Greg's Iraq Deployment

Home!

2009-05-18T13:40:00.000-07:00

Well, after flying 12,500 miles (yes, I calculated that!) over the span of 3 days. I made it back home to Hawaii. My route was: Baghdad - Al Udeid, Qatar - Bucharest, Romania - Baltimore - Minneapolis - Honolulu. I actually made it back here on the 4th of May. But as you can imagine, I was busy relaxing and pretty much not doing ANYTHING!! I'll be off till June 1st, then it's back to work.

Thanks for reading my blog and sorry I wasn't a better blogger. Thanks to everyone who e-mailed, commented and sent me things while I was over there. You have no idea how much each e-mail, comment, and package meant to me!!!

I'll be posing all of my pictures on a website that I'm creating. I'll post the link here when it's all done.

Thanks!

G

Camel Spider...Not Always A Bad Thing!

2009-04-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

This actually took place about a month ago but I just thought about it today and I thought it would be a good one for the blog. Plus on the heels of my recent blogging award, I should at least make an effort in my last couple of weeks here to pass on a few stories.

I take you back to mid-March. It was very early in the morning, too early for the sun to be up. The warm weather had not yet taken hold in Baghdad so there was a crisp chill to the air. Cool enough that I hadn't broken a sweat yet I was in full body armor with a full combat load of ammo and walking through a field in the southern part of the city. We had gotten called out to investigate a "suspicious" item which was reported to be in this field. The report was not clear as to where in the field this item was however. We had fanned out and begun our search. I was walking on the far end of the line. I have a light fixed to my helmet and I was panning back and fourth looking at the ground. My body was tired but I was fully awake courtesy of the landmine threat in this area.

I walked for what seemed like a couple of minutes. As I panned to the left, I caught a glimps of what I thought was a small LED light on the ground. I froze in my tracks. I had one foot off the ground at the time and I held it there. I've seen a few types of devices over here which have used sensors to detect movement, then they blow up! The circuitry they use have little LED lights on them. A wave of terror came over me and I tensed what felt like every muscle in my body. If you have ever been in a car accident. That tensed up, gut wrenching feeling you get just as you realize you are about to be hit by another car, that's what I felt. A few seconds had passed and I realized nothing had happened. I was very confused. I moved my head a litte bit further to the left and my light panned over. The small light I saw was my helmet light reflecting off a camel spider's eye. It was just standing there, staring at me. This thing was HUGE. Funny thing is, I'm not much for spiders and I was actually dreding seeing these mamoth spiders over here. However, at this particular moment. I was so happy to see this was a spider and not something that was going to really ruin my day by blowing me up. It was still looking at me. Then, it scurried past me and went off into the darkness beyond the range of my light.

I could now feel my heart pounding from all the adrenalin my body had just released. I was now sweating buckets. I pulled myself together and continued my search. One of our guys finally found what we were looking for and we went back to the base.

So that's the story of my first encounter with a camel spider. Hope you enjoyed it!

G

World's Worst Blogger!

2009-04-09T14:47:00.001-07:00

Air Force Sergeant Voted Worst Blogger on Earth

Mountain View, California

The votes have been counted, the statistics have been verified, and the
results are in. An Air Force Tech Sergeant currently serving a 6-month
deployment in Iraq has been given the title of Planet's Worst Blogger.
Officials made the announcement early this morning amid speculation that
such a title would be very hard to attach to just one person due to the
millions of people around the world who blog. However, when the Google
Corporation released the statistics to the public during a press
conference at its Mountain View California headquarters complex this
morning, the speculation immediately disappeared. The statistics were
shocking to say the least. Who is this person you ask? His name is Tech
Sergeant Greg Littleton and is currently deployed to Iraq.

Sergeant Littleton was not available for comment after the press
conference but the information gathered from his blog indicated its
purpose was to keep his family and friends apprised of his experiences
in Iraq, a purpose that was obviously being neglected.

When Sergeant Littleton's blog was in its infancy, he did a decent job
of posting and keeping his family informed of happenings on his
deployment. He included pictures and a couple of videos. Comments were
being posted by friends and family and the general consensus was that
his blog was doing well. He was definitely not on his way to a Pulitzer
Prize, but it was working. He even decorated and customized the blog.
Readers visiting were greeted with a few links, an interesting
background image, and even included his profile picture.

