FW: An Elegant Mix of Tin and Timber

So, a while back I said the showers and latrines were closed and we were stuck with baby wipes and porta-jons.  Well, somebody worked the solution and allowed us to get showers twice a day for the last couple months.  The doors are locked with padlocks during the closed times, but a contractor comes and unlocks them when they are supposed to be open.  He then comes back around and locks them again at the prescribed time.  An incident happened recently and I shared it with a buddy here on base.  I figured if it was good enough to share with them, I could post it on here.  The following is the email message:

UNCLASSIFIED

So, have you ever wondered if it was possible to get locked in the shower trailers if you are in there after 2230?

 

Apparently somebody was locked in one of our shower trailers last night and nobody was there to unlock the door.  Instead of sleeping on the bench inside, the wrongfully imprisoned victim “van dammed” the door, causing the lower half of the door/frame to explode outward and henceforth no longer exist.  Then janitors diligently covered the frame with red “danger” tape, denoting a hazard to all flip-flop clad and towel carrying personnel in the area and directed them to the opposing oasis of showers.  The KBR employees were called to the crime scene and asked to provide cosmetic relief to the ailing entryway.  In a fit of ingenuity and reason, the craftsman fashioned a masterpiece of plywood and screws.  The door exudes neither the style nor attitude of the postmodern architecture we were hoping for, but does display a distinctive mix of white aluminum and aged timber.  Now if somebody would just unlock it when the showers are open next I could say it functions exquisitely.

 

Bottom-line, either somebody forgot the two-toned rectangle was indeed a door rather than a work of art, or we as north park residents are on limited shower probation until further notice.

 

Now you know what happens in the showers after 2230….be forewarned.

Little Engine that Could....kind of?!

Our mission here is to help transition the Iraqi Police, which was created three years ago, from a start-up pool of untrained and mostly uneducated individuals into an independent and self-sustaining force capable of conducting stability and security operations.  Advising and providing training is the largest portion of the mission, but to get the stations we put a few miles on our beloved Humvees and newly arrived MRAPs.  The picture above is from a few months ago while we were muhalla (Iraqi neighborhood) diving and shows one of my squad's trucks.  These trucks are special, so to speak.

When the war started, the Humvee was a thin-skinned, unprotected truck capable of conducting multiple missions.  The vehicle was relatively nimble given its size, but as the IEDs continued to break trucks and personnel, battle labs pushed out upgrades for the truck to include armoring the personnel compartment of the truck.  The armor package added a few thousand pounds of weight and a significant amount of protection compared to the thin-skinned predecessors.  This armor package helped save lives, but somebody forgot to upgrade the engine.

Well in an effort to be more proactive with IEDs and defeat them before they blew up the newly armored, the battle labs pushed out some fancy electronic gadgets.  My trucks have an extra four to six pieces of electronic equipment which help provide a little protection, but again, no additional batteries or engine upgrades.

So, whenever whoever designed the truck sold it to the government and built them, they either didn't know it would be used in the desert, or weren't quite familiar with the capabilities of an air conditioner.  It's not all that bad in the winter when it's cool outside, but now that it's June and the outside temperature is a balmy 125, the A/C doesn't do a whole lot.

To understand what it's like to sit in one of these little trucks, I invite you to get in your car at about 3pm in July after it has been sitting in the sun for a few hours, turn on the heater, and wear boots, jeans, a sweater, gloves and a beanie.  That's about what it feels like to just sit there.  If you're driving the Humvee, your right leg feels like its being blistered from sitting against the transmission cover (same thing if you're in the passenger seat, but on the left leg).  The little computer we have in the trucks that we use to text each other and command post has a metal frame that will burn you if you put your bare hand or arm on it accidentally.  Well, I think it will burn you, I've never left my hand on it any longer than it requires to know it's hot.  So without dragging it out any longer it's an energy sucking drive to get to the station and start doing what we're here to do.

All that description of the humvee wasn't really the point of this post.  I originally meant to make this a funny post and to get back to all the upgrade stuff and explain the impact on us when we're driving.  As I said, the few thousand pounds of armor and all the electric hardware drains a lot of power on the truck.  You would think driving the humvee is a pretty simple job, but it's almost like flying an airplane, and the guy in the passenger seat is the copilot.  There are only a few gauges to watch, but the most important is the battery power indicator and water temperature.  If either hit the red, it's bad news.

