I hope this wasn't a Freudian slip...

Yesterday, a lot of the people here got mail and I didn't. Without thinking it through, I told the thirty-five- year- old black sergeant who'd gotten sent a giant box, "I'm jealous of your 'package.'" Then I realized what I said and stammered " I mean your mail...I mean M-A-I-L, not M-A-L-E. What? I gotta go." Suffice it to say that it was moderately embarrassing.

Tenuous Grip! (Continued)

Since I last wrote I have since spoken to the Public Affairs Officer who told me that he had seen the same article in the New York Times and wrote them, politely asked how the reporter could claim to know much of anything about Baqubah, as he's never come here, and then invited him to see the town and talk to us. Apparently, absentee reporting, ala Jayson Blair, has yet to be stamped out at the Times.

Tenuous Grip!

What a load of horsecrap! We are very stable here. Wow. That is really, really off base and just flat out wrong. No, you know what? It's all true. I'm typing this from the bunker with my left hand while I shoot all of the attackers with my right. Oh Lord, I just shot a suicide bomber between the eyes! Oh no, theres one hundred thousand behind him... and they're all women and children! Aaaahhhh.... It's all slipping away! Thank God the media finally told it like it is!!!!

P.S. We're on the edge of the city.

Wyman Carpenter@earthlink.net wrote:

"I just read an article from the NYTimes (listed below) with the line below. I didn't realize it had gotten so bad in your city. Are you in Baquba or outside of the city? Take care.--Y

September 19, 2004
U.S. Plans Year-End Drive to Take Iraqi Rebel Areas

American forces have lost control over at least one provincial capital, Ramadi, in Al Anbar Province, and have only a tenuous grip over a second, Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad."

Iraq Education

Iraq has been an education. Many things that I'd held to be true I've since had to reconsider based on what I've experienced in my time here.

What I've learned so far:

Math and Standards & Ethics- if her face is a two and her body is a five, she's a seven… and there's nothing wrong with a seven.

Foreign Relations- all foreign soldiers stink to high hell and appear starved, despite the fact that they use up all the water by taking thirty- minute showers, and they horde food from the mess hall, escaping back to wherever with loaves of bread, cookies, and basically anything not already eaten or under armed guard.

Chemistry- combining clothes detergent and water will result in clothes appearing far dirtier and far older. All clothes, regardless of original color, will become brown with blotches of darker brown, which, depending on the garment, can be highly distressing or highly amusing, depending on one's affinity to that sort of humor.

Relativity- Not only does one hundred degrees feel cool after one hundred thirty, but it's a reason to go play full court basketball or finally get in that long run you've been meaning to get to when the weather got better.

Literature- Every terrible dime- store romance, fantasy, and thriller novel comes here when people finally clean out their attics. They are all uniformly as bad as expected, though they are read regardless.

Psychology- Though a camel spider is technically not an spider, as it has ten legs, it has the same effect on a full grown, hundred eighty pound Arachnophobe, namely shrieking like a small child and bolting, despite the fact that said Arachnophobe is a member of the greatest military the world has ever seen and is armed with an assault rifle, is carrying two hundred ten rounds of ammunition, and is wearing a Kevlar helmet, ballistic goggles, and thirty pound flak/ bullet-proof vest (with genitals protection flap).

Darwinian Theory- If one shoots all the dogs, the cats get out of control. If one shoots all of the cats, the mice run wild. Therefore, shoot all of the dogs, punt cats whenever the opportunity arises, and keep the mice as pets. The snakes have no natural predators. Scorpions will beat camel spiders every time in ammo-can death matches.

Journalism- if there is no way that your audience can see for themselves what you are writing about, you can pretty much mail it in and write whatever the hell you want, using your position to push your political views. When criticized, refute by explaining that you are just receiving flak for not buying into the official propaganda and for writing about the WHOLE story.