Things started taking a downward turn during January. He only recorded 2
or 3 postings and the pictures completely disappeared. The pictures
could be explained away with poor internet connection available in Iraq;
however an explanation for the lack of postings is a little harder to
come by, most voters agree the explanation is nothing other than a
complete disregard for his blog. People back in the states began to
wonder what had happening. Was he Ok? Did something happen? Sergeant
Littleton's wife informed Google that she passed on a few concerns she
had received from friends and family during the month of January about
the lack of blog postings. (On a side note, Sergeant Littleton's wife
was recently simultaneously awarded the titles of "most awesome" and
"most beautiful wife on the planet". The story on this event is awaiting
publication.)

In response to this initial concern voiced by his family, Sergeant
Littleton began posting again in early February. Things seemed to be
getting back on track for his blog. His family again felt informed and
connected to the events of his deployment. Then, without warning, the
blog entries came to an abrupt end. Not posts, no pictures, no profile
updates, nothing. Sergeant Littleton completely hung his blog out to
dry. And in doing that, hung his family and friends out to dry. It's
been nearly a month and a half since he has posted anything to the blog.

Other blogs have suffered similar neglect, however the enthusiasm to
blog and promises within the blog made by Sergeant Littleton saying he
would keep blogging are what set this situation apart from all of the
others. His empty promises are even evident in his last few
entries. Blog experts within Google have analyzed the entries and 4 out
of 6 of them say the terminology used in the entries coupled with the
abrupt halt in postings proves that Sergeant Littleton's blog neglect
was pre-meditated. A few unnamed readers told Google they felt Sergeant
should be brought up on internet fraud charges for his actions. Legal
officials from Google say there is not enough evidence to support such a
charge, but they did say Sergeant Littleton should be "Ashamed of
himself for his actions".

Sudoku

2009-01-31T10:32:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to thank everyone who sent me the sudoku puzzle books. I did the math and I now have 2,340 sudoku puzzles available to occupy my brain for the next 3 months. And that's just the ones I have left. I have, to date, completed 542 puzzles. So, I guess I need to step up my efforts. I love doing these puzzles and have to say, i'm getting pretty good at them. I was able to solve an "intermediate" puzzle yesterday in 4 minutes flat. Not sure if that's actually a good time, but it's a LOT faster than I was doing them when I first got here!!

Thanks again!!

G

Indirect Fire...

2009-01-30T11:42:00.000-08:00

Well, i have once again let a good chunk of time slip by without posing on the blog. The days all seem to be running together and I lose track of time. It's kind of hard to explain. With my job here, there are no weekends, no days off, no holidays. In a normal work week, you always know what day it is because you are always counting down to the weekend or your next day off. So, you know when it's Wednesday and you are half way through the week. You know when it's Thursday because you say to yourself, tomorrow's Friday! And of course there is the dreaded Monday. Well, imagine a Monday morning, I know it's no the most popular of thoughts. You're driving to work, sipping on your coffee thinking wow, Friday seems so far away. And now imagine that Friday is not just 5 days away, but 90 or 100 days away. Since you really have no "Friday" to look forward to here, all the days sort of have a Monday feel to them and you start to lose track of them after a while. Which can be a good thing if you want the time to go by fast.

Anyway, Camp Victory has been taking a lot of rocket attacks lately. These are where someone out in Baghdad gets a hold of a 120mm Rocket and puts in on a home made rail, rigs up a fuse, points it in the general direction of camp victory and lights it up. The rockets have quite a range. They can be launched from 10 or so miles away. They probably haven't been in the news at all back in the states because it's kind of a regular thing over here. The military also likes to give these incidents a name that sort of paints a less dangerous picture of these events. They are called "Indirect Fire" events. When I first heard that term, I thought that doesn't sound too bad. Gunfire from a distance maybe. I didn't realize indirect fire encompassed things like 90 pound sub-sonic projectiles being hurtled from downtown towards the base. And to add to it, the base has a system that can pick up the incoming rockets and sound the sirens automatically. Of course, by the time the sirens go off, the rockets already on its way and you usually have about 10 or so seconds to decide what you're going to do and hope that the thing isn't about to occupy the same piece of ground that you are currently standing on. Luckily, there are blast walls and bunkers everywhere so all you have to do is duck into one of those.

