Don’t mess with the wild life……..

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.