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Last Thursday night, I put out the garbage and there was a thick humid feeling in the air that midwesterners know to fear. Soon, a storm came into Stafford. The thunder was pretty intense and the lightning quite bright. I know tornadoes are not common in Virginia, so I wasn’t all that concerned. However, at 2300, I decided that the storm sounded bad enough to warrant me checking the National Weather Service online. Actually, being a Meloch, I can make up any excuse to check the weather. So, I logged onto the National Weather Service, entered my town of Stafford, Va and read the following, “A tornado warning has been issued for Stafford, VA. A tornado has been spotted, seek shelter immediately.”  Ignoring the urge to scream, I immediately ran upstairs, woke the kids and took them down into the basement. The power flickered once , the rain poured down, and I prayed. We all slept in the basement that night. Abby slept on Dale’s recliner and being a true Manry said it was a very comfortable place to sleep. Josiah slept on a pile of beanbags. Gabe inflated air mattresses for himself, Zeke and I. As I was laying on the air mattress, all I could think was, “I am so glad we are not moving this summer and I won’t have to sleep on this for 3 months.” The next morning, we discovered that the tornado struck approximately 15 miles away. We saw some of the damage of snapped trees and missing windows. However, last night we realized that spring was not done with us yet. Another storm came through that dumped 3 - 4 inches of rain on Stafford County. My clean gutters decided they preferred to be clogged and rain poured off them and soaked the ground which overwhelmed my basement walls. From 2100 - 0100 last night, I attempted to stop the water. Gabe, who goes on duty during storms, and Josiah hauled all the toys and rugs upstairs and got everything off the floor. Josiah didn’t complain with his Wii and DVR under threat. I had placed a large rolling garbage can next to the porch under the largest stream of water coming off the gutter and would periodically walk out into the pouring rain and haul it to the curb to dump it. I was quite the sight at 0030. I would then return to the basement and lay down multiple towels and wring them out into a large pail and then dump the water from the pail into the utility sink. That was exhausting work. I thought of all the people I had seen on the news over the years filling sandbags to stop a flood.  How they keep going is beyond me.  I was so tired, it was difficult not to give up and admit defeat.  Throughout this process, I was thinking of the Army’s favorite motto of “Work Smarter, Not Harder!”, but in moments of crisis, more efficient actions always escape me. At 0100, I was too exhausted to stand and went to bed praying that the water would not flood the entire basement. This morning, Gabe woke up and performed the damage assessment. The boy is destined to be an Engineer.  After dropping the kids off at school, I drove to the home improvement store and purchased Dale’s Father’s Day gift: a 12 gallon wet/dry vac. I put it together and tested it out to make sure it worked. I’m sure he’ll love it.

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.

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.

The toilet training of my 4th child has been extremely slow. I had hoped that since he had taught himself his numbers, letters, and colors, he would teach himself to always use the toilet. Abby was wearing underwear by 2 1/2, but both of Zeke’s brothers didn’t wear underwear until 3 1/2. Well, Zeke’s 3 1/2. I bought underwear with Diego on them several months ago, and told him he could wear them when his pullup was dry for the entire day. Peed in clothes and wet spots on furniture and rugs is just something I do not like to deal with. Finally, on Monday, he went to take his bath, took off his dry pullup, held it over his head, and ran through the house yelling, “I wear the underwear! I wear the underwear! I wear the underwear!” He typed his father the news via email, to which his father replied “I wear the underwear too!” Most likely these are the underwear the kids sent Dale for Christmas. He always threatens to buy the kids socks and underwear on their birthdays and on Christmas. They decided to get him back this year and wrapped up some underwear to replace the ones covered in rust stains from his ill fated wash load. I’m sure it was his favorite gift. One of the difficulties of the change to underwear is that Zeke no longer has a pullup on to help hold up his pants. I need to buy the boy a belt. He walks around looking like a belligerent youth with his pants falling down. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Zeke would announce to all he met, “I wear the underwear! It’s Diego.!” Then, to his siblings mortification, he would periodically show people his underwear. He kept his underwear dry all day Tuesday. He had only one accident on both Wednesday and Thursday. Today…Well today we had three changes of clothes and I think his underwear joy is starting to fade .

This morning I went on a site visit to an Iraqi Army (IA) compound on the west side of Mosul. One of the local Military Transition Teams (MiTTs) requested some engineering assistance. A MiTT is a team of US Army advisors assigned to work with an IA unit. Periodically we oversee construction projects to renovate IA facilities. So the MiTT asked if I could have a couple of Engineers take a look at the Combat Outpost (COP) occupied by their newly assigned IA unit. I tasked Alda and Mo to visit the site with the MiTT, and then I decided to tag along.

We rode with the MiTT in their up-armored HMMWVs (humvees). Two of my security team members also came along to get a look at the compound for future visits. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Unfortunately, things got much worse as we took a closer look. The IA Battalion Commander was very excited to have us assess his compound in the hopes of getting some assistance in fixing it up! He walked us through his unit area pointing out his key concerns. The biggest issue is that the septic system is completely backed up. But that’s enough bad news. He was very proud to show us his battalion store.

It makes me appreciate the PX on Diamondback that much more! Of course, we ended the visit just like we started the visit, sipping a cup of chai in the commander’s office.

Once again, the TV was never turned off.