These things don't happen all the time, maybe about once a week or so. Just something that you have to get used to.

That's about it for now. 3 Months till Friday!

G

Still Here...

2009-01-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since I've posted. Since I moved up here to camp victory and changed jobs, It's pretty much been ground hog day. I keep telling myself that I'll post tomorrow and then the days seem to all run together and I don't realize how long it's been. I guess that's good in a way because time is going by rather quickly.

I have actually gone out a couple of missions since I've been up here. I'm still attached to the task force so I will still have to do missions every once in a while. But since I'm not on a team anymore, I won't be my main job to do that.

So, now that my days are filled with limited excitement, my mind has become occupied with other things. One of them being what I like to call "The blue splash". Anyone that knows me well knows that I always try to find the humor in things. Also, anyone reading this blog that has ever deployed or spent a good majority of time doing their bathroom business in port-o-potties knows what I'm talking about. You never want to do #2 right after the port-o-potties get emptied because all that's down there after the cleaning is a big vat of that blue liquid that is primed up for splashing back up and hitting you square in the a**. And I really don't know what that liquid is made up of but the fact that it's used to temporarily store human crap means that I don't want it anywhere near my rear. Plus, I hear that it stains. It's best to go when it's been used a few times because once there is "stuff" in there and the splash factor is greatly reduced. I have yet to learn the physics behind how much "stuff" needs to be in there in order for you to receive no splash. So, if there is not much in there, I usually throw a good stream of toilet paper down there to make sure and cancel out the splash factor.

So, I spent a couple of days doing reconnaissance and figured out the cleaning crew's schedule for the port-o-potties in my compound and now utilize the facilities prior to the daily cleanings. You know it's going to be a bad day when you're getting ready to do your daily "business" and you hear the rumble of the cleaning trucks coming into the compound an hour or so early. War is Hell!!!!

Thought I'd give a glimpse into the lighter side of things here at Camp Victory!

G

New Year, New Place, New Job

2009-01-05T12:10:00.000-08:00

So I finally got all moved up here to camp victory. I was here for a few days when I first got to Iraq but didn't really get to see much of it. This base is actually pretty nice. It's near the airport and occupies what was once one of Saddam's government retreats. It's where all the members of his government could come to vacation. There are a few pretty neat palaces and some man made lakes. I haven't taken any pictures yet because I've been pretty busy with work stuff. But I will get some up here as soon as I can.

I don't want to give you the wrong impression. Although this base is a lot nicer than the last base I was at, it is still Iraq. I still have to walk outside and go about 200 yards to get a shower or use the bathroom and I still have to carry a weapon everywhere. In fact, since this is one of the main US bases here, this one gets a lot more mortar and rocket attacks than some of the smaller bases. But the base is pretty big so the chances of one hitting where I am at any given time are small.

Hope everyone had a happy new year. I listened to the Iraqi's fire AK-47s up in the air. I just hope those bullets hit them on the way down and not some innocent bystander.

That's all for now,

G

Last Few Missions...

2008-12-30T08:41:00.002-08:00

Well, this is my last day at Falcon before I move up to camp victory. I went out on my last few missions over the past couple of days. Nothing too exciting, which is good. Had to go back to a couple of familiar neighborhoods to pick up explosive things before they blew something or someone up. It's always nice to get the explosives before they go off. It makes you feel like you're accomplishing something instead of showing up after a bomb has gone off and all that is left is a smoking hole in the ground and very upset people.

I was driving on a call the other night. We had to run with lights off because we were in a neighborhood and our security trucks don't like to advertise our presence with headlights. So I was driving with night vision on trying to follow the truck in front of me. I drove through a mud patch and part of the road collapsed under the truck and just about tipped us over. But, I was able to stop and throw it into 4 wheel drive and back out. That woke me up!!

Well. here are a few pictures that were taken of me over the past few days.

Well, time to pack up the laptop. That's all for now,

G

2008-12-27T09:20:00.000-08:00

We had an interesting call yesterday. We got the call and rolled out not knowing what we were responding to. That's pretty standard. we usually don't get much information until we leave the base and contact the on scene unit over the radio. We heard it was a "post blast" which means the device has already gone off. When we arrived we learned that the bomb had gone off in a small room inside a house and that it went off while the guy was putting it together. The guy, or what was left of him, was still in the room when we got there. I'll spare everyone the pictures and the details but it was pretty interesting trying to work around all that "stuff".

