12 October 2004 - I've always maintained that it's sometimes better to be lucky then good. For the past two weeks, that's exactly how I've felt. Since the beginning of October, I've been at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, attending the second phase of the Engineer Captain's Career Course (ECCC), which is part of the required schooling for promotion to Major. Out of all the branches that are represented in Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan, the Engineer's are the only ones who are holding this course. All the other branches have decided that they will not put their equivalent course on while soldiers are deployed in theater. There are probably over 400 qualified lieutenants and captains  who needed this course, and out of the 100 slots available, I managed to grab one. What's worse is that I'm not even an Engineer. The ECCC is generally a 3 phase course, with phase 1 consisting of somewhere around 50 correspondence courses, which must be completed prior to attending phase 2, the 2-week resident course at Ft Leonard Wood, Missouri. Phase 3 is a 16-day long Combined Arms Exercise (CAX...used to be CAS3 for those of you who know that school). This "resident" phase was a much needed break, although it was compressed into 9 days as opposed to the standard 14, which in a time of war, I'm sure you all can understand why that is. The phase 1 requirement was waived thankfully. As much as I would loved to have gone to Missouri, alas, I'm not complaining about being out of Iraq. Camp Arifjan is a relatively built up base located on the Kuwaiti coast, to allow for sea movement of equipment. There are no mortars or attacks on the base, and we weren't required to carry our weapons or ammunition with us. Kevlars and body armor were brought, but thankfully stored in "the overhead bin." This was especially important because where we are in Kuwait, it's a good 20 degrees hotter then in Mosul, and the humidity is hovering around 50%, which in the desert is unbearable. Oh, how I dread having to deal with the Virginia humidity again. Around classes, I spent a lot of time sitting in and around the bases pool...relaxing...throwing the football...and so yes, I now have a tan again. There are niceties here as well...Baskin Robbins, Pizza Hut, Subway, Burger King...the staples of all good bases. There are two PX's here, but alas, they are still limited in what they carry, but I expected that to begin with. Two fitness facilities with more and better equipment then we have in Mosul has been a refreshing change. I've been able to get in regular workouts and vary the routines enough that I don't feel like I'm doing the same things all the time. Of course, as much as I didn't think this would happen, me and my compadres noticed that we were jumping at simple sounds. Think of a large cooler and someone slamming the door shut. It makes the same sound as a mortar when it lands off in the distance. Loud bangs from construction equipment has us all looking over our shoulders. The warehouse we're staying in has large HVAC systems, and whenever they kick on, my heart jumps. I've been forced to go to sleep with my headphones on so I don't hear the A/C units starting. Such is life I suppose.

So, some things of note since having gotten here. Camp Arifjan is an official, unaccompanied, one-year overseas tour for the active duty, much as Korea is. BUT (Caution: time to bitch), the soldiers assigned to Arifjan get hazardous duty pay, separation pay, and hostile fire pay. WHY?!! There hasn't been an attack on the base...ever. There aren't any known threats against the base. The soldiers assigned to this base are all from REMF units. That's Rear Echelon Mother F*****s to you who don't know. AND the soldiers here admit it. I say at least make them carry their weapons with them all the time. While scoping out the area, we have noticed something's that have chapped our asses. We've been asking for the M114 Armored Humvees since we got into country. The Army has consistently told us that none are available. So they contracted out this modular up-armoring kit which we call TARDEK (not sure what the official name is or who makes it). The TARDEK kits aren't a fully enclosed system, since they are modular. There are gaping holes which shrapnel can make it through, and still potentially injure someone. This happened to one of our soldiers who was injured before...shrapnel snuck around the side of the kit. The factory built armored humvees on the other hand are more of an enclosed system, and are therefore better at stopping smaller pieces of shrapnel. We found an entire lot of these armored humvees in Arifjan, just sitting there. Now, to be honest, I don't know why they are there, what their destination is, or what their intended use will be, but it still chaps the ass to have the higher-ups say "No, No, No" and then you find the exact things sitting in a motor pool. Oh yeah, and to follow-up with that one, we've been told that the TARDEK kits are only available for Humvees, HEMTT trucks (tractor trailers), and LMTV's (new 5-ton vehilces). Since we don't have LMTV's that doesn't help us, but we have a number of old 5-ton and 2-1/2 ton trucks that we transport soldiers around in, do patrols in, etc., and we're told that there isn't a kit for those trucks. Well, again we found otherwise. In Arifjan, at the TARDEK point, we found photographic proof that the company that makes the TARDEK kits has duece and a half and 5-ton kits already made and awaiting circulation. Maybe it's about money. Maybe not. Maybe it's b/c these trucks are due to be phased out of service anytime now, but the fact is that we have the trucks now and we're driving around the city without the armored protection that is available. I'm not asking anyone to champion this cause for us though. We're pursuing this through the chain of command as we're supposed to, using photographic proof to help support our argument. I doubt we'll see the fruits of this before we leave, but if we can help the follow on units, then we've done our jobs.

