Archive for September, 2007

We went out on patrol the other night down in the South of our AO.  We went out on a more or less “feel good” mission.  The kind of mission where you interact a lot with the people, get to hand out toys to kids, eat Iraqi Chow (which I am eating more of than Army chow these days) and try to show everyone what great fellows the Coalition forces are.  The officers spend most of their time shaking hands, kissing cheeks (and other body parts), drinking chai and politicking.  Its not a bad thing to do as it tends to bring in leads and helps the people realize we are there to help them.  The bad guys spend an awful lot of time in this area terrorizing families, intimidating Sheiks, and putting out anti-coalition propaganda.

In general, I don’t mind this type of mission.  I get to practice my Arabic, eat hot food, and debate different things with locals.  It amazes me the ideas some Iraqis have about Americans and Western culture.  It really shouldn’t given how they are brought up, but some of the wild tales I hear make my jaw drop.  Needless to say, it wasn’t a bad time or too miserable for a change.

Ran across this song/video at one of my daily reads, The Mudville Gazette (who found it on A Soldier’s Perspective) and thought it was worth a post.  I am not a big country fan, but I wouldn’t mind grabbing this in MP3 if its available.  Its a good song.

The song was written by Dustin Evans, who from what I gather is a soldier who is or has served in Iraq and he put out a CD.  Since I try to refrain from posting media on the front page, you’ll have to click the link to see it. 

I just returned from about three days (I lose track of time here) of continuous patrols and raids, so this post will be brief.  However, I thought it important to share with the handful of readers I have, and maybe a few others what our enemy is really made of.  I keep reading reports and seeing news broadcasts where the anti-war movement is describing the terrorists/insurgents as freedom fighters and patriots.  They liken them to our own ancestors during the Revolution, fighting for their own country against an “oppressive occupying force” determined to shove their ideology down the throats of Iraq.  Well, there is a big difference between the two.  Let me describe a couple of the guys we rounded up lately.

I am so sore today.  We had a diagnostic APFT yesterday morning followed by a long day of classes and NCOPD.  After a few hours to ourselves (long enough to eat and get a shower), it was time to hit the trail.

We went on some raids with the IA and IP.  The IP were raiding a nearby village, so we acted as a backup for them while operating primarily with the IA in their target city.  The city has been known to hold terrorist safehouses.  The first time we ever visited there, the bad guys set an IED in the road immediately after we passed by hoping to get us on the way back.  Its that kind of place.

Its been a busy week.  The raids and engagements never seem to cease.  Here I thought things were supposed to slow down as your redeployment date neared!  I have come to the conclusion, though, that one of our IA commanders hunts insurgents like people in the US hunt deer.  He is notorious for the way he deals with insurgents and terrorists, and his uncanny ability to find safehouses, caches etc.  Its almost as if he knows ahead of time where to look (and he might).

We were out with him today on a “recon” for a future IA outpost.  The area is really remote and dotted with tiny little villages, and the bad guys have probably been using it to train and launch attacks from.  We were traveling down some pretty bad roads, if they were roads at all.  Most of the time, it seemed that they were just places were the wadi system broke up enough to get through.  At one point we went straight up the side of a wadi.  I mean straight up.  The humvee made the trip like a trooper though, and I am always amazed at how far the Iraqis can push Ford F350s and Chevy pickups.

Due to current operations, I was unable to post my annual 9/11 EMS memorial on time. I hope fighting in a war to prevent its recurrence is a reasonable excuse.  I had planned on making it the index of this site for the whole day.  Unfortunately, computer access was not anywhere nearby, or a priority, so I am posting it now.  The memorial page has now been made a permanent part of this site as well. 

