Five Months left

Five months complete, five more to go. The days are dragging and are all the same, it is like ground hog day here, the same nonsense every day. Every day I work with the Army I thank God that I joined the Navy; I cannot imagine having to deal with these Army guys every day for years on end. My biggest complaint is the fact that the Officers from LT Colonel and below will not take any responsibility or make a decision on anything. The standard answer is “that is not my lane” you need to talk to so and so, translation I don’t know and I am not going to find out or help you in anyway, please go bug someone else, anyone but me. I care more about what is going on out here than any of them and I would say that I am way out of my fucking lane, a Naval Officer working for the Army as an Electronic Warfare Officer, which I initially had zero experience with, I am so far out of my lane that I am not even on the same map. This is the cultural difference between the Navy and Army; I honestly believe that if the Navy and Marine Corps were running this show the war would have been over years ago.

The inflexibility of the Army is amazing, you cannot just tell someone to do something, they need a FRAGO, not sure what it stands for but it is just written instructions telling someone to do something. Even with a FRAGO there is a good chance shit won’t get done, they just pretend like they never got the FRAGO, “no I haven’t seen that FRAGO” is a common stall technique, when pressed they immediately fall back on “that’s not my lane you need to talk to so and so”. Then the whole cycle begins again and nothing gets accomplished. If just a tiny percentage of the energy used in dodging work was actually applied to getting work done miracles could be accomplished. A perfect example of their attitude occurred while I was recently conducting some training, (kind of a stretch considering most of the Army guys are untrainable), the actual training is classified so I will use an example that explains in essence their mentality or lack of mentality. The Army could not read emails sent to their computer so I was sent in to see why. I immediately noticed that the background on the screen was black, as the characters in the email were black the Email could not be read. I quickly assessed the situation and explained you cannot read black writing on a black background, if you change your background to white you will see the black writing. After changing the background emails could be seen and read. I walked out of the TOC happy with the fact that I had helped ensure emails could be read. Ten minutes later I walked back in and low and behold the screen was black again. I asked the watch team why the screen had been changed back to black, the answer, that is how it has always been, it cannot just be changed, procedures need to be followed, authorization needs to occur. I was amazed and explained the whole situation, why white is the proper color and that all other computers in the Army are set up with white backgrounds. They told me that is not how this watch team does business and the screen would stay black. Well you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink.

One thing the Army is very good at is ensuring the Uniform is worn properly. Every Army guy seems to be an expert on uniform policy as well as a member of the secret uniform police. People cannot seem to read an order and implement a simple procedure that will save lives with new piece of gear or tactic. However when a new order is released stating that the cloth American flag is no longer authorized, only the subdued infrared flag is authorized, I am immediately accosted by the secret uniform police, they are drawn toward the cloth flag I was issued like flies to steaming turd. The Army guys who are too shy to actually say anything look at me as though I am dressed in drag. Another no no that will quickly attract the uniform police is walking around with your PT shirt un-tucked, nothing brings faster retribution than committing this crime. I have tired of explaining to Army guys Navy policy regarding our PT uniform, I have decided it is just easier to tuck my shirt in.

Stolen Kevlar

I know it has been quite some time since I have written anything, I attribute this to a low motivation to write and since the end of Army IA training it has become difficult to come up with material. I will just ramble and string together events trying to show the day to day crap that is involved in an IA.

