Back From My Trip

I made it back from my excursion through the country side of Iraq. I can't get really print any of what I was doing other than to say I was checking on equipment we have at another location. I flew via C-130 to get there and it felt like we traveled across half of Iraq to get to our destination. We made several stops at other camps along the way, and one unscheduled stop because we lost an engine on the last leg. While at my destination, I had the chance to do a little sight seeing. I had a chance to see the remnants of Saddam's wonderful Air Force. I'm not sure what kind of aircraft these were, but I know they were trainers of some sort. They were pretty torn up, but most of the pieces were still there including the machine guns.

We went on to explore an old munitions storage bunker. There were still remnants of stabilizing fins, chutes, and what looked like rocket launchers.

Finally, we had the chance to check out a personnel bunker. The entrance is under the tin overhang. The impressive thing about this was how nice the equipment inside was. It was all built by the Dutch through a contract with the Iraqi's many years ago, but it looked like top notch stuff. I tried something new here and I've attached a short video. It's just one I did with my camera so there's no sound and I realize it's dark and hard to see - so now you know how it was for us. At one point in the video you'll see my "Gunny". This is the Marine GySgt who was traveling with me. He's looking through night vision goggles we used to aid us during our expedition. After 4 days on the ground, Gunny and I headed back to camp Victory via Blackhawk in the middle of the night. I personally hate flying on helicopters and I'll just say, that pitch black terror fest over hostile territory managed to solidify my feelings even further.....

Stepping Out For A Few Days

Tomorrow I'll be leaving for about 5 days of off camp travel. I won't be able to post any updates during this time but have no fear, I'll take my camera with me. I'll take pictures of anything that might be interesting and I'll post what I can about my travels around Iraq when I get back.

I also want to take this time to say hello to everyone who has sent me an e-mail or a note. I appreciate each and every message I get. I'm sorry I haven't had time to respond to each of you individually. It means a lot to hear from family and friends. I also appreciate the e-mails from strangers who stumble across my blog and take the time to read it and drop me a note. Mostly I started this as a way to keep those close to me informed about what I'm doing. It's grown a little beyond my initial intent and I have fun posting knowing I have a bit larger audience. I've started to see if I can achieve some goals. I have the ability to see what locations people have checked my blog from and I'd like to have visitors from all 50 states and at least 50 other countries. So far I've had visitors from 36 states and 27 countries. To achieve this goal I need your help. Please send a link to my blog to anyone you think may be interested in reading it. Family, friends, co-workers, whoever. I really enjoy checking to see how many people have visited each day ( I had one day last week with 100 visitors), so please help me out and send out my blog. By the way, if you want to get an e-mail letting you know when I've made an update, there's a place to put your e-mail address on the right side of my blog.

As I've said before, I'll happily answer any questions I get - that I can answer.
Here are the only two questions I've really gotten so far - Jimmy, I haven't seen any spiders yet so I don't know how big they are. Little Rodger, I haven't seen any Iraqi women so I don't know what they look like. I'll be happy if I make it the entire year without seeing either one.


On a completely different note - Here's a little comedy sketch I think is hilarious. Check it out.

Andy

Funny Link - Achmed the Dead Terrorist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go

A Little Sight Seeing

I had the opportunity to go see some of the interesting things around the Victory Base Complex today. Specifically I, along with a few of the guys from work, went to Camp Slayer and looked around the Abu Ghurayb Presidential Grounds. This was the former home to the Republican Guard and the Iraqi Military Academy. I was able to look through Saddam's "Victory over America" Palace (The Abu Ghurayb Palace) which Saddam had built starting in 1996 to commemorate his "victory" over the U.S. in the gulf war.

It was built against the back side of the "Victory over Iran" palace (with the palm tree in front of it) creating a very large and impressive structure. The palace was still under construction in 2003 when we invaded Iraq, which is why there are still cranes around it. Of course, no construction is occurring now - we bombed it during the war as shown by the twisted metal and broken concrete from inside the palace. I also went through the Ba'ath Party Convention Center (the building sitting on the water). This is the building Dan Rather interviewed Hussein in just prior to the start of the war in 2003. It was used as a meeting place for political and military leadership of Iraq. Just as a quick refresher on the history of the war, President Bush gave a public address in early 2003 and told Saddam he had 48 hours to surrender for failing to comply with UN sanctions. The next day President Bush again addressed the nation stating the attacks had started early because there was reason to believe a large gathering of the top leaders in Iraq was taking place, giving us an opportunity to strike at their leadership. This gathering was in the Ba'ath Party Convention Center. A gathering of over 200 of the leaders was struck with Tomahawk cruise missiles and guided weapons dropped from Air Force fighter jets. There were no survivors.