Ok, nuff about that. The ECCC focuses on cold war era doctrine with a heavy division. I've learned a lot about planning and emplacing minefields. About being a Task Force Engineer and how to best support the Infantry in their fights. I've learned a lot about how we employ our engineer assets in support of mobility, counter-mobility, and survivability operations. It's interesting to learn something new, something of which I used to see the Engineer Officer do all the time while I was assigned to the Infantry. Makes more sense about what he did, and why he was always stressed out. It's a lot of responsibility. Of course, one of the things this course dealt with was the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP), which is basically the military's formal process for developing courses of action for an operation. It's the cornerstone of all military staff analysis and planning. Everyone in the world conducts some form of the MDMP whenever they have to decide on something. The military just spent oodles of time and money formalizing it so that all members of the Army are on the same sheet of music. Considering that in my 5 years of active military service, over 4 of them have been on a staff, I was more then qualified for the MDMP portion of the class. And it was obvious which officers were not on staff and struggled with the process. It's not intuitive to do it the miltary's way, but it is effective when you get the hang of it. Ask any military officer how much they love the MDMP, and they will all groan and roll their eyes, but I must admit, it was nice to be only one of 5 students in my class who knew what to do when we had to generate an Operations Order to military standard. And to stroke my own ego some more, the instructors made a comment on how well I knew the process and how well I was able to brief my order in front of the class. They especially noted two things...one that I was very confidant in my briefing, and two, when I needed to, I was very good at deflecting and redirecting questions about info in my order that pertained to someone else. Most of the other students tried to answer outside of their lane, but me and a couple of others were aware of what was our responsibilities and what wasn't. The instructors noted that this is something that all staff officers need to learn. And speaking of the instructors, they're two senior Captains from Ft Leonard Wood. These two cats are funny...very laid back. They served in OIF-1 so they were able to empathize with what we were going through. They knew exactly how to throw real world experience into what they were teaching, and that made the course so much better. So overall, the course has been a very positive experience. Too bad that the Signal Schoolhouse isn't doing the same thing,

We're getting ready to leave for Iraq on the 13th, so we'll see how things are back in Iraq. Pray that it's quiet.

17 October 2004 - Sheesh! Here I am finally sitting on an Air Force C130 transport plane finally heading up to Mosul. My last entry was supposed to be posted back on the 12/13, when I was originally expected to arrive in Mosul, but as you can tell, it's late getting posted. I've spent the last 4 days sitting around at Camp Doha waiting for a Space-Available Air Force flight. Problem with Space-A is that equipment/supplies get priority over soldiers, and soldiers coming off R&R get priority over those waiting to fly Space-A. Me and many of my classmates have been shuffled back and forth to the airport terminal to catch a flight, to only be told that the flight has been cancelled or is full, and then we've been sent back to the barracks they have us staying in. 5 times in 4 days, the fifth time being the charm. Never thought I would manage to get on a plane. Tell you what though, sitting in a Air Force terminal, or riding around a bus between Army and Air Force bases is always better then sitting in Mosul while the VBIEDs are going off.

