Final Thoughts

19AUG10:

I’m on my way home from my deployment to Iraq. Right now, sitting on this commercial airliner being served coffee and snacks it almost feels as if I just left last week. Kind of a blur, kind of surreal. It was nine months ago that I was doing this exact same thing on my way across the Atlantic for the first time ever. The last few days have been tiresome. Moving out of my CHU and staying at the clinic one night. Flying to Kuwait and staying in tents the next three nights and spending all of last night, or today or whatever combination of Wednesday and Thursday this is, on the plane. I suspect it hasn’t hit me yet that I’ll be home in a few hours. I get episodes of excitement but then realize that I’m still many hours away and try to contain myself.

We landed in Germany this morning and it was 57 degrees outside and had just finished raining. It was 130 degrees in Kuwait yesterday and I hadn’t seen evidence of rain since probably early March in Iraq. The cool, wet air immediately brought me back to summers in Alaska. Even the angle of the sun’s rays starting to hit the airport were lower and also seemed much like Alaska, or Seattle or Oregon; the places I would day dream about in my clinic while some 19 year old kid would describe to me his incredible chronic lower back pain. In Kirkuk at 0700 the sun is high and bright and the temp is already reaching double Africa hot making its way toward the dreaded triple Africa of the oncoming afternoon.

The smell of the rain this morning brought me back to the last rain I think we had in Kirkuk and one of my best memories of the deployment. It was a cool evening and The Zac Brown Band was in camp to perform. Many of us, including myself, were casual fans of the band but had no idea what great musicians they really were. Zac himself was talented, funny, humble and obviously enjoying himself. He was the man that night and as the rain started to fall they played even harder and helped us forget that our tour was really just getting started. The monotony of FOB life combined with non combat missions for combat troops would soon begin to take a mental toll on these troopers. But on that night as we sang and laughed and admired real people being passionate about their craft, truly we were happy just being right there in that moment. I will be a Zac Brown Band fan for life.

It’s been a while since ive written about my life deployed. I had started my entries but each time I seemed to ramble on about some annoyance that seemed all so important until I started to write it down. In July a Marine was killed in Afghanistan while disarming an IED. He was 28 years old. He had a beautiful smile, a beautiful wife, a beautiful daughter with another on the way. He was obviously an excellent Marine as he had made E7 at such an early age. He was an EOD technician and I can’t even fathom the courage it took to do once what he must have done every day. He is one of hundreds of US service members killed so far this year but he is the only one from my hometown. His name was Chris Eastman and when I heard this news my chest seemed to cave in. He was a few years younger than me, but I played football, basketball and wrestled with him. I knew his older brothers well. If you met Chris you liked him. He was just that way, easy going and carefree. That’s how I remember him. A beautiful Amercian boy from a small town, working hard to provide for his family and serve his county; one second he was here and the next he was gone.

We were scheduled to leave Kuwait last night (this morning) at 0230. In the Army, planning is done in reverse. Whoever did our planning yesterday needs some training. As I’ve mentioned it was 130 degrees in Kuwait yesterday. This is not an uncommon event. Its not as though we were all like “Holy Shit, I cant believe its so hot here today! Where did this come from?” No, we know it’s going to be 130 degrees because this is the real deal fucking desert and this is Kuwait. In August, in Kuwait, its one-hundred-and-fucking-thirty degrees every day. So of course, our plan is to wait until 1400 (when its getting good and hot) and then have 300 plus Soldiers neatly line up all of their bags (most weighing in at 100+ lbs) in front of our tents in a glorious bag formation. Then two Semi’s pull up and we load all of these neatly placed bags into the trailers. We then all climb aboard busses and get ready to go to the customs yard. Im thinking this may be a 30-40 minute ride. But no, we literally travel about a ½ mile down the street and then unload all the fucking bags again back into the same fucking configuration we just had them in a ½ mile ago. The working dogs need to sniff over the bags and then they need to randomly select a sample of us for full bag searches. I mean I guess this is necessary but I think its obvious that certain steps can be eliminated. Anyway, flash forward 7 hours and Im sitting in another tent 50 feet from the customs yard, a ½ mile from our sleeping tents and all that’s been accomplished is filling out my customs card, sweating my balls off and getting my bags checked just in time to sit and wait another 4 hours for a bus to drive me 2 more hours to our flight. Okay so I needed one more bitch session before wrapping up this blog.

Life on the FOB was redundant, boring, etc. Anything new to your day that differentiates from the last is welcomed and astonishing. The last two months of this deployment were interesting. Two months ago I was somewhat depressed, bored, tired of the routine. Always questioning what the fuck we are doing here, questioning authority, questioning stupidity, questioning American policy (I know, deep right?). Then came a blow to my skull in the form of some outside perspective (thank you Mother) allowing me to regain focus on what a great life I have and really what a sweet job I hold. That, in conjunction with the end nearing had me elated. The last few weeks seemed long with the anticipation of returning home but just having something to really look forward to was a novelty in itself.

Hours later while on the final leg of my trip home….

Its getting close to being over. Looking out the window to my right I see the beautiful heartland of America; fields, farms, small towns and lakes.

4 days ago I left the shit hole that is Kirkuk, Iraq and did so with a smile on my face. I hope to never return to that place or any like it. I hate it there, they hate us there, we should no longer stay there.

Thirty hours ago I was standing in a line of fifty or so Soldier’s, in Kuwait, working as a team unloading countless bags out of a trailer so that the working dogs from customs could get a whiff. It was scorching hot and I remember thinking that just an hour earlier I had showered, put on a clean uniform and had delusions that I would be fairly fresh and at the very least clean when I would finally see my beautiful wife after nine months apart. Now, with a steady river of sweat pouring from my head down my back and into my boots it’s clear that fresh and clean is not happening.

Thirteen hours ago I was landing in Lipsing, Germany for a change in flight crew and cleaning of our cabin. Things were starting to seem real now. No longer was I in the Middle East, no longer surrounded by a totally different culture and no longer seeming to have to be sorry about being American. I want to call my wife but realize while it’s late morning in Germany and the dead of night in El Paso. Soldier’s scurry around this remote airport buying toys for their kids, candy for their taste buds and internet time to connect with home. I just take time to wander outside and enjoy, for the first time in months, a temperature below 90 degrees. It had just rained, the sun was still rising and it was only 60 degrees. I was cold and I loved it. I worry that she won’t be able to break away from work, or that she won’t be called and told when we will land. I hope more than anything to just see her when I get off the plane.

Five hours ago I was walking off the plane in Bangor, ME. Back on American soil and God was it refreshing when flying in and seeing the lakes and trees, and the beautiful homes in Maine. Then, while walking down the terminal hallway, there they were lined up along the side of the walk way, dozens of people welcoming us home. The first 5 or 6 were veterans from wars past; WWII, Korea and Vietnam. It was a beautiful site and I was taken aback by the rush of emotions I felt. First joy, then humility and lastly almost shame or guilt when I considered what these men had likely endured during their wars compared to mine. They would argue otherwise but I don’t feel like my experience compares. This guilt has been with me a bit lately. While the real fighting in Iraq was being waged I was in the Army but safe back at school stateside. Then I get sent to Iraq when the real face of war has moved to Afghanistan. And to top it off I get sent home early from my scheduled one year deployment. This is not a complaint and I know I am lucky and really had no say in any of these events but they are real feelings that I wrestle with. I realize am lucky and extremely thankful, but seeing these great men greeting us at the gates in Bangor I can’t help but get a rush of those feelings again. Amber would kill me for thinking this way. Later, as I sit in the terminal and the whole situation sinks in, my heart again seems to pound with excitement as it really hits me that I am hours from home. Not months, weeks or days, but hours. Soon I’ll get to come home from work. I’ll get to wear civilian clothes. I’ll get to cook dinner. I’ll get walk my dog. I’ll get to be home with my wife.

