What are the chances, Part 2
I wrote a while back about how in the trailer I live in, three out of the four women have sons over here in theater. Yesterday morning, the four of us climbed up on top of a building at the end of the sidewalk that runs in front of our trailer to take photos. When we came down, Nita (who has children, but just not over here) took a photo of Pat, Lilia and I. Thought I'd share it, along with some of the other photos we took. The ones with all four of us in the shot were taken by a Navy Lt. Cmdr. who happened to be walking by as we were getting ready to climb the ladder to get on top of the building. He was happy to climb up with us to take the shots.
On the left is Sgt. 1st Class Lilia Wensink, I'm in the middle, and on the right is Staff Sgt. Pat Knox.
The four of us, (Lilia, Pat, Air Force Tech. Sgt. Nita can'trememberherlastnamerightnow, and me) with the sidewalk that leads to our trailer at the far right. Our trailer is the fourth one down.
Another view, with Baghdad behind us. On the other side of the perimeter wall is the Tigris River. The tall building at the far left of the photo, that rises above a shorter building in the foreground, is the Sheraton Hotel. A dump truck loaded with explosives went off by it back in March; it literally shook my trailer. I was getting ready for work, combing my hair and the impact knocked my hand of my head. A month or so ago, there were a couple of car bomb attacks -- one was a water truck loaded with explosives -- in the same area. The Palestine Hotel is near the Sheraton. I was in my office (which is in a concrete building now) when that happened and it rocked the building. There was a pretty big explosion yesterday morning, around 8, that Lilia and I were thinking was probably a car bomb. There was something on the loud speakers at the palace after it went off, but we couldn't hear what they were saying in our trailer park. So I went in and turned on CNN (which is usually how we find out what's going on), but there wasn't anything on so I figured it must not have been that bad.
A mother and son reunion
To cut to the chase: I got to see my son, Anthony, last week.
He was in a convoy that delivered ammunition to FOB (forward operating base) Anaconda in Balad. He emailed me to let me know when they expected to be there, and thankfully, it wasn’t on a Friday or Saturday (my busiest days). So I called the main air operations center to see if they had any flights going there from the LZ (landing zone) here in the Green Zone and got manifested for a seat leaving late Sunday (Nov. 13) afternoon.
Getting there proved to be interesting, to say the least. I worked that morning until lunch time, then went to my trailer to drop off my gear and head to the dining facility near the palace, where the embassy is based, for lunch. As I headed down the road away from my trailer, I heard a big boom. It didn’t sound close, so I kept walking. As I walked down the road along the side of the palace, I heard three different whizzing sounds followed by a couple of impacts. There weren’t many people on the road, but of those that were on it, nobody was diving into bunkers, so I continued walking but with a little nagging voice in my head that said maybe you should take cover (especially since I left my body armor and helmet in my trailer). As I came up to the side entrance to the palace, with the dining facility still a good 300 yards away or so), the alarms started blaring. So I decided to go into the palace. There’s a soup and sandwich bar there, anyway, so I just ate lunch there. When I got done, we were still in lock down so I had to wait for about 30 minutes. While I was waiting, a civilian guy who was also waiting was telling someone else that seven rockets hit around the embassy compound, but not all of them detonated. Then a firefighter walked up and said one of the rockets landed on the roof of the fire station right across from the palace, but didn’t go off. All I could think about was, of all the days this had to happen (we get hit with mortars or rockets maybe two or three times a month) and I’d better not miss my flight.
Eventually, they gave the all clear and I went back to my room, grabbed my gear and backpack and headed to the LZ, which is about a 15-20 minute walk under normal circumstances. When the all clear sounded, the announcer said the areas near the dining facility (one of the rockets detonated near it) and the fire station were off limits. So I figured the check point I would normally have gone through would be closed, so I took a detour to go through the one closest to the LZ and away from the off-limit areas. Naturally, that check point was the one that was closed. So I had to walk around the palace and go out a different check point. I got to the LZ about 15 minutes late, but it turned out that all of the flights were delayed anyway because of the rockets.
