I saw a bee today. It was the first bee I have seen since I have been here. I have seen my share of flies and ants though. The one insect here that has proven to be a huge pain, literally, is the sand flea also known as the no see um. I am not sure if they are actually from the flea family as they fly but they definatly attack like fleas. Usually when you get bitten you don’t notice it until they are gone. The bites itch like hell and I am pretty sure that I may have permanent scaring on my legs from some of the bites I have gotten. The scaring is from itching the bites too much, this was before I had my mom send me every type of anti itch medicine there is. They actually take a chunk out when they bite you, it can be very irritating. Sometimes they get into your clothing and you get multiple bites in one area. Some of the spots that are bad are areas like around your boots and belt. For a while my roommates and I were getting chewed up in our CHU until we discovered that if you cranked your AC up to the maximum it would make them dormant or at least that is the theory.
There are also a lot of ants here. There are your garden variety black ants and then there are these weird looking indestructible ants that have really long legs kind of like a spider. The long legged ants are impossible to kill I have proven this by stepping on one nine times to include grinding my foot on one to no avail.
I have only seen one camel spider so far and it was a little tiny one. I don’t feel bad about this as I remember seeing one in ‘91 and they are nasty so I am fine with not seeing any more. I heard that one of the sergeants found a black scorpion in one of the latrines at the bunker but that is unconfirmed. We did find a dead scorpion which proved to be loads of fun in the form of scaring the crap out of people but that’s about it.
Surprisingly I have only seen two camels so far. I have been told that they are not such a big commodity to have here up north and that most of the camel herders are farther south. I have seen one horse so far and someone was actually riding it so that was cool. Most of the animals up here consist of herd animals such as sheep and goats which seem to be the majority with a few scraggly cows sprinkled in for good measure.
They have a lot of dogs here also. They don’t keep them as pets and rather treat them as a nuisance. The kids throw rocks at them, which pisses me off. It makes me want to throw rocks at the kids but we are not allowed to interfere. I did see two dogs humping in night vision and some donkeys going at it so that was entertaining , when you are in Iraq it is the small things.
And that brings me to another form of wildlife that the Army includes in its policy of not messing with the wild life, the local kids. As soon as we roll into a town or village the kids start coming in swarms and surround our vehicles. One day it was so bad that I felt as if I was in some kind of zombie movie with dozens of kids running towards our vehicles from all points of the compass. The end result was approximately 150 kids surrounding our trucks. We thought this was cool at first but after having several missions under our belts it has become a huge pain in the ass. It is a hard thing to deal with on several points. On one hand you want to help them by giving them food and water to help them out. But on the other hand you realize that no matter how much you give out it is never enough. The problem arises when you do start handing stuff out which causes an immediate riot. One of the major problems is that all the bigger kids beat the crap out of the little kids and take every thing that you have just given them from them. On our last mission we handed out some tooth brushes and tooth paste and I saw no less them five actually fist fights in a five minute period. One of our Sergeants explained it best. When you start handing stuff out they are grateful but then it starts fights and people get hurt which creates resentment which is the exact opposite of what we are trying to accomplish here.
I would say in some of the outlying villages we visit that those kids really do need help with food and water. But when we go to some of the bigger towns most of the people seem to be doing fairly well. One day I sat and watched as a group of kids begged some guys from another company for some water then when they got it they ran to another truck and tried to sell the water to those guys, crazy business. Not all the kids want you to give them stuff. Sometimes you get large packs of kids that want to sell you stuff, anything from cigarettes to sandwiches. I even had a kid offer me some whiskey in one town we visited, I passed on the offer as you never know what the hell they might actually give you. Same goes for the food, part of me would like to try the local cuisine but a bigger part of me does not want to end up on the toilet for three days if you know what I mean. One thing that the beggars and the sellers all have in common is an unbelievably annoying persistence. They will just sit and stare at you for long periods of time. I am not sure if this is a tactic they have developed by being exposed to American soldiers or where they got it from. But I have watched as they try and beg or sell something and get rebuffed then just stand there and stare until the object of their attention caves in. It is actually against Brigade ( the larger Army unit we fall under ) policy to give or buy anything from the kids but people do it anyways and that is part of the problem. There is also the problem of having all these little kids around these huge trucks that have really bad blind spots when trying to drive away. Or in some cases just driving in the town as they like to run alongside the trucks and dart in front of them.
The behavior is also vastly different depending on what type of village you are in. If you are in a Kurd or Izidi (sp?) village where we are fairly well liked it is still a swarm but they are not as rude. But if you are in a Sunni Arab village where we are not as popular they literally rip stuff out of your hands and try and go into your pockets and steal what they can. Another difference that we noticed has been that in the Kurd and Izidi villages the kids are boys and girls but in the Arab villages it is just boys.
Now I don’t want to come off as the big bad American that hates little Iraqi children, it is not like that at all. Rest assured we are doing some great things for the people here and are trying to help them as much as we can. Cant go into the details so you will just have to trust me on this one.
