Week 4, OIF6

Friday, 4 April 2008

This week was anticlimactic compared to Week 3. I did not leave the camp once. I thought I was one day, but plans changed. Everyday I attend a bunch of meetings. The meetings come in many flavors, sizes and shapes, but I’ll spare the details.

Saturday (29 March), I set a new land speed record during my daily run around the camp. It felt good to ratchet the pace up a notch. I handled some routine tasks: turned in laundry and sat in the barber chair for a haircut. (I didn’t have much work to do in getting a haircut… simply sit still and endure the trauma. The hardest part was waiting in line for 70 minutes. Lines are common now that there are two brigades worth of people on this tiny camp. I really didn’t mind the wait; I brought the good book along and did some reading.) I continued to shadow my counter part, Major Kirk Luedeke, the best brigade-level public affairs officer in the Iraq Theater as LTC Steve Stover, the Multi-National Division – Baghdad PAO says. (Kirk has done an amazing job. His section out produces most of MND-B with all the stories they produce and media embeds they host.) More Shia rockets flew over the camp, but they missed. (Forward Operating Base Falcon is about two square kilometers, so sometimes the bad guys miss as the rockets explode outside the base.)

On the way to drop off laundry at the Laundry Facility, I was showing my new room mate around FOB Falcon. It only takes about 10-minutes to walk from one end to the other. Brian flew in the night before. He is our assistant operations officer, but he will serve as the Iraqi Security Forces coordinator. We were room mates once before, when we deployed to Korea in August 2005. (We really lived in a large canvas tent, known to Soldiers as a GP Medium. GP means general purpose and it holds about 16 – 18 cots with space for a stove in the winter and an air conditioner in the summer when used as a sleeping tent. I was technically still the 4th Public Affairs Detachment commander on that trip, but I also served as the deputy III Corps PAO. Two of my guys had departed a week earlier to help set-up for the mission and to take pictures and write stories. On that mission, Brian served as a Liaison Officer to the Korean Eighth Army. We deployed as part of III Corps for Operation Ulchi Focus Lens. That seems like a lifetime ago.)

Sunday (30 March) morning, I attended the Contemporary Protestant Service. The praise team did a pretty good job, but it was their last performance. Most of them will be gone by next Sunday. After the service, I huddled with Chaplain Ron Boyd and some other guys as we talked about forming our own praise team for next Sunday. I volunteered to play the keyboard.

In the afternoon, our equipment arrived by ground convoy from Kuwait. So my other duffle bags and tough box arrived as did the rest of our section equipment. My guys hauled the mountain of gear into the office. I moved my personal gear to my hooch, which is really one small room in the 3-room trailer. (Hooch is just Army slang for our sleeping place. Usually it applies to some sort of make-shift shelter that we built under a tree in the woods, but there are only about a dozen trees on this camp. Most of this camp is gravel or medium to large stones that look like little dinosaur or sea turtle eggs. The gravel or stones were brought in over the course of the last 2 – 3 years to combat the mud during the rainy season. This place has poor drainage, so when the winter rains come, the ground turns into a massive mud hole and the moon dust turns into peanut butter sticking to everything. Therefore, walking across the camp is quite a workout as more and more mud sticks to one’s boots making them 10-pounds each.) There is not much mud right now, except by the gun line where our howitzers are positioned to fire counter battery missions…in simple English this means return fire when the bad guys launch indirect fire at us.

In the evening, I attended the Traditional Protestant Service. Later that night, our gun line did fire about a dozen rounds at the enemy. The wind was coming from the direction of the gun line, so the smoke and noise of the guns were all over my hooch area. The roar of the outgoing 155mm artillery fire was very loud.