Every person coming into theatre needs a Kevlar helmet and body armor, it is required to fly from Kuwait to Iraq and needed anytime you travel, so every single person came to this country with a helmet. I stored mine in my humvee which does not have door locks. A few weeks ago I walked out to my truck opened the door and sure enough someone had stolen my helmet. Now not having a helmet presents several problems. To drive a tactical vehicle ie a humvee you need a helmet, I now have to walk until I can get a new helmet. I have plans to go home on R&R to help my wife with our PCS move, to fly in Iraq you need a helmet so until I get a new helmet my R&R trip is off, I can’t travel by air or convoy to see any of my outlying units because I no longer have a helmet, I can’t fully accomplish my job due to no helmet. I had no idea how important this helmet actually was until it was gone. At this point I am ready to kill who ever stole my fucking helmet. I am calmed by the fact that the Army surely has spare helmets, an item this critical; nobody in their right mind would not bring spares for a situation just like this. I will just walk a mile in 120 degree heat to the supply sergeant tell him my situation and get a new helmet. I arrived at the supply desk several pounds lighter after sweating gallons of water on my stroll. He listened intently to my story of the stolen helmet and upon my completion told me he did not have any spares, I would have to report it to the police then a flipl needed to be initiated and once the investigation was done a supply depot somewhere else in Iraq would ship me a new helmet and to make things easier since I was Navy and not really attached to his command this Army procedure had to be done by my Navy supply folks in Baghdad. I calmly looked at him and said “what the fuck, I have no idea what you are talking about, all I need is a new helmet, you can’t tell me you guys don’t have spares in the back room that I can borrow while I work to get a new one issued.” His response was, Sir we have no spares.” As I walked out of the supply shop my first thought was no fucking problem, I will simply steal a helmet and my problem will be solved. I quickly changed my mind wanting to end the cycle of stolen helmets, I would figure something else out. I walked to my SFC’s (Sergeant First Class) office, told him of the stolen helmet and my predicament. He got a wry grin on his face, reached below his desk and pulled out a helmet. He looked at me and said, “Sir, this is a helmet I found and keep so I can help Naval Officers such as yourself stay out of trouble, you are welcome to use it for as long as you need.” Honestly at this point I was almost crying with joy, I put the helmet on, it was an extra small, I wear a large, it sat on my head looking like a toy, I really didn’t give a shit I had a helmet and all was good again in my Army world.

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.

Clown Warriors

I have finally caught up on all the lost sleep incurred during the trip from FT Dix to Baghdad. The last week in FT Dix fully completed our transformation into Clown Warriors. We conducted both mounted and unmounted land navigation. All our training prepared us for the culminating event, more convoy escort. I am still trying to figure out why we learned this stuff when we will not be doing it. We will ride in a convoy every now and then but I will never be in charge of one. If an Army guy was going flying with us would we send him through a month of flight school, or ship driving school, no that is ridiculous, I have just done the ridiculous!! I will say the shooting and life saving course were good and appropriate, the rest of the training was a waste of my time. Sorry I was rambling for a second, back to the convoy maneuvers. We actually improved and successfully drove our humvees much faster than below walking speed, I think we maintained a blazing average speed of 15 miles per hour. Our one weak spot was navigation, even after the navigation training and a recon mission the day before the lead vehicle had no idea where they were going, they missed every turn. I did learn that it is nearly impossible to back up after a missed turn, and almost as difficult to turn around. During the debrief or after action report as the Army calls it, they told us we were one of the best Navy classes they have seen, now either they were just trying to make us feel good or the other classes were incredibly bad, either way I was ready to leave FT Dix.

FT Dix had many issues one was the shortage of toilet paper, it was on ongoing problem that became a crisis during the last week. It all started after the DFAC (dining facility) served some food that either did not agree with us or it contained a little food poisoning. Normally there was toilet paper, but with the increased demand it was quickly used up. I went into the bathroom with a sense of urgency, I didn’t even have time to grab a magazine, no magazine normally would have bothered me however I knew in this case there really wasn’t any need for a magazine I would make short work of this job, upon completion I reached for the TP, and to my dismay there was none. After about five minutes of contemplation on the situation and with no help in the room I carefully pulled my underwear and ACU trousers on as low as possible, trying to keep them as clean as possible. Stepping into the hallway I asked a passing Chief, with as much dignity as I could muster, if he knew where any toilet paper was. He did not but suggested I walk to the other head which was located at the far end of the barracks, I thought for a second wondering if I should tell this guy I really didn’t want to walk that far due to the fact that I had a mess in my pants, I decided against saying anything and walked to the other bathroom, luckily it had some toilet paper, I cleaned up as well as I could, and took a roll putting it in our bathroom. The next day I was still infected with whatever the DFAC had contaminated me with, and again a sudden and urgent need to use the facilities occurred, now you would think that after the prior days experience I would have the sense to check the toilet paper before use, normally I would have but due to complete concentration on not shitting in my pants before getting them off I did not have time to properly preflight the shitter. Two days in a row I had to walk to the far bathroom to clean myself up, it also meant I had doubled my underwear usage which affected my carefully planned laundry cycle, the whole house of cards was crumbling. Needless to say I was pissed and walked into my cell cussing and bitching, after my caring roommates stopped laughing at me more stories started to emerge. Earlier in the day one of my roommates went to the bathroom and ended up in my exact predicament, his solution was to strip down and jump in the shower, he was already enroute to the shower when the urge hit so he had the advantage of having his towel with him, my other roommate then recounted his near miss at the base Exchange, apparently he was within seconds of an accident but made it to the bathroom barely averting disaster. Things were really getting shitty around FT Dix literally, since my departure all symptoms have cleared up and I make it a habit to check the toilet paper religiously.