Only got a few more days until I move up to Camp Victory. I heard that I'll be getting my own room up there so that's pretty cool.

We've got a bunch of animals running around the base here. The dogs keep their distance but a couple of the cats have become pretty comfortable around us. I caught them peeking into my room a couple of days ago.

Also, it was a pretty nice sunset yesterday. I climbed up on top of our truck to get a better view.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. That's all for now,

G

Brown Christmas

2008-12-24T10:50:00.000-08:00

Here in Baghdad, we will not be having a white Christmas. Thanks to the rain we've gotten the past couple of days, I will be enjoying the fine Iraqi brown Christmas. Complete with all the mud you need to completely mess up your boots, pants, and your living areas. It rained so hard last night that it flooded our parking area with a good 4 inches of water.

The work has been pretty much non-existent the past 4 or 5 days now. Not sure if it's because of the weather or not. I guess that's a good thing, whatever the reason is. Not sure how close everyone follows the news but, or if this has even been in the news, but the united nations resolution 1483 will expire at the end of December. This is the resolution that legitimized the US and UK occupation of Iraq back on 2003. No, we're not all going to be on planes back home on New Years eve, as nice as that would be!! The Iraqi government and the US government are in the final stages of signing the Status of Forces Agreement which will keep us here until at least 2011. But, things are changing though. All the bad guys we catch are going to be going through the Iraqi court systems now. Not sure if that will make things better or worse. We'll have to see.

Anyway, not sure why I started talking about a brown Christmas and ended up talking about the US resolution and status of forces stuff.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas,

G

Moving..

2008-12-23T06:58:00.000-08:00

It's been very slow the last few days, not much to do work wise, but I have plenty of things around to keep me busy. It's been rainy and gloomy the past couple of days and all of the dust and dirt around here has once again turned into a fine mud that sticks to your boots and pants. And if you don't get it off before it dries, it turns into what I can only describe as concrete. I'm serious, they could build buildings out of this stuff.

I also found out that I'll be moving in a week or so. I'll be leaving FOB Falcon and heading up to Camp Victory at the airport. I'll be working in our headquarters element up there. The job will be a lot different than what I'm doing now. I won't be going out on missions anymore, I'll be working at headquarters as the senior analyst. I will have a new mailing address once I get up there, but if something shows up here after I leave, the team will bring it up to me whenever they get a chance.

I'll miss my team mates here, plus I'll be at Headquarters around all the higher ups so I'll probably have to tone down the joking and goofing around I like to do. Well, maybe not. Once I get up there, I'll only have about 4 months to go.

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a nice Christmas season

That's all for now,

G

Nicer part of town...

2008-12-17T10:44:00.001-08:00

Had a couple of calls to go to today. We had to go to the nicer part of town. Well, as nice as you can get in Baghdad anyway. It was almost like being in a normal city. Except for the fact that we were in an armored vehicle and wearing body armor and carrying weapons. Anyway, the day flew by. Here are some pics I took today...

During the down time the past couple of days, the team got together for a photo. I think it came out pretty good. These guys are my team mates out here. From left to right. Steve, Eddie, Aaron, Me, and Jimmy.

We're all Air Force except for Eddie, he's army. Us air force guys are wearing Army uniforms because we are attached to an army unit and they don't want us wearing air force uniforms because when we're out on missions we would look different than our army guys. And if you look different, you become a target!!! Oh and that's our truck in the background.

That's all for now....

G

Another Day...

2008-12-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

Another day down, another day closer to getting back home. It's been a slow couple of days, not much to talk about. It started to cloud up this evening which made for a decent sunset for a change. Better than the hazy sunsets we usually get.

That's all for now...

G

More Pictures...

2008-12-14T10:12:00.001-08:00

Well, it's December 14th and another perfectly good NFL Sunday is passing me by while my 42 inch HDTV is 5,000 miles away. At least I'll be back home for the NHL playoffs!!!!