Monday (31 March) between meetings, I spent most of the day organizing my files on two laptops that I brought. One I’ll use for secret business and one I’ll use for unclassified business. In my occupation, most of my work (95%) is unclassified, because I release stories, press releases, and media advisories to the public. I keep all the stories, images and releases in my electronic files. I have files dating back to 13 Sept. 2005, when I joined this fine brigade. Therefore, I had to save the data to a hard drive as to not lose the information. After the data was saved, I turned in the laptops for the automations people to work their magic. I also picked up my clean clothes from the Laundry Facility. (Normally, it’s a 24 – 48 hour turn around for laundry; however, with the surge of people on the camp the turn around can be up to 72 hours. I’m not complaining, the laundry service is free and I receive the clean clothes folded. What a deal!)

Tuesday (1 April), I thought I was going on a mission outside the wire, but April fools… the plans changed. So, the joke was on me. I still have plenty of work to do, so I stayed busy. I read one of Kirk’s articles about one of his Soldier’s relatives earning the Silver Star in WWII that was published in Alumni News, Winter 2008. (Kirk is an alumnus of The Citadel, Class of 1994.) It was a fascinating story. His Soldier’s mother sent her cousin’s letters, which was Kirk’s primary source for the article. Kirk is a good writer.

Wednesday (2 April), I worked the contract paperwork for our Raider Brigade monthly publication. We plan to use a local Iraqi contractor who has been doing the Dragon Fire magazine for the unit we are relieving. I also practiced music for Sunday in my hooch. I plan to sing “Word of God Speak” by Mercy Me.

Thursday (3 April), I spent some time working with various battalion public affairs representatives. My frustration is that I get a guy trained and a few months later the units switch people. The units move guys to different jobs for various reasons. When we arrived here nearly every unit switched people again, so the strong guys I had developed with experience from the National Training Center are doing different jobs. So in addition to transitioning to business in Iraq, I’m training new folks. (This fall, winter and spring, I’ve enjoyed a strong team as we lead the 4th Inf. Div. in producing quality news products. I had a bunch of help. Part of that success was our UPAR program of battalion stringers also writing for us.) I also traveled to the chapel to practice the keyboard, but I could not. The chapel was reconfigured for another memorial service. One of the units not in our brigade or 4th BCT, 1st Inf. Div. was killed in action. Since the keyboard was out of action, I could not practice.

Today, instead of running around the camp for physical training, I lifted weights at the gym. My new plan is to run five days a week and lift weights three days a week. I’ll see how that goes. I was waiting until some of the 1st Inf. Div. guys left before venturing into the gym, because it gets quite busy. I also ventured to the chapel to practice the keyboard and was successful. This time the keyboard was set-up and ready to go.

Another frustration I’ve dealt with is automation. We experienced internet outages about half the time this week. As I stated 95% of our work is on the unclassified network and no internet means no email. That’s how we communicate with most of the media bubbas that want to visit or embed with us plus send many of our reports and stories to higher headquarters. At least higher HQ has exercised patience with us and took most of our data (not stories) via the telephone.

Here’s a quote I found posted on the conference room wall. I thought it was pretty apropos.
Burn the midnight oil
“A dead soldier who has given his life because of the failure of his leaders is a dreadful sight and a crime before God. Like all dead soldiers, he was tired before he died, hungry undoubtedly, dirty, wet, and possibly frightened to his soul. And there he lies…dead needlessly, on top of all that…never again to see his homeland. Don’t be the leader who failed to lead him well! Burn the midnight oil so that you may not in later years look at your hands and find his blood still red upon them!” Major James W. Bellah said this in 1941. He later wrote, “She wore a yellow ribbon” and it became a John Wayne movie.

Speaking of midnight oil, I need to get to bed. I do not want to fall into the same cycle I did last tour of only getting four hours of sleep a night for an entire year. That aged me. I need to do a better job of taking care of myself.

Thanks for all the prayers. Pray for our troops over here. They are doing incredible work in an austere environment, since many of them operate from combat outposts. Many get to rotate back here once a week for 24-hours to refit. Also, keep our Families in your prayers. Our other halves are playing “mom & dad” as a single parent, which is exhausting. I wish you well. Psalm 91

Keep looking up!