It was six years ago yesterday that I heard the news.  I was offshore and read the news on Slashdot first.  I made it to the dayroom TV just in time to see the second tower fall.  I didn’t know who, or really why, but I knew immediately that it was terrorism.  The unfortunate side effect of being in the Intelligence Community for 9 years.  Nobody moved from the TV that day.  Operations on the rig continued, but everyone at work got updates as often as possible.  I sat there and watched it all develop on CNN and listened to others comment on the unfolding situation.  It was surreal, and a lot of them didn’t believe what they were seeing and hearing.  People were leaping from the buildings to their deaths, and as fire engulfed the buildings, they collapsed trapping thousands of people inside, killing most instantly.

Hmm…  what to say.

Well 20-something years ago, in a small community in North Alabama a child was born.  This small new life had no clue what was in store yet, and just smiled at being in the world.  That infant grew into a happy, pretty, little girl who loved to play and dreamed big dreams of the future.  Little did she know what was in store for her.  A little over ten years ago, while attending the wedding of a friend, her life was changed.  Her life would never be the same again.  She would endure hardships, traverse miles, cope with loneliness, almost lose a pregnancy, and live through things that would make most people quit.  She would also find love, have a beautiful child, and make many lasting friendships.

I don’t usually post petition solicitations and the like, but in this case I feel it is warranted.  Cyril Richard “Rick” Rescorla is one of those few true heroes you rarely hear about anymore.  I think his actions, heck his entire life, deserve the Medal of Freedom.  I have followed his particular story for a little while, but go read it for yourself and make your own decision.  If you would like, here is the petition.

Sorry its been a bit since I left a post, but life here just kind of seems to drag on.  The days seem to be getting longer now that our redeployment date is nearing.  The days themselves are slightly cooler, but thats only because the sun can’t sear the desert for as many hours during the day.  Its still mostly a miserable event to be stuck in a humvee all day, especially when the air goes out, but I guess in the end a balmy 100 degrees is a fair bit better than 122 degrees. 

We went out to an area that was once a coalition outpost yesterday.  Before that it was one of Saddam’s many ammunition dumps.  The place was a huge, many miled, wasteland scattered with debris from the bunkers and structures that used to be there.  There were rusted shell casings and vehicle parts every few feet, and I couldn’t help but imagine just how big that place was before we bombed it out of existence. We drove through the old outpost to get out there.  High earthen barriers and rotten HESCO barriers topped with the green shreds of old sandbag emplacements made the entrance seem like something straight out of a 1970s post apocalyptic movie.  I half expected Mad Max to come barreling over the top of one of the craters.  It didn’t help the that the sky had turned that sickening gray/brown you can only get here and the wind was blowing hot and hard from an oncoming dust storm.  It was probably the most desolate place I have seen yet, and that is saying a lot in this country.  The place was creepy and you could feel death there. 

I just thought this story was interesting.  I guess there is a market for niche hardware guys still.  Think about whats gonna happen when the NCC-1701 Enterprise finds ”Vger” in a couple hundred years.

COMPARED with the latest electronic wizardry, they are fossils from the age of the techno-dinosaurs.

Yet the bank of computers that would look at home in black-and-white episodes of Doctor Who cannot be junked. Housed at the Tidbinbilla space tracking station, outside Canberra, the 1970s hardware is now our world’s only means of chatting with two robot pioneers exploring the solar system’s outer limits.

When NASA’s Voyager probes set sail they were the most sophisticated spacecraft ever built. But that was 30 years ago.

…

Today Voyager 1 is humanity’s most remote object, 15.5 billion kilometres from the sun. Voyager 2 is 12.5 billion kilometres from it. Both continue beaming home reports, but now they are space-age antiques.

“The Voyager technology is so outmoded,” said Tidbinbilla’s spokesman, Glen Nagle, “we have had to maintain heritage equipment to talk to them.”

That is because the ageing probes can only chat at a sluggish 32 bits a second, far too slow for modern computers.

“The computers look like the stuff out of the old sci-fi movies, with blinky lights and big colourful buttons,” Mr Nagle said.
From Sydney Morning Herald Online