One Night

I refuse to go over there. Gonna sit right here and play solitaire. Not gonna join the crowd and watch the night’s entertainment on the screen. The aerial camera is only so riveting. They’re watching the camera struggle to stay on the truck that might have been the one that rockets got launched from onto one of the camps. Me watching it isn’t gonna do anything. Soldiers are on their way. Helicopters are criss- crossing the screen above the truck.

 
Nope, just gonna zone out and enjoy my thirteenth hour of sitting here. It’ll be nice when battalion sends over John Buck to help cover down so I can go back to twelve hour days. Huh? A vehicle accident at the front gate?
 

- Hey, Sergeant, what unit is that?

- 1/6, sir.

 
Shit, more work. Well, not work, but just a hassle.

- What happened?

- Rollover, sir.

 
That’s not good. Not good at all.

- Are there injuries?

- Roger, sir, five or six. 

 
Go over to where the RTO is taking down information so I can hear the radio. Whoa!

- What’s this in your notes about CPR?

- One of the guys is having a hard time breathing. They’ve called for oxygen.

- Isn’t CPR when someone’s died? Are there any fatalities?

- No sir, no fatalities.

- Find out the bumper number of the vehicle. Do you know who these guys are?

- They’re the R and R guys going back to Gabe.

- It’s a five-ton?

- No, sir, a humvee. I’ll find out the bumper number.

 
Call battalion to give them the head’s up. Everyone is still watching the camera. Who gives a shit about that?

 
Okay, battalion knows about it. Find out who these guys are. Back over to the RTO. They can’t read the bumper, but they have the trailer number. Why would a humvee have a trailer going down for R and R pickup? It could, but…

- Hey, double check that this is a humvee. It should be a five-ton truck.

- They say it’s a humvee sir.

 
Pass this trailer number to battalion. Maybe they know which vehicle it’s with. Oh, the battalion commander picked up the phone.

- No sir, no fatalities. Five or six wounded right now. They’ve gotta get a crane to lift the vehicle off one of the guys arm. They’re talking about doing CPR now on one of them who’s having a hard time breathing. We’re still getting information. Roger sir, I’ll pass it immediately.

 
What did the Battle Captain just say to me? Oh, yeah, probably should go over to the Aid Station and check on the soldiers. Get all my gear on. Shit. Hope they’re not all messed up. God, please. I don’t wanna see gore and amputations.

 
Out in the dark, over to the Aid Station. Where’s my flashlight? Crap, left it in the room this morning. Make sure I don’t get run over crossing the road in the dark. At least there’s some moon out. Gotta watch my step over there because the ground’s uneven. Mini clouds of dust erupt around my feet as I stomp through the silt. It’s quiet.

 
Open the door. Bright. Blink a few times. Chaos. People scurrying around everywhere, clumping in pockets around… Ugh. Pale, naked, bruised, bloated body. Oxygen mask. Clothes cut off, in scrap heaps on the floor around the stretcher up on sawhorses. What’s that mothers always say? “Always wear clean underwear. You never know when you’ll be in a car accident.” Pull yourself together. Get information. No, don’t mess with people working on soldiers. Know what to do. Do it. Over to the check- in desk.

 
Get there, look in the window. Oh, excuse me. The Colonel? How did he get here ahead of me? Shit. Someone just said KIA. Need to call battalion. Colonel’s on the phone.

- Hey sergeant, I don’t want to get in the way. I need to get information about the wounded for my battalion.

- Talk to her there. You know about the KIA.

- I just heard.

 
Colonel’s talking to the battalion commander. Expressing regrets for the KIA. Hands the phone to me. Nothing to say.

- Sir, I’m getting information now. They’re in the middle of working on them. I’ll call back ASAP when I get more.

 
Off the phone. Talk to that female soldier that’s getting the information. Someone coming in here. Hey, that’s SGT Perdidas. Young, twenty two or so. Drenched through in sweat, crying, gash on his chin, hyperventilating. Some Staff Sergeant sitting him down, handing him forms, beating him up about doing his statement.

- Hey Sergeant, I’ll take care of this.

- Oh, roger, sir.

 
Good, the Staff Sergeant’s gone.