After all that, everything went very smoothly. I got to Anaconda and went to the air ops center to check on return flights the next day, got a seat on one leaving mid-afternoon. Then I took the shuttle bus to the area Anthony told me his convoy team would be staying in and went to the billeting office to see if they had checked in yet for rooms. They hadn’t. Since this was a civilian contractor living area and I wasn’t on a convoy team, I wasn’t sure if they’d give me a temporary room. I explained my situation to a very nice man named Gene and he not only gave me a room, but gave me a ride to it in a golf cart. He also wrote my room number down (it was actually a small trailer with three cots in it, but I was the only one in it) and left a note for the guy who was going to replace him later that night. I dropped my stuff in the room, then headed back out on the shuttle bus to a dining facility near the LZ and to find a MWR (morale, welfare and recreation) office to email the folks back in my office to let them know I had arrived. When I checked my email, there was a note from Anthony saying the convoy would be arriving around 5 or 6 a.m. the next day. I ate and went back to the trailer, watched a few episodes of Nip Tuck on my portable DVD player and knitted. Sometime around 8 or 9, a big boom went off, followed by the alarms. It sounded like it hit a good distance away, so I just stayed on my cot and continued with my knitting. They gave the all clear before I fell asleep.
I got up the next morning at 5 a.m. and went to the dining room in the area for coffee, then went to the billeting office and learned the convoy had arrived and had checked in. The guy gave me the building number they were in, so I went over there and talked to a sergeant. He and a few other guys there were on the convoy security team that escorted the tractor trailers to the FOB. He said all the rest of the guys were in a different area, unloading the convoy. He called over there on his radio and a guy told him they would be a few hours. So I went back to the trailer, took up my knitting and watched some more Nip Tuck.
Around 11 a.m., I went back over to the building and found Anthony sitting on a cot watching a movie on his portable DVD player. The first thing I noticed was his cheeks, they were a little fuller than the last time I saw him (just before Christmas last year). There were several guys hanging around, so Anthony refrained from jumping up to hug and kiss me. He just looked up and said “Oh. Hey.” So I waited a minute or two, then told him to get up so I could hug him. We went outside to talk, then I went back to my trailer to get my camera. Time was getting short, I had to be back at the LZ for my flight at 1 p.m. So we got a guy to take a few pictures of us and after we ate lunch at the dining room there, he gave me a ride to the LZ in his truck (without the trailer). He waited around while I checked in, which was a good thing because I found out that my flight had been canceled. The next available flight with an open seat wasn’t until 4 p.m. the next day, but the guy told me that if I showed up at 5:30 a.m. I might be able to get a stand-by seat on the morning flight.
We went back to our rooms, I dropped my stuff off and we headed back out in the truck to the MWR so I could send an email to the office to let them know what was going on. I knew Anthony was tired, so I told him when we got back he should take a nap and we could meet back up again for dinner. He said no, he wanted to hang out and watch a movie. So we went to his room and did that. It wasn’t long before we heard three loud explosions. Someone said they were controlled detonations, but then the alarms went off and we heard a voice saying the base was on yellow alert, which meant take cover. So we just stayed put and continued watching the movie (Be Cool, with John Travolta) During the movie, he said he had a bad headache. Soon, he was in the latrine throwing up. He said he felt better afterward, but I made him go with me to eat dinner. He was still sick, so he didn’t eat much. I packed up a plate to go with several packages of crackers and walked back to his room, where I left him with an Ibuprofin and a kiss goodbye. I told him that if I didn’t make the morning flight, I’d come back to see him again.
I got to the LZ around 5:40 the next morning and got on the stand by list for two different flights. Didn’t make either one. I was about to leave when one of the guys who worked there came up and said hold on, I think I can get you on one of the flights. Turned out, they left seats open to allow for baggage but nobody had any. So he took me and two others guys out to the Blackhawk and we got on. Then we sat and waited for about an hour. Blackhawks always fly in pairs and the other bird was having mechanical problems. Eventually they gave up on fixing it and moved everyone that was on it to a different bird. I was back in the Green Zone by 8:30 a.m. I went back to my room, took a shower, put on a clean uniform and was back to work before 10 a.m.
So that was that. It was short, but well worth it. Especially when one of the guys he knows had a hard time believing I was really Anthony’s mom.