These pictures show the conference room from the outside and from the inside. If you look at the bottom of the interior picture you can make out chairs that made up the stadium style seating in the room. Of the over 200 people in the room, only 50 remains have been retrieved. It was rather unnerving to be in that room knowing what had taken place there. To keep things in the proper perspective with reference to the loss of life that occurred at this location, the picture below came from the same building. While most everyone would agree it looks like it used to be a nice swimming pool, it was used as an execution chamber to dispose of whomever Saddam felt was a threat to him. He was a dictator and the top people in his government were his henchmen. They were a group of thieves, thugs, and murderers. As big, expensive and wasteful as this particular palace was, Saddam had 98 others like it. All these were built by looting money from the people of Iraq. These were not public buildings - they were for the private use of Saddam and those closest to him.

As always, there are many more pictures on my website.

Andy

What does JIEDDO do?

For those of you who still may be a bit confused about the role of the Joint IED Defeat Organization, here's a link to a 4 part article titled "Left of Boom" from the Washington Post that discusses the IED problem and JIEDDO. I won't say I agree with everything in the article, or the way it's written, but it gives an idea of what's going on.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/29/AR2007092900751.html

Things have been pretty calm the last few days - at least when it comes to rocket and mortar attacks. The evenings and nights are still filled with the sound of machine gun fire and large explosions, but the machine gun fire is not too close to our section of the camp and the explosions are from in Baghdad. I'm getting settled into a routine now, although I need to increase the amount of time I excercise and decrease the amount I eat. I've had a chance to see much more of the Victory Base complex comprised of many different camps and I'm still amazed at the amount of military hardware we have here. The complexity of the logistics and the ability of the people here to make it work day in and day out is truly impressive.

Tomorrow I head to the range to zero in my M-4 for my first excursion off the camp. I'm heading to a different camp to take stock of some resources my organization is accountable for. Here are a couple pictures of some of the things around the base.

This is the largest lake with some of the villas visible around it.












A very small example of some of the hardware here.
This is an Iraqi hardened aircraft shelter they used to house their aircraft in. What's not easily visible in this picture is the large hole in the top made by one of our guided bombs. The other picture is a very nice looking building I have no clue about, but I thought it looked cool.

We Had a Bad Day

People die here. We strive to achieve some day to day normalcy in our routines and the infrastructure we build around the base. We work, we eat, and we socialize in ways to enhance that normalcy. There are familiar comforts from home like Burger King and Taco Bell. We have a large exchange stocked with familiar items from home. We do these things to try and bring comfort and security to what is truly an unnerving and dangerous place. Sometimes these things can bring a false sense of security for those of us fortunate enough to not leave the camp on a daily basis. Sure, stray rounds fly around and the occasional mortar or rocket flies in and hits in the middle of a field. We all laugh it off, make a couple of jokes and press on. Last night proves how thin our veil of normalcy is. People die here, and it happens without warning and with no regard to who you are, or what your role on the camp is. The person with the least dangerous job on base is as vulnerable as anyone else while eating, showering, watching T.V. or sleeping. This is truly a dangerous place....

Andy

For details please check this link.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gkx-3oYeFwuWKCusr2jrojs98w8wD8S6UIR80

Just a quick update

I hadn't planned on writing anything today, but I wanted to give a little update on the events of the last couple days. We've had a series of attacks of different sorts over the last two days. I'm not going into any detail on most of these specific incidents for security reasons, but one piece of what happened illustrates a point I made in an earlier post. I've mentioned stray rounds as a result of incoming fire and the potential danger they represent. Last evening we had some fire coming in, and the result was a soldier who took a round to the face. Luckily for this individual, the round had little velocity at the point of impact and the injuries were not serious. I will say, this individual was not somewhere one would expect to get hit by any stray rounds. It shows the danger every person here faces whether or not they are directly involved in combat operations.

I'll work up another post with more pictures soon.