- Try to catch your breath. Calm down.

 
SGT Perdidas is trying to. The crying is messing with his breathing. He’s gasping in little staccato bursts, trying to rein himself in. He’s trying to write. His hands are shaking. Take the pad from him, talk to him, calm him down, get the information.

- I’ll do the statement for you. You just tell me what to write. What happened? Take it easy. Take it slow.

- We were leaving, going back to Gabe.

- In a humvee?

- No, in a five ton.

- Who was in the truck?

 
I pull the story slowly from him. He was in the cab with the driver and some sergeant that he didn’t know. Four were in the back. John was one of them. They were driving in blackout drive. What?!! No NVGs?!! Okay, he’s hyperventilating again. Oh, yeah, he’s got that gash on his chin. Need to take care of him.

- Hey, can I get one of y’all to clean him up? We’ll get to this later. Okay? Get patched up.

 
Better call battalion.

- Yes, sir. I’ve got some of the story. Still getting details. They were driving without lights without NVGs and went into the drainage ditch. I have some of their names. Here they are. CPT Buck’s one of em.

- How is John?

- I don’t know sir.

- I mean is he fucked up? How’s he look?

- I haven’t gotten a look sir. I’m over here getting information right now. I didn’t want to get in the docs’ way. I’ll find out and get back to you, sir.

 
Get the rest of the information from that female soldier. She’s filling out the fatality paperwork. Specialist Javier Esperando. Find out the rest of the guys’ initial diagnoses.

Find John. Said he had abdominal injuries. Check the clumps of docs. He’s the one I saw at first. Looks like he’s in the worst shape by all the activity around him. He’s awake though. Some medic is holding his saline and blood bag since the clamp for the bag hangers isn’t working. I can do that.

- Hey. I’ll do that so you can do something else.

- Add pressure so that we can get this in him

- Got it.

 
Make eye contact with John. Nod at him. Don’t show any fear. Don’t want to upset him. Be strong, calm.

- Hey buddy.

 
He acknowledges me. Ask a doc. They think he has a fractured pelvis. Glance. There’s a hand towel over his lap, but the medic’s got her hand under it with a tube. Don’t look at that. Squeeze the blood bag. Squeeze the saline. Keep an eye on John. He’s awake still. Talk to him a little. What to say? Dumb stuff, normal stuff. They’re getting you stabilized. You’re gonna be okay. Your blood pressure and pulse are going back to normal.

- Hey doc, can you give him anything?

- No, we can’t now. He’s stabilizing and now he’s gonna start being in a lot of pain.

 
Something catches my eye. Oh shit. No more hand towel. Medic’s got something in his hand. Ugh, he’s bleeding from down there. Look away. Another medic is fixing the clamp. They need litter carriers to get the guys on the birds.

- Hey, John, hang in there buddy; I’ll be right back. Gonna get the boys on the bird.

 
Follow the group of soldiers that went running out into the night. Dark. Can’t see. Eyes haven’t adjusted. One of them has a flashlight. Follow him. We follow the ambulance. Not even thinking about being tired and I’m running in boots. Guess this is adrenaline.

 
Ambulance stops. Uh- huh. Uh- huh. One, two, three, lift. Head down, going to the Blackhawk. Don’t want my head cut in half. Not gonna happen since the crew chief is standing there, but then that’s irrational fear isn’t it? Roar of the rotors. Wind beating down on my neck. Lean in to hear what the crew chief is saying. Barely make him out. Tell him what’s wrong with this soldier. Load him on. Run, hunched over, back to the ambulance. Share a glance with the other guys. Make a break back for the Aid Station.

 
Get in. Call and report. Back to John. The clamp is still messed up. They’re getting ready to move him. Hold the saline and blood while they prep him.

-John , this is gonna suck.

 
They roll him over to put a hard board underneath him. He groans, growls, curses. They cover him with a woolen blanket. They start to strap him down, slide a small oxygen tank between his legs and under the strap.

- Hey be careful where you put that.

