Another minute slips by the hands grasp, and the hour glass loses more and more from it's top half. At this point I'm not sure if I'll ever get home. I would have rather been with my platoon over the last two and a half days. Baghdad Internation Airport is certainly hard on the mind, body and soul.
Last night we finally got a flight time out of this place, and unfortunately it was not as soon as I had hoped it would be. None the less, today I fly out of this retched place. It makes me sick to walk outside here. To deal with the people at this base deep within the green zone. They seem to have no concept, no understanding that there is a war going on.
The fat slobs that walk around here are an absolute embarrassment to the Army. Of course most of them are National Guard units, but you would not be able to tell the difference, because they wear the same exact uniform that I do despite not being a part of the US Army at all really. They are a state ran militia. I used to gripe about having to stay within so many standards, that seem to make no sense sometimes, but when you get around a place like this, I can't think but to thank the 82nd for instilling the discipline to look like a professional.
I get kicked out of the chow hall because I don't have a weapon or magazine. We are in garrison here. No sweaty or dirty uniforms in the chow hall a sign reads. A girl walks around with a pink PT belt on. A female PFC flirts with her fat 1st Sergeant, and a fat ass walks past me with a full pizza from Pizza Hut. A blonde Captain fails to understand that we just want to get out of here, and that leaving a day prior to our leave is not really going to get us an extra day of leave.
Usually I'm worried about whether the power is going to stay on all night, or if the shower will give me enough water for a combat shower, because it's been four days since I've had one. I worry about the section of the city that sits beneath the watch of my 240 while I'm protecting our base from a possible enemy attack. Here, here is different for soldiers. There are so many people here at this big FOB that don't do anything. They have never left the wire. Never been in any kind of danger. Never missed a meal, or never not had a hot shower. And yet, they get paid exactly the same as I. To deploy to an area that is much like the United States. They get four day passes to Qatar for some 'rest' that I doubt they need.
Everything here is contracted out making so many Army jobs with nothing to do. The chow hall is all ran by Indians, or Iraqis. The bathrooms are not cleaned by soldiers who use them, but by Iraqis. The force protection here is ran by Ugandans who might shoot you because you did not display your ID when you were trying to go into the PX to buy a PS3, big screen tv, 24 pack of Monsters. All worthless stuff. They complain and complain about the littlest things. "They burned my Double Whopper!"
If I had to stay here another day, around so many people with no self discipline, or respect for the uniform the wear, I don't know how I could take it. It upsets me to think that these people are living a near normal life over here, despite the fact that they are doing no work. They don't change out of PT's. They don't do a 9 to 5 or PT in the morning. They get paid to sit in their personal hooches, and do nothing. Talking to another soldier who is stationed here, he tells me how there is such an excess of personnel here, that any work that could be done here by them, there's probably 20 units that would be in line to do it before them.
Limbo continues here on my way home. My leave was supposed to start on the 16th. Today. Instead, I'm flying out of BIAP, to Kuwait, to Germany, to Dallas, and then finally California. My mask of sanity is slowly slipping.
POG- acronym - Personnel Other than Grunt
Noun. Those who do nothing, complain about everything, and get paid the same as everyone else
LEGS- acronym- Low Efficeincy Ground Soldier
Noun. Those who usually walk around with bellies that hang over their belts, with mustaches unkempt, and a look of confusion and stupidity across their face. Non-Airborne qualified.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Homeward Bound
There's no more wishing I was. Homeward bound that is. I'm sitting at our Brigade Air building waiting for my flight which is less than two hours away. Excitement is coursing through my body. This will probably be my last blog for the next two weeks or so. It's also kind of a race against time. I didn't get my computer fully charged, and the battery is slowly dying on me, so I'll try and make this quick.
Sitting in the Panther Air building back on Loyalty is quite a bit different for how the last week has gone for myself, and well my platoon. We've been in quite a pickle, and still in limbo. We moved all of our stuff from Loyalty, to our new base, a tiny, less built up base. We only get two hot meals a day at our new home, and the hours are a little more excruciating on us. We now have to do force protection. Which is not horrible, but it's certainly something we haven't had to do up to this point.
39% battery life.
The building we've now moved into, is not what you would consider something you could live in. It apparently used to be an old noodle making factory. However it appears to be more of a parking garage you would find in the slums of Mexico. The ramp up to our floor is uneven with concrete. The first floor, underneath us, is the Iraqi chow hall, and it's our shared motor pool garage. We have to share everything with the National Police. The second floor is ours, the third is National Police's, and the fourth floor is empty, other than the small amount of sniper screens that eerily hang in the ginormous windows of the once huge factory floor.