Andy

Sunday Morning in Iraq

After falling asleep to the sound of sporadic gunfire, I was very rudely awoken by a very close, very loud exchange this morning. I'm not sure what weapons were shooting, I'm still trying to learn the difference in the sound. Some of it was return fire from our towers, some was AK-47 fire coming in, and then there was something else, very loud, that sounded like it was being fired very close to us (it wasn't too close, just loud). Not a pleasant way to wake up, but I'm secure in the safety of our 12 foot concrete blast walls around our compound - just not so sure about the 1/16 inch of tin roof over my head. While I'm sure this sounds dramatic, it's really not. We're not diving for the ground or cowering behind cover. These shots are coming at us indirectly. The bad guys are shooting at the perimeter towers along the fence line. Our compound is in a rather unique location on the camp and we're lined on three sides by perimeter fence - in some places only a few hundred yards away. There are a couple towers on either side of us (here's a picture of one I took from our roof) and the stray rounds directed at those towers come at us. As long as we stay smart and keep off the roof and out of the street during these firefights we're relatively safe. Of course, a stray bullet will kill you just like a well aimed bullet, but there's some security in knowing they're not being aimed right at us. There are some interesting things to see on the other side of the fence including many large Mosques. Here's a picture of the closest one to us - all I can think is it looks like a good place for a sniper to shoot from (I don't know if that's ever happened from this one).

I've been here a week and I finally feel adjusted to the time difference and I'm over the shock of waking up each morning and thinking "holy crap, I'm in Baghdad". I think I can now write at least somewhat coherently, so I'll give a generalized description of my impressions on what it's like to be here. I'll just say I'm sure this will change as time goes by, so no looking back at this months from now and giving me grief after I've said something different.

First thing, it's pretty warm. The days are around 100F. That's not really hot for here so I'm not looking forward to next summer. There's a constant haze of dust and smoke in the air. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth as you breath this stuff in. It's something easy to ignore, but if you think about it it's there. There is a fine covering of dust on everything, everywhere. It's like brown talcum powder and it's insidious - creeping into everything, including our lungs, wreaking all kinds of havoc. There's always some kind of garbage burning off the camp and large plumes of smoke can be seen drifting across the sky as seen in the next picture.

Water is scarce yet plentiful. As I've mentioned before, this area used to be Saddam's recreation area. He built many lakes and canals and put nice villas and palaces around them. We have drained many of the lakes to make areas to use for various things, and the plant life has mostly died. There are still many lakes, but the water is murky and funny looking and it no longer resembles any kind of recreation area I've ever seen. We have a water source that produces drinking water on camp so we have bottled water everywhere. It that sense it's plentiful, but when it comes to showers it's different. There is no utility infrastructure for everything that's been placed here, so it's all self contained. We have trailers for showers and toilets and they work off of very large non-potable water tanks. The water in these tanks does not last very long. These tanks must constantly be refilled. Showers work like this - turn the water on and get wet. Turn it off and lather up. Turn it on and rinse off. Now, get out so the next guy can get in. There's no lounging and relaxing in a nice hot shower. If the entire process takes more than 3 or 4 minutes it's too long. So in that sense, water is scarce. Of course, we also have to walk from our little sleeping trailers to the bathroom and showers. So I ask you to imagine this - it's 2:00am and you have to use the restroom. Get up, get dressed, walk out into the pitch black and make your way to the bathroom, then reverse course and head back. How sleepy are you now? Same thing with the shower. Gather up all your stuff, put on some PT gear and head out to the shower - three minutes to clean off and then get out and shave in the sink. Then pack up all your stuff and head back to the trailer to change into a uniform. Why do I bring this up? I want people to understand that in many places around the world, we have men and women doing this day in and day out for 6 months, a year, 15 months - or longer (and we're the lucky ones who get a shower everyday). This is something small that most people here don't even talk about, but it's something that almost every American takes for granted each day. It's a small sacrifice people make here, but it's one of many many small sacrifices that pile up into large sacrifices.

One thing that is not a sacrifice of any sort here is the food. We have two large dining facilities run by contractors and they go way over the top to provide a large variety and quantity of food. It's good - a little too good. I need to cut back and work out more or I'm going to gain weight while I'm here.

I'll end here for today. If there's anyone who you think might enjoy this blog please send out the link. Also, if there's something specific you would like to know about, let me know and if I can answer the question I will.