Catching up
I know it's been awhile, but I've been pretty busy. Good news, though: We finally have a second journalist. He got here this week. He's an Air Force senior airman, which is an E-4. And he seems to know more about desktop publishing that I do! So I'm thinking I'm going to turn over the assembly of the Advisor to him. Then a couple days ago, my boss tells me we're getting a THIRD journalist at the end of November, a Navy guy. I'm not holding my breath. But if it actually happens, life will be too good. I may actually have time to be bored. My only concern is that since I'll be the NCO above the two journalists, I may not get to go out on missions much. I mentioned that to my boss and he said not to worry, I'll still go out.
Speaking of missions, I had a good one during the referendum Oct. 15. I went to Taji to hang out with the advisers for the 9th Iraqi Mechanized Division and then went out on a convoy with them on referendum day. We were escorting two division generals who wanted to go out and visit their soldiers. All of the security at the polling sites was done by Iraqi soldiers and police; no Coalition troops were allowed to be at any of the sites, unless something bad happened and they were called in to assist. So we went to a water processing plant that the division's 1st Brigade soldiers guard 24/7. It provides 80 percent of Baghdad's water, so it's pretty important. We also went to two water access points, which are guarded 24/7. A bunch of insurgents ambushed one of the points a couple months ago and killed eight Iraqi soldiers. The main building looks like they sprayed it from top to bottom with machine gun fire. We also went to a traffic control point the division mans 24/7 on Route Tampa, which is hit by IEDs all the time. Every 50 feet or so, there were big holes in the side of the road and sometimes in the road itself.
So after that, we headed for a town called Taramiyah (or something like that). The generals wanted to visit their soldiers guarding the town's polling site. As we're heading in, the colonel I was with tells me through the headsets that this town is the funneling point for materials the bad guys are using for the IEDs they're hitting Route Tampa with, and that it's all Sunni, and that they all hate Americans. I didn't pee my pants, but I did get a little nervous. So we convoy in along a bunch of side streets, then park on one at the intersection of the main road through town, about two blocks from the polling site. The vehicle the generals were in went up to the polling site. I stayed put. There were a lot of people on the road. But then I see the guys getting out of the Humvees in front of me, and then the colonel gets out. So while I'm still thinking I'd like to stay put, I figured if they're crazy enough to get out, then hell, I think I'll join in. So I got out with my camera and started taking pictures. I put my telephoto lens on and got some shots of an Iraqi tank with a soldier standing on top guarding the entrance to the polling site, with people coming in and out of the site. Then we all piled back in the Humvees and moved over to another side street, where we waited for the generals to come hook back up with us. Some of us got out again, I took more photos. We ended up leaving with nothing happening.
One encouraging thing that sticks with me about going into that town was I went in thinking that we'd get some middle fingers flashed our way, or worse, shot at. But that didn't happen. In fact, as we were winding in and out of side streets, there were at least four little kids I counted that waved to us.
That's about it for now, have to get ready to head out for a few days. The bread is still great, but I haven't been making it much this month. All of October is Ramadan, a major holiday here for Muslims. They fast from sun up to sun down -- no water, no coffee, no liquids, no food, no cigarettes, etc. We have a cultural adviser in our office, Mortada, and he's observing Ramadan. I didn't want to make it any more difficult for him by having bread baking during the day. I have managed to get a few loafs done, though, like on his day off and when I know he's out doing other stuff for most of the day.
What are the chances?
I get asked a lot about Anthony (my son), whether I've seen him since I've been over here. I haven't. He's at Camp Arifjohn in Kuwait, which is a good hour and a half by C-130. He's fine, though, from what I gather from his infrequent emails. :)
I have a new roommate, Pat. She's the third roommate I've had since I've been here. I've been really, really fortunate with great roommates. First was Angie, an Air Force tech. sgt., who left to go back home in June. Then Patty, who left in July to work in Kuwait for a couple of months and who is now back home.
So on Pat's first night in the room (we live in little trailers, with two rooms separated by a bathroom; two people per room), we start talking about our kids. Turns out, she has two sons in the Army and both are here in Iraq. Her daughter is also in the Army and just left Iraq for a new duty station in Germany. Her husband is also in the Army, stationed in the states.
Two women with kids over here assigned by chance to the same room. Pretty cool.
It gets better, though. A woman, Sgt. 1st Class, just got assigned the room on the other side of our trailer. Last night, the three of us were chatting and it turns out she has a son here in Iraq. Three women with sons over here, in the same trailer. How do you like that?