Not much to say today but I'm posting some more recent pictures I've taken. When I first got here, all of the different neighborhoods looked the same, but now I can tell they each have their own individuality. Some of them are still very run down but some of the others are very nice (by Iraqi standards anyway, I have yet to see a Starbucks or anything like that on a street corner). But you can tell the people in some of the neighborhoods are taking charge and trying to keep things in order. But like I said some are still pretty run down. Those run down neighborhoods are the ones we seem to get called out to more often.

A lot of the fighting that goes on here right now is locals targeting other locals. Turf wars between the neighborhoods. That's better than them targeting us I guess.

I guess I had more to say than I though...

Anyway, here are the pictures from the last few days...

That's all for now...

G

Cold....

2008-12-13T09:00:00.001-08:00

The little thermometer outside my room read 37 this morning when I got up. I actually unpacked some of the cold weather gear that I was issued and am using it. Getting cold weather gear issued to me in New Jersey in the middle of august didn't make much sense at the time. But it makes sense now.

We had to go out to a couple of scenes today. Here are a couple of pictures I took.

And this is a picture someone snapped of me. I thought it was a pretty cool picture.

I've seen a lot of blown up things since I've been here and I think I'm getting used to it. Not that I'm desensitized to it, because it still looks bad and unnatural to me to see, but I am used to seeing it now and it really doesn't bother me.

My wonderful, awesome wife sent me a little laptop so I can have internet in my room now. I should be able to update this blog more often. I'm still trying to upload my videos but my internet connection is the equivalent of dial up and it just takes a while!!

That's about it for now....

G

Mid December...

2008-12-12T10:44:00.000-08:00

Well, I did it again. I let more than a week pass by without any posts. I have my personal computer on its way here. Once I get that, I'll be able to update a lot more often because I won't have to walk over to the morale building. Anyway, it's been a busy week or so for me. Had somewhat of a close call earlier this week. We showed up on a scene after a bomb had gone off and started working. About 5 minutes later, someone found a secondary device right next to where we were working. We all had to evacuate the area and wait for the bomb guys to disarm the second one. Once they disarmed it, they told us that it was primed an ready to go off. Luckily, we have equipment on us and in our vehicles to keep some types of devices from going off, and this happened to be one of those type of devices. I know that's a pretty vague explanation, but that's about all I can say about it. I'm getting to know the job pretty well and am getting pretty proficient at it.

Other than that, things have been as good as they can be. I've been playing a lot of ping pong and strumming my guitar in my down time. I've also been going to the gym a lot. Some people here are decorating their areas with Christmas decorations. I don't think I'm going to decorate because it really doesn't feel like the holiday season since I'm away from home. The chow hall is serving a lot of holiday deserts now and I'm really trying to keep away from them. I'm trying to lose weight while I'm here!!

Although I have to be here for 5 more months, the army unit I am here with will be here for an entire year. That's one of the big differences between the Army and the Air Force. Normal Air Force deployments are 4 to 6 months and Army ones are 12 to 15 months. So, as bad as I think I have it, these guys have it a bit worse than I do. I try and keep that in mind, things could always be worse. It doesn't always make me feel any better though!!!

That's all for now,

G

2008-12-02T12:03:00.000-08:00

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted. It was a combination of being really busy and the internet here on base was down for 4 or 5 days. I'm now pretty much all settled in and am getting comfortable with my job. Well, as comfortable as I'm going to get.

On Thanksgiving, the chow hall had a pretty good spread of food. I got my turkey and pumpkin pie. The pie wasn't quite as good as what I get at home, but it'll do for now!! The food here is generally very good. I guess the one thing that they can do around here to keep moral up is feed us! In the chow hall, we've got pretty much any kind of food you want. Every Sunday they serve Steak and Lobster. Everyone talks about coming to Iraq to lose weight. Well, it's very possible to gain a lot of weight while you're here depending on the job you have. But, I hit the gym every day and try my best to lay off the food.

As of December 2nd, I have hit my one month mark. One down, five to go! The first one went by pretty fast and hopefully the next five will too.

Winter time here in Iraq is the rainy season. 2 days ago we had a big thunderstorm roll though. It felt like I was back in the midwest. We had thunder, lightning and hail. Well, since this entire base is pretty much all dirt, when it rains, everything turns to mud. And the water has nowhere to go so it sits around for 4 or 5 days until it all evaporates up. I have more pictures an videos but I can't get them to load up tonight so I'll try again tomorrow.