Well into my trip from Bangor to El Paso now, I can see the landscapes changing. Starting to look a little dry and hot out there. Starting to look a little more like West Texas. I try not to look at my watch again as the minutes seem to pass by at an agonizingly slow rate. Maybe a half hour, maybe 45 minutes away…shit just land the plane already. A few minutes ago I grabbed a clean t-shirt from my bag, deodorant, my tooth brush and floss and went to the lavatory. One last once over to hopefully look and smell presentable for her. I take care of all that and I guess I am what I am. She loved me before, she’ll still love me now, right? I notice that others are starting to think the way I am as the plane begins to smell of Axe body spray, cheap cologne and uniforms that have been on for 36 hours….not good.

So this is it, minutes away from landing. Minutes away from seeing my beautiful wife, minutes away from life as normal. Has it really been nine months because right now it feels like nine minutes? I picture in my head how this welcome home will go down but I have no idea. I just hope we can walk off this plane into the arms of our loved ones and call this deployment what it is….over. I can no longer write, this laptop is not an approved electronic device during landing. This blog is over. Wish me luck.

What I did

17AUG10:

I browsed, the internet (and actually ran out of shit to Google)

I cried…laughing almost daily

I cursed, okay we use the work “fuck” about as often as "and" and “the”

I wore gear (though not often)

I lied to patients…”Sure that’s normal” (meanwhile inside my head, “What the fuck is that?”)

I walked outside to use the bathroom

I learned comfort is not having to disinfect a toilet or lay down some type of protective barrier

I cleaned

I shaved

I worked out

I skipped out on work

I ran

I lifted

I got creative….with my definition of clean

I learned Arabic….no, no I didn’t

I learned who the unit’s shit bags were though

I ate

I drank

I flew in helicopters

I flew in planes

I carried a weapon everywhere I went

I sometimes panic when I realize my weapon isn’t with me (oh yeah, I locked it up)

I watched movies good and bad

I had decisions made for me that would keep me up at night

I missed my wife’s birthday

I missed our 3^rd anniversary

I diagnosed ACL tears

I may have missed cancer

I made friends for life

I made life really simple

I learned how to eat

I dreamt of playing with my dog

I watched the same snowboarding movie about 23 times

I recycled…..socks and underwear

I shot hoops not drugs

I didn’t shoot people

I cherished some time alone and occasionally some alone time, TMI?

I loved eating in groups

I learned about American greed and waste

I saw hopelessness

I saw young men shot

I had a patient commit suicide

I saw females go home early because they got pregnant

I got an award for doing my job

I saw lazy, incompetent, douche bag Soldier’s get an award too

I learned military decorations don’t mean shit

I hated my life at times

I hated my job at times

I learned that’s okay

I once thought it would never stop raining in this desert

I later thought I’d never see rain again

I felt temperatures I didn’t think occurred on this planet

I got screwed out of leave

I got to come home early

I felt guilty for being sent home early

I got over it

I feel proud to be a Soldier

I seem to feel less proud of Americans these days

I noticed a drawdown in uniformed forces and an increase in contracted forces

I tried to help some who didn’t want to be helped…it didn’t help

I tried to teach some who didn’t want to learn…they didn’t learn

I learned people won’t change unless they want to

I did pretty much the same thing everyday

I haven’t gone more than 36 hours without shaving my face since November 2009

I can’t believe it’s not butter

I think most movies suck

I think the US Military should consist of the Marines and Special Operations Forces. If they can’t do the job…draft rich kids and poor kids

I think most people would disagree with that

I think that would keep us out of situations like Iraq and Afghanistan

I went online shopping the week before redeploying

I think most mental health cases in the Army are bullshit

I think most ortho cases in the Army are bullshit

I think reintegration training when getting home is bullshit

I have really worn out boots

I loved traveling to different FOBs

I watched performers from a decade ago try to revamp their careers in Iraq (JaRule, Vertical Horizon, Paul Wall)

I lived where the air always has a pleasant hint of tires burning

I coughed till I puked after every workout for like 2 weeks

I continue to cough after most workouts 3 months later

I’ve got the black lung Pop

I didn’t put one picture or pleasantry on my CHU walls…this is not home, fuck this place

I can get by on very little

I missed walking the neighborhood with Amber and Grady

I read more books than ever in my life

I’m pretty sure my intelligence got worser

I never got shot at

I was in the clinic when a rocket hit really close by and was pretty alarmed by the power it carried

I noticed an increase in pucker factor during “Incoming!” alarms after that rocket

I am amazed that after being there for 8 years the Iraqis still really suck at shooting rockets and mortars at us

I survived

I hope to never go back

I deployed

Almost Paradise

We land in Kuwait. Camp LSA, the final stop in the Middle East for most Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines when redeploying out of theater in Southwest Asia. The Air Force, well they stop in Qatar. Yes, their final stop is my leave destination...fuckers. Sometimes the military will call a location a camp just to be cute when in fact is a well built up area. This my friends, is a camp. It is desert. Kuwaiti desert. The real deal where all you see if fine sand and brownness. The heat here is scathing. 128 degrees when we stepped off the plane. It is full of old airplanes hangers that have all been bombed to shit (I assume when Sadam marched in here prior to Desert Storm). We eat, sleep, workout and hangout in tents. This is a camp. I get the privilege to bed down here for the night. I actually sleep really well as my tent is quiet and cool and I unscrewed the florescent lights over my head so I would be woken up by others flicking the lights on and off. The next morning is early is an early one but things go smoothly and we are on our last flight via C-130 to Qatar by 1030.
I’m not sure what I was expecting but it sure as hell wasn’t this. It wasn’t supposed to be even hotter, browner, and windier than Kuwait…but it is. It wasn’t supposed to be huge, double-the-size of Costco warehouses in which we sleep, hangout, eat, etc. It wasn’t supposed to be a 45 minute brief about all the rules I will have to follow while I’m here. It sure as hell wasn’t supposed to require me to buy my 3 fucking beers at $6 per at a fake bar inside another warehouse, buy long pants to leave the post for any activities, buy the food in our little R&R village if we don’t go to the DFAC. I sure as hell expected internet access in our rooms (which were CHU’s stacked on top of each other inside one of the warehouses) because I have that at Warrior, but we didn’t. I thought maybe I could drink my 3 beers at the pool at a time I wanted to but I couldn’t. Upon learning all this in the first hour I was hear my blood was once again boiling. I thought the Army would send my down here and treat me as an adult, but of course they didn’t.
Fast forward
It’s now 4 days since returning from Qatar. My trip was not what I expected but I have to admit my attitude has improved and I do feel somewhat more motivated. I guess I just think of it as one more milestone that has passed and that means I’m one more step closer to coming home. My trip was basically relaxing. I decided I would not buy long pants so that I could leave the compound to be escorted around and sweat my ass off in the 130 degree weather. I decided that sleeping in, lounging at the pool, watching movies and doing some light workouts was how I would roll day to day. This basically took all stress out of the trip. I paid the $6 a pop for my 3 beers each evening, served to me in plastic cup, and smiled at the rude waitresses while they scanned my ID to ensure I don’t get a 4th. Hey, they have no competition and I have no other choice but to drink there so what should I expect, friendly attitude? C’mon. I ate at Chile’s a few times. It was located right next to the pool and for a few minutes it sort of felt like the states. I ate at the DFAC a few times and it was really nice. Same food as here but everyone was really friendly. The gym there was amazing. Had a spa, smoothie bar, home theater with DVD rental next to it and a computer lab plus free Wi-Fi. So, all in all a good trip if I look at it as a 4 day passed earned for hard work. And that’s how I have to look at it because if I think of it as a substitute for the 2 weeks of leave with my wife that I was counting on…well then my blood just starts to boil. But shit, let’s just not go there again.

