Today I had a proper cup of tea for my arvos. Shorty popped into the office this afternoon and asked if we had any milk that he could use. Shorty is a Pom from London or thereabouts. He runs the operations for one of my personal security detachments. You may remember a picture of Dylan in a previous post. Dylan is the guy that has biceps as big as Mikey’s. Anyway, Dylan left last week, and Shorty was promoted to replace him.
For some reason, as soon as he asked the question about milk, I thought he must be making tea. So I asked Shorty if he was going to be making a proper cup of tea this afternoon. He replied that he was and offered me a cup.
Here’s a picture of Shorty with his tea pot.
Last night the school hosted a family fun night for the middle school kids to get to know each other through game playing. Social events are so successful with a bunch of preteens who wander around aimlessly and don’t talk to each other. Everyone started out having ice cream in the cafeteria and then moved into the gymnasium to play games. Gabe went into the gym ahead of me while I was talking to some of the other parents in attendance. When I finally got into the gym, I found Gabe sitting forlornly by his game and he told me, “I don’t know why they named this family fun night.” Where are the Briens when you need them? I saw Josiah talking to a kid in his class and got my hopes up that he had asked him to play a game. But no, why would he do that? Josiah’s teacher set up a game with her son and I made Josiah go over to join them. I finally found a little girl to play a Spongebob version of Life with Abby, Gabe, and I, but the length of the game proved too long for her. Abby’s teacher pulled the large jump ropes out and Abby went over to twirl them, so kids could jump double dutch. She was doing great when her teacher was on the other end, but then a boy in Abby’s class insisted he could do it just as good and took the teachers spot. For the next 30 minutes, the kids attempts to jump in were futile because he couldn’t get the rhythm of the ropes. Some other kids were playing a form of keep away with the only ball in the room. There were three adults playing Dutch Blitz who needed a fourth, but I was stuck as the Spongebob banker and couldn’t join. By the time the kids gave up the Spongebob game, the Dutch Blitz cards had been put away. “I don’t know why they named this family fun night,” I thought. The only one enjoying himself was Zeke who had found the Uno Attack game and was busy pressing the button and shooting cards at himself. On the way home, I instructed my children that they had to be more willing to go and talk to kids and ask them what game they wanted to play. Abby replied, “That’s just not my personality.”
Feeling that we had not had enough family fun, I decided that today we would go on a family bike ride. I was not deterred even though I knew I had to put air in the tires, straighten the handlebars, put the foot peddles back on, and teach Gabe to ride without training wheels. I thought, “How hard could it be?” When Dale called for his weekly chat with the kids, Zeke was sobbing into the phone in between statements of “Mommy mad angry”. Hard for other people, no. For me, oh yah. I did manage to get the bikes road worthy with some help from my neighbor. The hammer isn’t actually helpful during bike repair, but it made me feel better to bang a bike with it. Gabe had his first bike riding lesson and survived the sticker bushes and wipe outs. Five years ago, I taught Josiah and Abby to ride a bike when Dale was going to Korea. Now, I’m teaching Gabe to ride with Dale deployed to Iraq. I’m hoping that when Zeke is old enough to learn, Dale will actually be here to enjoy all this Family Fun.
This is my first post in a new category - Must Have Deployment Gear. No matter what Mugs may say, I don’t collect a lot of personal field gear. I will admit to possessing an astounding array of boots and gloves, but if your hands or feet are uncomfortable, you’ll be miserable the whole time you’re in the field! Anyway, I do believe that the right tool can make all the difference.
Someone recently sent me a collection of comics from Bob on the FOB. One of the best is titled Geardo. According to Bob on the FOB, a Geardo is “someone who spends at least 50% of each paycheck (before taxes) on the latest & greatest gear, just to have the latest and greatest gear, regardless of whether or not that gear will actually help the wearer perform his/her duties.” See Geardo and other comics at http://www.bobonthefob.com/pastbob.html.
The first item in my Must Have Deployment Gear list is the spork. For my birthday this year, Mugs and the kids bought me various small pieces of deployment gear. My spork is one of those items.
This awesome spork is from a company called Light My Fire. If you would like to purchase your very own Light My Fire spork, you can find it online at Campmor.
When I finished my run tonight, I stretched for 10 minutes. Make sure you tell Lay Fong that I’m still stretching; I don’t want to get in trouble again. Anyway, after showering, I used my spork to eat a bowl of Smart Start cereal for dinner. I know in my last post I heaped praises on the DFAC, and now I’m writing about eating cereal for dinner in my hooch. Technically, it was DFAC food, since I brought the cereal and milk from the DFAC. But that’s not the point of this post. This was all made possible by the spork. I carry the spork in one of the cargo pockets on my ACUs and am ready to eat at a moments notice!
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.
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!