Not only that, but Pat also crochets and Lilia used to. So Pat and I are going to get her up to speed and start a Baghdad chapter of Stitch and Bitch (a knitting/crocheting group I belonged to in D.C.).
A few days ago, we were told to get our gas masks out and make sure they fit right and are in working order. (Based on some kind of intelligence that incoming mortars might be laced with chemicals. I'm not overly concerned) So Pat and I dutifully get ours out and put them on. I convince her that we need a photo of us together, so I took one. Then I convinced her that we needed to take pictures of each other playing darts outside with our gas masks on, so we did. (I drew a target with chalk on the sandbag wall in front of our trailer and throw darts at it. Patty and I used to play every night before going to bed) It was a lot of fun, we giggled like little girls. The photos didn't turn out very good, I was using my cheapo digital camera. I'm going to bring my work camera back to the trailer one night and we'll do it again for some good photos.
Then I tried to talk her into going for a walk around the trailer park in our gas masks. Didn't happen. I was too chicken to do it by myself.
Breaking bread
I''ve been craving peanut butter and honey sandwiches for a long time. Got the peanut butter, got the honey, but no bread. There is bread for sandwiches in the dining facilities, but getting it back to the office requires prior planning. I have to remember to take a baggie or something to carry it back in. I managed to do that a couple times a few months back, but then kept forgetting and just gave up on it.
Asking to have bread sent over in a care package wasn't really feasible, either, since it most likely wouldn't be any good when it got here.
So, a couple weeks ago I went online and ordered a bread maker. Nothing big and fancy, just a nice $54 model from the Army Air Force Exchange Service. I couldn't wait, and I couldn't stop talking about it in the office. I had everyone waiting for it. It finally arrived a couple days ago and the next day, a box came from my mom with several boxed bread mixes. Perfect.
Sort of. I set everything up with the timer so that the next morning, we would have a fresh loaf of cinnamon raisin bread. I couldn't wait to get in the next day. I came in and went right to the bread maker and . . . nothing. Just a lump of wet, sticky dough. And worse, none of the lights were on, making it appear that the machine was dead. I almost cried. After a few hours of off-and-on tinkering, I figured out that the transformer I had plugged it into was dead. It was only 500 watts, and my office consultants decided I needed a 1,000 watt transformer. So I set out to find one. There's a hotel in the Green Zone called the Al Rasheed, which has a dining facility that we sometimes go to when we're in the mood for upscale dining. At one time, it was carpeted. It's not anymore, but the decor is still nice. What really makes it a destination is the shops that line a couple hallways. We eat, then we shop. So I found a $60 transformer, but the plug wouldn't fit the machine.
I went to the PX next, but they only had two sizes -- 100 and 500 watts. Next to the PX is a tiny little Iraqi gift shop, so I went to look in there. They had a 1,500 watt transformer for $60, so I grabbed it and rushed back to the office. I was excited and nervous at the same time, worrying that when the first transformer blew, it killed the machine, too. I didn't even take my body armor off before I plugging it in. It was alive! So I started a loaf immediately. At one point while I'm getting this going, Mortada comes over to look it over. He commented that I probably could have spent less money on a transformer if I had had one of the locals that works here buy it in Baghdad. Yes, I said, but that would have meant waiting. Then he asks me how much the bread machine cost, so I told him $54. Then he asked how much the transformer was, so I told him. He looks at me and says, so you paid more for the transformer than the machine itself? He gave me one of those looks. It didn't bother me, though. And I didn't even try to explain to him why I didn't care how much I spent, I just wanted fresh bread. It was like a mission.
So, by 6:30 last night our office smelled like a bakery. I went outside a couple of times just so I could walk back in and smell the bread. It was beyond awesome. While it was cooling, I went over the the general's kitchen and asked his cook (whose name is Sgt. Cook - no shit! and he doesn't think it's funny, either) for some butter. I came back with a big chunk of margarine and we all enjoyed hot bread. A $100 loaf of bread, Cpt. Morley had to point out.
Life is really good.
(by the way, check out
www.lifeisgood.com)
Me cutting a loaf with Cpt. Jacobsen's he-man combat knife. It was the only thing I had, other than a useless plastic knife. You can see the bread machine in the background. The bread has been a huge hit, a big morale booster.