Quote of the day, Miss America 1981 at Camp Liberty Tony Orlando show, "Where's my Seaman, I need some Seaman."

The Naval Officer and the Gunfight

In Baghdad, have lots of stuff to get down but just havn't had the time, the following advice was sent from a friend of a friend, found it funny.

The Naval Officer and the Gunfight

... But a word of advice, always remember you are a Naval Officer and a bureaucrat, the best way to use the M4 is to release the magazine, download the bullets into your strong hand. Then throw them very hard at your aggressor. This will stun him in disbelief. As he is looking at the handful of bullets lying at his feet, in amazement, shift the rifle from your support arm to your strong arm and use the pistol grip of your weapon to throw it (as hard as you can) at a point about 12 inches above the enemies head. You will end up hitting him somewhere in the face, thus incapacitating him. Then wave both hands above your shoulders, with limp wrists, and run away screaming. That my friend is how a Naval Officer (and bureaucrat)survives a gun fight with a hardened terrorist. I know it works for me.

Stay safe,
Pickle

One more X in the box

One more day of training complete, today was PowerPoint briefs all day, for about eight hours we endured some of the most mind numbing subjects, Law of War, Force Protection, Rules of Engagement, Uniform Code of Military Justice, the list goes on. For days like today I have learned to channel my thoughts, I drift out of the class room and go to my happy place. It is much easier than fighting to stay awake, at one point I returned from my happy place, looked around, and half of the class was standing at the back of the room in order to stay awake. During the break, a genius offered his technique for staying awake, apparently, if you reach into your nose and pull the longest hair you can find it will reenergize you for at least an hour. Now this guy is a ship driver and they get a lot of practice at staying awake, it probably works if you actually need to be alert, in this case I just need the illusion of alert. This technique is much to advanced for me, I plan on continuing to drift off to my happy place during these type of events.

I don’t remember the name of the training but the gist was to drive a convoy of hummers on a patrol along a route with all kinds of hazards, hidden simulated IED’s, real people acting as angry villagers, and terrorists ambushing the patrol. This sounds like excellent training and it could be, however you have to remember the Army is just trying to get an X in the block. After the standard hour or two of classroom instruction it is time for the circus. There are a lot of tactics and comm procedures to do this correctly; no way in hell two hours is even close to enough. Grabbing all our gear including big red noses and floppy shoes the clown parade headed to center ring. The route we were on was no more than a mile long it took us about three hours to complete it; I could have lapped our convoy several times at an average walking speed. It was probably very comical watching us flounder in almost every situation. A guy dropped his 9MM out of the holster and it was run over by the clown truck. This was quickly followed by the owner jumping out of the truck and digging in the sand for his pistol, he looked like a cat burying his shit. All the while smoke bombs and loud fire crackers were exploding around us simulating incoming mortar fire, we had no blank ammunition, the Army probably thought we would hurt somebody with it, so our gunner was saying bang, bang, bang as he was shooting at a bad guy. At this point I looked at my driver and we both just busted up laughing.

Day two of the greatest circus on earth, our show was urban foot patrol and building clearing. Again after a couple of hours of class room training and one practice room clearing under instruction we were sent out on a patrol through a simulated town with bad guys. Guys that are good at this are SWAT, SEALS, real Army guys, not the clown team. I am not sure why but they gave us blanks this time, not that it mattered all we did was make noise, had we been using real bullets we probably would have killed everybody but the bad guys.

Most of the training we get is simply to cover the Army’s ass, if anything happens and questions are asked the Army can go back and say, well we gave them training in that area, we did everything possible it’s not our fault. After the last three days my Army bullshit bag is completely overflowing.