Aug 29 2007
Dahuk
On Monday, I took my first trip outside the wire. This means that I left Forward Operating Base (FOB) Diamondback for a mission. The target for this mission was Dahuk, a town of about 500,000 in northern Iraq. Dahuk is about 30 miles south of Turkey and feels to be about a million miles away from the rest of Iraq! I spent the day visiting various project sites that are in my area of responsibility. That evening, I went out to dinner at the Malta Restaurant in Dahuk. Here’s a picture you won’t find in just about any other report on operations in Iraq!
From left to right: Peshmerga Guard, Glenn Myrick (Project Engineer), SSG Gene Weil (NCOIC Erbil Office), Aziz (Contractor), Me, Riza (Contractor), Gee (my right hand man), MSG Curt Kaseman (NCOIC Mosul Office)
Riza has a family owned company that provides support to my project office in Dahuk. Aziz is one of Riza’s brothers. There are 7 brothers and 6 sisters in their family. When Riza’s company was awarded the contract with USACE, Aziz was living in Canada. He returned to Dahuk to run the contract because he is fluent in English. In addition to providing all life support for the Dahuk office, such as renting a house for office and living space, Riza’s company also coordinates the security guards for Dahuk. The guards are members of the Kurdish Army and are called Peshmerga.
To put it mildly, Riza is very well connected. Riza is always arrmed with at least two handguns. He knows every important person in Dahuk. Every few minutes, Riza would offer to get me whatever I needed. I never asked for any details on this offer! At Malta Restaurant, we were Riza’s guests. The owner of the restaurant came out to greet Riza personally and to make sure that everything was good. At the end of the meal, after drinking our traditional glass of chai tea, the owner insisted in giving us a tour of the restaurant. Here I am at the end of the tour with the owner.
Looks like a nice place, but you never commented on the quality of the food. Guessing that it was all right.
The food was awesome. Since I’m supposedly the guy in charge around here, they always ask my opinion on everything. When they asked what I wanted, I said “Meat”. so we had every kind of meat imagineable (except emu and kangaroo). Luckily, I have velcro on my belt for quick adjustments.