To rip one, or not to rip one
We have a new person in the office, an older gentleman named Mortada. He was born and raised in Karbala, Iraq, and left the country about 30 years ago to live in the U.K. He came back to help the Coalition and Iraqi effort; he works for MNSTC-I as an interpreter/cultural adviser.
So on his second day here in the office, I ask him if it's true that in Middle Eastern culture it's considered a compliment if you belch out loud after a good meal. Because I seem to remember hearing that in a cultural awareness class I was in before I came over here, and I've been to plenty of luncheons with Iraqi officials and nobody seems to do it. Or they aren't doing it loud enough for me to hear. So Mortada laughs and says "not among educated people," which naturally caused everyone in the room to bust out laughing.
I think I must have looked a little crestfallen, so Mortada tells me that while it embarrasses him if he does it out loud, he won't be offended if I do it. I said, good, because I tend to spontaneously erupt from time to time (on his first day, the guys in the office told him that right off the bat). We have two new people in the office now (Cpts. Tim Jeffers and Larry George and SFC Allen Thomas are back home), Cpt. Marc Jacobsen and SFC Paul Tuttle. Cpt. Tom Morley and LTC Fred Wellman are still here.
On another note, my bad about my so-called weapon crisis. I went to get the serial number off the M-16 that I thought was not mine yesterday and discovered that, oh, it IS mine. I freaked. I know when I looked at it last Tuesday morning, it wasn't my serial number. I couldn't explain it. But bottom line, I have my weapon.
I'm on my way to the dental clinic. I was told in early July that I need a root canal, and I've been waiting until I had a week where I wasn't going to be out traveling. Problem is, they'll only do the first part, to relieve the pain, and I have to wait until I'm back in the states to get it finished. So I'm a little concerned, since I had to have a tooth pulled once because I cracked it after the first half of a root canal. But the pain is getting bad, even when I'm not eating, so it's time to take care of it.
Life is still good.
Close encounter
I got back from one of the most frustrating, intense, but ultimately good mission a couple days ago.
I was hitching a ride on a convoy to an Iraqi military base in Habbaniyah, which is about 60 miles west of here and in the Sunni Triangle. It’s a hot spot. The convoy was also taking one of the general’s from my command and his team, they had their own Humvee.
Things didn’t start well when I went to get my M-16 out of the lock-up we have for our weapons and discovered it wasn’t there. Turns out, one of the captains that left a couple weeks ago for home accidentally took mine and left his. He apparently didn’t check the serial numbers. So I had to take his with me. Now I have to get a hold of him and find out if he was able to turn it in, or what happened. It’s going to be a mess for me when I go back, I have a feeling.
So then we were on our way. It was about an hour and 40 minute drive. About 10-15 minutes before we got there, we got hit by an improvised explosive device, also called an IED, or a roadside bomb. It went off just as the Humvee I was in passed by and in front of the Humvee behind us, which had the general. The worst thing about it right then was not knowing the status of the people behind me. I could see the lead Humvee, but not behind us. Once we got onto the base, the general’s Humvee went straight to the aid station to have everyone checked out. The gunner got schrapnel cuts on his face, but everyone was fine otherwise. The windshield was pretty cracked up, but the vehicle was okay otherwise.
So we get to where we’re going and I discover that the people I was coming to do a story on aren’t actually stationed at Habbaniyah, but at a different Iraqi base. The person who gave me the information was there at Habbaniyah and at first tried to brush it aside, suggesting that I was the one who processed the information wrong. That didn’t hold water, though, since he was the one who directed me to the seat on the convoy and knew that it was going to Habbaniyah. So I ended up doing a different story, but got kind of dumped in the lap of a woman Air Force captain who commands the base defense unit. I don’t think she was too happy about it at first; she has a really hectic job and didn’t need to have me weighing her down. But I think I grew on her after a few hours and we ended up getting along really well. Since they weren’t expecting me, I didn’t have a place to bunk down for the night until around 8 p.m. I ended up doing a story about her, being a woman and all, and in charge of about 100 Iraqi soldiers assigned to base security. I also did a sidebar on the base, which is pretty historic. The British built it in the mid 1930s as a Royal Air Force base, even imported willow-type trees that still line the roads. The captain took me all around, gave me a tour and showed me where all the mortars have hit since she arrived there in June.
