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I’ve decided that while I’m deployed in Iraq, I might as well start working out. I think it’s starting to pay off after the first week. Here’s a picture of me coming out of my office trailer during a force protection exercise this morning:

Not that you need me to tell you, but this isn’t really me. Meet Dylan. He’s from Wales and is a member of my personal security detachment (PSD). He works for Erinys, one of the two private security companies that are working for USACE in Iraq. Mugs can rest well at night because I have a whole detachment of guys like Dylan hanging around the compound!

School starts in two days and my attempts to move the kids bedtime back to a more reasonable hour have so far been unsuccessful. I am primarily to blame with my habit of making dinner at 1900 and allowing long baths and wanting us all to read together. The main culprit, however is that I am a night owl and if there were no outside factors, I would stay up until 0200 and wake up at 1000. Ezekiel appears to have my same inclination. I put him to bed at the same time as his siblings who eventually fall asleep. He, however, is up in his room, playing his Diego game, putting together a puzzle, reading books, or singing tunes from the 70’s. My brother, Rob, bought me the first season of the Muppets on DVD and the kids love to watch it. They loved it so much that they pooled their money together and bought the second season when the disk was released last month. Zeke has learned all the songs that the guest stars sing and you will periodically hear him burst forth with “Ahhh-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ahhh Close to you” or “Searchin, I’m gonna find her”. I know people must think I listen to the sounds of the 70’s radio station with all the ridiculous songs he sings. The other night, we said our prayers, all the kids got tucked in, and I went downstairs to paint. After awhile, Ezekiel walked down the steps. I looked up and asked him what he was doing. He told me, “Taken a break”. I asked him if he was taking a break from Nigh, Nigh and he said “Yah, taken a break.” So, I’ve decided to look at things from his perspective, I’m not staying up later than I should, I’m just taking a break from bedtime.

Last week, while recovering an Army vehicle in Iraq, Schweigart, 22, was shot by a high-powered rifle and had a bullet pass through his arm and chest. The bullet went through his nipple and into his Bible. Hitting the Bible may have saved his life.

I just read this article in yesterday’s Mideast issue of the Stars and Stripes. The article was written by John Anderson, a reporter for the Wellsville (N.Y.) Daily Reporter. You can read the full article at the Wellsville Daily Reporter.

PFC Schweigart states that he received the Bible in bootcamp and didn’t want to go into combat without it. The bullet, fired by a sniper while Schweigart was recovering another vehicle, went through his left arm, into his side, out his chest and into the Bible. If the Bible had not stopped the bullet, it could have hit the inside of his Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) and then ricocheted back into his chest again. That by itself is pretty amazing. However, what I find even more amazing is his reaction immediately after being shot. Here’s what he had to say about it:

My Lt. Colonel was standing next to me and asked me if I needed anything. I said yea, I need my Bible. He reached in my pocket and saw it, and there was the bullet.

He’s laying there after being shot by a sniper and asks for his Bible.

Luckily Mugs bought me a Bible that fits in my cargo pocket!

Mugs reminded me last night that I’ve neglected to share with everyone the details of my travel from Kuwait to Iraq. In a previous post, I mentioned spending some time in Ali Al Salem in Kuwait. Before I arrived in Kuwait, I didn’t know how much time I would spend there before moving on to Iraq. Turns out, I spent less than 24 hours in Kuwait. I arrived at AAS at 0400, slept until lunch, explored the tent city for half a day, then flew out to Iraq at 0100 the next morning.

The military takes every appropriate action to protect its assets (personnel and equipment) from losses due to hostile actions. The majority of flights in and around Iraq take place in the middle of the night to avoid terrorist activity. Additionally, the flights are flown in such a manner so that the aircraft is not greatly exposed to enemy fires. As mentioned in the title, I flew on a C-130. This is the workhorse for the Air Force’s tactical airlift mission. The seating accommodations are cargo nets running along the sides and the middle of the plane. The windows are blacked-out, and of course, there are no in-flight meals or entertainment! Needless to say, it’s not a very comfortable ride. Most legs (non-Airborne qualified personnel) out there question why people want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. The answer is that it’s so uncomfortable in the airplane that after a couple of hours, you’ll do anything to get out.

