May 11 2008

Happy Mother’s Day

Posted by Dale @ 2:24 pm in Deployment, FOB Life, Outside the Wire

This morning while reading the Bible, I came across a Psalm that sounds like something a mother would say to her kids. The translation is The Message, and the passage is Psalm 15:2-5a:

Walk straight, act right, tell the truth.

Don’t hurt your friend, don’t blame your neighbor, despise the despicable.

Keep your word even when it costs you, make an honest living, never take a bribe.

It’s hard to find better, more succinct advice than that!

I went on a site visit inside the city of Mosul this morning. There is a curfew in effect throughout the whole Ninewa Province due to an ongoing Iraqi Army operation. This offensive has been reported in most major news media. Because of this, the streets were particularly empty as we drove to the different sites today. All three of the sites we visited are sewer/storm drain projects. Below is a picture from the Al Jasaeer project site. The contractor installed a new storm water sewer system on the right hand side of the road where the new manhole and pavement is visible. Before this, there were no storm drains in this area, just like in Phoenix!

As we were returning from our mission today, I noticed an interesting tattoo on one of the team members. Instead of wearing a wedding band, he has a tattoo on his ring finger. It’s hard to read in the picture, but it says Chrissy.

Happy Mother’s Day from Mosul.

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May 09 2008

Jim Lockard, 1961-2008

Posted by Dale @ 8:18 pm in Deployment, Outside the Wire

One week ago today, on 2 May 2008, MAJ Rick Biddle walked over from the Operations trailer and told me that SET 8 had been hit by an IED. SET 8 is based out of COB Speicher in Tikrit. The team had taken some USACE personnel on a project site visit along the Bayji to Baghdad Pipeline Exclusion Zone north of Tikrit. Among the personnel was Jim Lockard, a Project Manager working at GRN. At approximately 1000, Jim’s vehicle was hit by an IED and came under small arms fire from insurgents. The Aegis SET repelled the attack, pushed the insurgents back, evacuated the USACE personnel, and returned to COB Speicher. Jim died at the CSH as a result of his injuries sustained from the IED blast.

When I arrived in Mosul in August 2007, Jim was the Project Manager for the GRN healthcare clinics. For a couple of months, I spoke with him every Sunday during the weekly healthcare clinic conference call. I finally had the pleasure of meeting Jim in October 2007 when I went to COB Speicher for the Engineer Conference. I immediately liked Jim as everyone did when they met him.

On Wednesday, I traveled to COB Speicher for a memorial ceremony in honor of Jim. COL Pfenning spoke of his admiration and respect for Jim. Several other of Jim’s colleagues also gave remarks during the ceremony. They each consistently mentioned his love for his wife Maria and his two teenage daughters Danielle and Nicole. They also shared stories of his sense of humor. One of the speakers shared Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. In this passage, the Preacher says:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

I reflected on those words of Solomon as the bugler played Taps at the end of the ceremony. I along with everyone else that had the pleasure of knowing him will miss Jim dearly. Each night my kids pray for the safety of everyone deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world. They mention me by name as well as others we know that are deployed. In Mosul, we will continue to honor Jim’s sacrifice every time we go outside the wire.

Rest in Peace, Jim Lockard.

May 02 2008

Back in Iraq

Posted by Dale @ 9:08 pm in Deployment, FOB Life

I just wanted to make a quick post letting everyone know that I have arrived safely in Mosul again. Actually, Mugs told me to post!

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Apr 28 2008

My Digital Camera (for now)

Posted by Dale @ 7:37 pm in Nature

See, I told you that Mugs would appreciate my new camera. I am taking it back to Iraq with me, but I don’t think I’ll get to keep it once I return!

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Apr 03 2008

Inshallah

Posted by Dale @ 9:43 am in Deployment, FOB Life

Inshallah is an Arabic word meaning “If God (Allah) wills it”. The phrase is used when Muslims refer to something happening in the future. They pepper their conversations with inshallah. For example, one of my Engineers may ask a contractor “When are you going to submit an updated construction schedule?” A typical response from a Muslim contractor would be “I will have the new schedule to you on Tuesday, inshallah.” This comes from an Islamic scripture that says “And never say of anything ‘I shall do such and such thing tomorrow’. Except if Allah wills it.” Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?

Now when Tuesday rolls around and the contractor did not submit a new schedule, I’ll ask him why he didn’t submit the schedule. He’ll reply “mashallah” which means “God has willed it”. Inshallah has become almost an escape clause for not doing something you were supposed to do. This has made it a very popular phrase with the soldiers here in Iraq.

I spent the last two nights sitting at the airfield trying to get a flight to COB Speicher in Tikrit. It was time for the semi-annual Engineer Conference. I was there for the last conference in October 2007. Check-in for flights is 1 hour prior to lift-off. I was scheduled for a 2330 flight on Tuesday night. When I checked in at 2230, I was told that the flight was on a weather delay. Everyone was instructed to stand-by and wait for updates. An hour later at 2330, the person working the desk announced that the delay was still on and to stand-by again. The same thing happened at 0030 and 0130. Finally at 0200, the flight was officially cancelled.

When your flight is cancelled, that’s it. You are not automatically booked on the next flight. You must request a new flight. The catch is that all flight requests must be submitted at least 72 hours prior to the flight. But you can sign up for stand-by at any time. So I went back at 2120 on Wednesday to wait on stand-by for a 2220 flight to Speicher. At check-in, I was told everything was on schedule. The board showed the flight consisted on 2 Blackhawks. Each Blackhawk will typically carry about 11 troops in addition to the crew. So that meant 22 seats. There were 11 people that had previously booked for the flight, so that left 11 seats for stand-by. I think there were about 25 of us waiting on stand-by. Normally, you would think that the first 11 on the list would be told to wait, and everyone else would be told to go home. But that’s not the case because sometimes they have the wrong aircraft on the list. If the flight shows up with a Chinook instead of a Blackhawk, then that means an extra 30 available seats on that one bird. So in true Army fashion, once again, we wait.

Well, at 2230, the desk officer announced the flight was again on weather delay. This happened again at 2330. But at 2355, he gave us the good news, “it’s on”. He got us all organized in our different lines, one for scheduled passengers and another for stand-by passengers, in order of priority. We gave him our ID cards so that he could scan them into the passenger tracking system. He was finalizing his instructions at about 0020 when another flight operations person came out to report that the flight was cancelled. The birds had left their initial location, ran in to some bad weather, and had to return to their starting point.

Why didn’t I go to the Engineer Conference in Speicher? Mashallah.

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