During the writing of this blog post I suffered through no less then 4 sand flea bites.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
My opinion
Several people have asked me my opinion on a subject recently and I thought I would put a post up about it. The question is in relation to the recent release of some photo by the associated press showing a young Marine dying in Afghanistan. The main question being what do I think about it. My answer is this,would any of you or anyone in my family want to see a picture of me as I lay dying somewhere. I don't think so or I certainly would hope not. Now do I think that the military and the government have been avoiding pictures like this to help sort of sanitize the war for the people back home. I would have to say yes. But I think there are other ways to show the human side of these wars other than posting pictures of U.S. soldiers wounded or dying. I for one believe there should be more coverage of Dover Air Force Base when the flag draped coffins come home, or asking the families of the fallen if they can be present for the soldiers funerals. Personally I think it was irresponsible of them to post that picture especially in the light of the fact that the family asked them not too. Imagine being the family or friends of Nick Berg whose head was cut off, while he was still alive, early in the war in Iraq and knowing that there was a video of it up on the web for anyone to see. I just think there has to be a better way to show the sacrifices these folks make besides posting their deaths in a picture or video for all to see. That's just my 2 cents.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Missions
I actually was not sure if I wanted to do a post on missions but I decided that since this blog was for myself as much as it was for letting people back home know what I am up to that I would do it anyways just so that I do not forget what they were like. For me missions are the exciting part of this deployment so far. I will start this post by saying that the threat level in the areas that we have been traveling in are very low. Most of the violence is directed at the Iraqi Army (IA) and the Iraqi police (IP) forces in the area. That's not to say that when we go out we are completely relaxed, after all I did not grow old by being retarded and not showing some bit of caution ( this point can be argued by some I suppose :) For that simple fact the only time I get really nervous when driving around is when we are anywhere near an IP or IA checkpoint or base. As some of you have seen my primary job when we leave the base is as a machine gunner on whatever vehicle I happen to be traveling in on that day, although on some occasions I have been tasked as a driver when we do not have enough qualified people to fill all the positions. It is either the MRAP or an up-armored Humvee. I prefer the MRAP as it is a larger vehicle and the height of it allows me to see over the walls, when I am gunning, that they have along side most of the roads here.
My first mission here was a night mission and I will admit that I was completely freaked out. We had not gotten all our equipment in country yet so the only crew served weapons we had were SAW's ( squad automatic weapon ) which is the smallest of the three types of machine guns that my unit has. These days here in Iraq all night driving on paved or common roads is done in white light meaning everyone uses their headlights. I was in the last vehicle providing rear security so I got no benefit from the headlights as far as visibility goes. So the whole trip to our destination and back I had to use my night vision goggles. It was cool in the "cool guy army stuff" kind of way but it was a little nerve racking as your visibility with night vision is not as good as when you have actual light.
One of the many scary things was not knowing what to expect and really having no idea what to look out for. During our horrendous stay in Kuwait we went to many classes on convoys and what to look for as far as IED's and VBIED's but once you get here and actually try and put that info to use you quickly find out that the info was not really that good at all. Unfortunately since this is a public blog, meaning that anyone in the world can see it, I am not at liberty to say what they told us to look out for and such but trust me, not very useful information.
There are alot of IA and IP checkpoints along all the roads here. These are places along the road where the civilian traffic has to stop and show ID to continue down the road. We do not have to stop so all we would do was slow down through the obstacles they have emplaced at the checkpoints and continue on our merry way. We left the camp at a fairly late hour and I was surprised and a little unnerved at the amount of people still hanging about. We are not allowed to drive through major cities anymore so we skirt around them but you are still driving fairly near to the edge of the cities. So chances are you are going to see the general populace in your travels. But not knowing that on that first mission made it a little bit stressful at the time. I have taken many pictures here of what the houses and buildings here look like but none of them really do justice to the reality of it all. There are houses and buildings still standing that have obviously been bombed, shot up and blown up. The landscape definitely has an apocalyptic aura about it. Basically that first mission, seeing in night vision, made me feel as if I was on some sort of Mad Max / Road Warrior movie set.
A couple days after our night mission we went on a quick day mission which after the first one was a little less nerve racking as we had a little better idea of what to expect out there. The only time I really got nervous was after we rolled through a town that was completely packed with people. It was a little town and there must have been 300 to 400 people in the streets and hanging out around the shops doing business. But when we rolled back through that same town 3 hours later there was not a soul in sight. This was strange because all the other towns that we had rolled through on our way back still had people in them doing their daily business but this one was dead quiet. The reason this freaked me out was that every person that I have talked to that has served over here said that if you rolled through an area that is usually busy but when you roll through it is dead quiet it is a bad sign and usually means that you are going to be hit by something. So when we got to the town and I saw there was absolutely no one in sight I got extremely nervous about the whole situation. Nothing happened and we made it back through without incident but not a good feeling about that situation at all. Once we got back to base I asked about the town and found out that it is well known for its smuggling and foreign fighter activities.