Andy

Home Away From Home

As promised in my last update - here are some pictures of the compound I'm in. One shot is of the trailer I live in (temporarily, until I get my permanent room in the same kind of trailer), and the other two are of the building I work in. The trailers and the building are right next to each other so I don't have a long walk to work. We have a bathroom trailer with 8 stalls and a shower trailer with 8 showers, both located right next to the living trailers. It's all very small, but it's convenient. There are a couple dining facilities to choose from which are just a short drive from our compound. We're lucky to have our living accommodations next to where we work. Most everybody else here lives in several centralized trailer complexes away from where they work. There are palaces, and many lakeside villas where Saddam's closest relatives and friends lived. It's not such a nice place now. As I get more pictures I'll put them up.

Andy

First 24 hours in Iraq

After what has seemed an eternity, I've finally made it to Iraq. I had very long flights from Ft. Benning to Kuwait - via Ireland - and then a long drive from Kuwait city to Ali Al Salem Air Base. From there, it was an hour and 20 minute flight via C130 into Baghdad. This was a HOT HOT flight. We sat on the runway for 25 of the longest minutes of my life. Full body armor packed in with lots of other people in the blazing sun sitting in a tin can. Not fun. Once here, LT JG Bob and I were greeted by a member of JIEDDO and driven to our compound. As far as living conditions, it's not too bad. I'll put up some pictures soon. The interesting part was the large fire fight that took place a few hours after we got here. The bad guys decided they wanted to shoot something in our general direction and it was a full on shoot fest with the base security guys. These bullets were whizzing by within feet of us. I've attached a picture of a light pole sitting about 25 feet from where my bed is. The bullet I'm holding did not make that large upper hole - a larger caliber round did. I could see tracer rounds flying feet over head before I quickly retreated to my trailer, and someone with a different angle said they could see the sparks from rounds bouncing off the street in front of us. Lucky for us we have 12 foot concrete barriers around our sleeping quarters. (you can see one of the barriers in the background) The round I'm holding is from an AK47 and I found it this morning on the roof of the building we use for offices. This morning, as several of us were standing outside discussing the previous evenings firefight, two large rockets flew overhead and impacted our base. These landed a long distance from us, but the explosions were very loud and unnerving. In the picture, you can see the smoke from the larger impact (this is a couple minutes after it hit).

This may sound a bit strange, but people didn't really get very worked up by any of this. It was just business as usual. It wasn't really scary - just strange. I'm not sure how to explain it.

A cold morning in Ireland.

It's been very hectic since my last entry. I spent the last week at Ft. Benning learning the Army way of deploying. There were over 400 people being processed together so it was like being in a herd of cattle most of the time. Civilians and contractors out numbered military 2 to 1 and of the military, there were only 4 people who weren't in the Army. Two of them weren't going to Iraq so that just left Navy Lt JG Bob (who is also going to work at JIEDDO) and myself as the only non-Army.

The training consisted of lots of briefings, medical screenings, and military training. We have briefings about Iraq, IEDs, first aid, weapons, tactics, and on and on and on. We fired the M-9 at and interesting range with multiple pop up targets, and we even practiced throwing hand grenades. It was a packed week with days that lasted from 10-12 hours. The accommodations were interesting. The Army has a different standard than the Air Force, but it was not too bad. We were issued all of the gear needed for the next year - uniforms, sleeping bag, body armor, and lots of other stuff. Bob and I are now stealth Army guys - we have Army uniforms so people think were Army officers until they take a look at the service tapes and see Navy and Air Force and then they generally just look confused. It's kinda fun.

We boarded a contract flight out of Ft Benning and we're currently on a refueling stop in Ireland. In a couple hours we'll load back up and head off to Kuwait were we'll switch to military aircraft for the final hop to Iraq.

Stay tuned for more after I get to Iraq and get set up.

Andy

For Real This Time.........

I depart for Ft. Benning Saturday afternoon, and a week after that I'll be heading to Iraq. The last week has involved briefings and of course more paperwork. I've seen some interesting things, but haven't really learned much more about what I'll specifically be doing when I get to Iraq. I did find out I'll be traveling much more than I thought. I completed some paperwork today so I could travel in and out of other countries in the region including Afghanistan. Of course I'll write as much as I can about any adventures involving regional travel.