Our flight from AAS this morning included a quick stop in Balad before continuing on to Mosul. It was easy to tell when we began our approach to Balad because it felt like the pilot pushed the nose of the aircraft down as sharply as he could without crashing. Then just for fun, he threw in numerous hard bank turns in either direction. After a couple minutes of this, I started to feel a little queasy and broke out in a cold sweat. Sitting a couple people away from me was an airman who was going on to Q-West, the stop after Mosul. At this time, he pulled an air-sickness bag from his pocket and proceeded to empty the contents of his stomach into the bag. Fortunately for me, I felt the wheels touch down about a minute later. The total flight time to Balad was a little over one hour. After touching down, the crew opened the tailgate for those stopping in Balad to unload. The pilot kept the engines running so that we could take off as soon as possible.

The take-off from Balad was just as fun as the landing. Luckily, I was a little more prepared for it this time. However, I was unable to locate an air-sickness bag for myself, so I practiced a lot of deep breathing exercises! The 20 minute flight to Mosul was over too quickly when we began our descent. My stomach did not have enough time to recover from all of the earlier trauma. Once again, the airman utilized his personal air-sickness bag, while I began my deep breathing exercises. As before, I broke out in a cold sweat. It seemed that the descent into Mosul took much longer and was much more dramatic than the landing in Balad, but I hung on and barely made it again.

I stumbled off the tailgate with the 3 other individuals stopping in Mosul. Once inside the military terminal, I discovered that there was no one waiting for me. When I called the office number, it was very evident that I had woken Master Sergeant (MSG) Kaseman up from a deep sleep. MSG Kaseman is the NCOIC of the MAO. When I told him I was sitting at the airfield waiting to be picked up, he commented that they weren’t expecting me for a couple more days. Gotta love Army planning!

So there you have it. I can’t even look at those rides at the fair that spin around without getting sick!

In my family, there are two topics of conversation that are always relevant. One is any conversation that discusses the weather and the other is whether or not you have changed your furnace filter. The importance of changing your furnace filter is emphasized throughout this conversation and old anecdotes told about the daughter who didn’t know a furnace had a filter to change are brought up throughout. Having just purchased a home, the furnace filter conversation has taken place quite often. It is embarrassing to me to admit my ignorance of all things home repair. I do not know the answer to the simplest home repair questions. In years previous, my solution was to ask Dale to fix it and thereby cover the extent of my ignorance. With Dale deployed, my ignorance is now painfully obvious. The plastic bit that held a kitchen drawer in place broke, so I brought it to Lowes to get a replacement. They didn’t have the exact one, so I bought 4 different plastic bits in the hope that one would work. I then wedged myself into the bottom cabinet and attempted to screw the new plastic bit that looked most likely into place. The screw went round and round, but did not penetrate the back of the cabinet. I then shimmied back out of the cabinet and googled “do you have to drill a pilot hole before you put in a screw” - ignorant question #1. The answer to this appeared to be yes, so then I went downstairs to find Dale’s drill and stared at the endless array of drill bit choices and guessed that the drill bit should be smaller than the screw. I may have googled that ignorant question as well. Then I had to figure out how to tighten the drill around the bit and wedged myself into the cabinet again. I attempted to drill the pilot hole and the bit came flying off. Apparently, I hadn’t tightened the drill enough. When I finally got all the screws in, the plastic bit was crooked which made the glide not level, so now the drawer won’t close all the way. My next home maintenance failure was my attempt to put the air intake cover back on after I painted the hallway wall. The screws would no longer hold in the dry wall and I realized I would need to attempt a wall patch or mudding or some such home improvement task that I was ignorant of. Instead, I decided that if I slid it over just a hair, I could get 3 of the 6 screws to hold so that it won’t fall off the wall. I attempted to put a small piece of rolled up duct tape behind the top corner in an attempt to fool the eye, but that didn’t hold. So, the top is hanging out from the wall. When I put the air intake cover back on, the duct was filthy, so I was jarred into thinking about past furnace filter conversations. I then decided that it was best to get down to the basement and change it immediately before I called home again, so that I would have something new to say during the usual furnace filter conversation. Thankfully, the heat pump has a panel clearly marked filter. I unscrewed the panel and was shocked and dismayed by what I saw. The furnace filter was in pieces because it’s paper had gotten so full of dust and dirt. After I extracted all the pieces I could locate, I looked at the new filter. It had helpful little arrows and a single sentence “place arrows in the direction of the air flow”. Ignorant question #2 - Exactly which way does air flow through a furnace?