We do our preflight checks and make sure everything is good to go.  As we lumber out the gate, we're flipping switches, making sure our seats and trays are in the upright position, and prep for takeoff.  Hitting the road, we punch the accelerator and a loud VROOM erupts, an auxillary fan kicks on and shoots a cloud of dust in your face, and there is absolutely no increase in speed, in fact I think it slows down sometimes.......but then we slowly pick up speed.  Our MRAPs weigh in around 70,000 pounds and they leave us in the dust if they're not paying attention.  So much for being nimble.  I'm convinced a motor scooter or Geo Metro could out pace our truck if we got into a race.  That would be a humbling experience, but our competition doesn't have a big gun mounted to the top of the truck, so we're still cool.  Well, while we're driving we have to watch the battery indicator and from time-to-time power down systems to ensure there's enough juice to prevent the truck from shutting down.  Generally speaking we're good to go, but sometimes our trucks struggle.  The first time I drove, I managed to stall an automatic.  I didn't know it was possible, but yes, an automatic will stall if you don't properly manage the gauges.  Who knew?  Other than not being able to speed off, I also learned the technique of backing the truck up.  For whatever reason there's not enough power to just throw the transmission in reverse for a quick turn around.  First, you have to power down some of the electronics, but most importantly turn off the A/C (which quickly superheats the truck).  If you fail to turn everything off, the truck will just groan and go nowhere.  So after everything is off, put it in reverse, move, put it in drive, turn everything back on, and continue driving.

So that's our truck and how we get around.  Personally, it makes me laugh a little bit on how underpowered the trucks are, but they get the job done and their a lot easier to move around the than MRAPs.  Well, this post was a little boring and sounds like some whining, but that wasn't the intention.  I'm still alive and well.  Oh, the showers are back on so baby wipes and shaving in front of my webcam is no longer necessary.  At least for now.

Scent of Man

So some of you are probably wondering what, where and maybe even who this email is from.  It's me, Joe Helton.  Anyways, I added a few people to a list that forwards my entries to people and thought I'd let you know what I was up to from time to time.  If this email is clogging your inbox, just send a note back my way and I'll take you off of the list, no hard feelings.  This is just my lazy way of proving I am alive.

"Scent of Man," the sergeant said to me--to me that's a funny description of why all the female interpreters on base to sat around a sergeant and I in the chow hall after a long day of training (it definitely wasn't our ruggedly handsome looks of caked dust and sweat stains).  It was funny at the moment and is now totally taken out of context, so I don't expect any chuckles from those reading this.  That description just came to mind after what happened today and seems to be a recent and unwelcome trend.

I was sitting in my room just after making the trek back to my room this morning when my bladder decided four bottles of water was enough for the moment.  No big deal, I'll just walk around the corner and go to the bathroom I thought....Well these guys, these TCNs (third country nationals, AKA low paid workers that do all the jobs you see on Discovery Channel's 'Dirty Jobs'"), must've descended upon the base's latrines with SWAT Team precision.  I came around the corner and there are two guys at each of the four bathrooms putting "Closed Until Further Notice" signs and tape across the door frames.  For added security, another guy was screwing the doors shut with a drill.  I couldn't help but wonder what happened to the initial notice of the bathroom closure, but figured I'd just walk over to the next living area and use their bathrooms.  Wrong.  As I rounded that corner I caught a glimpse of another group of TCNs walking away, leaving the same presents across the door.  Well, there are three bathroom complexes and the third time is a charm, so I booked it across a gravel lot, between sewage tanks, through a hole in the concrete wall and there was another crew finishing up the last bathroom door.  I don't know where they came from, but in all of about 5 minutes, every bathroom on base was locked down.  I asked the guy what was up and he used his best broken english to say the sewage water was backing up in the city.  His buddy held up a bottle of water and said in his finest english, "use dis to showa."  Nice.  So from now, until further notice, I'll be using the superheated porta-jons and the luxury shower/shave kit in the picture above.  

So, at this rate I better make sure there are plenty of open seats around me at dinner tomorrow because Scent of Man kicks at 112F.

Fingerflickin' Good

So as you know it's been quite a while since the last post and I'm not really sure what I should write about or even say.  I've never been one to talk about work, so I'm not sure what is boring or fun for you to read about.  That being said, I'll try not to terribly bore you.

