21 March 2004 - Well, Kathy has been hounding me to get some of this down on the internet, so I finally decided to make some time and get some thoughts out and onto digits. I'll try to focus on positive things, but this is going to be more rambling then anything. 3 months! That's how long I've been with this unit...the 276th Engineer Battalion. I won't say much about this unit other then it has issues. The entire staff is a group of officers who, literally, have been pulled from other units and organizations, with no prior working experience together other then the XO and S3. Sure, our S2 has worked with the XO (and they're good friends), and the S1 was the HHC Commander, but this is the first time that all of this staff have been working as one. Here's my analogy (and there will be many analogies as this deployment creeps along)...the staff is like a bunch of random ingredients thrown into a blender, blended until mixed up (lumpy, but mixed), and then given to someone to taste. How good do you think it's going to be the first time? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Now you see what I'm getting at. Alas, I have to admit that we're finally getting to a point where this staff can work together and it's not all "me, me, me" and now it's more like "how can I help you (to help me)?"

Well, the time we spent in Richmond was a waste. We should've just gotten to Ft Dix and finished up our training as soon as possible and foregone the need to have everyone home for the holidays. Nice leadership gesture, but it did cause more problems then it solved I believe. Had we gone to Ft Dix when we were supposed to, we would've finished training up earlier, and then have started our time here sooner. This also would've avoided (I'm assuming) the drinking and driving incidents, and the stabbing incidents. Enough about Ft Dix. It's a bad memory which I want to forget. If it wasn't for the training, it probably wouldn't have been too bad. If it wasn't for 1LT Dawn Wheeler (my battle buddy during this deployment), I would've reached my bursting limit long before we ever got out of there.

The flight over from New Jersey to Kuwait was, actually, great! We flew a Delta 767. Of course, all the officers sat up front in First Class. HEY!! Rank does have it's privileges now. We also had the baggage crew sit in first class. Mostly b/c they volunteered to be the baggage people, and they deserved it after working their asses off. Hell, think about it...one of my duffels weighed in at 65 pounds...and they had to move over 300 bags onto the plane (Shawn...I'm sure you can empathize). The first leg was a 7 hour flight to Rome, Italy. Got to see Nice France, and the Alps from the air. Pretty huh?

Bad thing in Italy...we couldn't go into the city (or even the terminal for food). The good thing...me and 1LT Wheeler got to sit in the cockpit as they landed the plane. The co-pilot had me and Dawn going over charts and what not assisting them. I'm sure that they were just amusing us, but it's pretty neat nonetheless. I tried to take pictures, but this underwater camera isn't of the greatest quality. I did get to see the Coliseum all lit up at night. From the air, it was beautiful...I wanna see it from the ground level someday.

Kuwait was...well...barren. The drive from the airbase to Camp Victory was terrible. First off, it was already reaching 90's in Kuwait during the day, and we got there in the morning, and got to sit around until late morning. Right at the start of the heat. Go figure. First impression is that the Kuwaitis aren't too concerned about fixing up their country. There were still burned out vehicles and buildings with large caliber bullet holes from the first Gulf War. 13 years!!! I can't believe it!! Anyways...here is basically what the camp looked like, more or less.

Pretty spartan eh? The big white jugs are the 500 gallon water jugs hooked up to the shower trailer next to them. That's how we got to get showers. It wasn't too bad, except that water ran out quickly. We had 24/7 phones, but were limited to 30 minutes, as well as free internet...again limited to 30 minutes. Food was pretty good there. Steaks, ribs, baked fish, fresh vegetables, lots of fruit, etc. They had movies playing in the MWR tent, but they were all older ones. Monty Python and the Search For the Holy Grail was the biggest hit. There was table tennis, cards, dominos, regular TV from the US, board games, and my favorite...foosball!!! At least I thought it would be great. First time I played was with/against some Marines, and let me tell you...I got my butt handed to me with a side dish of humble pie. I could make excuses, but the only thing you need to know is that the pair of Marines we played against, used to be their Base's Foosball Champions. Didn't play again while I was in Kuwait. Dawn and I used to sit and plan our day around when chow was. Pretty sad. It would've been better, but they cancelled all our training so we could get into Iraq faster (we didn't get here any faster). Worst thing about Kuwait is that LT Wheeler and I actually planned our day around chow. We had problems with the Air Force coordinating our flights out of Kuwait into Iraq...something about them not expecting such a large unit at once. Huh?! Aren't they the guys who haul thousands of pounds of cargo at a time? On a moments notice sometimes? Anyways, we didn't hear about our flight out until literally 4 hours prior to the buss coming to pick us up. I was the chalk leader for our flight, and thankfully everything went smoothly enough. 