I want to take a little space to cover a topic that's come up a few times in the last couple weeks. I have no intention of turning this into a blog about political ideologies so let me say, as a military officer, I remain neutral in my public political affiliations - I will follow the orders of civilian leadership regardless of the party or person in charge. With that said - what I have to say is my personal belief and is not political in any regard. Several times over the last few weeks, as people discover I'm preparing to deploy to Iraq, I generally receive generic supportive comments, and then invariably something which I find curious takes place. Some people look at me with pity and make a comment about how I must hate that I'm being forced to deploy to Iraq - how I must hope that the troops are all brought home soon so I can get out of there quickly.

I volunteered for this deployment - in fact, everyone in my group is a volunteer. These are well educated, experienced Officers and Senior Enlisted people, most with families. I make this point because I want people to understand these are not people who are blind to the risk and hardship they are about to embark upon. I can't speak for my fellow team members as to their personal reason for volunteering, but I can tell you mine. Nothing is black and white so I don't pretend I can capture my personal reasons in their entirety and complexity in a few paragraphs so here are the broad reasons.

There are professional decisions that played the smallest part of my reasoning. I have two deployments already so I don't really need another one to make my records better for promotion, but let's face it - another one won't hurt. My true reasoning is this. I believe America is in a fight for it's existence. There is an enemy that has nothing less than complete annihilation of our way of life as it's end goal. These people want to kill you - your parents - your kids - your neighbors - your priest - the local kindergarten teacher - everyone. I know there's a large part of our population that simply can't imagine that to be true. In fact - a large part of our population feels there is some sort of internal conspiracy to perpetuate this idea on the basis of some hidden gain for industry or rich people. That is simply ignorance and fear. Ignorance of the world events of the last 20 or so years, and how they relate to the growth of radical Islam and hatred of not just our nation, but democracy and freedom anywhere in the world. Fear, because it's scary to think a group of people want us and our way of life extinguished. It's hard for people to wrap their minds around that - and let's be honest with ourselves - most Americans don't want to think about anything that detracts from their favorite TV shows or the latest scandal surrounding some lame celebrity. We simply want to live our lives and avoid contemplating the ugly, dangerous, evil lurking just beyond sight. To avoid having to face that evil, people will convince themselves it can't exist and will argue with anyone who says it does. To do any less means having to acknowledge it exists, and that's scary - plus it might mess with the fall TV lineup - or God forbid - it could actually mean the slightest sacrifice for the average American. People are simply not willing to accept any of that and will fight to ensure their security blanket of ignorance remains pulled over their eyes.

This is the reason I volunteered to go to Iraq. I believe America is in a fight for it's very existence and I want to do my part. A million debates could be held on whether or not we should have invaded Iraq - I don't know the answer to that and neither does anyone else. Besides - we don't get a do over on that one. Was the enemy there before we invaded? It doesn't matter, they are there now. Did we draw them there by our presence? Probably - but that should make every person in our country very happy because there is one thing I do know with 100% certainty - I know where they were before they went to fight us in Iraq. They were in New York and Washington D.C. I would rather fight them over there than here. This is why I'm going - this is why I want to go - and this is why I wish more people would pay attention to what's happening in the world and less attention to which celebrity is in trouble. Think about it........

Andy

Flexibility

It seems I have an extra week to spend with my family. I was initially told I would depart for Ft. Benning this Saturday. During my meetings at JIEDDO this week I was told I'm now leaving the 22nd. The group of us from my pre-deployment training were all supposed to travel together, but we've been broken up into a few different groups. One guy is out on the 15th, another guy and I are departing on the 22nd, and the rest aren't leaving until Oct 6th. This is a great deal for me. I get to spend more time with my family. It kind of messes with my mind though. It's an emotionally trying time to prepare and leave your family for a year. For me, I kind of prepare myself emotionally in the last few days before I leave. It's hard to explain. I had myself prepared to leave and now it's a another week away. Don't get me wrong - it's a good thing to get an extra week at home, it's just double the emotional drain getting mentally prepared for the last couple days at home twice.