The next day, we went to the front gate around noon to meet the convoy to go back to Baghdad. It was really late. Turns out, they got hit by two IEDs around the same area we got hit the day before, and lost a vehicle. They also got into a firefight for about 15-20 minutes until back-ups arrived from a nearby base called TQ. The team from TQ towed the Humvee back to their base to get it fixed while the convoy came to Habbaniyah. Since they lost a Humvee, they didn’t have room for everyone to go back, so I got left behind with two other people (one was the sergeant major for MNSTC-I). As the convoy was leaving, another vehicle went down. So they managed to get that over to TQ, then decided to wait to see if both could get fixed that same day. The plan was that if they got them both running, they would come back and pick us up and we’d head back that night. If not, the three of us would try to catch a Blackhawk out of TQ the next day.
Turned out, they got them fixed and we headed back to Baghdad around 6:30 p.m. As we crossed over a bridge about 10 minutes away from the base (the same location as the two IEDs and firefight that morning), we got engaged with small arms fire from two trucks parked on an embankment on the right side of the road, down below the bridge. I was sitting on the right side, so I got to see all the action. In the convoy commander’s briefing before you go out on any convoy, they tell you that if anything happens, stay put until told to do differently by the vehicle commander, to leave everything to the convoy security guys. So as we approached the bridge, I had my camera out and was planning to take photos if anything happened (they warned us before we left that they were pretty sure something would go down). But when the shooting started, the vehicle commander, who was sitting in front of me, dropped his window and started firing. The gunner in the turret was firing the 50-cal machine gun. So, I put my camera down and pulled my (or, I should say, the captain’s) M-16 up and was getting ready to drop my window and join in. But at the point I was ready, we were on the other side. It happened really fast. The rest of the trip back was uneventful.
Our senior enlisted guy in my office gave me half the day off the next day, which was nice. I woke up and was about to go to the bathroom when I heard a loud whizzing/screeching kind of noise and then a loud explosion. It was a rocket, don’t know what size, but it hit right at the entrance to our trailer park. Nobody got hurt, luckily, but some of the trailers got sprayed with schrapnel. The day before I got back, a mortar round hit near the convention center, which is where the government meets.
The next day, Friday, we had a mortar hit near our PX and a couple hundred yards from where we park our vehicles when we drive them back to the palace area at night. Again, nobody got hurt and no vehicles were around. The only damage was a huge, deep hole in the ground.
So it’s been hopping around here. What really gets me is the powers-that-be a couple months ago really started hammering us about rendering proper courtesies – meaning people weren’t saluting officers enough. We all responded with, well, we thought you weren’t supposed to do that in a combat zone. The answer was, well, the Green Zone isn’t really a combat zone, and there are no such things as no-salute zones here. So, the joke now is, we’re just living in an illusion of a combat zone here. The mortars and rockets are kind of smashing the illusion, though.
One day I was walking out to the parking lot and I passed by a major. He had his body armor on, so I couldn’t see what his name was. So I saluted him. And he proceeded to chew me out, telling me we were in a no-salute area. I replied that no, sir, we weren’t and that we have been directed to salute. So he starts arguing with me as he’s walking away. It really pissed me off, and I was really tempted to tell him I was just doing a sniper check. But instead, I went in and told our first sergeant about it. He was pissed, too, but there wasn’t much he could do since I didn’t have the guy’s name. He did send out an all-hands message later reiterating the policy.
So, I’d like to say nobody has to worry about me since I’m not really in a combat zone, according to some. But this week has proven otherwise. Try not to worry anyway, I’m fine and I seem to have a pretty good team of angels watching over me.
The guys on the general’s team are convinced I’m bad luck, though, and have vowed to not let me travel with them again. At first, I wasn’t sure if they were joking or not and it kind of hurt my feelings. But they were just giving me shit, they weren’t serious. And the gunner stopped by my trailer the night we got back for a cigarette, he’s fine. He said he didn’t even see the IED until it exploded. It hit in front of the Humvee, on the right side. Then he felt intense stinging all over his face, so he ducked down inside the vehicle to ask one of the guys if he was okay. He said yeah, you’re fine (probably didn’t want to scare him), so he got back up and finished the ride. He was back in the turret on the way back the next day, said he didn’t want to wait too long to get back on the horse.
So that was my excitement this week. Now I have to figure out what to do about the M-16.
Life is good.
