manrymission.com

Over the past week or so, I’ve spent my free time working on a redesign of the blog. Free time for me is basically from 2000 to 2200 each night. The time I spend working on manrymission.com is a means of relaxation. My other outlet is running. I usually go for a run at about 1900, take a shower afterwards, and then watch some TV, read a book, or work on the blog. All of this week has been devoted to the blog redesign.

One of my favorite parts of this design is the cubic globe in the header. To create this, I downloaded some satellite imagery from NASA’s Visible Earth project. I then used GIMP to tile the imagery into 6 tiles. Finally, I used GIMP to create a cube and paste the appropriate image tiles onto the cube faces.

While Mugs and the kids are sitting around eating bowls of chocolate frosted sugar bombs cereal while watching the Food Network, I’m dining on the fine cuisine of the FOB Diamondback DFAC. The Army DFAC is typically referred to as the Mess Hall for very valid reasons. On a normal Army installation, soldiers that live in the barracks are allowed to eat in the Mess Hall for free. Even with this authorization, most soldiers choose to eat off post as often as possible. There is always one person in the crowd that enjoys the Mess Hall. One such individual is Chris Coleman, a friend of ours from when we were stationed in Germany. He and Mugs were Platoon Leaders in the same company when we were Lieutenants. Once when we were on the subject of food, Chris commented that he loved eating at Waffle House. Seeing the looks of shock on our faces, he went on to explain that he preferred Waffle House because “It’s the quantity of food that matters, not the quality.” Hopefully that helps you put his enjoyment of the Mess Hall in perspective.

Anyway, the DFAC here in Mosul does not deserve the Mess Hall moniker. This is the most impressive DFAC I have ever seen. Due to OPSEC, I am unable to post any pictures of this magnificent structure. You may recall the explosion in a DFAC in Iraq around Christmas in 2004. The blast killed 22 soldiers and wounded 66 others. That occurred here in Mosul on FOB Marez, right across the road from FOB Diamondback. Because many soldiers congregate at DFACs, these facilities are considered high-value targets. So we take every possible measure to ensure the safety of our soldiers in the DFAC. I will not discuss anything here that violates or compromises OPSEC.

In the FOB Diamondback DFAC, the options are endless. At every meal the mainline has a couple of options for the main dish as well as several alternatives for side dishes. For example, at breakfast this morning, from the mainline, I got bacon, hashbrowns, and a biscuit with creamed beef gravy. While at lunch, I had General Tso’s chicken over rice, also from the mainline. But if the pickings on the mainline are not to your liking, other choices abound throughout the facility. In the morning, when I have a little more time on my hands, I wander over to the omelet bar and have a made-to-order omelet. For the fast food junkies, burgers, hot dogs, fries, onion rings, and even cheese sauce are in abundance. Some days it’s even possible to get jalapeño hot poppers.

But wait, that’s not all. If you call in the next 5 minutes, I’ll also throw in the Ginsu knives!

I’m running out of room and haven’t even mentioned the taco bar, pasta bar, potato bar, soup bar, salad bar. Have I left out any other possible bars? I guess the only bar not in this DFAC is the kind of bar not authorized for US troops in Iraq. But at least there’s Coors non-alcoholic beer in every cooler in the DFAC. I laugh every time I see someone with their near beer.

When my household goods arrive, there is a tremendous push to get things put away, flatten boxes and discard packing materials. Inevitably, at some point, I run out of energy and can not face another decision about where to put something away. So, piles to trip over sit around in various rooms. One pile that I had been unwilling to face was a giant pile of shoes on my bedroom floor. Upon seeing it, Josiah asked me, “Why do you have so many shoes?”. I told him to look carefully at the pile and rephrase the question, to which he replied, “Why does Dad have so many shoes?” As with the coffee cups, the sheer number of shoes, boots, and sandals that Dale owns can overwhelm any closet. He has 17 pairs. This is after I made him cull his shoes prior to leaving Australia. I told him Josiah’s question about his shoe pile to which he replied that the Army had issued him three pair of boots to go along with the ones he wore to Fort Benning. He also purchased new running shoes in Iraq. I know it could be much worse. My parents neighbor moved out of his house after living there for 30 years. He had 32 coats. His children tried to convince him that he did not need 32 coats, or for that matter 3 anvils. 3 anvils! I can’t imagine living with someone who keeps 3 anvils in the unlikely event that he might need them some day. This ridiculous scene next door has inspired my Mother to clean out her basement and give away all the strange gifts I gave her from my various travels. She asked my (she who throws everything out) permission and I told her to toss it all except for the saber which she can give back to me. You never know when you might need a saber. Probably as often as you need an anvil. She loaded it all up in the car for the Goodwill, but I’m sure she still feels guilty about giving away useless items that have been sitting in the basement for 17 years. Dale’s pile of shoes will be unused for the next 11 months, but they are not useless. They are a constant reminder of how desperately I want him to return safely so I can berate him in person about the number of shoes he owns. He can’t wear them now, however, for he is far far away. When I tell Zeke that Daddy is far far away, he replies “Zeke go far far away!” I wish we could, I really wish we could.

While on my recent trip to Dahuk, I visited a project site in the small village of Beshinky. This Kurdish village consists of about 14 families living in mud and thatch houses.

You may notice the television antennas on most of the houses. A recent US Army project by a Civil Affairs unit brought electricity to the village for the first time ever. However, they still don’t have running water. They get all of their water from a stream that runs through the bottom of the valley. The women use buckets to carry water from the stream to their houses. My office in Dahuk is managing a project to dig a well, pump the water to a water tank, and distribute the water to each house through a small distribution network. While visiting the site, I was invited to have chai with the mokhtar (village mayor). He is the one in the picture below with the light blue shirt.

We are sitting in the shade of his grape arbor. If you look closely at the picture, you will see the clusters of grapes hanging down. While waiting for the chai to be prepared, the boy in the picture leaning against the post brought out small glasses of water for each of us. Being the guest of honor, he offered the water to me first, and I gladly took my glass and began sipping. Glenn, a new project engineer, was next and did the same. However, after that, all of the more experienced members of my office politely declined the offer. At that point I remembered all of the warnings against drinking any unbottled water! Oh well. Too late now.

I am happy to report that there were no adverse effects from drinking the water. I guess the spring is relatively clean. When we sat down for chai, we were told it would be about 10 minutes until it was ready. The person telling us this then added “10 Kurdish minutes”. Well, it ended up taking about 1 hour for the chai to be ready. I guess Kurdish minutes are very similar to Brien minutes

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!