That's all for now,

G

Reality...

2008-11-24T02:44:00.000-08:00

The reality of this job is starting to set in. We received quite a bit of training before we came out here but nothing can prepare you for everything. I wouldn't say that anything really bothers me yet, but there are some things that make me nervous or a bit uneasy. Showing up at a post blast site, you have the normal things. A smoking hole in the ground and sometimes a lot of blood around if someone got hurt or killed. I saw that stuff, or mock ups at least, during training. However, the things that the training didn't include are the crying kids who just lost their father or brother, or all the bystanders that are all over the street watching you. Security keeps them back, but you just never know who might have a bunch of dynamite strapped up under their shirt. Also, looking around when you're in a neighborhood and seeing all of the windows on the buildings and wondering if someone is watching you for whatever reason. These are some things that go through my mind while I'm on scene. The Iraqi police are usually around and it's 50/50 weather you can trust any of them or the information they are giving you. But, I just concentrate on my work because there is really nothing I can do about any of that stuff. We are only on scene for about 15-20 mins. It's pretty difficult to fully process a scene (get pictures, try and pull fingerprints, find pieces of the bomb and figure out how it was initiated) all in 15 mins, but that's pretty much all the time we have. And it goes by pretty fast.

Even with all that, you still see groups of people along some streets that cheer and wave when we drive by. I even saw a kid with a Minnesota vikings hat on the other day. I had to laugh.

That's about it for now...

G

Boom...

2008-11-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy couple of days. Yesterday I got to go out and help with a controlled detonation. Once a month or so the EOD guys (Explosive Ordnance Disposal, basically military bomb squad) goes outside the base and blows up all of the explosives and weapons that have been found or recovered during the past month. That's pretty much the only way to get rid of all of it.

It was pretty cool. The not so cool part was having to carry hundreds of heavy projectiles and other crap that we've collected and carry it from the trailers over to the blast pit. All this while wearing our 50-60 lbs of body armor. Needless to say I got a good workout that day!

Once that grunt work was done, we got back in the trucks and drove back about 300 ft or so and watched the show. I took some video of it from the front seat of our vehicle. The video doesn't do it justice, but it still looks pretty cool.

That's all for now...

Where's the Heat??

2008-11-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

I've always associated the middle east with oppressive heat and constant sunshine. Well, that's not the case right now. During the winter, it's actually quite comfortable. Highs in the 80s and lows in the 50s or 40s at night. Once March & April roll around, the heat should start coming. The winter is also the rainy season here . It's only rained once, but then again, I've only been in here a couple of weeks. When I does rain, this place turns into one big mud pit. The fine sand becomes quicksand that wants to suck your boots in and never let them go.

Another thing about the air here is there is the constant smell of burning trash. They don't have organized trash collecting in Baghdad as you may have noticed from some of my pictures. So, they burn everything. This also leaves a constant haze in the air. I always wondered why pictures from Iraq always looked a little hazy. Well, part of it is from all the dust that is constantly in the are and I guess the other part is all the trash fires burning.

That's all for now...

G

Another Day...

2008-11-18T10:34:00.000-08:00

Had to go out a couple of times during the past few days and I was able to snap some more pictures since I wasn't driving. This whole country looks like the movie mad max beyond thunderdome.

One thing surprised me today. I had just finished checking out a scene and we were getting ready to head out and this guy comes out of his house and tells us that he saw the guy who planted the explosives and gave us the name of the guy. The guy wasn't very nice about it and said something in Arabic to me as he walked off. I asked the interpreter what the guy said. He said he hates us here, but he hates the people that set up these bombs even more. I can see how the guy is angry. We rolled into his neighborhood with our loud trucks and are walking around with weapons making all sorts of noise and commotion. But, he still came out and gave us the information we needed. He hates us, but is still willing to help us. Thought that was kind of interesting.

Another interesting thing is every time we roll out to a scene, we've got 50lbs of gear on (body armor, Kevlar helmets) and 2 weapons each. And some of the DoD security contractors that are out here doing something similar to us are walking around in blue jeans & polo shirts. I asked one of them how they got away with it. He told me that he has all the gear, but he doesn't like to wear it. I tried to stand near him for the rest of the time on scene. I figured that he would look like a much better target to a sniper than I would.