One Week Out

It's about a week until I leave for Ft. Benning and two weeks until I depart for Iraq. I signed in at my new organization - JIEDDO - and have done my inprocessing with them. Next week I have some orientation briefings and I think I'll be in a meeting with the team in Iraq so they can brief me on anything I need to know before I get there. From a military standpoint this is the strangest deployment I've had. I barely feel like I'm leaving and it's a week away. Usually I've had a large amount of gear issued to me so I've had mobility bags sitting around the house in the weeks leading up to my departure. They keep telling me I'll get everything I need when I get to Ft. Benning so I don't really have anything except my personal stuff to pack. For those of you who aren't familiar with how this works, you can't wear civilian clothes in Iraq so no need to pack that. What I am taking is my laptop, a couple books, an MP3 player, one set of civilian clothes (to fly to Georgia in), my Physical Training (PT) gear, my toiletries, and some documentation I need. All in all, that's very little. My last deployment I had six very full mobility bags. While I'm glad I don't have to carry that much equipment, it's disconcerting to be leaving for a year and not really taking anything. When I get to Ft. Benning, I'll receive uniforms and weapons along with some small uniform items like socks and t-shirts. When I stop in Kuwait I'll receive body armor and chemical warfare gear. It's really a much better way to deploy.

On the home front, I think most of the things on the list have been crossed off. I can always think of a hundred small things I wish I had time to do before I leave. As I've said in other posts, just imagine you had to leave your family for a year and think of all the things you'd want to have done before you leave. I want it to be as easy on them as possible while I'm gone. The often overlooked when it comes to deployments, are the families back home. My wife, now becomes a single working mom. My kids have their lives disrupted and everything changes for them (never underestimate the impact of something like this on kids) and everyone back home will have this low level concern eating away in the back of their minds about my safety. I have the easy part in all this. So back to my point, I want to make sure as many things around the house are taken care of as possible. From my perspective I'll be as worried about them while I'm gone as they are about me - it's that protective instinct for the family. I'll feel helpless to do anything for them while I'm gone and that's not a good feeling. One thing that has helped is getting a nanny. I guess the true term is Au Pair. We have a young lady from Germany coming to live in our home and take care of the kids while I'm gone. She'll be here a couple weeks after I leave and will leave right before I get back - so I won't even meet this girl until my mid-tour, but it's still a good feeling to know childcare is locked in. Let me just say a little about this method of childcare. We looked at every possible method for child care. We assumed we would use the before and after care program associated with the kids school but we were too far down the list for them to get in the program until Jan so we were in a real bind. The problem with that program is you have to pick them up by 6:15pm and you can't drop them off until 7:15am. Anyone familiar with traffic in D.C. will understand why that's a problem. My wife would be stressed everyday trying to make it to child care and work on time. When we started thinking about live in child care we thought the cost would be prohibitive, but in reality the cost is almost the same. Of course you have to provide room and board, but in our case I'm not there anyway so it's really an offset cost. If any of you ever find yourself in need of child care in a similar situation take a look at the State Department's Au Pair program.
Keep checking back - the good stuff is only a couple weeks away. I'll present it all, the good, the bad, the boring, the exciting. The only thing not open for discussion is operationally sensitive information and personal information about my family (after all - anyone in the world can read this) I have a companion web site andyiniraq.com where I'll have a large photo album. That site is empty right now, but once I get there I'll keep it updated with pictures. If anyone wants to know something specific, drop me a line.......

Andy

Kings Dominion and New Tires

Time continues to tick away. I've finished my time in my office at the Pentagon. My last day was this past Friday. I'm taking a week of leave to spend as much time as I can with my family - and tie up as many loose ends as I can before I leave. After this week, I'll be reporting to the JIEDDO. I'll have to do some inprocessing with them - administrative stuff - and then I'll get the indoctrination briefings and hopefully some insight into what they want me to do in Iraq. After a week and a half at JIEDDO headquarters, I'll head off to Fort Benning. I think 5 or 6 of us from my earlier pre-deployment training are heading there together. That should be an interesting week of training, not because of any great things we'll learn, but because I've never had any training at an Army base before. Even the Army guys say it will be an experience.

So what does a person do in the last couple weeks at home before deploying? I continue to work on the list of things to get done around the house - the garage is still a mess - and we try to have as much fun as a family as we can. We had a great day yesterday at Kings Dominion. I recommend that park to anyone in the D.C. area. In my opinion it's much better than Six Flags. The kids both start school next week. At least I'll be here for my son's first day of kindergarten. I was also lucky enough to be here for him losing his first tooth yesterday. The importance of things like that moves to a higher level when you have to think about how much of a 5 and 7 year old's life you'll miss by being gone for a year - especially when I've already missed close to 500 days of their lives. While that sounds like a lot, and it certainly feels like a lot to me, I never forget there are many people who have missed much more time than that.

