The Problem of Iraq

By far, the singlemost annoying aspect of living in this country is that it affects my equilibrium so strangely. For example, I can I drink a liter and a half bottle of water while I'm sitting on shift and might have to pee once during my twelve hours; however if I take a thimbleful before I sleep, I invariably am rousted from my dancing visions of busty bikini babes (or dragons and demons; I have weird dreams here) in order to relieve myself at least three times a night. Do I need to start sleeping standing up? I just do not get it at all. Perhaps it's some sort of MidEastern Hemispherical Cariolis effect? Is it because I sleep during the day, when my cicadian rhythm is used to me being awake? Whatever it is I would just like to get a full night's sleep.

Uh Oh

They moved us into a fancier building today. It's very bright in here and there's lots of stained wood, charts, and monitors everywhere. They even have little speakers hung up all over the place for the PA system. It makes me think of Dr. Strangelove, in that it's absolutely imperative to have a "war room" to do our jobs. Actually, we were told we're not allowed to cuss in here. Heaven forbid that we use naughty language while we plan out ways to kill people. Oh, and yesterday my battalion was ordered to change the name to a mission. It had been called "Garotte", but that was deemed too violent. I offered up "Hugs and Feelings" as the alternate, but they didn't appreciate that at all. Oh, well.

Who We're Dealing With (Moderately Risque)

In the past twenty four hours I have had the good fortune to have been relayed two tales that portray the Iraqis on the street, so to speak, a bit differently from how they might seem just from the TV reports.

Last night my battalion escorted over one hundred Iraqi police trainees back from Baghdad, where they'd flown in having received their training in Jordan. There was a minor delay getting them sent downtown, so they stayed here on FOB Warhorse for a few hours. I saw them all when I went to chow last night and ate with the patrol leader.

What I discovered this morning when I went to the gym was that after chow the soon to be policemen, representatives of the Iraqi government, had been herded over to the MWR hangar (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation; it has ping-pong and foosball tables and lights in it so we can keep security on large groups of foreign nationals). They were not the ideal guests.

Besides defecating everywhere (in the hangar, next to the port o' potties, outside, etc), they also took the opportunity to destroy the soccer balls that they were lent from the MWR facility to occupy their time while they waited. It wasn't that the balls were kicked around and were accidently popped; nope, they had been torn apart. Of course, that was merely passive aggression, as opposed to when one of them punted a basketball at a landing Blackhawk helicopter (the guy working the gym showed me the shorn remnant of the ball, along with
the mangled carcasses of the soccer balls). The rotor made quick work of the ball and the pilot came out with his pistol drawn, looking for the "@#@#$#@#$#er" that did it.

In addition to that, one of the US soldiers went over to use the port o potty, next to which a gaggle of the Iraqis was squatting (just talking to the best of my knowledge, though that may have been when they decided to play there aforementioned prank). Upon seeing the soldier advancing, one of the Iraqis jumped up, ran over to the port o' potty, and grabbed the door, though he did not go in. The Iraqi just smiled at the soldier as the soldier explained that he needed to use it. After the third time, the soldier had his fill and politely informed the Iraqi "@#$#@#$##er" that he was "gonna kick (his) $#$#", the Iraqi said, "You mean!" and proceeded square up. An MP that was supposed to be keeping an eye on things saw what was about to happen and removed the Iraqis from beside the source of contention.

This evening, while at chow, I was told a story by the Kiowa pilots (they do reconnaissance work for us) that gave me yet another reason to be glad I'm not a pilot. While doing their normal route clearance patrol, they came across two Iraqi cab drivers in what I can only relay as being an "indelicate" circumstance. The pilots said that they were still trying to come up for an alternate explanation for what they could have been doing. Of course, the sheepish smile on their faces, and the man watching from the back seat of the taxi, was very puzzling. I mentioned to one of the pilots, a lieutenant, that he needed to take the positive view of the whole situation and be thankful that he'd gone twenty five years without ever having to witness that sort of thing before.

So, other than that (aggression from allies, sodomy) things here have been pretty much the same as normal.

First Person From Fallujah

This blurb comes from my buddy Chris who is acting as a fire support officer in Fallujah right now. My explanations and remarks are in parentheses.

"We are waxing some serious ass, man. Never imagined we could bring this much combat power to bear insuch a small area. Remember they used to have a "Million dollar minute"? Yeah. that wasn't anything. CAS (Close Air Support; Air Force Jets with precision bombs) , AC -130 (a big airplane with a 105mm cannon in it that fires approximately 40 rounds a minute and is accurate to one meter; it has a 35 meter kill circumference), Rotary Wing (Helicopters; Apaches), Fixed Wing (same as CAS), 155 (Artillery cannons), 120, 81, 60, (these three are all mortars; mortars fire more rounds a minute than artillery but aren't as accurate) TOWs (fiber optic guided missiles), Tanks, Machine Guns, and the occasional AT-4 (what most consider a bazooka) are always exploding. They pushed through the city faster than they expected. You wouldn't believe all the toys they have here. Fuller (the Artillery platoon leader) bet that he wouldn't shoot 100 HE (High Explosive; standard Artillery munition) shells. I told him he needs to plan better. He gave me that condencendng look and bet a hundred dollars. Yeah, they are scrambling for shells now because they are amber (dangerously low), almost black (no mo ammo). We have shot over 30 fire missions and over 200 shells, 120 (mortar) and 155 (Artillery). Gator (my old battery) leveled a Mosque being used as a C2 (Command and Control) node today. 20 EKIA (Enemy Killed in Action) in one shot. Crazy. They even shot about three MICLICs (a rocket with a string of 2200 pounds of C4 dragged behind it used to clear mine fields) in an urban environment. The weird thing is they haven't seen one civillian. Not one. So, that's the update."