- We gotta get this on here.

- Yeah, but he has a broken pelvis. Be careful.

 
Idiots. Okay. Time to lift. Crap, my left hand. Damn frozen finger. Concentrate. Help with the other hand. Don’t drop him. One, two, three, lift. Scurry over to the Ambulance. Load in with him. Hold his blood and saline.

- Hey, keep that shit off his lap.

- It’s gotta go somewhere sir.

- Fine, hold it. Keep it off his fucking lap.

 
Okay, well I’m not gonna be that kid’s best friend. John mumbles thanks. No problem.

- Hey, I think your ballet career is over.

 
He groans. Maybe joking wasn’t the right thing to do. Crap. Time to unload him. Keep all the tubes untangled. Get him on the bird.

 
Flashback to when we did MEDEVAC training in Macedonia. Remember that rotor wash in the face. Looking up at the blades is something you never want to see again. Snap back. Get John loaded. Run back. Get next soldier loaded. They’re all loaded. Hustle out from under the blades. Stand next to the ambulance. Take a breath. Walk back to the Aid Station. Gotta report. Gotta get the rest of the information. Gonna be tired when this wears off.

 
Get in there. There’s a staff sergeant bawling out his eyes, talking, mumbling to a captain. He isn’t one of my guys, is he? Ask someone. Oh, he’s the patrol leader that was escorting the five- ton back. Sees me. The captain bolts.

- If we didn’t leave he wouldn’t be dead. (Sob, sob). Why did I take them out? (Sob, sob) We could have just stayed. This didn’t have to happen.

 
Console him. Wasn’t his fault, doing his job, he isn’t God, etc. He sees SGT Perdidas, goes over and hugs him, whispering in his ear. They cry together.

Liaisons

We liaison officers are a motley bunch. We are the discards from our battalions who’ve been deemed incompetent, warranted or not. Indeed, no battalion sacrifices its best or someone perceived useful, especially for a job that amounts to playing operator. Due to a grossly inflated ego from an awareness of my stellar, exemplary, stupendous character, I have treated my time as a liaison officer as a vacation, not as a banishment. Yesterday was a banner day with my co-workers. It began at lunch.

I sauntered off to eat round about noon and, as I was having a poor day from distressing information I’d received earlier, I opted to sit with some of my colleagues. Captain Adams, a former Navy SEAL but current pilot, had been promoted just at the beginning of the month. He was sitting with Captain Wingard, a National Guard Special Forces Captain (that a unit would relegate an apparently valuable piece to this job speaks volumes) and LT Terpstra, the Brigade Movement Control Officer. LT Terpstra is a bit slow on the uptake to put it mildly, though I find him amusing. CPT Adams, while a bit of a blowhard, is a good enough guy. CPT Wingard has never seemed to be anything other than a foul tempered, smug… well, we’ll just cede the point that I’m not a fan of the man.

At any rate, as I sat down the two captains were berating the poor LT Terpstra, who’d made the mistake of unveiling his Boston- bred, liberal opinions. Adams and Wingard were making the enlightened point that Islam needed to be wiped off the face of the planet and the befuddled, flustered lieutenant was trying to make the counter-argument that Christianity was responsible for its fair share of blood and mayhem. I quietly listened along, which some might find astonishing given my supposed propensity for verbosity, though I submit that I was genuinely fascinated by grown men debating earnestly with a skill which recalled grade school. I finally spoke out, with only the intention of acting as umpire, after CPT Adams, trying to deflect LT Terpstra’s point, made reference to Cortes’ slaughter of the Aztecs having happened in the THIRTEENTH century. I looked at him strangely to see if he were kidding and when it was apparent that he wasn’t, I reminded him that Columbus had landed in 1492. He began to argue with me.

I thought that perhaps he was following a technique that I often employ, where I’ll argue vehemently for an absolutely ridiculous point as a method of adding levity to a discussion that has become a tad too heated, but, no, that did not turn out to be the case. Perhaps he felt that as a Captain he could not admit that he was capable of being incorrect, a trait that I have seen in many superior officers. Perhaps he truly did have the poorest exploration historical education that I’ve witnessed in a college- educated man. Regardless, he stuck to his guns.