For those who have never been on a C-130, and I'm sure that's a lot of you, the noise is absolutely deafening. The seats are mesh seats, so they're extremely uncomfortable, and the heat in the plane is incredible considering that we're flying over 20,000 feet (can't say the exact altitude). This is NOT good for my back people!! The flight in from Kuwait to Mosul is roughly about 2 hours, so it could be worse. I really feel sorry for those soldiers who had to fly in the C-130 from the US to the Middle East. At least I got to fly commercial. Ok...now that my stomach just dropped out through my mouth, I take it we're getting ready to land. Yep...can feel the pilot's getting ready to do the Kabul spiral...a maneuver which pilots use to minimize the heat and target signature against shoulder mounted ground to air missiles (not that those have been a real problem or anything).

I'll post these last two entries as soon as I can. Time to go back to the war I guess.

18 October 2004 - EGAD!!! And what a way to step back into the war. I was only kidding, but I don't think anyone told the Insurgents that. Since arriving back in Mosul, we've been mortared six different times in 24 hours, prompting 3 separate accountability calls. Apparently, since the start of Ramadan, the attacks have been more frequent, with a string of 15 mortars in a row, 2 days ago. Isn't it interesting how the attacks step up during the Islamic Holy Month? How many Christian fanatics do you know who use Christmas as a reason to attack more abortion clinics? Or defy the Government even more? Or whatever the heck it is that the Christian Militia do! These fanatical Muslims are crazy, and it doesn't help that we now have a whole new Brigade of soldiers here for them to shoot at. The second Stryker Brigade to be created, the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (1/25) has taken over control of the area, and these guys are NUTS!!! They're more arrogant then the previous Strykers. They have absolutely no regard for rules on the base, thinking that they own the entire FOB. They speed, don't follow the traffic rules, walk in the middle of the road, and now the new Mayor cell has freaked out b/c of a few mortars (ok...more then a few) and has started mandating body armor all the time. My goodness...I just went through this crap in June and it was unnecessary then too. Our IBA will NOT save anyone if a mortar hits anywhere near them...granted it will stop any major shrapnel from penetrating the torso to badly, but still. Anyways...I'm back to being jumpy again. Need to get my scrambling legs back. It's a cruel reminder that the war still goes on. The airfield had an MP who was killed 3 days ago, and my commo chief's connex was peppered by an air bursting rocket the other day. Thankfully, it exploded so high that the shrapnel didn't penetrate the connex sides, and no one outside was injured. As far as I am aware, no one from my unit has been injured by any of this, and most of this is contained to just the Mosul bases.

For those of you who heard about the VBIED last week, it was a soldier who was literally on his last patrol, as his unit was getting ready to leave in a few days and the new replacements were taking over after that patrol. The attack was by a small pick-up, which came driving up on a parallel road and then turned down a side street and came barreling out into the side of a Stryker. We actually found a copy of a video online which had the exact attack. Very disturbing...more so b/c last month I was in a convoy with this same unit, and one of the Stryker vehicles hit a pick-up truck that had suddenly come out of nowhere and hit it. The only damage in that incident was a section of the RPG cage on the Stryker was ripped off, and the pick-up was smashed pretty badly. I don't know what happened since I was sitting inside the Stryker, but I saw the aftermath. Now it makes me wonder if this was their way of testing out their tactics and we, as a military screwed up b/c no one shot the truck, or shot at it after it hit, or anything. I reported it to the Intel guys, but I have no idea where that went from there.

I ask that everyone please just don't worry too much (I know this will fall on Kathy's deaf ears). Keep your eyes open and see if I pop online now that I'm back in Mosul where I have a continuous connection. That's the guaranteed best way to know that I am well. If you ever are unsure, send me an email and I will be email you back as fast as I can. It's about 1800 right now, and I expect the evening barrage of mortars here in the next hour. I'll see everyone when I see them.