And a Jay-Z Song was On

15JUN2010:
My headphones are on and blaring Jay-Z. Sweat is dripping down my head. I'm strapped into what you could call a seat along the side of a C-17. In front of me are thousands of pounds of cargo strapped to the floor. It looks to be a shit ton of Russian electronics. To my left is a crazy ass Major who is totally stoked that his deployment is now over as he shows me pictures of his family on his Ipod. To my right sits a sweaty ass, Chester-the-Molester looking contractor who downs a few pills. I have a feeling he is not too comfortable with our mode of transportation. Thirty-five minutes ago I was pissed at the world.

We had been sitting here on the runway for 45 minutes already when the flight crew informed us of a technical difficulty. They were calling in reinforcements as they could not figure out the problem on their own. I was having a very real case of Déjà-vu and I started to think about this little trip I was on. I’m headed to Qatar on a four day pass because Charlie Company decided I shouldn't take leave so close to possibly re-deploying. Our company commander lied to us a while back telling us that it was the Brigade’s decision and new policy that those individuals who are on the list to return home in August would not be allowed to take leave after April. For those of us that were affected we were very pissed but what could we do. They said we would be allowed to go to Qatar for 4 days of relaxation. Now I had been fine with this up until a couple of weeks ago when I started to talk to many people from around the Brigade, who were redeploying before me, but were still going leave. They were still going to get to see their wives, their families, their homes. They were also not being charged this leave as was the new Army policy that would have been granted to me too. Now, I wanted to bring this up to the good Captain before I left on this little trip but alas the fucker was on leave. My blood is boiling at this time. I recognize this and think about how easily I get worked up nowadays. But shit, I don’t want to go through all this traveling in gear and heat and tents and shitty food just for a four day chaperoned army fucking weekend.

So you see its 35 minutes ago and I’m pissed. But then a few minutes later there is progress. The flight crew says “Put your gear back on, we are going to get this bird off the ground.” For the next 15 minutes they blare some classic 80’s hair band songs as the engines rev up and my mood is immediately lifted. When the engines get really fired up their music ends so I continue on my own, some Jay-Z to keep my spirits up (I guess I do have something in common with Miley Cyrus). We get to the start of the runway and the crew chief says “Hold onto your shit, we are going for a ride!” At that moment the planes thrusts forward with a power that can only be felt when one of these monstrous flying machines is kicked into full throttle. It’s a good moment for this Soldier. I’m alive, I’m safe, I’m moving and rocking out all by myself. Music is a wonderful thing.

Now What

03JUN2010:
Its one of those nights when the boredom is almost too much to bear. I’m 31 years old feeling like I’m in the prime of my life and I sit in this dirty, gray box and watch another day of my life waste away. I’m watching a movie I’ve already seen. Maybe this time I’ll notice something different. I don’t. I hear some guys chatting outside so I wander out to listen but it’s the same conversation I’ve been a part of at least 37 times this deployment. My eyes start to burn and I realize that the breeze has changed and now the smoke from the burn pit, which smells like smoldering tire rubber, is running directly over us. It starts to make my stomach sick and that itch in the back of my throat starts to act up again. “Fuck this” I say and wander back in my CHU. I realize that it’s Thursday and that means today was a rest day from working out. This means I haven’t showered yet so now I have something to do. I grab my towel, a bottle of 3 in 1 shampoo, conditioner, body-wash and walk the 200 feet to the shower trailer. While I walk I’m hoping that there is room on the side of the trailer that has a bench to put my shit on. My lucky day, there is. I now have three choices of showers to choose from; each with their own pros and cons of dirt, hair, scum and other delights. I pick the lesser of the evils and commence showering. Getting out of the shower I look in the mirror and think that my face might be looking older. I look tired and have dark circles around my eyes. My body looks better than my face as I have been really focused on diet and exercise. But then I start to wonder why I am working out so hard. I’m not a professional athlete. Can I maintain this intensity at home? Will I want to? I figure it gives me something positive to focus on out here and at least I’m not in any joint pain with my new regimen. I do enjoy the workouts and camaraderie that goes along with it and realize I might be down tonight because I didn’t do anything active today. I get back to my CHU and look at the clock. It’s been 20 minutes since I stopped my movie. Now what. I hear gunfire in the back ground. Some guys are heading off the FOB and performing a weapons check. Two nights ago I heard “Incoming!” followed by a boom just as I was falling asleep. It startled me as it was either larger or closer than usual. It’s not comforting to hear this as you go to bed but it’s not scary either. It happens so quickly and you can tell there is so much force that if it’s got your name on it there is nothing you could do. So I don’t worry. What I have to do now though is sit here and wait for someone to knock on the door and get accountability for my roommate and I. This will take 30 minutes to an hour. It took about 40 minutes that night and then I laid there unable to fall back asleep. Guess that explains the bags under my eyes tonight.
Iraq is a disgusting, shit hole and it sickens me to think that kids die over here. I’m sure it’s the same in Afghanistan. What would be the point if someone got lucky and one of these rockets killed one of our guys? What a fucking waste and what a fucking joke of a war. When I hear people thank me or our troops for what we do, for sacrificing ourselves for their freedom it almost makes me sick. If only that were true. We owe it to these boys to put their lives at risk for a noble cause but this war is nothing of the sort. If we packed up and left here in the morning our freedom would be in no greater jeopardy and neither would the Iraqis’. This place will go to shit whenever we leave and anyone involved over here knows it.
I get my crap together for the morning and notice that there is quite a bit of dirt on the floor. There is also something rattling in the electrical piping along the inside of the CHU but I swear to God every time I jump up to see what it is, the rattling stops. I decide I’m hungry but have nothing in my CHU to eat. I put some socks and shoes on but then realize I’m out of authorized PT shirts and I sure as shit am not putting my ACU’s and boots back on so I suck it up and lie back down on the bed. God forbid I wear a tan undershirt with my approved PT shorts. Well, now what? Should I watch the end of my already seen movie? Should I start a new TV series? I do have “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” sitting over there just waiting for me to delve in. I think some more about what I accomplished on the 3rd of June 2010. Not much. I plug in my internet cable but my roommate is logged on right now. We take turns buying one month of access and share the passwords each month. Usually this is not a huge deal as the connection is too slow to carry on a good conversation for more than a few minutes on Skype and really what else could I possible search for online. I dont need 24 hour internet access. Not only is KBR getting filthy rich over hear so is the internet provider, Sniper Hill, who charges every Soldier here at least $75 per month so that they can communicate back home and have something to do at night. It just seems wrong to me that our government allows this company to gouge the pockets of its Service Members while they are over here. What a fucking racket. Would it be that hard to run a free internet service?
But whatever, I’ll sleep well tonight and wake up in a better mood. Breakfast will be good and hot and at least I have a meaningful job. My friends will make me laugh and I will wake up a day closer to coming home. I’m not sure if Iraq is what I expected but most things in life are rarely what you expect them to be. Tomorrow I’ll start a new book.
My war is with boredom and I’m thankful for that. I’m just not sure who is winning.

