manrymission.com

By Mugs Manry

“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.”

Acts 4:32 (NIV)

The sight of a large truck being loaded with household items will elicit the following prayer from me, “Lord, thank You that this truck is not parked at my house.” Our family has moved many times because of my husband’s military career. After each move, there is a tremendous push to put things away. Inevitably, I run out of energy and cannot face another decision on where something should go. Therefore, piles of items remain in various rooms to trip over or maneuver around as we settle into a new place.

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Thank you all for your complements on the blog. It was the one thing Dale asked of me while he was in Iraq. To be honest, I didn’t want to do it. I did it because I knew how much it meant to him. He would read the blog and grasp a hold of home. The sand and violence became a temporary existence for him. What I wrote assured him that there was another reality. Then he returned and I fell off the blogging wagon.

This past summer, I attended a writer’s conference which emphasized the benefits of blogging because you capture a story, idea, or thought as it happens. (Dale was so happy to hear that he was right.) They termed it banking your writing ( a new way of saying: keeping a journal). Later, you rework the writing for a specific purpose: devotional, teaching, article, book. “Book” was too overwhelming to me, so I started with “devotional.” With my mom and many others praying for me, I hope one day “book” may be possible.

For now, I am focused on blogging and devotionals during my writing time. Hopefully, I will not fall off the wagon again. It gives me great joy to know my writing has made someone laugh, ponder, or pray. I thank you for reading and I sincerely appreciate your encouragement and prayers.

Today I visited one of our current projects rebuilding the police headquarters near the town of Makhmur. The original site was devasted by an SVBIED (car bomb) in May 2007. The project includes two buildings, the police headquarters building and a traffic police station building. The project is managed out of the Erbil Resident Office, where Gary York is the Resident Engineer running the office.

Gary has been with USACE in Erbil since March 2005. We farewelled Tiffany in Mosul on Friday night. I sent out a picture of Tiffany with her embroidered Engineer flag, our standard departure gift. Gary replied to the email saying he liked the flag and that he was jealous. I told him he could get one of his own if he ever actually left Iraq!

On the way to the project, I snapped a picture of a field of sunflowers. I know it’s blurry, but I didn’t think the security team would like it if I asked to stop to take a picture of some flowers.

The project engineer, Engineer Nawzad, gave me a tour of the ongoing construction, along with Gary. In the photo below, I am leading, followed by Engineer Nawzad and Gary. We are in the courtyard of the main police headquarters building. From the look of the photo, I appear to be saying something really insightful like “Look at that dirt”.

The quality of the construction and the professionalism of the contractors are very high in Erbil and Dahuk. I always appreciate the opportunity to visit their projects. Earlier this week, I went to a new project in the Sommer neighborhood of Mosul. We went early in the morning before the contractor had arrived to get a look at the foundation work. After we returned to FOB Marez, the contractor called Nazar, the project engineer, to tell him that the Iraqi Army wouldn’t let him work on the site that day. We had to make numerous calls to get things cleared up for the contractor to get back to work.

That’s why it’s so nice to visit Erbil and Dahuk. We generally don’t encounter the security problems there. But on the other hand, we do have to worry about picking out paint colors.

Earlier this month, I took a trip to the town of Rabiyya. Rabiyya is an Iraqi town on the Syrian border. We are involved in an upcoming project to improve the border crossing in that area, also known as the POE (point of entry). In the picture below, taken from Google Earth, you can see the stark contrast between the development on the Syrian side of the border compared to the lack of development on the Iraqi side of the border.

Our project is to build a new immigration building. So we drove up to Rabiyya in our REVAs to take a look at the project site. In the past, this same drive would take approximately 4 hours because we had to avoid most of the major routes heading west out of Mosul. But because the security situation has improved, we were able to take a much more direct route and arrived in Rabiyya after driving for only a little over 2 hours. Unfortunately some Iraqi government officials from Tal Afar were killed by insurgents on this same road earlier this week. So the improved security comes and goes right now.

To get an understanding of the project, we basically walked the route an Iraqi would take if he were crossing the border into Syria. Here we are heading into the first check point for border crossing processing.

In addition to my normal security escort, we were supported by Eagle Troop, 3/3 ACR. They live at COP Heider right on the Syrian Border. It was pretty quiet this day because the POE was closed. Notice the lack of any traffic in the photo below. The large yellow arch is the actual border looking from Iraq into Syria. Compare how empty that is with the number of trucks lined up to cross the border in the first picture.

After spending about 30 minutes on the ground, we went back inside COP Heider, used the latrine, drank some GatorAde, and got ready to head home. We discussed the project with LTC Preskitt, the US Army Officer who runs the POE Transition Team (POETT). The POETT is a group of US Army personnel who advise the Iraqi Army unit responsible for running the POE. Unfortunately, the project is currently on hold while the Iraqi commander of the POE tries to get more funding to increase the scope of the construction project. After that discussion, we had the fun of another 2 hour drive in the REVAs to get home.

I have a dream. In this dream a construction project goes smoothly from start to finish.

I spent a few days this week visiting projects in Dahuk and Erbil. COL Pfenning, my boss, is due to return to the US next month. So he is making his last visit to all of the USACE offices in GRN, which he commands. On Thursday, we had lunch with Governor Nawzad Hadi, Governor of Erbil. I was intrigued by the invitation he extended because he told us to bring our swim trunks if we were interested in swimming.

The lunch venue ended up being the Hawler Water Park. Erbil is also referred to as Hawler by most Kurds. The water park is a public park owned and operated by the government in Erbil. The main attraction is a giant pool with water slides. Fortunately for everyone around, I did not bring a pair of swim trunks.

We arrived at the park a little early. So while we were waiting for the governor to arrive, the park operator showed us his bowling alley. How many people do you know that have gone bowling while deployed to Iraq? Maybe the Army will have to take back my Hazardous Duty Pay (HDP) and Danger Pay (DP) for that day. Since I get $100 per month for HDP and $225 per month for DP, I stand to lose about $10.83 for one day. I definitely prefer the danger pay the Aussies receive!

It took me a little while to get warmed up. But I blame that on having to use an alley ball. It didn’t fit right and kept slipping off my thumb! COL Pfenning looks like he has spent some time in bowling alleys in the past. After the governor arrived, he and COL Pfenning bowled 5 more frames together. Governor Nawzad uses the brute force approach to bowling and slings the ball down the alley as hard as possible. He reminded me a lot of Jeff!