What to bring on your IA to Iraq

I was recently asked by a lucky IA lottery winner what to bring on an IA to Iraq. That is a great question I had the exact same question when I was tagged. I searched ECRC, NKO all the usual places and found nothing of use. I have not looked at their sites lately but I am sure nothing has changed. They do not have the time to figure out why my travel claim has not been paid in over 3 months, I am sure they do not have time to update their web site.

I will try to make this as extensive as possible but the general idea is that you can forget everything, as long as you have underwear, the Army will give you all the rest of your essentials. It is my experience that I have been able to find anything I want at exchanges, except NAVY PT uniform.

Bring whatever you want to NMPS and expect to ship stuff home, this is ok, and the Navy will pay for it on the travel claim, just ensure you keep your receipt even if it is less than $75, you absolutely need the receipt to get reimbursed for the shipping. Speaking of travel claims I would not do any travel claims until you get to Kuwait, as stated above I am still waiting on the one I claimed with ECRC over 3 months ago, the Kuwait guys will have it done in 5 days.

The Army will provide 4 sets of ACU’s a bunch of undershirts, socks, boots, boot dressing straps, cold weather gear, medium weather gear, rain gear, sleeping bag, backpack, gloves, hats, gerber multi tool, sunglasses, shooting glasses, earplugs, body armor, guns, holster, knee pads, elbow pads, you will have around 250 pounds of Army issued gear when you are all done and you get to carry it all over the world.

Everything else is just gravy and can more than likely be found at the exchange except for PT uniforms. I only brought two which is not enough, I just ordered two more from the online Navy exchange and they are shipping them.

Laptop computer, I think is an essential, there has been wireless internet everywhere I have been it is slower than dial up and kind of expensive $50-80 a month but worth it to me. All exchanges I have been in carry laptops. I am also going to put a plug in for Skype, it is free video calls to anyone who has Skype on their computer and I also use them for unlimited phone calls to any phone in the US for $50 a year, a great deal I think. It is much more convenient than wandering around looking for a calling card and then waiting for a phone booth to open up not to mention cheaper in the long run.

Under Armour underwear are awesome, I will never wear cotton again, when I wear cotton it quickly feels like I am wearing a wet diaper, not so with the under armour. They are kinda pricey at $16 a pair but worth every penny unless you are a fan of sweaty balls. I do not care for the Under Armour socks, they seem to make my feet sweat more than cotton socks which is strange you would think they would work the same as the underwear.

Get a head lamp and key chain light once you get to your Army training base, they sell them everywhere and are critical when trying to move around at night when all your roomies are sleeping.

I buy a pillow everywhere I go, I don’t carry one and I refuse to use one that somebody else has drooled all over, or worse, so I just leave the old one and get a new one. Bedding sheets are abundant and are much more comfortable than the sleeping bag the Army issues.

Once you get in country you have to turn your laundry in to be done, you will need a laundry bag, I suggest a cotton one, I initially purchased a nylon fish net one and the seams started ripping after two uses. I have seen both types at all exchanges.

As far as the high speed tactical gear, you will not need any of this, non of us are high speed or tactical in an Army sense, remember we are clown warriors, the only piece of gear that I would reccomend is a strap that attaches to your body armor and attaches to you M-4 it has a plastic buckle that allows you to quickly attach and detach your gun. It is much better than a sling and during training it makes carrying your rifle much easier. They are at all the Army exchanges both at the training base and in country.

Bring your check book, there are no ATM's so if you want cash the easiest way is to go to the finance building and write a check, most exchanges will take credit cards, or eagle cash cards, which is just a debit card you set up if you want when you are in country. The local markets and souqs on base are sometimes cash only.

To sum it all up the Army gives you a ton of stuff and the less you have to carry half way around the world the better, and from what I have seen you can get anything you want once you get here, except a Playboy and a Beer, and I bet if I looked real hard I could find those also, however getting caught with either will earn you a quick trip home.