As you reach that fourth floor, there is a shaky set of stairs that seem to give under your feet, and wobbles just enough to give you an uneasy feeling. As you make your way up these steep steps, you find yourself in a somewhat disturbing and scary room. This room has two doors that lead out to the same level rooftop on each side of the building. The National Police won't go on this floor, and for good reason. It's was almost terrifying the first time I walked up these stairs and reached the fifth floor. The walls and ceilings are charred like most of the rest of the building. But on the 5th floor, the air seems denser, and stagnant.
Some years ago in this place, some Sunni Muslims were in some kind of squabble with a family of Shi'a Muslims who owned the noodle factory. They locked the family on that 5th floor, and set the building on fire. 13 adults burned up there, and one little girl. The girl is rumored, from the National Police to haunt that 5th floor. Don't you love this country? That's not even that strange of something to happen. Sad.
32% battery life.
I assumed guard shift at midnight on our first actual day at our new home. Walking up those steps in the dark, with the sniper screens blowing freely in the floor downstairs, along with the sounds that wind will often make when your mind is already running wild with ideas of ghosts and goblins. And so despite my combat load of ammunition, and large 6" knife I carry on my equipment, I was a little freaked out. As I peaked out of my OP at the door which I had walked out of, I could see nothing. The door was black, and held no light inside. It's amazing how when you can't see into somewhere, how many times you think you see something move.
6 hours later, the sun was up, and I was off shift, and relieved. I however was not the most afraid person on the roof. My buddy Jason, told me his heart was beating really fast, and he kept looking back out of his OP and towards the same door I had looked at a few times through the night. Our LT, big, walked around and made little girl voices to try and scare us all at the same time, so that probably didn't help Jason's case.
We went on patrol this morning again in our new area of operation, and it has only been our second patrol there since we took over a week ago. The area is a lot different than Beladiyat. It's more towards the desert, and not really like the city Beladiyat is. They have herds of Jamoose that walk to the river and canal that now border our new area. The roads are not traffic able by our bigger vehicles, and so we are back in our humvees again. It feels strange, to be going on leave that is. I feel the sense of guilt. I feel somehow like I'm turning my back on the guys in a time where everyone on the team needs to pull their weight, and help to get everything accomplished. At the same time, I'm also very excited, that in less than two days from now, I'll be home, sipping on a beer, and eating my favorite foods, that I've been longing to have.
50% of the deployment done.
"Carry the one douche bag" -Lt. Dan Nelson... YES we have a LT. DAN!
Sitting in the Panther Air building back on Loyalty is quite a bit different for how the last week has gone for myself, and well my platoon. We've been in quite a pickle, and still in limbo. We moved all of our stuff from Loyalty, to our new base, a tiny, less built up base. We only get two hot meals a day at our new home, and the hours are a little more excruciating on us. We now have to do force protection. Which is not horrible, but it's certainly something we haven't had to do up to this point.
39% battery life.
The building we've now moved into, is not what you would consider something you could live in. It apparently used to be an old noodle making factory. However it appears to be more of a parking garage you would find in the slums of Mexico. The ramp up to our floor is uneven with concrete. The first floor, underneath us, is the Iraqi chow hall, and it's our shared motor pool garage. We have to share everything with the National Police. The second floor is ours, the third is National Police's, and the fourth floor is empty, other than the small amount of sniper screens that eerily hang in the ginormous windows of the once huge factory floor.
As you reach that fourth floor, there is a shaky set of stairs that seem to give under your feet, and wobbles just enough to give you an uneasy feeling. As you make your way up these steep steps, you find yourself in a somewhat disturbing and scary room. This room has two doors that lead out to the same level rooftop on each side of the building. The National Police won't go on this floor, and for good reason. It's was almost terrifying the first time I walked up these stairs and reached the fifth floor. The walls and ceilings are charred like most of the rest of the building. But on the 5th floor, the air seems denser, and stagnant.
Some years ago in this place, some Sunni Muslims were in some kind of squabble with a family of Shi'a Muslims who owned the noodle factory. They locked the family on that 5th floor, and set the building on fire. 13 adults burned up there, and one little girl. The girl is rumored, from the National Police to haunt that 5th floor. Don't you love this country? That's not even that strange of something to happen. Sad.
32% battery life.
I assumed guard shift at midnight on our first actual day at our new home. Walking up those steps in the dark, with the sniper screens blowing freely in the floor downstairs, along with the sounds that wind will often make when your mind is already running wild with ideas of ghosts and goblins. And so despite my combat load of ammunition, and large 6" knife I carry on my equipment, I was a little freaked out. As I peaked out of my OP at the door which I had walked out of, I could see nothing. The door was black, and held no light inside. It's amazing how when you can't see into somewhere, how many times you think you see something move.
6 hours later, the sun was up, and I was off shift, and relieved. I however was not the most afraid person on the roof. My buddy Jason, told me his heart was beating really fast, and he kept looking back out of his OP and towards the same door I had looked at a few times through the night. Our LT, big, walked around and made little girl voices to try and scare us all at the same time, so that probably didn't help Jason's case.