19 October 2004 - So 4 posts in less then a week. Don't get used to it...just that there is always something to report this week. Since returning from Kuwait, there have been over 9 mortar attacks on our base, and an additional 15 on the airfield. They've been averaging about 4-10 mortars per attack. We call it the Ramadan Business Schedule. They get up before dawn, eat their breakfast, shoot off some mortars, then go to work. They get done with work about 1300 due to lack of energy from fasting for Ramadan, so they decide to go shoot off some mortars. And then after they return home and finally get something to eat, they go out and for shits and giggles, you guessed it, they launch off some mortars. And the worst part is that the insurgent cells don't coordinate their attacks, so we actually end up getting hit 4-5 times a day. Starting to feel like Baghdad right now. Anyways...it's right after our lunch time, and I'm sitting down too a nice bowl of noodles (I worked during the normal lunch hours), and out of the blue, I hear the distinctive sound of a mortar going off some distance away. Being the hardened veteran that I am, I just kept eating my noodles...that is until the second one fell...and it fell much closer. The crack of the explosion and the minor shaking of my connex told me that was way too close for comfort. I scarf down the last noodle dangling off my fork, and scramble for my body armor! BUT...it's not there!! Or at least, it wasn't where I normally leave it. Took me a few seconds to wrap my mind around the fact that I put my IBA up onto my bunk when I came back from Kuwait so I could clean the floor. Plus my scrambling legs were a little slow from my 2 weeks in Kuwait. As I barrel out of my CHU door on all fours, I basically stumble the 10 meters to the concrete bunker for my CHU row. Right about the time I fly out the door, the third and fourth rounds hit, and it's CLOSE!! Too close for my taste...and for my eyes. I look up and I see the black plume of smoke they created when they hit the 2-14 Cavalry living area. Watching...the fifth round comes in and this time is in the road, right next to our TOC. Dirt flying everywhere... smoke rising from the crater...these bastards were walking the mortars in towards us...intentionally or otherwise I don't know. Then there was a pause...so I stood up and started back for my CHU to retrieve my radio and weapon. That's when the sixth round fell. And it found a mark that we have been hoping would never be found...our TOC!! I saw the mortar hit the TOC, so I ran my little ass off to get up there. I grabbed a medic as I ran by telling him to join me b/c I think the TOC just got hit. In the middle of the day, the TOC can have up to 12 people working in there. Thankfully, we only had 5 working in there at this time since it was the end of the lunchtime and people were still returning from the DFAC. The round hit the roof of the TOC, and by the stroke of God, it hit one of the crossbeams (or whatever they're called) that supports the roof. Normally, a mortar would punch through plywood until it hit something more solid, like concrete, but since it hit this cross beam, it detonated. The TOC also has an interior ceiling made of a plywood and plastic something or another (I'm not really an Engineer...I just play one on TV). The concussion from the blast and the shrapnel that was generated by the explosion forced three of the 4'x8' sheets to come loose, and fall. The TOC was immediately filled with smoke, burnt wood, and burnt fiberglass from the insulation. From the outside, you could see a gaping, burnt 2'x2' hole in the roof. Once inside, it was difficult to see b/c of all the dust and smoke, and the stench was even worse. The smell of brunt fiberglass is not a pleasant aroma!! The five persons appear to be alright...their coherent and calm. The Battalion XO was amidst the five, and he was already directing people on what to do...where to move the fallen ceiling pieces, what to call out over the radio, etc. I was the first "outside" to get there with the medic. My heart jumped into my throat as soon as I walked into the TOC, but still I pushed in and started to usher the TOC personnel outside into the fresh air.  The XO was still directing people until he saw me, then he asked me to take over managing the TOC while he took care of the people. As you can see by the pics, this is what a (supposed) 80mm mortar does to a wooden hut.

Within a matter of an hour, the BN CSM had already had our carpenters round up the needed supplies and begin to rebuild the destroyed section of the roof. And, other then a few shrapnel holes, the TOC looks just as good as before. And if we're lucky, no more mortars will hit this building while we're still here.

The hole in the roof from the mortar. As you can see, the mortar detonated on the roof, and the concussion was what penetrated.

View from inside the TOC. Little bits of shrapnel actually made it into the TOC, but due to the wood being in the way, the shrapnel's velocity was reduced so much so that it didn't cause any injuries.

...and a closer look at the damage. The cross beam that caused the round to explode is visible in the bottom half of the picture.

One of our high speed low drag carpenter's repairing our roof. Within an hour, we were already repairing the roof. Angered the force protection guys b/c we had gotten this far in the repair before they were even able to come down and do some blast analysis. Maybe next time they won't take their time...we sure didn't!