Somewhere between almost and halfway

8 Days short of 6 months 16MAY2010:
Things have changed at FOB Warrior, Iraq. It is now hot when you wake up. I leave my CHU at about 6:40 each morning and within 20 steps I’m already sweating. El Paso and San Antonio are both hot, but this is different. I am constantly reminded that “It’s not even hot yet” (swear to God if one more person tells me that). I know, its only May and it will get hotter. But its still hot so shut it.
Some people have started to change over. We’ve had two doc’s leave in the last two weeks and two more have replaced them. One was my breakfast partner…so now I eat alone (tear).
The Air Force is pulling out so they have brought in a security company from Sierra Leone to man our gates and security points (what the AF had been doing until now). They seem like guys who are thankful to have work and seem to be in generally good moods. It’s interesting to watch them in our giant DFAC as they try to figure out what the sequences are for ordering and preparing our types of food. Tonight was the Mongolian BBQ and many filled their plates with ingredients and then just walked by the grill to their seats. Cold meats with raw veggies, yum.
One of the outposts that I traveled to a few times is closing soon so I will not be traveling there again. It was the most austere of our locations but I actually enjoyed traveling there most. I can’t say that I will miss it either, but it was what you would picture the war in Iraq to be like. A tight little unit with what seemed to be an actual mission on a small little plot of land in the middle of the desert. They didn’t have much and their command didn’t seem to feel the need to fill up every spare moments of their day with absolute bullshit duties and training. They did their jobs and were allowed to rest when off duty. Shit they even wore unit baseball caps. This is a stark contrast from FOB Warrior.
Our fitness program here is taking off. I’m completely convinced that CrossFit is the most effective program I’ve engaged in and I love it. I can honestly say I’m more fit than I’ve ever been. We are spreading it to the different units in kind of a grass roots style. I was introduced to it by a patient of mine who has been a CrossFit coach for a few years and kind of took me under his wing. He had a web page set up and has had a group of converts following his program daily. He wanted me to eventually take over when he left and now that time has come. The guys who have been working out with me are now actually coaching it at night now too and more and more people are inquiring daily. I am hoping to make FOB Warrior an official affiliate soon and I will be pushing for our Brigade to adopt this training program as its fitness philosophy. My 3 new keys to fitness and health are CrossFit, the Paleo Diet and running as if you had no shoes on (and optimally in the most minimal type of shoe you can find). These ideas are not new and not mine, but until coming out here I had never really explored them. I’m sold and its awesome to see some of the life-changing transitions.
I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point the other providers and I (well most of them) have become something that our Company leadership has to deal with instead of work with. I’m sure it has to do with the questioning of some of their decisions but it’s almost like I feel I’m a nuisance to them whenever I approach anyone from the headquarters section. Information is passed to us by rumor, emails are not returned and decisions on how our different clinics will run are made without ever consulting us. I don’t get it and let’s just say it’s been a frustrating last couple of months here. It may even start higher than our company level but it’s painfully apparent that our mission as the medical company for this Brigade and really the AO is sacrificed to fill ridiculous duties that to me seem like a complete waste of assets. But maybe I can’t see the big picture from my vantage point.
We are now told that our deployment could be over in as little as two weeks and as long as six months. How’s that for a window. I know, it’s worse than when the cable company tells you they will be at your house on a Saturday sometime between 1000 and 1800. I’d rather just be told the day before that I’m getting on a plane tomorrow. But I also want to be here as long as my guys are here and I’m still highly used. It’s a strange conflict to have. In other news my leave was cancelled as I may be sent home earlier than expected. We learned this days after learning that the leave we were going to take would have been free in that it would not have counted against our yearly total. Not cool. I fully expect to be told later on that I will indeed be staying the full amount of time but that it is now too late to take any leave at all. Luckily I have had “Bad news training”. Yes a few weeks prior to leave being cancelled all the officers in the Battalion were told that tomorrow would be a mandatory 8 mile run. Now, I could gut through this but I wouldn’t like it and honestly my body would likely be aching because I don’t train for these types of pointless runs. But other, maybe less active officers, would likely get some type of overuse injury if not just keel over and die. As the voice of injury prevention for the Brigade I felt I should say something as it really is not a good idea to have untrained people jumping into 8 mile runs. Well, I guess other officers were concerned as well and these concerns and grumblings eventually made it up to the top. We then learned that 8 miles was a lie purposely put out to see how the officers would respond to bad news. I guess we failed. They tried to compare that to receiving bad news on the battlefield and how we would respond if a Soldier was killed. I don’t see the connection and last time I checked I was not 10 years old, though I think this exercise would be a slap in the face to a 10 year old’s intelligence too. Here’s what we learned, expect deceit from your superiors and be “yes men”. Got it.
Divorce seems to be popular lately. Also, suicide attempts. Guess these things will start to rear their heads eventually. Deployment can take a toll on young minds and relationships.
I’ve made a fairly good friend with Jules, this crazy Welshman who is here with a British equivalent of Black Water. The dude is probably around 40 years old, cocked-diesel, always with a scruffy beard and tribal type tattoos all over his body. I believe he used to be some type of badass in the British Army. SAS or something but I can’t be certain because most of the time I can’t understand a fucking word he says. Remember Brad Pitt in Snatch? That is this guy. Different dialect sure, but if you catch two words out of the paragraph he just spoke to you you’re doing well. I had lunch with him and all his compadres a while back. It was hilarious as they were all trying to tell me stories and give me shit, Jules would realize I didn’t know what the hell anyone was saying and then he would try to break it down for me in whatever the hell jibberish he speaks. I have no idea what was said at that table but I’m pretty sure they had a good laugh at this Americans expense. I met him when he crawled into my clinic one day with severe back pain to the point he couldn’t function. As with most guys of his makeup he improved within a couple of weeks and probably would have even if had I treated him with roundhouse kicks to the face. But he was super appreciative of us helping him out and has been a friend since. Him and his teammates have continued to spoil us with drinks, shawls, you name it. He gave me a Welsh Rugby Union game jersey so I reciprocated with an “Alaskan Grown” sweatshirt. He would definitely fit in well in Alaska.
Our favorite past time now seems to be bitching and wining. It’s bad when sometimes you are tired of hearing yourself complain. I apologize. It probably stems from boredom and lack of purpose from the top down resulting in people manufacturing work to fill their OER (officer evaluation reports) with descriptive and quantifiable bullets (i.e. “instructed 75 officers in Bad News Training”). See here I go again with the whining.
As is usually the case in life, the relationships I’ve made are the best part of this deployment. I’ve met some really great people and made some good friends. I probably bitch too much on here and during my days but really I have it good. Miss you all and look forward to no longer having to embrace the suck.