We went on patrol this morning again in our new area of operation, and it has only been our second patrol there since we took over a week ago. The area is a lot different than Beladiyat. It's more towards the desert, and not really like the city Beladiyat is. They have herds of Jamoose that walk to the river and canal that now border our new area. The roads are not traffic able by our bigger vehicles, and so we are back in our humvees again. It feels strange, to be going on leave that is. I feel the sense of guilt. I feel somehow like I'm turning my back on the guys in a time where everyone on the team needs to pull their weight, and help to get everything accomplished. At the same time, I'm also very excited, that in less than two days from now, I'll be home, sipping on a beer, and eating my favorite foods, that I've been longing to have.
50% of the deployment done.
"Carry the one douche bag" -Lt. Dan Nelson... YES we have a LT. DAN!
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Keeping Your Ear, errrr Nose to the Grindstone
I'm sitting here on radio guard. The mosquitoes are flying around freely, and would be too much a match for even the Nose to take on. I have Washington, our company supply guy, and possibly the drollest of individuals to serve a late night shift with. R&R is a week away for me, and it almost seems, at this point, that it will never come.
Keep you nose to the grindstone.
I'm not sure if anyone even knows what the saying is or where it comes from. A google search came up with a story that's origin was even in question. My friend Adam and I used to say this saying all the time. Not even sure what it meant. But we used to say it, and I'm about to have a Rick James moment, we used to say it just to say it. "keep your ear to the grindstone." Of course we would substitute different body parts instead of say the nose, we would use cheek, or chin, anything went really. This place has been the epitome of that saying, despite the fact that the saying was in in promt to times of hilarity when we use it, and this place is definitely... well definitely not funny in the same way, more of a sad, tragic funny this place is.
Soon we are moving to our new home, a small, dirty, nasty little place. None of us are really looking forward to the move. We have to learn a new area of operation, along with the medial task of moving ourselves from our cozy barracks here, to what is going to be an overcrowded goat fuck. Leave can't come quick enough.
Keep your ear to the grindstone.
Some things I'm looking forward too in the next week. Moving up to this new base, no longer having the luxuries of this bigger base. Looking forward too moving into our new barracks which, might not be too bad, but unfortunately we will be trying to fit 5 platoons into a 3 platoon space. We still have to wait for the Cav guys there to move out in two weeks. So living will be, intimate to say the least.
Keep your chin to the grindstone.
My 2 am guard shift is nearly three quarters up, and I've killed nearly 20 mosquitoes which has definitely slowed my thought process down, and probably kept me off track. Just happened again. I'm not even listening to the story that Washington has been telling me for the last half hour. He's still talking about gangland.
My ear is currently on the grindstone. and bleeding
I can't really shore up any details on the whole Nose to the grindstone. It's a pre 15th century saying, and I'm no rocket surgeon, so I'll let the college grads figure that one out. Jeri you have 8 more days, so be sure to keep your mind to the grindstone.
Keep you nose to the grindstone.
I'm not sure if anyone even knows what the saying is or where it comes from. A google search came up with a story that's origin was even in question. My friend Adam and I used to say this saying all the time. Not even sure what it meant. But we used to say it, and I'm about to have a Rick James moment, we used to say it just to say it. "keep your ear to the grindstone." Of course we would substitute different body parts instead of say the nose, we would use cheek, or chin, anything went really. This place has been the epitome of that saying, despite the fact that the saying was in in promt to times of hilarity when we use it, and this place is definitely... well definitely not funny in the same way, more of a sad, tragic funny this place is.
Soon we are moving to our new home, a small, dirty, nasty little place. None of us are really looking forward to the move. We have to learn a new area of operation, along with the medial task of moving ourselves from our cozy barracks here, to what is going to be an overcrowded goat fuck. Leave can't come quick enough.
Keep your ear to the grindstone.
Some things I'm looking forward too in the next week. Moving up to this new base, no longer having the luxuries of this bigger base. Looking forward too moving into our new barracks which, might not be too bad, but unfortunately we will be trying to fit 5 platoons into a 3 platoon space. We still have to wait for the Cav guys there to move out in two weeks. So living will be, intimate to say the least.
Keep your chin to the grindstone.
My 2 am guard shift is nearly three quarters up, and I've killed nearly 20 mosquitoes which has definitely slowed my thought process down, and probably kept me off track. Just happened again. I'm not even listening to the story that Washington has been telling me for the last half hour. He's still talking about gangland.
My ear is currently on the grindstone. and bleeding
I can't really shore up any details on the whole Nose to the grindstone. It's a pre 15th century saying, and I'm no rocket surgeon, so I'll let the college grads figure that one out. Jeri you have 8 more days, so be sure to keep your mind to the grindstone.
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