The flight in was rough. As we neared Mosul, the pilot began tactical flight maneuvers as he came in (which is a big deal in a C130). For those who don't know what that is, it's sharp banking turns left and right, as well as swift drops in altitude to prevent anyone from being able to lock onto the bird as a target. All's I remember out of the small porthole size window I was sitting across from was....Earth....sky...earth....sky....earth....you get the picture. The countryside was pretty (what I could see of it). The pilot came screeching out of the sky and literally nose-dived the last 1000 feet towards the landing strip before he pulled us up and righted us. Wish I could've sat up front as the pilots did that. We were quickly ushered off the bird, and then met up with our unit. As the Battalion Commander was giving us his "Welcome to Mosul" demotivational speech, right around the corner, a vehicle-borne IED (improvised explosive device) went off. The convoy that was picking us up was actually the unit we replaced, the 1092d Engineer Battalion out of West Virginia. These guys are hardened veterans (they were in every major operation since the start of the war), and they just reacted to the explosion. They started to block off the block so no non-military traffic could approach. The medic began heading over to the explosion without even thinking, and the leadership was already calling it in. It was impressive...I just hope our unit can be that good. NOTE: This unit did not lose a single person to combat. They had one wounded, but it was minor. Guess they had some idea what they were doing. When the explosion went off, almost everyone jumped, and you could actually see the fear sweep across some of these soldiers faces. Guess reality was setting in. Not to brag or anything, but I don't remember flinching at the explosion, and it dawned on me that I was already well into the right mindset. We got to our base camp and got settled in pretty quickly. We have these nice connexes that have A/C, heat, and electricity. Not to mention room to spread out for those of us who have a connex to ourselves. Here's what the connexes look like in relation to a Hummvee...this picture was taken the first day I got to be the main gunner on a convoy.

I've been on at least five convoys by now...a couple to the Palace, one out to our southern base an hour away, and out to our western base about 2 hours away. Nothing harder for me then staying awake as a passenger in one of those vehicles, plus having to support a rifle out the door the entire time. I have a tendency to tense up pretty well when we leave the wire, and by the time we reach our destination, my grip hand is usually pretty tired from holding the weapon so tight and holding up out the window. You can see in this picture what I mean.

Weapon at the ready regardless of location. You never know when or where an attack may come. Kind of hampers the view doesn't it? Palace runs are pretty good. We tear through the midle of the city at about 50-60 MPH...we barrel through intersection regardless of what the police say (usually they stop traffic to let us pass), and we drive down the center of the lines. Iraqis have come to realize that they can't pass us if we're on the road, so some of them just hold back. We've had a few sideswipes, and we just keep going. No major accidents yet though. Before the Strykers got here, Iraqi's didn't use their rearview mirrors, so they used to get the Strykers rolling up on their bumpers and then pushing them out of the way. We've done that once, but it was s mall tap. Nothing devastating,. I've heard that some soldiers who have come home drive like this...can't really blame them. Since I now have my HMMWV license, I'm doing some driving. Need to get ready to return to the Beltway. One thing I can say...there is a Datsun graveyard and it's called Iraq. That's all they drive...these little shitbox Datsuns!! Or they're driving BMW's and Mercedes. No real middle ground.