Archive for July, 2007

I was standing out on patrol the other day when I looked over and saw some small children outside their house staring at us.  They weren’t doing the normal abrasive “Gimme! Gimme!” that most of the children do so I went to the truck and got a soccer ball for them.  One of the guys in the truck and I headed down there and gave them the ball and went back to our corner.  A few minutes later I was up on a balcony overlooking the neighborhood and I looked down into their yard.  The kids, both girls and boys, were all playing with the soccer ball.  They were kicking it around, chasing it and laughing.  An older man (I assume their father) came from the side of the house and picked up the ball.  He looked at it for a moment, then kicked it across the yard and began playing with the children.  He was holding up the toddler and one of the kids would roll the ball towards him and he would swing the toddler so that he kicked the ball back.  Everyone had smiles, and it looked as though they were having a good time.

I was sitting in my ACUs soaked with sweat today and I came to the realization I must smell absolutely wonderful.  How anyone could say you stink sitting in sweat soaked, salt encrusted uniforms is beyond me. I mean who wouldn’t want to order ”Meat: salt rubbed and slow roasted at 130 degrees for over twelve hours in own juices” at any good restauraunt?

Sounds tasty to me. 

As you know, I am paying for internet in my CHU.  Most of the month it has been useless.  The connectivity is generally in the bytes/second range if there is any at all.  It takes upwards of two hours to check my e-mail, if it connects.  I am pretty ready to just give it up.  However, tonight for the first time I was able to chat with my wife!

The IM client actually connected and the throughput was pretty good.  Good enough I decided to try an experiment. I hooked up the webcam I bought before I left and tried to see if it would work. It did! My wife and daughter were able to see me during our chat, albeit really choppy, and we had connectivity for a few hours (minus a few periods of downtime).  I don’t know why getting the webcam working was so great, but it was.  It was only one way since they don’t own a webcam, but it felt really nice to have anyway.  Eventually the signal died and we lost the connection, but it made my day.  Maybe I can get some sleep tonight now.

If this kind of connectivity gets to be the norm, then I might just keep the internet around.  Otherwise its back to MWR.

On a side note, its still pretty surreal to me to have internet available in a warzone, let alone video chat from my CHU.  I guess its a sign of the times.  Our grandfathers had letter mail that took 3 months. Now, its video chat and email. 

I hate counseling.  Monthly, performance, event, negative, or positive it doesn’t matter.  I know as an NCO its one of my primary duties and its a necessary component to growing good soldiers and future leaders.  That doesn’t mean I hate it any less.

Not sure if I should really post this, but I feel I needed to transcribe it for some reason. Beware, its kinda graphic.

I am sitting inside my makeshift aid station in a remote outpost.  Its a 20 foot Connex boxcar and one door is cracked slightly.  Even with an A/C I am still sweating pretty good.  I am thinking about home when suddenly I hear incoming.  I dive onto the floor and cover my head with my hands.  I can hear the “Karunk” getting louder as the mortars begin to land.  I don my body armor and helmet and wait.

Its the loveliest part of the year here in Iraq – sandstorm season.  Its not bad enough that its so dry here your sweat directly evaporates leaving salt on your skin.  Its not bad enough that its so hot (138 F) you can’t drink water and you literally fry in your own oil.  No, this place tosses tons of ugly brown dust into the air for you to choke on too!  You can’t even see 100 feet in front of you most times.  I tried to take a picture, but all you could see was white/brown.  All this place is missing is brimstone (they have sulfur springs) and it could literally be Hell.

And this morning, my platoon went for a 3.5 mile run…

Gotta love the Army! 

Note:The photos are examples from Google images, and are not from where I am at in Iraq currently.

Just a few more little things I found on the internet I thought were interesting given our current climate.  The continued is a funny little video of soldiers goofing off.  Beware the script autoplays.

A quick quote:
“Only two defining forces have offered to die for you,
Jesus Christ and American GI’s.
One Died for your soul,
The other dies for your freedom.”

A couple of years ago I was forced to turn off the trackback feature in my sites.  I was getting hit 50 – 100 times a day by spammers using the system to increase their own ends.  Since then, I have been waiting for something that would block trackback spam.  It seems I have found it in Akismet, more specifically Akismet for EE.

The program, which started as a WordPress plugin, basically runs all your comments through the Akismet servers, and if the comment author, URL, etc is listed in their database the comment is blocked.  If the system thinks there is something fishy with the comment, but it could be good, it sends it to a moderation queue for the admins to decide.  Every comment marked as spam is added to the database automatically, increasing the learning curve for the program.  Its works wonderfully, and since Akismet runs on over 20 different platforms, the spam database has a much larger pool of contributors than the EE Blacklist does.

Ever had a pair of boots or shoes that just fit perfectly?  You know, from the moment you put them on, they were your favorites.  Well, my best pair of boots in nearly a decade passed on today.  I noticed my right foot was aching a little bit and it felt as though there was a pebble of something stuck to my boot.  I looked at the well worn soles and found a gaping chasm in the sole.  Not just a hole, but a complete crack from one end to the other.  It was right in the bend of the foot, so every time I stepped the crack opened into a huge maw allowing whatever to creep in. I was both disgusted and saddened at the same time.  I guess the combination of 115 degree heat, blistering hot concrete/pavement, sand/gravel, and walking was just too much for them.

I now have internet in my boxcar!  We shall see how it works.  Now to update some stuff, and install a Gnome IM client so I can talk to my wife.