Let's talk about eating since I love to do that, but not quite the same way the Iraqis do.  Let's start off by saying Muslims, or rather good Muslims don't eat pork (or rabbit by the way, weird).  Anyways, cows aren't that plentiful as they're grazers and I haven't seen much grass around here.  So the main dish as far as I know is lamb or goat.  Sheep roam everywhere over here, but they're most often seen near the markets where people buy everything.  There are no Wal-Marts or grocery stores to buy staples, so street vendors and store owners place all their goods out in the open so people will stop and spend their money.  Well the sheep generally have some marking on their wool, generally some symbol or Arabic writing written in spray paint advertising the owner.  The sheep which hang out near the market ought to know better because you can't go long without seeing someone stuffing a live one in the trunk and driving off, or one being quartered on the side of the road.  I'm assuming the butcher takes it to the market and sells it to a store, or he just chooses to do his butchering on the roadside as if it was some advertisement for the quality of meat he sells.  Anyways, the sheep just go on eating garbage (it is rare to see a trashcan around here) or whatever else they can find for sustenance while what used to be Bob and Sara are taken down the street and hung from a hangar outside of a shop for sale.  I've walked past several places like this while on walking patrols and besides the ever present sewage and garbage smell, the meat sometime smells a little strange.  The flies crawling all over it don't seem to help the appetite either (and the flies are everywhere).  

But, back to the eating.  To sit down and eat with Iraqis, or Muslims as I have been told is a good thing, they say it is as if you are now brothers.  When the Iraqis eat, they put on a large spread.  There was a platter of seasoned rice, plates of vegetables, fried things, homemade goat's milk yogurt (tasty!), different types of bread, and of course....lamb.  There are no plates or silverware to use, so I hope everyone washed their hands prior to showing up.  Once they say eat, everyone is expected to dig in (but only with the right hand because the left hand is for the bathroom, and there's no TP in Iraq).  So now that everyone is eating with their hands and touching every bit of food on the table, you get over the initial gross factor and dig in.  There's this weird thing the Iraqis I've eaten with like to do with their food though.  The rice is a bit greasy from whatever is in it and after they make a little rice ball and eat it there's a little bit of rice left on their fingers.  Well instead of being rude, they don't like their fingers, but instead shake their hand and flick the fingers so the rice lands back on the platter so the rest of us can enjoy those savory little pieces.  Again, tasty.

So there I am eating my lamb that was covered in flies while hanging from an outside overhang after it was butchered in the dirt on the roadside post daily garbage buffet, and I'm doing all right despite the turmoil going on in my stomach.  And then the guy looks at me, grabs some rice and a piece of lamb and breaks the lamb into smaller pieces using his now greasy fingers into my hand and motions for me to eat it.  That was the best bite of lamb and rice I've ever had.

If that's what being a brother means, I'm glad I don't have any.

Chai

Chai. It appears to be a staple of the Iraqi diet. I know they drink other things, but that's all they ever have when we're around. Chai is always served hot, too hot to drink at first in my opinion, and puts Southern sweet tea to shame when it comes to sugar. The classy way to serve it is in little tea cups with a tiny spoon, similar to the ones you find as souvenirs in tourist stores. The higher ranking police generally serve us in tea cups, but the other "shurta" or lower ranking police just use whatever cup is lying around. The quality of cup goes unnoticed after the first several times because dishes aren't generally washed, just rinsed. The first time I had chai, it was a little unsettling because the guy got water from who knows where, boiled it in a pot you'd expect to find on the side of a road, served in a broken glass which had brown and green stains on both the inside and out. If that wasn't enough the guy brought me a tea spoon that looked like a piece of cafeteria flatware bent too many times and nearly at the breaking point. I smiled, said "shukran," which means thank-you and looked at what could be the beginning of a few days in bed with medicine. It wasn't going to disappear on its own, so I took a sip, only hoping to not get Iraq's version of Montezuma's revenge. After finishing the cup, he dipped the glass in a pot of water, not once, but twice to make it extra clean, filled the cup with tea and gave it to the next person. Again, the thought of getting sick flashed by, but passed since it was too late and the water was boiled. Now, I thought nobody washed dishes, but I made it to a general's office one day. He rang his buzzer, and the shurta came in a few minutes later with a platter of tea cups of chai. This looked better than the last cup of chai I had, so I took a sip, and to my surprise, behind the sugar and tea, was the everpresent taste of soap. Apparently the general's personnel wash dishes, but don't have the whole double-dip rinse routine down yet.

Chai is a huge part of the Arabic culture. It is rare to interact with an Iraqi in their home or office without them offering to make tea. "Southern hospitality" is anything but negotiable to these people. No matter how little they have, they will always share everything with visitors, as I saw with the shurta. We like to drink coffee and socialize, but they prefer chai. They do have espresso, but I'll share that story another time since I have one page dedicated to two cups of chai.

