October ‘09 to December ’09

Too close… (October 2009)

A week ago, I was in my CHU one evening, I heard the sirens INCOMING INCOMING … so I get into a protective position, but nothing happened… no booms.  Tonight, right after I got back to my CHU early, I decided to change into PT gear to go work out, and heard the INCOMING… INCOMING… again.  I stopped for a second – and walked to one corner of my CHU and got into a lower profile, but I thought that was a false alarm probably like last week.  But then I heard a whizzing sound becoming louder and louder fast and suddenly KABOOM where I felt my entire CHU jumped!  Holy Cow!!!

I’ve experienced a rocket attack a few months ago where my CHU and bed shook, but this is now FAR louder and felt like the explosion is right outside my CHU.  After the first one subsided, I initially felt a bit of relief, but then I suddenly recalled that these suckers come in pairs so I decided to stay put and then a few seconds later, came that unforgettable whizzing sound and then KABOOM, and my CHU jumped again.  WTF?!

Wait a minute - These are not supposed to be that accurate and having two that loud meant they’re aiming at where I was!!!  Now that was very freaky and who knows how many more are coming.  This is the first time I really feel that I am in the war zone.

Then I heard one more at a distance and also sounds of our defensive battery Close in Weapon System (CIWS) that looks like the R2D2 going off shooting at something incoming.  After a couple of minutes of eerily silence, which felt like forever, I heard the Big Voice (our loudspeakers) saying ALL CLEAR…. ALL CLEAR… 

I immediately put on my boots and ran outside and see if others were ok… Since the explosion was very close to the living quarters, I thought that it might have hit someone.  When I got outside, at the nearby bunker it’s a full house and those guys seems fine. I was relieved that my neighbors seemed fine… and thought that those rockets missed again, as they most often do.

Then within a minute, came this one young soldier running, about 19-year old in her PT gear, looking distressed asking for medic – and I instantly thought “crap” as I knew then that someone was injured.  So, I immediately ran to my truck and rushed over to the nearby TMC (Troop Medical Clinic) and yelled “medic, medic, injuries”… two medics ran out and I heard one of them yell, “grab the A-Bag, grab the A-Bag”  and seconds later, three of them were in the back my truck. Having seen enough chase scenes in the movies, now I was doing combat driving like one, running stop signs and flashing my high beams to get to my PAD… but it’s surrounded by wires, got to an area where they could enter.  The medics were extra alert, got off quickly and ran with the A-bags to the site.  Later on, going around the PAD, I finally found my way inside the PAD and parked near the site crowded with people, and by then two medic Humvees were already there – which was great, I thought… Lots of commotion… people uttered 4 casualties, some critical, and I saw one on a stretcher that seems to have some minor injuries on the lower leg… so I thought, it may be not that bad. ……

It was a total mess, yet surprisingly did not smell or appeared to cause any fire.  It was dark. 

While I was ready to leave to go back to work to draft my SITREP, a gentleman stopped me and asked if I could give him a ride to the Mayor’s cell.  As he saw me he recognized me readily – “Lt. Col Lee” he said… and I remembered him from a week ago when I met him at the Mayor’s cell and he helped me get the room for my CHU mate Fred.  I gave him some details and he reported that back out for his SITREP.  I then learned that there was another hit that did not injure anyone except some T-walls.  So I went back to look for the site of the second one; low and behold, it was 90-ft from my CHU!!!!  No wonder it was that loud… talk about a close call. Good news was that the T-walls really worked!  Blocked all the shrapnel and created a nice dent- need to replace with three T-walls – too easy indeed.

Then, while driving back to work I saw the police lights of apparently the site of another attack.  After stopping, I chatted with the MP who explained that the casing on the ground was the result of a mortar being shot down by CIWS or R2D2 looking guns that are the same ones used on ships.  Then I met the two sailors fire control men that ran the CIWS Phalanx system, they were very proud of their accomplishment of shooting that down.  I took a good picture of these two sailors along with the prized trophy in the middle.  Something they can cherish and will make great sea stories.  It’s good to know that the CIWS do work!  GO NAVY!!!

The bad news later that night was confirming that there was one KIA in that attack… if you look into that CHU, one can readily understand that if you are inside, you are toast.  What bad luck – as I say if the rocket has your name on it, then there’s not much you can do.   But another observation is the other rocket that hit the T-wall… the T-wall was damaged, but clearly did its job to protect the property and people on the OTHER side of the T-walls... Also, the bottom of those T-walls appear to be in very good shape, and shows how important it is to lay flat during an attack – all the items are being thrown around as shrapnel, the lower your profile, the more likely you’d avoid all these flying objects that causes most of the injuries.