Mundane tasks interlaced with as much family fun as possible - that about captures what happens in the weeks leading up to a deployment. I also continue to mentally move towards Iraq - I'm writing this at 1:00 am - not because I'm intentionally trying to adjust to what the new time zone will be, I just can't sleep with so much stuff running through my mind. I guess I should try to go to sleep - I have a big day tomorrow. I'm getting new tires put on the car so I don't have to worry about that while I'm gone. Ahhh... the glamorous and exciting life of an Air Force officer.

We've Been Here Before

Strange things happen mentally in the few weeks leading up to a deployment. For those of you who have been down this path you know what I'm talking about. As the time for my departure draws closer I find my mind drifting to Iraq and this upcoming challenge more and more. I'm starting to distance myself mentally from home. That may sound like the opposite of what a person should do, but it's what happens. I know the feelings and emotions that come with this, because this is my third deployment. My wife and kids also know how it goes in the days leading up to my departure. I've become preoccupied with what I'll be doing and what it will be like when I get there. I have to start turning responsibilities around the house over to my wife - she will after all, be taking care of all of it while I'm gone. Those normal conversations people have about Halloween or the next family birthday or some other upcoming even are avoided because I won't be here to be part of it. I try to compensate by spending as much time with the kids and my wife as possible, but the reality of my impending departure hangs over everything we do and say. It's strange and hard to explain but I think it's a normal part of getting ready to leave. Mental distance as a defense against inevitable goodbyes. At least we (my family) know the feelings and we know they're normal so we can push through this and not get upset with each other. After all, we've been here a couple times before..........

Getting Ready To Go

It feels like time moves way too fast. I'm sure I won't feel that way soon, but for now the days are burning away much too quickly. I have almost everything done that I can do at work before I leave. Lots of paperwork and medical clearances. I'm still having problems with the uniform issue and the slow security clearance. For those of you who aren't aware of what's happening with Air Force uniforms, we are in the early stages of transitioning to a new combat uniform. For people deploying to Iraq, these are supposed to be issued prior to departure. Because I'm not deploying in a traditional method, and the time line is so short, there has been lots of confusion and blank stares when it comes to getting these. As it looks now, I'll be wearing the Army uniform while I'm deployed. When I depart the local area for my pre-deployment training with the Army, they will issue me their uniform if I don't have the new Air Force uniform. I don't really mind, I'm just a bit disappointed with the Air Force for not getting me what I need - Go Army! I'm sure everything will work out, and who knows, I might get those Air Force uniforms before I go.

While I might have most of the military stuff taken care of, I'm not even close to getting the things around the house done. I need to do all those things on the "Honey Do" list like cleaning the garage, painting, vehicle maintenance, etc. For those of you who have not deployed before or are not in the military, think about all the personal things you would need to get in order if you were going to leave for a year. The list is long. One of the biggest challenges is trying to find someone reliable to take care of the kids. With the wife working full time and me being gone, we need someone to be available to get the kids on and off the bus, help with homework, food, housekeeping, etc. We've been looking at Nannys and Au Pairs - it feels like a full time job just trying to find the right person. While it's a stress on me, let's not forget the stress on the spouse who now becomes a single working parent for a year. There's plenty of stress and anxiety for both of us. Even with the experience of a couple previous deployments, it's still a stressful time in our house, but I'm sure it will all come together by the time I leave.

Pre-Deployment Frustration

It's always hard in the weeks leading up to a deployment. There's always an endless list of things to get done at home before I go, the turmoil of the upcoming family separation, the nervousness of the unknown tasks that await, and of course, the military requirements that must be complete before I go. The military requirements are always challenging and have been the basis for many a good joke about hurry up and wait, the inefficiencies of the military, etc. etc. Well, I'm learning a whole new level of frustration with this deployment. Because I'm deploying as part of a joint organization, it seems as if I now have several different agencies levying requirements against me and yet they are still unable to help with some of the most basic questions like "who gives me my uniforms to deploy with"? It seems simple enough , I'm in the Air Force so I should get Air Force uniforms to wear while I'm deployed. Unfortunately for me, I'm not deploying through the normal Air Force channels so I'm sort of falling through the cracks. I could wait until I get to the Army post for my Army deployment processing and see what happens there, but I have the funny feeling I'd be wearing an Army uniform for the next year. It's interesting to say the least, but I know it will all manage to come together before I leave so I shouldn't worry too much about it - besides, I have that endless list of things around the house to worry about.....