One huge difference that I myself have noticed in my comparisons of the first gulf war and now are the driving habits of the locals. When I was in this region in 1991 the local people did not ever move out of the way of Army convoys. But now up here they will pull over to the side of the road as soon as they see you as you are coming towards them, sometimes as much as a mile ahead of your position. They will also pull over to the side of the road when you come up behind them. It makes you feel as if you are in some kind of presidential convoy. I was a little amazed at this at first until I saw a couple of cars that had obvious bullet holes in them then it made perfect sense. With the somewhat peaceful atmosphere here these days it is easy to forget that these people here have lived through the whole invasion and occupation of this country. If I had been here through all that I suppose I would pull over also.
A somewhat comical aspect but not really is the perception of us here in Iraq , as far as I have seen it. On that first day mission alot of folks gave us hand gestures that in America would mean " so happy to see you here, you are doing a great job" but apparently do not mean the same thing here. When we got back from our day mission we were talking about how it seemed most folks were happy to see us, giving us the thumbs up and waving at us. only to be informed by folks that have been here before that those gestures here do not transfer to the same gesture back at home. So now when we roll out I just return the gestures with a big grin on my face.
My first mission here was a night mission and I will admit that I was completely freaked out. We had not gotten all our equipment in country yet so the only crew served weapons we had were SAW's ( squad automatic weapon ) which is the smallest of the three types of machine guns that my unit has. These days here in Iraq all night driving on paved or common roads is done in white light meaning everyone uses their headlights. I was in the last vehicle providing rear security so I got no benefit from the headlights as far as visibility goes. So the whole trip to our destination and back I had to use my night vision goggles. It was cool in the "cool guy army stuff" kind of way but it was a little nerve racking as your visibility with night vision is not as good as when you have actual light.
One of the many scary things was not knowing what to expect and really having no idea what to look out for. During our horrendous stay in Kuwait we went to many classes on convoys and what to look for as far as IED's and VBIED's but once you get here and actually try and put that info to use you quickly find out that the info was not really that good at all. Unfortunately since this is a public blog, meaning that anyone in the world can see it, I am not at liberty to say what they told us to look out for and such but trust me, not very useful information.
There are alot of IA and IP checkpoints along all the roads here. These are places along the road where the civilian traffic has to stop and show ID to continue down the road. We do not have to stop so all we would do was slow down through the obstacles they have emplaced at the checkpoints and continue on our merry way. We left the camp at a fairly late hour and I was surprised and a little unnerved at the amount of people still hanging about. We are not allowed to drive through major cities anymore so we skirt around them but you are still driving fairly near to the edge of the cities. So chances are you are going to see the general populace in your travels. But not knowing that on that first mission made it a little bit stressful at the time. I have taken many pictures here of what the houses and buildings here look like but none of them really do justice to the reality of it all. There are houses and buildings still standing that have obviously been bombed, shot up and blown up. The landscape definitely has an apocalyptic aura about it. Basically that first mission, seeing in night vision, made me feel as if I was on some sort of Mad Max / Road Warrior movie set.
A couple days after our night mission we went on a quick day mission which after the first one was a little less nerve racking as we had a little better idea of what to expect out there. The only time I really got nervous was after we rolled through a town that was completely packed with people. It was a little town and there must have been 300 to 400 people in the streets and hanging out around the shops doing business. But when we rolled back through that same town 3 hours later there was not a soul in sight. This was strange because all the other towns that we had rolled through on our way back still had people in them doing their daily business but this one was dead quiet. The reason this freaked me out was that every person that I have talked to that has served over here said that if you rolled through an area that is usually busy but when you roll through it is dead quiet it is a bad sign and usually means that you are going to be hit by something. So when we got to the town and I saw there was absolutely no one in sight I got extremely nervous about the whole situation. Nothing happened and we made it back through without incident but not a good feeling about that situation at all. Once we got back to base I asked about the town and found out that it is well known for its smuggling and foreign fighter activities.
One huge difference that I myself have noticed in my comparisons of the first gulf war and now are the driving habits of the locals. When I was in this region in 1991 the local people did not ever move out of the way of Army convoys. But now up here they will pull over to the side of the road as soon as they see you as you are coming towards them, sometimes as much as a mile ahead of your position. They will also pull over to the side of the road when you come up behind them. It makes you feel as if you are in some kind of presidential convoy. I was a little amazed at this at first until I saw a couple of cars that had obvious bullet holes in them then it made perfect sense. With the somewhat peaceful atmosphere here these days it is easy to forget that these people here have lived through the whole invasion and occupation of this country. If I had been here through all that I suppose I would pull over also.
A somewhat comical aspect but not really is the perception of us here in Iraq , as far as I have seen it. On that first day mission alot of folks gave us hand gestures that in America would mean " so happy to see you here, you are doing a great job" but apparently do not mean the same thing here. When we got back from our day mission we were talking about how it seemed most folks were happy to see us, giving us the thumbs up and waving at us. only to be informed by folks that have been here before that those gestures here do not transfer to the same gesture back at home. So now when we roll out I just return the gestures with a big grin on my face.
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