Home in Iraq

I have arrived at my final destination in Iraq and have had a couple of weeks to learn the job so I have not written lately. The job itself is not all that difficult; the hardest part was catching up on all the work the Air force guy I took over for left for me. I am only speculating but it seems to me these guys show up take a month to get acclimated a month to unpacked then they have to start writing their award and evaluation which keeps them busy until they start packing to leave. He did give me a good tour of the base ensuring he pointed out the golf course which I would have never found on my own; it is camouflaged as dirt, looking exactly like the rest of the base except for a few flag poles, that was about the extent of our turnover. He was nice enough to give me all the stuff he had acquired during his stay, a tv, dvd player, fridge, microwave, and internet antenna. All this stuff is crammed in my containerized housing unit(CHU), it is about 8x15 contains all the stuff above as well as a few lockers a bed and some homemade desks and stands and an air conditioner, did I mention it smells like ASS. They are made of metal, think shipping container, the container is actually about 30 feet long and is separated in the middle by a wall making it a duplex. I have giants or possibly bulls living in the other side, they bang shit and stomp around all the time maybe they are practicing their ultimate fighting techniques whatever they are doing it is getting very annoying.

My biggest complaint is the bathroom situation, it is even worse than FT Dix, to start off the closest bathroom trailer is around 100yds away, now that doesn’t seem all that far away until you need to pee at a strange hour, I had heard rumors of guys peeing in water bottles, let me assure you it is no rumor, I have used the water bottle technique multiple times. This brings up another problem, what to do with water bottles full of pee, they build up at an alarming rate and there is not much room to store them in the CHU not to mention the fact that they start a nice golden color but after a few days the color changes to a much more evil looking shade. The whole point of peeing in the bottle is to alleviate long walks late at night to the bathroom but at some point these festering bottles need to be disposed of, so they are hauled to the bathroom late at night so you are not spotted carrying bottles of pee. It is advisable to hold your breath while pouring, I am still weighing the cost benefit of this process, but I believe if used properly and not abused it is an effective technique.

Another problem with the bathrooms is the size and cleanliness, the bathrooms are small and they are generally dirty, in Baghdad, they were large and clean, here that is not the case. All toilets in the Middle East seem to have a design flaw; they have very little water in the bowl. This causes serious smells to emanate from the bathroom, you get a few guys in there laying loads that are all sitting high and dry the smell can get atrocious. I courtesy flush immediately after the majority is deposited, some guys do not follow this simple rule. Another problem is the streaks left after use due to no water in the bowel, I don’t know why but I find it hard to use a toilet that has giant skid marks left in it, and after one use there will be skid marks until it is cleaned, they only get cleaned once a day.

The showers have also been a big disappointment, they are tiny with nowhere to hang your stuff, one thing I find a little scary is the water in the showers and bathroom are not potable, so you cannot brush your teeth but you can shower in the water, to brush your teeth you need to grab a bottled water, I usually grab a half bottle laying around the CHU, my worst nightmare is grabbing a half bottle of pee and not catching it before I start brushing my teeth.

The food is good, a wide selection with a couple of main courses, a pasta bar, hamburger line, Mongolian barbeque and then the specialty line for the day, could be tacos, pizza, gyros, almost anything. They have a nice salad bar and of course the desert bar as well as ice-cream every day. That is the hardest thing to stay away from, they say everyone who comes here will be in the 300lb club, you will either weigh 300lb from the food or you become a gym rat and bench 300lbs. I am shooting for the latter and have been doing a great job at getting to the gym and an ok job of staying away for the deserts.

MWR Tent contains an awesome gym, lots of everything, a movie theater which I have went to a couple of times, I think out of the 200 seats or so I was the only person watching the movie. They have about 6 or 7 pool tables, multiple ping pong tables, a few foosball tables, air hockey, and a shuffle board table. I think I will start practicing my 9 ball and ping-pong and enter the tournaments. I already mentioned the golf course; I will have to play at least once just to say I did it. The base also has a swimming pool which they are getting ready to open, they have it filled and ready they just need some volunteer life guards. I am very impressed with the recreation facilities.