High Risk Environment Deployment Training

I finished my high risk deployment training yesterday. It was a good experience and I feel better prepared to handle certain situations and threats. Here's a little synopsis of what the training was like. Day one - we studied hostile surveillance techniques and countermeasures. Hostile surveillance is when the bad guys watch you with the intent of capturing or killing you at some point. We then did practical exercises to put classroom instruction into real world scenarios. I won't go into too much detail about the exercises - I'll just say they were useful and eye opening.
The rest of the days were all structured the same. We would spend the mornings learning combatives - this is hand to hand combat techniques covering both defensive and offensive moves. We learned and practiced theories for everything from how to fall without getting hurt to how to disarm an attacker (both guns and knives). The main focus was on principles and not specific techniques. This way we have a broader sense of how these applications work and can operate in more fluid situations. Specific theories tend to work best in specific instances. With a broad understanding, we can better adapt to varying situations. The main principles of our training followed the Russian martial art known as systema. Here's a link if you're interested in what it looks like - this is just some website I found and not where I received my training http://www.systemamartialart.com/ One of the main principles we were taught in our combatives was to never give up. Keep moving and fighting and looking for a way out. They used some very interesting training to help us overcome some fears and mind blocks people typically encounter in violent situations. We learned how to take a punch. It sounds strange, but we learned the idea of getting hit is many times worse that actually getting hit, and if you are prepared you can take almost any kind of hit and still move and counter attack. There was a lot of hitting going on - not hard knock out punches, but more hitting than anyone in the class was used to. All this instruction on taking a hit culminated with the wooden pole. This was a one inch diameter four foot long wooden pole. We lined up and each of us took four hits to the stomach. Certainly the instructor was not hitting us as hard as possible - not even close - but, my stomach is black and blue and very sore, so these were not little taps. We did other things like alternately lie on our backs and stomachs while someone did knuckle push ups all over our body. Find a 200 pound friend and ask them to crank some of these out on your shins and stomach. It gets you wide awake first thing in the morning. We also had to lie on our back and have four people lie on top of us and then figure out how to get out from underneath them. Again - it may not sound too bad, but that's about 800 hundred pounds of dead weight. It teaches you how to breath, keep your head, and keep struggling no matter how scary and impossible the situation may feel. Almost everyone managed to get out after some struggle. We did sit ups with our legs out straight and someone sitting on them. Hard enough, but every time we did the sit up the person would throw three or four punches into our chest, stomach and head (open handed to the head). I'm not sure exactly what that taught us - plus it was the day after getting hit with the stick so every punch to the stomach was a little extra torture.
The afternoons were all about shooting. We did three days of hand gun techniques and one day with the long gun. I'm not exactly sure how many rounds we shot each day but it was in the multiple hundreds. We did strong hand/weak hand shooting, one handed shooting, practiced every malfunction you could imagine both one and two handed, shot around barriers, vehicles, engaged multiple targets. You name it we shot it. We also used simmunitions. For those not familiar with this, it's like paintball on steroids. These are real guns shooting special plastic bullets with marker dye in them. We learned they'll shoot through shirts and draw blood. We did many scenarios with these simunitions as well. We spent one day on the long gun, but it was tiring. Hundreds of rounds with a relatively heavy rifle takes a toll. Now, to top all this training off, we had record heat all week long. Everyday was a horrible sauna. There was no cover on the ranges so we were just out in the burning sun standing on hot asphalt. We put a thermometer on the blacktop on Wednesday and it topped out at 136F. The ambient air temp was around 107F and the humidity was around 80%. Miserable.
So, the question is am I prepared for combat? No. In the end, I'm still an Air Force guy that has never been trained for combat. It's OK because I'm not going to be out on patrols or kicking in the bad guys door, so I don't need to be trained for combat. What I am, is better prepared if I find myself in a bad situation, which has happened and will happen again to people in Iraq. As I mentioned in another post, this was great training that taught me valuable skills I hope I never have to use.

Wow

I've never been punched and hit so many times in my life. I've never shot more rounds of ammo in one day before. This is good training but a little painful. Getting hit repeatedly with the long pole was interesting. Check back. More details will come.