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.