That's all for now...

Slow Day...Good & Bad at the Same Time...

2008-11-16T08:44:00.000-08:00

It was a very slow day today. Nothing to do work wise. But we passed the time playing ping-pong on our improvised ping-pong table which is made of plywood and an old net. The plywood makes for some interesting bounces that must be compensated for on the fly. I think I've got it down now though cause I smoked everyone!!

On the one hand, it's really good that I had nothing to do today. That means nothing blew up in the southern part of the city. On the other hand, slow days make for long days and long days give me time to think of home and how much I miss it. It seems wrong to hope for busy days in this situation, so I try not to. I try and remember that there are things going on here that are much more important than me passing the time faster.

That's it for now

G

First Few Missoins...

2008-11-14T11:07:00.000-08:00

I've been here a few days now and I've started going out on missions around the city. Sadly, there are still lots of people who don't want peace here and are still placing roadside bombs. However most of the time, coalition forces find them before they go off. When we head off the base, we travel in vehicles called MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected). Here's a picture of it...

We rotate driving duties. I love driving this thing. Everyone seems to get out of your way when you're rolling down the highway in one of these!! When it was my turn to drive, the call came in about 5pm. What happens in every big city around this time? Rush Hour! My first experience driving around Baghdad was weaving in and out of traffic with this thing while people were trying to get out of my way. I got a lot of middle fingers that evening.

One other thing I've noticed is the abundance of junk and trash everywhere. When you get down into the neighborhoods, the areas are a little bit cleaner, but not much. Here are a couple of pictures...

Even with all the filth, when you look at most of the adult faces, they have a smile. And you see kids out playing in the street and having fun. We throw tootsie rolls out the hatch when we see groups of kids playing. Iraqi kids love those tootsie rolls. I know there are parts of the city that are pretty nasty still and I also know there are still lots of bad guys out there though, otherwise we wouldn't be called out to these bomb sites. But that's just my observations from the few neighborhoods I've gone into. Maybe my tune will change once I see some other parts of the city.

That's all for now...

Made It To Baghdad

2008-11-13T11:10:00.000-08:00

I finally made it here to Baghdad. During my six-month deployment here I've decided to post a blog to keep anyone who might be interested informed on my different experiences I have while I'm here.

Lets start with how I got here...

First of all, I left Hawaii (Where I'm stationed) on July 28th for "Pre-deployment" training. This is the military's way to tack on time away from home without officially saying you are deployed. I spend 31 Days at Ft Dix, NJ, then spend an additional 2 months at Ft Huachuca, AZ. On October 31st, at 2am, I left Ft Huachuca and rode up to the Tucson Airport and caught a flight to Norfolk, VA. Stayed up that night and had a few beers since I would be without alcohol for the next six-months. The next evening (November 1st), went to the Norfolk Naval Air Station and boarded my flight. Flew all night across the Atlantic and landed in Shanon Ireland early morning on the 2nd for our 2 hour layover. Then it was back on the plane and a 7 hour flight to Kuwait City. Landed there around 7pm on the 2nd. Then it was on a bus for a hour ride up to Ali Al Salem air base out in the desert. Stayed in a tent there for 4 days. Then boarded a C-17 aircraft in the middle of the night for our 1 hour flight into Baghdad. Once I got there I did some admin stuff and got to my tent around 5am. Slept for almost 30 hours, then spent a few days sitting in briefings about Iraq. Culture, how not to piss off the locals, that sort of stuff. Then caught a ride with a convoy to the southern part of the city to my base. FOB Falcon. FOB stands for Forward Operating Base. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that during all of this traveling. I had the two bags I left home with and the 3 other bags the Army gave me, plus my weapons case with my two weapons in it. And once you get to Kuwait and get into the military transport system. There are no baggage handlers. You lug all your bags out to the plane yourself!

So, that's how I got here. Now, why the hell am i here....

I'm part of a 5 man team that goes out with the army bomb squad whenever a roadside bomb goes off or any explosives are found. We collect evidence from the scene, try and get fingerprints off of things and get pictures of everything. We then work our magic and try and figure out where the bombs came from. That's about as much as I can go into. We cover the entire southern part of Baghdad so we should stay pretty busy.

Well, that's about it for now, I'll try and post as often as I can.

Bye for now,

G