Anyways, everything is going well here. Life is boring, but busy. I suppose boring might be a good thing, at least to those reading this. Anyways, days fly by and it seems there is never enough time to accomplish anything. What might take a day or two to do in the States, takes a few days here. E-mail and phones are luxuries that are only slightly enjoyed here. The best way to do business is to get on the leather express and walk to the different offices around the base. It hasn't been bad the last month, but as of late, the temperature is in the 80's, and the ground is either sand or gravel, so walking anywhere isn't just a leisurely stroll. Needless to say, sweating is the norm, which means drinking gallons of water. Not 8oz glasses, but liters at a time. Which causes a whole different problem, I'm not terribly familiar with, finding a bathroom nearly every 30 minutes. There are plenty of porta-johns, which can get a little ripe in the sun, but waking up multiple times a night to walk to the bathroom gets old after the first time.

I found a piece of paper blowing across the ground one day. Being the hippy I am, I picked it up thinking I'd put this piece of litter in it's propper place (even though we drive through acres of garbage when we leave one of the gates of base). Turns out it was a baptism certificate for a Christian church. I know this because the church's address was in english, as was the baptism portion, but the rest was in Arabic. I didn't throw it away, just kept it. Kind of weird to find that in a Muslim country, I think.

Last little anecdote for the night. A group of us were walking through an Iraqi neighborhood one day when we came across a group of boys playing soccer. They didn't say anything, just passed the ball to one of the guys with the expectation he would juggle it. Didn't happen. Instead in an uncoordinated kick the ball flew across the street and bounced off someone's gate. The boys got the ball and brought it back to us, and juggled it to the next person. A circle of people grew and we juggled the ball around to each other as well as the Iraqi boys, just like I did with guys from the soccer team a few years ago. There's really no point to the story, other than it bringing back memories of my "younger" years, and the passing thought, "we're playing soccer in the streets of Baghdad."

I guess we're doing all right here in Iraq.

Life For The Next Few Months

So, my life for the next few months will surely be different from that in the states. The following description of "home," sounds terrible, but it's not as bad as it seems. I'm in a little trailer and have a roommate. It's a nice room, but I had more space when i was at the Academy. As for the scenery, it's all military equipment and concrete walls about two stories tall. If it wasn't for the few times I've gone outside the compound, I'd never know that I was in Iraq. And the smell, you can never escape the smell of diesel/jp-8. There are a lot of vehicles moving around, large diesel generators provide power 24/7, and the occasional helo flying around leaves quite the exhaust trail. I guess they burn the trash at night, so the smell of burning plastic envelops the base and makes you want to cover your face as you walk to the bathroom. The smell is gone by morning, but then it's back to diesel. I guess the ground is pretty dense, because when it rains, or actually sprinkles, the dirt turns to a thick soup and it stays that way for days. Good news is that it doesn't rain all the time and the weather has been pretty nice and comfortable the last few days.

As for my job, everything is good and I was working from the first day I got on the ground here. I'm a bit overwhelmed right now with all the information I have to learn, but it will settle here in a couple weeks. Since I'm supposed to help the Iraqi police, I studied Arabic to help break the culture barrier. Apparently I didn't study hard enough because I find myself breaking into Spanish when some of the people talk to me. I have a translator, but it would be a lot nicer if I spoke the local language.

Since I'm brand new to the area I have a fresh look on things. A lot of people don't like the Iraqis, or Arab people as a whole. They're considered to be lazy, dumb, worthless, beggars, etc. I had the opportunity to get off base and walk around the local market to see where the police work. Those few minutes on the ground were awesome. In that time I had the time to "talk," and interact with the Iraqis. To laugh, joke, and shake hands with the men and children was a pretty powerful thing (We ignore the women to keep them out of trouble with their male family members). Come to find out, their just like us on a basic, human level. They don't have the work ethic or the rules that allow us to have such a high quality of life, but I'd bet they enjoy the simpler things in life that we take for granted. With the exception of the over-zelous religious fanatics, the Iraqis and Arabs as a whole are good people. So after ignoring the fanatics, but not turning a blind eye to their treachery, we'll continue helping the Iraqi people stand on their own feet and take control of their destiny. I can now honestly say I will enjoy working with these policemen and seeing their progress as the weeks and months pass. I'm sure there will be bad days, but by the end I expect to see huge gains.

Wheels Up

For all intent and purposes, I'm OCONUS (outside continental US) for the next few months. I'll be travelling and living in temporary quarters for the next week or two with the rest of my training group, so internet connections will be pretty spotty. Not sure when I'll actually arrive at my final location, but I'll do my best to let everyone know. In the mean time, take it easy and have a good weekend.