My Normal

My Normal
My normal is waking up to the sound of high caliber machine guns firing test rounds as convoys leave the FOB in the morning
My normal is dealing with a full clinic by myself as my tech (the only tech in the whole Area of Operations: AO) has been tasked to sit in front of and guard a tent for the day…meanwhile at the DFAC there is one Soldier scanning ID cards, one Soldier sitting 10 feet away making sure people only take 1 Styrofoam to-go box and a few others casually walking around the chow hall observing.
My normal is attending a mandatory training that interferes with work, sleep or workouts in response to some event that took place recently. Someone commits suicide……class. Someone attempts suicide…class. Someone assaults another Soldier….class. Someone rolls a vehicle….class. Someone posts super duper important information on facebook…class.
My normal is being told by the chain of command that I will be here till August, then November, then August, then November, then August, then November, then August……right now the arrow points to August. Then the chain of command puts out that this is the decision at the moment, it could change, and there are other options on the table. “We just want to put this all out to squash rumors and eliminate confusion”…..wow thanks guys
My normal is laughing super hard at something daily. I work with some of the funniest, craziest, and original people I’ve ever met. Thank God for that.
My normal is getting corrected for wearing my brown t-shirt to work out in while shit bag next to me wears the right shirt to the DFAC for extra ice cream and no one says anything to him
My normal is that I have to decide to use the toilet stall that looks “clean” but smells like someone just spent 12 hours giving birth to a 15 pound show stopper vs the one that amazingly has no odor but looks as though someone decided to re-create a Jackson Pollock painting on the toilet but instead of using paint they used…..you get the idea
My normal is to hear a “Warning, take cover, take cover” while I sit in my CHU in the evening and my roommate and I debate whether we should continue watching the Soprano’s or go outside and sit under the bunker. We may or may not hear a boom…either way it didn’t hit us
My normal breakfast is 3 egg omelet with turkey, onions, green pepper, tomatoes and a little cheese; 1 boxed milk; 1 glass of juice; some type of fruit and maybe some bacon or English muffin. Coffee comes into play about an hour later.
My normal is 5 workouts a week. 3 on 1 off, 2 on 1 off. My normal workout these days makes my old workouts feel stupid, easy and wasteful. Way to go stupid old workouts.
My normal is feeling guilty for not calling family and friends more often but this is mostly because I really don’t have much to say on a day to day basis, the time difference is annoying, and our internet connection mostly infuriates me while trying to have a conversation…..oh and if I imagine that the rest of the world is on hold while I’m here it seems to be easier.
My normal is once a day I feel like taking my coffee mug or fist and throwing it through a wall or someone’s face. I could just…it’s that….I mean if they would…..how could that….but look…oh fuck it, it’s not worth it
My normal is that the Army only cares if I appear to be working hard and making contributions, they couldnt care less if im actually working hard or making any contributions
My normal is watching movies and tv series on my computer at night when I could be doing something more constructive, my list:
Series:
• Trueblood – love it
• Rome – loved it
• Eastbound and Down – I cried…from laughter
• Soprano’s – love it
• Generation Kill – actually really good
Movies:
• Dear John – not good, not bad
• Angels and Demons – good
• Last man standing – loved it
• Underworld – both of them were dumb
• Without a Paddle – dumb
• Adventureland – good
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind – got bored, turned it off
• Fired Up – yeah I watched it, actually laughed at one point
• Blah blah blah….Okay this is boring to write and probably worse to read, ill stop cause it’s a long, long list
My normal is that my office just shook from a huge explosion and I didn’t even break sentence with my patient….we all know this was a controlled detonation by EOD…..we hope anyway
My normal is that an Iraqi in a 3 piece suit just cleaned my clinic…and did so with a smile and armed escort.
My normal is that I’m pretty sure the guy in the 3 piece suit actually takes a piss in his bucket and then mops our floors with his urine, yeah it smells that clean…then KBR pays his employer a few bucks, his employer pays him dog shit and we pay KBR a shit ton to “manage” it all.
My normal is that the top drawer of my desk has the following contents: 30 9mm rounds in 2 magazines, 210 M16 rounds in 7 magazines, a 9mm Berretta and $100 cash money (thanks to Duke)….what now Snoop Dogg!
My normal is that my wife, my dog, my family and my friends are always on my mind
My normal is that at times I cant remember what my real normal is

FML

DAY 103 16MAR2010: I should have stayed in bed today and I knew it. Somehow I just knew this day would be a waste. The day was intended well. Our glorious 1-1 AD Medical Road Show was on the move. We were to push out to COB McHenry and do some work. The Road Show was there a little over a month ago. It was a successful trip. This outpost has the 2nd largest population of our troops and they are living in what would be considered less than ideal conditions. Indirect fire occurs frequently, constant missions, horrible DFAC, and worst of all…port-a-johns only. The port-a-john cleaning schedule is well known by the troops. It is an art and a skill to time your bowel movement just so you arrive early enough that you are not wiping off someone else’s misfire but late enough that the inside of the john is not soaking wet from its recent high pressure wash. Obviously, living in this kind of state means there is a lot of business for behavior health and physical therapy when we get over here.
By air Mchenry is only a 15-20 minute direct flight from here. We have been lucky to have some direct flights during our travels but this is not the norm. Somehow I knew today would not be anything but the norm. Our scheduled flight was not to leave until 2230 or so tonight. However, our lieutenant in charge of scheduling the road show, whose husband happens to live at Mchenry and who would be traveling with us, thought it would be a good idea that we get to the terminal this morning at 0900 so that we can attempt to get on an earlier space-A (space available) flight. I couldn’t disagree solely because of her ulterior motive so I went with it. An extra ½ day in Mchenry won’t kill me and if Amber were there I sure as hell would find any way possible to get over there, and as often as possible. Also, this afternoon a windstorm may come through that would make visibility too poor to get out tonight. This morning though there is only a slight haze in the sky and no wind to speak of.
We get our things (ruck sack, IOTV, ACH, weapons, supplies) together at the clinic and finally find a ride over to the terminal two miles away. We walk into the terminal which is littered with Soldiers preparing to return home for R&R and check in at the front counter. We know the two Soldier’s that work here behind the desk now. One we know from our multiple flights and the other is a former patient of mine. A good thing about being the brigade pt is that you meet a great percentage of the Soldier’s and occasionally this works out to your advantage (not the case today). We are informed that there is a flight at 1130, there is room for us, but the weather situation at Mchenry is up in the air right now. They recommend we wait. This was expected. So we sit in the terminal, we read, we stretch, we shoot the shit. It’s not unlike sitting at some airport in the states waiting for a flight. Two hours and forty minutes later we are informed that the flight we are trying to hitch on “is a very VIP flight” and that they have now been informed to tell us there is not going to be room. Awesome. Not to worry though, our original flight for tonight is still on and we are on the manifest meaning we will not be bumped for a VIP. We call the clinic to have someone come pick us up, but of course the clinic vehicle is gone. It’s time to walk our sorry butts and gear to the bus stop and wait for a ride. As the bus approaches we hop up noticing that it appears full. “Fuck it” says Jill “We’re getting on this bitch”. As we walk towards the bus an ambulance pulls up behind it and honks at us. Sweet, a couple of medics are on a mail run and pick us up. We have a pretty good laugh about the absolute randomness of our lives as we ride back to the clinic in full battle rattle in the back of a civilian ambulance being used as mail truck. I am starving by now and am happy to be on my way to this DFAC for lunch. Morning was wasted but at least I can get some good meals in and maybe a good workout later. We don’t have to be back to the terminal until around 2100 tonight.
We go to lunch and laugh more about the morning’s misfortunes. I get back to the clinic preparing for afternoon clinic when LT busts in and tells me to grab my gear, “Our flight got pushed up to like now, we have 15 minutes to get down there!” Once again we get a ride to the terminal. Its 1445 and we walk straight out to the flight line where we are informed of the flight plan. Here to Urbil to Mosul to Tel Afar back to Mosul to Mchenry. Oh, and we will refuel twice. Of course we are the last stop, I expect nothing less. This means we have a good three hours of flying coming up. Awesome. The birds are not here yet and I don’t hear them and I’ve just eaten. When something goes in me, something must come out. I run to the toilet trailer and of course the Iraqi Nationals are cleaning it. I can tell this before I even open the door because the stench of BO is really that strong. I wouldn’t have believed it before coming over here but if BO were a weapon Iraqis would claim world dominance. I make it back to the flight line just in time to watch our Blackhawks land. Off we go on another tour of northern Iraq.
So we fly 45 minutes to Urbil. 20 minutes down to Mosul. Wait in Mosul another 20 minutes for some dude to get his crap together. My back starts aching. More than usual. Not just the IOTV but the damn crossfit workout yesterday. It kicked my ass. I puked post workout. Today I’m sore. Fly over to fuel point. Get out, wait 15 minutes, get back in. Fly 25 minutes to Tel Afar. Fly 25 minutes back to Mosul. Begin our final flight to Mchenry. This flight is taking forever. 40 minutes in we start to see some burning oil fields. I don’t remember these near Mchenry last time. I look across at Jill. She appears confused too. We see a FOB and make our decent. Jill mouths “I think we’ve been here before” and make a hand gesture that we must need to fill up again. I think to myself that this place does look familiar and we have been flying for a while. Yes, we must have made an unscheduled stop to fuel up. We land and as we make a turn on the tarmac the three of us all see the large hanger. We all look at each and yell at the same time “We are back at FOB Warrior!!!” The place looks familiar cause we freaking live here! Three and a half hours and at least one aching back later we are back where we started. Crew chief says sorry but the weather wouldn’t let us into Mchenry. Its 1630 and this 16th day of March is a complete waste. FML
Jenny, I hope your birthday treated you better than it did me but Happy Birthday anyway Sister!