The only US KIA from Chris' battalion, the one that I was attached to when we first arrived in Iraq, was the Sergeant Major. I rode up with him from Kuwait back in March. He was a good man.

Short Story Long

As some of you might know I grapple with theological issues as a hobbie. Indeed, my degree in Classical Studies, useful for little else, helps me to verify sources and translations. I have been reading the works of a French theological cryptologist, Dr. Philippe de Merd, whose field of study involves considering biblical texts as sources for augury. This "science" was made famous a few years ago with the publishing of "The Bible Code", which claimed among other things, that by scanning the text of the Torah the phrase "Assassin will be Assassinated" was linked to the date that Yitzhak Rabin was killed. As opposed to applying decryption techniques to the Torah, Dr. de Merd's expertise lies in trying to discern the hidden messages of the Book of Revelation from the original Greek.

At any rate, I made a startling discovery today as I was perusing my copy of the Greek B.O.R. I found that by converting the letters of the greek Alphabet to numbers (there are 24), then adding the numbers together of each verse, deviding the sum's by pi times phi (the two famous irrational numbers; I hold that irrationality is the true nature of God and man) I was able to convert every passage down to a sum of 24 or less (using estimation to round to whole numbers), which I assumed would have to be reconverted to Greek.

Dr. de Merd's studies have shown that results from his methods usually provide anagramic answers so I spent hours rearranging the various letters but could find no real insight. At the end of the day, on a whim while doodling at my desk as I attempted to rest my noodle, I simply converted the twenty four possible letters to the first twenty four in the English alphabet.

I came up with this:

dienphtibnooogmipsnctiitarddeanereertapanethalsenofllidbewibegrmttoeaptvexnerseochersi

Amazingly, I found the proper order and when I did I dropped my pen. It read:

"chapter six verse one: The opening of the seals will be initiated Ajax Carpenter being promoted to captain"

Which makes perfect when melded into the existing Revelations 6:1

...and I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see."

Too late. I got promoted yesterday.

Andre gets bored and you get this...

For those of y'all that may not have grasped just how sad (and cushy) my life is, I just thought that I'd share a little interchange between myself and one of the sergeants here, but first I want to set the stage.

It being the Fall here doesn't represent the fact that I'm four and a half months from getting out of here or that Ramadan has started (two days ago). No, to me, that means two things and two things only: football season (pro and college) and playoff baseball. Those are the two things that give me the will to drag myself every night over to the TOC and sit for twelve hours (Can you imagine being put on a twelve hour "time out" as a child? I know what I'm gonna do to Andre Jr.); however tonight, a Saturday night and thus a college football and two games of playoff baseball night, the commo sergeant tried to hijack the TV and put on Nascar, of all things

Me: "What do you think you're doing?"

Commo Sergeant (CS): "I'm watching the race, sir."

Me: "Oh hell no! You gotta be crazy!" (I change the channel to the baseball game)

CS: That's messed up, sir; using your rank like that.

Me: Who wants to watch a bunch of guys go round and round for three hours? The only cool parts are the wrecks.

CS: Baseball's just watching the ball go around.

Me (ignoring him; to someone else): The Japanese dude just hit a homer!

CS: 'Japanese dude'? There's an EO (equal opportunity; our version of thought police) complaint.

Me: Oh, the guy that wants to watch a bunch of southern white guys take left turns is saying I'm rascist for watching a baseball game that has Blacks, Hispanics, and Orientals...

CS: So now you're saying it's about race?

Me: Hey, don't look at me. You're the one that keeps going on and on, complaining because you're not getting to see "THE" race. Way to go...bigot. Can you make it any more obvious than that, Hitler?

The commo sergeant got flustered and left. I got to watch my baseball game in peace. Life is good.

Yet Another Stupid Andre Story from Iraq...

Tonight I had a rather odd experience. We have turned back the clocks here before y'all in the States and so, when I am on my way to work it is already dark. As I was walking along talking or singing to myself (either way I'm sure it would be frightening to witness), I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of what I thought to be the the flash of mortars being fired at us on the horizon. I immediately looked for the nearest place to take cover when I saw another flash off in the distance in a different location. I considered hitting the dirt right there as the bombardment should strike any minute, when I saw yet another flash and it finally dawned on me: there was a rainstorm brewing. Seeing as it has been five months since since we last had any rain, it hadn't occurred to me that there had actually been clouds in the sky lately.

I muttered to myself, "What am I, four years old and scared of thunder and lightning again?" When the next lightning flashed I was able to answer myself with an unqualified "Yes!" and I scurried on to get to work. Yippee! I don't have to wait. I get to have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder while I'm still in Iraq.