felt like a hair drying blowing in your face. I’m north of Balad so I’m hoping for a 5 degree kickback from the temp.

(afternoon)

I attended my first meeting and was very impressed with the crew, very professional and very dedicated to doing the right things training the Iraqi’s. They’ve been planning a CPX (combat practice exercise) for tomorrow and they briefed the operation to all of us. It looks like an excellent plan and tests the Iraqi’s while they’re inside this compound conduct missions and battle drills. If they’re successful, it will validate the teams to go out on the road and conduct independent missions without coalition soldiers riding shotgun.

That’s the name of the game, to train the Iraqi’s to do it themselves and this crew is ahead of the other training teams in country by a good couple of months. Some on this crew have already been out on 150+ missions with the Iraqi’s and we need to get them off the road and let the Iraqi’s run the missions themselves. That’s end game and tomorrow’s exercise will give them validation and confidence. I’m looking forward to participating. (fyi – battle drills can be: react to enemy fire, react to enemy IED, react to a mechanical breakdown, react to a medical emergency, etc. As they practice these over and over, they become second nature in case something really happens out on the road).

I don’t have a pillow up here; I should have brought mine from Balad, damn. We’re going to make a PX run later on and it’s on my list. Other than that, I have everything I need for the next couple of months. I even have air conditioning in the room, but I just stepped outside into 110 degrees and it feels like an oven. Tomorrow’s going to be a scorcher. But otherwise, so far, so good.

Best wishes from Iraq.