Leave Him Be

Day 96 09MAR2010: This Blog is about some events that began earlier in the deployment but I thought I should wait a while to write about them.
I’m at my desk a couple of months ago just before lunch time. One of our medics from the front desk area comes back and tells me that there are a couple of guys up front that want to talk to me. I walk up and its two guys from another unit that I know I’ve seen before but at the moment cannot put my finger on where. I’m slightly confused because on their heads they have tan baseball caps with tan and gray American flags on them. On their ACU’s they have taken off their unit patches, their name tapes and their ranks. The older, larger guy asks “Sir, can we speak with you about something?” I reply, “You already are, what’s up?” He is a large dude and looks like he means business. The other guy looks like a 14 year old choir boy who is playing dress up as a Soldier for Halloween. Older dude (and by older I mean maybe 2 years older than me, but without my magnificent full head of hair) makes it clear that what he has to say needs to be told in private so we head back to the PT room. He then asks or should I say whispers, “Sir, we are here to see if you are interested in helping us out.” “You may be needed from time to time to come over to another area on the FOB and give us a hand.” Kind of confused, and not really knowing what the hell is going on I ask him to give me a little more info. He says he cannot. I reply “Just so we are on the same page, you know I’m a physical therapist right?” “Right.” “Are you asking me to help in my professional area?” “Yes.” “Okay then, I’ll be glad to help you guys out, what do you need?” He says he’ll come pick me up here at the clinic tonight at 1900 and bring me to the special operations compound and I can meet some of the guys and they can let me know what they have in mind. He then tells me not to tell my chain of command or anyone else about this and wants to make sure that I know that I am volunteering my time and that in no way is he asking me to let this get in the way of my normal duties. I tell him I get it and not to worry. At this time I’m thinking in my head that this is too funny that he is treating this like some undercover espionage shit and I’m pretty sure I’m just going to go evaluate or treat some special ops guys…but whatever, I’ll play along. “See you guys later.”
He comes to the clinic right at 1900, takes a look at me (I must have looked like shit), and tells me that I should go shower and get cleaned up. He’ll come back and pick me up at my CHU at 2100 and bring me over. Okay, one: am I getting ready to do some Army shit or go on a date? and two: that’s getting towards my bedtime son! He is kind enough to give me a ride from the clinic to my CHU. Our ride is the most beat up piece of crap up-armored humvee I’ve ever seen. I sit in the back and the two guys from earlier are up front. The front windshield is so dirty outside the wiper marks and inside the wiper paths the windows are so scratched that you really cannot see a damned thing. They laugh as we nearly hit some walking Soldiers. They drop me off and its “We’ll see you in a couple of hours Sir”. I get in my CHU and look in the mirror, yep I look like hell. [Side note: The Army portrays this manly façade. The Army is tough, strong and gritty, right? Well no, from my experiences the Army is far more concerned with personal appearance than Ryan Seacrest before his senior prom. From our hair, to our beards, to our workout attire and our uniforms; the Army is going to make sure you dress the part. I may be an incompetent asshole but I sure can wear a uniform…promote immediately.]
So I put on my Sunday’s best and they pick me up at my CHU. The dude slams on my door as if I may be up on the third floor or perhaps in my media room. C’mon man I’m in a CHU, have a little tact…special ops my ass. We get back in their bat-mobile and ride towards another part of CHU city to pick up another “package” as they call it. The other package never shows and when they get back from his CHU they tell me that this other package told his leadership who didn’t like the sound of it so they didn’t give him permission to come play. “At least we have one package” says Big Guy to High School Guy.
Just to recount where we are at now: I am in the back of a ratty ass humvee with two guys I met earlier today. I THINK I am on my way to the special operations compound to meet and perhaps treat some guys, however at this point that is too much info for me to know. I am tired, starting to think I should have stayed in and watched another Haji Movie, and I am now referred to as their package.
We drive across the FOB and end up in front of a gated off area surrounded by massive T-walls. The sign on the gate says “Authorized Personnel Only. Use of Lethal Force Authorized”. We park outside the gate and get out of the vehicle. Big Guy tells me to strip off my name tape, rank, unit patches and head gear. “Sterile environment in here Sir. Also, first names only, no one gives a shit what you are, only what you know and how well you do what you do.” I thought about that sentence and how it would be nice if that were the norm in the Army. He tells me to follow him as we walk into the compound. Inside are a bunch of mobile buildings and some CHU’s. It’s dark so I cannot see a whole lot. Big Guy finally tells me that these are special ops guys and many are Delta Force operators specifically. He reiterates that I cannot tell anyone about the people I meet as many are under cover outside this compound. He says the group’s medic here would like to meet with me and see what I could offer. I wait outside of a building while he goes in to see if anyone is around. He comes back out alone and says SF Medic Guy will be out in a minute. I ask Big Guy, who is in my brigade, why he is working over here. Again he gets all hush hush and tells me they are sort of attached to these guys doing some training and missions with them but that he cannot go into details. He reveals that he is a medic himself and that tonight we will be sitting in on a trauma course the SF Medic guy will be teaching. I think to myself than why am I here?
Minutes later SF Medic Guy comes out and introduces himself and I do the same. He’s friendly and chill as are all the other guys I meet that night. Everyone has a confidence about them that I imagine comes with the job. They wear civilian clothes some have beards. They call me Kyle, not Sir, not Captain Sela. I like it over here. The class is fine, basically pointless for me, but fine. I think they just wanted to meet me and get a feel for what kind of guy I am. Sort of like a date right? Good thing I shaved.
Days later I see Big Guy roaming around our clinic. He tells me he needs to talk to me again before he leaves this morning. Here we go again. “Hey Sir, there is a guy with shoulder pain that SF Medic Guy would like you to take a look at tonight if you have time.” “Sure man, what time?” I reply. “Is 2130 okay Sir?” This is late for me but really what do I have to do out here. And honestly I would love to work more with these guys. It’s nice knowing that they are absolutely not going to ask for help unless they are actually needing it. There is no faking, no malingering, no fishing for a “No Running” profile. Just bad ass dudes wanting to perform at their peak. I guess I just need to get used to working during their hours…these guys do work at night.
Big Guy picks me up again that night. Back to the bat-mobile and over to the compound. Through the gate we walk and into some lighting. I look around and realize I am the only one sterile this time. “What the hell man, why do you guys have on your name and rank?” “Oh yeah Sir, rules changed today” he replies. “Thanks for the heads up guy” I mutter. Now I look like a douche. SF Medic Guys walks us back into a new building. We step right through the front door into their gym. It’s small but has great equipment. Not the circa 1985 YMCA equipment at the rest of the gyms around here. The guy I’m supposed to look at is not here. We head through a back door and into a long, dark, damp hallway with doors on both sides. I’m trailing Big Guy and as we are walking he looks back at me with a big grin and points over his head at a room on the right. I look in and realize we are in some type of detainee holding area where other "packages" are being held in cells. I try not to look surprised. I’m confident I pulled it off. We find our guy and head back into the gym where I perform my physical therapy magic. As we leave that night Big Guy tells me that these guys will try to pay me back by taking me to their range to let me shoot some different weapons and teach me some different firing tactics. “Sounds good” I say. Thinking in my head that firing weapons, while cool, just doesn’t do it for me…I would like to work out with these cats though. Different strokes for different folks right?
I don’t hear from Big Guy again for weeks. When he comes to find me the next time he tells me that the teams head mofo is in some serious back pain and is laid up on the floor in the fetal position. It’s about 1500 and he asks if I can come check him out right now. We bust over there and along the way Big Guy tells me just how badass this guy is. The stories get the point across well. I meet up with SF Medic Guy first to get his assessment. He tells me that GI Joe has been asleep for about a half hour now in what amounts to a medicated coma. He debates with himself whether we should wake him. This debate is not about whether waking him will be best for Joe. This debate is about our safety and how our lives might be extremely shortened if he wakes in a fit of rage. “I’ve seen it get ugly” SF Medic Guy says. I try to tell them that his sleep is more important but he insists that since I came all the way over here. Shit, I think to myself. SF Medic Guy opens the door slowly and we see him passed out on the floor. He whispers his name twice and I can see the wheels continuing to turn in SF Medic Guy’s head. He pulls his head out, closes the door and turns to us. “Best we leave him be right?” he says. “Yeah you know I really think its best I come back later.” We all concur on this one. I see GI Joe a few times over the next week. We get him back at it quickly. He is a great guy, really appreciative and kindly lets me live.
Only as an Army PT right?