Comic Strip Relief

Twelve famous comic strip cartoonist from Gary Trudeau of Doonesberry, Mike Ramirez of LA Times/Investor Business Daily to Jeff Bacon of Broadside of the Navy Times were visiting the soldiers all over Iraq.  I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to have Jeff Bacon to do a drawing for me, making fun of the Army of course!  I had about 10 minutes or so to tell him about myself for him to first come up with the funny story to do the drawing.  With a thick pencil, he moves very quickly on the paper and in only a few minutes, he’s able to put together a picture of me in my camouflaged ACU Army Combat Uniform and another soldier in a sailor uniform (as if he lost the bet when Navy beat Army at the upcoming Dec 12 Army Navy game).  It is a cracker jack uniform, very distinctively Navy, with neckerchief and all, except… wait, there’s no Dixie cup!  So I mentioned this to Jeff, and he realized that as well, and we agreed, since we already drew the short hair of this soldier, we’ll just have him hold the Dixie cup in his hand… and in about 30 seconds, there’s the hat!  That was truly amazing to the talents at work, so quickly on creating the ideas and so artistically portraying it on paper.  

O… RATS!

One of the latest discoveries is that we have rats coming around eating our food.  One day, I opened one of the drawers and noticed that the pack of Instant Quaker Oats cereal has a hole and some spilled out.  I initially didn’t even think much of it until another soldier noticed those are teeth marks and that there are little rat droppings in that drawer. 
OMG!!! Gross!  

Then, it turns out that there are other people’s stuff that appeared to have been touched.  So I cleared out my drawer, washed it out thoroughly, and relocated my stuff.  Then the next day, apparently there was another visit.  The drawer that was cleaned out now has some rat dropping and urine (even more gross), and the funny part was that my boss’s desk also had some rat dropping – as if protesting of my moving the food, and complaining to my chain of command that I have done such bad deed.  What a smart mouse?

By then, we contacted vector control (of course also run by KBR) and two very traditional mouse traps were set in the frequented drawer which we of course cleaned again.  When we returned the next day, I cautiously opened the drawer to see if we had caught the mouse, but, nothing. 

So other soldiers advised me to put some oats and peanut butter to lure the creature and I did.  The next day, the oats looked to have moved but no rats… so I was thinking, these are too primitive traps and didn’t work well enough.  The next day, we checked again….. nothing.  I was thinking of removing the traps since they didn’t work, but I figured might as well just leave it; so, I basically forgot about it.  About a day or two later, I just casually opened the drawer and I almost jumped when I saw a tail.  Yikes… we got one!!!   Both traps snapped and one grabbed the tail and the other knocked it’s head so it’s been dead for a few hours.  My CHUmate Fred was very proud and grabbed the trap and even took some pictures… and later dumped the carcass into the lake to feed the fish.  The vicious black fishes that are nicknamed “Saddam’s Bass”.  There after, I’ve always left a few traps around and as of end of Thanksgiving, I had a total of three rats caught in my area. One soldier commented that now I have “three kills” in Iraq… and I should paint three rats by my desk.  Very Funny…

NOT AGAIN?! (November 2009)

A month later after the last attack to our base, I was leaving work at around 21:30 missing dinner at chow time, so I went to the only DFAC with 24 hr sandwich bar for my tuna sandwich.  Right when I was walking back to the truck with my sandwich, I heard some faint alarm type sound behind me, and then a faint KABOOM.  It sounded far away, but I thought that was from the other side of our base where I worked and just came from … was probably under attack again – so I ran to the bunker between the DFAC entrance and the parking lot – the one I have always looked at every time passing by making the mental note of “that’s where’ I’d be taking cover if being shelled” and finally had the chance to use it.  When I got there our own alarm had not yet gone off, so it was empty and I kept in a low profile.  In about ten seconds or so, I heard another KABOOM and this time it sounded closer… so I was wondering - here it is coming this way.  Then I heard a couple of men talking nearby, and I yelled GET IN HERE! GET IN! and two TCN (third country nationals contractors) – Indians working for the DFAC came in, and I directed them to stay down.  Just when I thought of that, I heard our sirens going off INCOMING INCOMING and KABOOM – this one was much louder; so I knew that much have not been too far from where I was.  After the loud bang, one of the men uttered, that’s BAD… and how “last year it was better” – as in they were more rare.  But there are more this year.  The upcoming national election in Iraq in mid January is expected to bring in a lot of attacks leading to the election as insurgents, terrorists, and even extremists groups are trying to use these attacks to influence the results of the election, reduce the turnouts, thereby undermining the legitimacy of the election result and the subsequently government.

Here Comes the Rain AGAIN!!!