His argument was that, sure, Columbus had landed in 1492 but Cortes was earlier, and so was De Leon for that matter. What absolutely floored me though was that then Wingard started backing him up as they fabricated the official Moronic Captain’s History (MCH). They both snidely laughed to each other about how the little lieutenants had been taught all the wrong things out of their school history books, which they claimed were propagandized (though they didn’t state how fabricating Columbus as the discoverer over their champions was a benefit). I was apoplectic. How on earth could this actually be going on? I was just stunned. They both went on to include in their MCH that St. Augustine had been founded in the 1470s but that it wasn’t the oldest town in the US because there was one up in Maryland that had been settled in the 1300s. CPT Wingard’s evidence was that his brother “used to live in that town.” CPT Adams went on to add that the Santa Maria had landed at Plymouth Rock. I nearly had an aneurysm, but, fortunately, not even CPT Wingard would back him on that fantasy, so he said “oops” and went back to his previous blathering.

Finally, it came down to a matter of wagering. I had no cash and it felt flat- out wrong to take money that easily, so I proposed forty pushups in the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) where we work. Wingard elegantly called me a “pussy.” Adams accepted my wager of pushups and Terpstra’s wager of ten dollars, though I watched the two Captains bamboozle Terpstra by having him exchange bills back and forth until I’m pretty sure they conned five off of him. I left them as they continued to bicker because I’d had all the stupidity I could take.

When I got back in the TOC, the computer that we were to use to settle the argument was occupied, so I waited. As I read a book, the three schmucks came in and Wingard snidely questioned what the answer was. I explained that the computer was occupied and went back to playing solitaire on my computer, which, sadly, appears to be my real occupation here. I saw that CPT Adams had gotten on the computer and so I sat next to him to get a good look at him when he ate crow. I suspect he finally realized he was wrong because he refused to look up the answer, instead checking on finance. I went back to my seat. After a while, I faintly heard CPT Adams mention that “technically” I was right. I gave him a wee bit of hell.

When he finally came back to his accustomed spot he tried to save face by saying that De Leon hadn’t gone before Columbus but had been on the trip with him. Then Wingard asked which one had gotten off the boat first. Adams said something about De Leon being a foot soldier. Then he tried to say that he had been right because De Leon was in Florida before Columbus. At that point, I’d had enough.

“If you see an Olympic weightlifter, you’re not going to challenge him to a weightlifting competition, right?” I queried, a smirk on my face.

“Yeah…,” followed along Adams

“Well, then why in the hell would you think to argue with ME about anything?”

“Wait, are you saying you’re better at arguing” perplexedly chimed in Terpstra.

“No, I’m merely stating that I’m the smartest person in the Brigade Sector and that it is asinine to compete with me about this…Tell you what,” I said to CPT Adams, “I won’t try to tell you about being a SEAL, and you don’t try to tell me about ANYTHING ELSE.”

I rolled with laughter. They were pissed. I laughed harder.

Incoming and Outgoing

The only scary thing that has happened lately was we got mortared the other night while I was in the lavatory. I have to say that is one place that is not conducive to fostering thoughts of being well protected and safe. "Don't let me die here, God!" was about all that ran through my mind. Still, I have to admit that there are not any better places that I can think of to have the mess scared out of oneself. Mortars stomp metamucil... A socially awkward story, I know, but one that I thought was amusing enough to pass along despite my embarrassment.

Yippie!!??

Today is special; besides being the first day in only double digits (temperature wise) for the first time since May, it is also the seven month mark of my being here. Were I a Marine I'd be on my way home, but, alas, I've five more of these to go. Oh well, at least this is the down slope. Yup, things are definitely changing here. I can only imagine my excitement when I see rain again (as it hasn't rained since May either). At least there aren't any Hurricanes here. Woohoo, I love Iraq!