Physical Therapy Worth

DAY 81 22FEB2010: My services are provided to the privileged inside these walls. As American’s we are privileged to live lives where we worry about quality. Quantity is a given unless there is an unexpected event or disease in the way, but for the most part quantity is a given. Our lives are special. Our lives should not be spent in pain. We expect our bodies to work as they should, and when they don’t we expect that something can be done about it. We do not worry so much about food, about shelter. We have moved beyond these worries.
It took a long time for me to learn how to provide my service. It was not easy. When dealing with Americans or Britons my service is appreciated and that makes me feel validated. I provide a service people are grateful for. It is strange that just outside these walls my services are basically worthless. Outside these walls back pain is not a priority and no one is worried about what shoe best fits their foot type. Outside these walls people do not search for healthy food, they search for food. They do not worry about that click in their shoulder; they worry if their Son will have a school to attend. For my services to be of value it seems you need to have what we have.
These walls keep me safe, keep me fed and give me value.
I am in Iraq, but I do not work in Iraq.

The Cycle

Day 69 10FEB2010: The cycle will drive you mad. The cycle for me is the emotional coaster I find myself in everyday. Content one moment, frustrated the next. Loving my job 10 minutes ago, hating it now. Amazed by the brilliant hard working Soldiers today, yesterday I couldn’t stand the site of another whiney little malingerer. Is this life everywhere, or just in my little corner of the US Army? (yes, I know it’s everywhere)
At 0230 today I opened my CHU door as there was a loud knock at it moments before. It was a SGT from my company conducting a 100% accountability check as the FOB received indirect fire some time earlier. “Oh, hey, what, yeah we are both in here SGT”. Thanks for checking.
At 1100 this morning I was informed that my attendance to the Holliday Ball will be mandatory. Yes, that noise you just heard was a record coming to a screeching halt. Apparently when you are deployed to Iraq in fucking February there is someone worried about what kind of attendance there will be at the holiday ball in fucking El Paso in FUCKING DECEMBER!
I now apologize for the above offensive language….but F#$* my life. Okay ill stop.
(Taking indirect fire means mortar rounds have hit nearby. This happens occasionally here though I have never seen or even heard an explosion. We have an alert system that warns us. Alarm “red” means we are taking fire and you should find cover. Alarm “red” really means we already took fire, it has been confirmed and verified and now we can warn you. Now, if you hear a whistle sound, well that’s the sound of a round coming at you and you better get down…like now. Again, I have never encountered this but that’s what I’m told.)
The Cycle: you see I started this post yesterday, I was fired up about the Holiday Ball. I was going to write a long scathing email about how we don’t all need to be here if there is time to worry about Ball’s 10 months from now, about how there are too many people with too little to do, about how the Army has sucked the meaning out awards (more on this another day) and stripped away unit cohesiveness with mandatory fun. I was going to compare that to how much I love to make a Soldier in pain feel better, how great it is to sit in a small aid station with medics I just met and shoot the shit and play cards, about how cool it is to ride over a foreign country in a helicopter, about the pride I feel to wear this uniform. I was going to do all that yesterday, but today I’ve been listening to some great music and you know what, Im just going to smile, nod and do my job. Life’s too short, Cheers.

Duh, its about oil

Day 55 24JAN2010:
Looking in front of me and to my right I see seven people sitting near me. Their faces are dimly lit by a green light. Four of them are in full battle rattle. Three of them I consider more and more part of my family every day. The last in full battle is on his way to the same stop as us but I do not know him. The other two are civilians wearing old school flak jackets and odd looking Kevlars and holding what I can only imagine are interesting stories. Are they aid workers, contractors, reporters? I have no idea who they are and it’s too damn loud to ask them and really too late in the day to care. We are all riding in the back of a UH-60 “Black Hawk” helicopter. The eight of us in the rear and a few in the front are going to be flying around northern Iraq for the next few hours as we head to our destinations. It is dark, noisy and I have a splitting headache but I am ecstatic to be leaving our FOB…even if it is only for about 30 hours.
Looking to my left I see a nighttime landscape of Iraq. We pass over larger cities, burning oil wells and what are probably smaller villages. When passing over parts of the county with no lights shining at us the plastic window of the Blackhawk reflects my own image back at me. I’m wearing my ACH (helmet), eye pro (pro = protection), ear pro, IOTV (vest); full battle rattle. I don’t see myself in this getup often and I definitely have one of those “how did I get here” moments. I’m a physical therapist from Alaska flying through the sky in Iraq near the end of a war to go visit some Soldiers in Kurdistan. How did I get here? After a few minutes of self reflection I come back to the now and realize a few things. One, I’m cold. I put on my gloves. Two, my toes are numb. I start moving them. Three, one of the boys is going numb. It’s the one on the left. Some people get sciatica, I get this. It started in grad school from sitting on my wallet for hours studying. I now realize that I’m sitting on a very hard surface, with 40 pounds of gear on my back and my rucksack in my lap. It’s time to shift the weight to the right side and start doing some butt squeezes. I need some circulation to get back to some important nerves.
We land in Kurdistan about 3 hours after leaving FOB Warrior. It’s much colder up here and we have landed on the outskirts of a large city. The lights of the city are bright and there seems to be almost a cityscape with high rise buildings and all. When we get off the bird we are directed to the edge of a sandy hill. Where we are standing it is dark, you can barely make out the two helicopters 200 feet in front of us. It is loud and dark and I realize that there is no one here to greet us. At this instant a NTV (non tactical vehicle = SUV) comes screaming over the hill with its high beams on and comes to a sliding stop right in front of us. As the passengers run out of the vehicle the birds take off. The guys in the car stand in the head lights and start waving the birds back down. They get lucky and are seen; the helicopters circle back around and pick them up. Okay, our ride is here. I guess we were a little early. Another NTV pulls up and we get rides back to the little post we will stay at. I ride alone with some guy from West Virginia who tells me this (Kurdistan) is the safest place on Earth right now. He says he rides his bike for miles in these hills by himself without telling anyone. Pretty sure I won’t get the opportunity.
There are four of us in my party and we all get our own CHU’s. My mattress is comfortable and unlike the one I sleep at back at Warrior, it appears no one was raped or murdered on this one. Score. We decide that we will meet up at 0800 at the DFAC to decide what we will do for the day. I sleep well and wake up to see that I am surrounded by rolling hills that remind me of where Amber is from near Boise, ID. In the distance is an astonishingly modern(ish) looking city with larger mountains behind it. We (US Army) share this post with the Peshmerga; Kurdistan’s Army. I can see them training. They look organized. I get showered up and dressed in the shower trailer. A sign reads “Stop throwing piss in the garbage!” I had noticed a lot of overweight Soldier’s here but I guess the laziness has been taken to new heights here. Really? You piss in a bottle instead of walking your fat butt to the restroom? Really? In the DFAC we eat breakfast and meet up with the one medic who is up here. He tells us that other than one guy with a sprained ankle there is no one else for any of us to see. At this post we have about 40 Soldiers with nothing really to do but guard the gates and monitor who is coming and going. He tells us that with nothing for anyone to try to get out of, amazingly no one is getting injured or sick.
This mission was set up initially to get our Platoon SGT up here to check on one of our medics who is covering down at a remote post about 150 miles from here. He is supposed to be on his way down here to meet us and get the loads of mail we brought for him. He is well loved at home. No one here knows when he will show up. The rest of us, our senior PA, the Brigade Behavior Health Doc and myself tagged along on this mission to see if they needed any medical support. They don’t. We decide to drive down to the United Nations compound where the Soldier with the sprained ankle is. On our way out, we pass a marching formation of Peshmerga Soldiers. They are apparently the equivalent to our special forces. Unlike many of our special ops guys they are not built like brick shithouses. They march, smile and wave.
We get off this post and head toward the UN spot. We drive through an area that looks like new development back in the states. There are large new roads with large intersections. There are many high rise apartments and office buildings under construction. It’s Friday, which is their Sunday, so there are not many people out. But it is almost too quiet and I wonder who is building all this and who is going to occupy these spaces. When you look closely it seems that nothing is finished. Nothing, it’s all very odd.
I see the dude with the hurt ankle. It’s not broken but very swollen and painful. I give him some pointers and that’s it, we are done for the day. We get a ride over to a civilian clinic to get a look at what is available locally and really just to kill a little time. We drive by more empty, unfinished buildings and pull into what looks like your standard apartment complex back in Texas. The yards have some grass and some shrubs and we hear that this is called the English Village but no one that I see looks English. Some of the buildings have company names on them. There is a travel agency, spa, and just about anything else you can think of right in this complex. We pull up to a building with the clinic name on the outside. Not where I would expect to find a clinic. A British guy answers the door and its obvious we just woke him up. He is really nice and welcoming and begins to talk to us for about an hour about what they can do there, the current state of health care in Kurdistan and mentions that he went out last night and feels a bit hung over. It was interesting to listen to for sure. His clinic is owned by a contractor who hopes to win bids from the oil companies who must be doing all the developing here. If the contractor can show that they have the ability to provide medical care for their workers they are more likely to get a job. It seems that this whole area is at a standstill while elections and other deals are made concerning the large amount of oil in the area. We hang out for a while, he shows us his Suburbulance (Suburban turned into ambulance) and we drive away. I think this company is hoping the military will start using their resources (such as their brand new MRI) and make some money off us. I would hope that too.
We drive back to the post we are staying at and eat lunch. We hang out for a couple of hours in the DFAC. I should have brought a book. The medic we are waiting for still hasn’t shown up and still no one knows when they will be here. The behavior health doc (Jill) and I wander around the compound for a little while. We see some Peshmerga wandering around too. One guy runs up and introduces himself. We ask another guy if we can run up to a lookout guard post and take some pictures. He has no idea what I’m saying and I don’t know what he says either but he is smiling so I guess that’s a yes. We take some sweet pics with our 9mm’s pulled out. We see some random buildings. The largest building says “Olive” on it. I have no idea. Again, I can’t believe I am here right now speaking with Peshmerga and overlooking the capitol of Kurdistan.
The rest of our day: 1. Nap 2. Eat dinner 3. Sit in DFAC for 6 hours watching TV, playing cards and waiting for our ride back to FOB Warrior.
The birds come in on schedule and we are lucky to have a direct flight back. Only takes 18 minutes. We touchdown and our ride is waiting for us to bring us back to our CHUs. We learn a Soldier was shot in the shoulder while on patrol today. Kurdistan is what Iraq could be, Kirkuk is not Kurdistan. Our little journey is over and we never did see our medic. Just another day in paradise.