“Nasty” – one word to describe it… don’t get me wrong – with so little rainfall in this very dry place, the rain itself is very nice to have – it clears up the air filled with dust particles, it cools off the surroundings, and feels very refreshing to breathe afterwards.  The nasty part is the ground.  The sand surface that we walk on every day becomes wet thick gluey mud – and you get the picture.  It’s good that we all were issued very good boots, but for area with lots of mud, one can sink into that even with the nice boots we have.  Many buildings have brushes but so long someone has used it before you, you query whether those brushes would help or actually get those boots even dirtier.  Since it rains so rarely here, it seems they do not pay a lot of attention to the need of drainage and so right after the rain, many water puddles appear everywhere. 

Actually, Baghdad has been going through at least two years of draught.  The recent rain storms we experienced is rare and caused the temperature to drop to 40’s which is quite chilly, especially when the high used to be over 115 back in August, less than three months ago.  I even broke out my long johns to keep warm.  With the temperature changing so quickly, quite a few folks at work are getting sick – so I beefed up my Vitamin C intake and hope that I can make it through this round of bugs.

Thanksgiving Present for the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs

After a large bomb exploded in Baghdad, the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs was significantly damaged.  In support of the reestablishment of the ministry through our Foreign Excess Personal Property Program, we located five large but well used generators producing up to 5MW of electricity in KBR's inventory.

After inspection and refurbishing, those were first moved to the Green Zone from Camp Liberty.  To ensure the proper accounting and transfer from the Contractors Property Book to the US Property Book then to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Property Book Officer and I personally accompany the convoy to get these generators delivered.

Though this sounds like a simple task, nothing is straightforward in Iraq, and for OPSEC reasons, everything was more complicated.  Both KBR and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have no SIPR connection (SIPR is our secure Internet network).  The delivery had to take place at late night before Thanksgiving to minimize attention, and involved arranging light sets and cranes to offload the generators.  To communicate with the Ambassador of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, we needed J9 to provide personal courier (just like the movies) as OPSEC would not allow delivery information be transmitted on regular email or cell phone.

The mission was a success, and the five generators are now delivered to provide up to 5MW of electricity for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Press Gets it Wrong Sometimes (December 2009)

There was a Washington Post article about the drawdown in Iraq that claimed that we were leaving good equipment to the Iraqi’s. The fact is not a single SUV was given to the Iraqis - we don't even have enough ourselves!  Plus we have shipped tens of thousands of items to Afghanistan from here since June - not a peep of that in the article.

The fact is that after 6 years of harsh weather, most of the old vehicles are junk and the last thing we should do is spend MORE money to move these around.  Anything that's
worth moving, of course we'll move.  But most of this stuff is not.

Be careful what you read, even in the best newspapers!

Security is Increasing in Iraq, Christian Science Monitor says is Great Place for Business

Life is "exciting" here in Baghdad and we don't get to go out much - it's for our own good to be safe on base.  We get exciting fireworks at night regularly - "incoming mortars and rockets" but we've all learned to duck and cover.  Despite the occasional bombings in downtown, the security situation is much better than they were a couple of years ago.  We have election here set for March 7 (don't worry, I wouldn't run for anything here... ) and our troops will likely drawdown after the successful election.
 
Believe it or not, the Christian Science Monitor reported that Iraq is a great place for business and investment (especially in light of the successful large oil projects bidding last week) and it would be interesting to see how this would improve the business climate now that security is better.  I'd almost say the San Jose Chamber of Commerce should think about bringing a delegation here (like when we visited China), but Iraq is still very fragile, and a lot will depend on the March election results - whether this will turn back to sectarian strife, or a united, democratically respected Iraq that we all hoped for.  Only time will tell.
 
I'm also glad to say that my yearlong adventure in the Babylonian Paradise is coming to an end.  Though I'll be spending Christmas here in Baghdad, I should be home by late January.  It's not all bad - we just had Billy Ray Cyrus, Anna Kournikova and Admiral Mike Mullen on stage last night cheering on the troops... not something I'd ever expect to be in the middle of, but it's a great way to bring up our morale.  I'm just so honored to be serving alongside with all these very brave men and women, and experience their sacrifice that we so often take for granted.

A Good Message for Civilians to Read

The U.S. is blessed:  Less than 1% of the U.S. population is in the military, so very few citizens are directly affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the families of our service members are. Check out this web link to see some great pictures of life in Iraq and Afghanistan, and perhaps change our perspectives on the little things in life that annoy us:

http://meekerlodge479.com/harder-than-being-a-soldier.html

I’ll give away the punch line of the message: “The only thing harder than being a soldier is…loving one.”

So keep your life in perspective, and when you meet one of our returning troops, say “Hi!”, remember what they’ve been through, and show compassion and tolerance as they adjust to civilian life (and I don’t mean this just for when you see me!).