Does your food smell funny?

Day 45 14JAN2010:
I’m writing today because I have not since the start of the New Year. It’s crazy how the rest of the world keeps moving on, struggling, flourishing, prospering and suffering while we sit here in a constant state of goundhogsdayemia. It really is the same thing every day. But today, yes today I heard news that next week I may be flying up to an area in Iraq called Kurdistan to treat some Soldiers, bring some medical supplies but really just to get the hell off FOB Warrior. When my Platoon SGT was telling me about the trip today I couldn’t help but smile. This is supposed to be a really safe part of Iraq that is really its own little country. They are pro-American and actually want to divorce themselves from Iraq. Its also supposed to be mountainous and maybe even green? Who knows but it will be different from here and I should be gone for a few days. This is good.
I’ve been noticing some trends that are amusing. One is how reactionary the Army is and how dramatic a response there is for every incident. Someone commits suicide. Bam! We have suicide prevention training EVERY week. You want people to start committing suicide? Here’s how you do it. You make them sit in a class on it every week. Or, someone says we need to continue with training while out here. Bam! We have training three times a week resulting in bored students and crappy classes. Another trend; the awesome displays of one-upmanship. This is an endemic in the male dominated Army culture. It’s bad in the states but you get all these boys out here living in close proximity and the stories start flying like trailer homes in a tornado (? I don’t know where that came from). The BS coming out their mouths is so absurd it funny and the best thing to do is egg it on so they just look more and more ridiculous. I have two favorites whom if I happen to be with them both at the same time ill just bring up a topic and slowly walk away while they puff their chests and begin berating each other with nonsense. It is a show to watch, torture to listen to, but always amusing.
Sewage. I smell it often and usually on my way to chow. The stench is everywhere. If the air is calm and a little humid…you’re basically bathing in it. I think I’ll start associating certain foods with the sweet odor of a port-a-john getting pumped. This could be bad because when I get home I don’t want to crave a chicken sandwich every time I walk into a public restroom. I may drive by a sewage plant and ask my co-riders if they are suddenly in the mood for seafood. Could happen, I’m just saying.
Maybe I’ll have something more insightful to write about after a little traveling. I sure hope so.

Does your food smell funny?

Day 45 14JAN2010:
I’m writing today because I have not since the start of the New Year. It’s crazy how the rest of the world keeps moving on, struggling, flourishing, prospering and suffering while we sit here in a constant state of goundhogsdayemia. It really is the same thing every day. But today, yes today I heard news that next week I may be flying up to an area in Iraq called Kurdistan to treat some Soldiers, bring some medical supplies but really just to get the hell off FOB Warrior. When my Platoon SGT was telling me about the trip today I couldn’t help but smile. This is supposed to be a really safe part of Iraq that is really its own little country. They are pro-American and actually want to divorce themselves from Iraq. Its also supposed to be mountainous and maybe even green? Who knows but it will be different from here and I should be gone for a few days. This is good.
I’ve been noticing some trends that are amusing. One is how reactionary the Army is and how dramatic a response there is for every incident. Someone commits suicide. Bam! We have suicide prevention training EVERY week. You want people to start committing suicide? Here’s how you do it. You make them sit in a class on it every week. Or, someone says we need to continue with training while out here. Bam! We have training three times a week resulting in bored students and crappy classes. Another trend; the awesome displays of one-upmanship. This is an endemic in the male dominated Army culture. It’s bad in the states but you get all these boys out here living in close proximity and the stories start flying like trailer homes in a tornado (? I don’t know where that came from). The BS coming out their mouths is so absurd it funny and the best thing to do is egg it on so they just look more and more ridiculous. I have two favorites whom if I happen to be with them both at the same time ill just bring up a topic and slowly walk away while they puff their chests and begin berating each other with nonsense. It is a show to watch, torture to listen to, but always amusing.
Sewage. I smell it often and usually on my way to chow. The stench is everywhere. If the air is calm and a little humid…you’re basically bathing in it. I think I’ll start associating certain foods with the sweet odor of a port-a-john getting pumped. This could be bad because when I get home I don’t want to crave a chicken sandwich every time I walk into a public restroom. I may drive by a sewage plant and ask my co-riders if they are suddenly in the mood for seafood. Could happen, I’m just saying.
Maybe I’ll have something more insightful to write about after a little traveling. I sure hope so.