As I figured, things have changed regarding the move. We're still heading to the same general area, but my destination has changed a little bit.
From our company (B Co), our 3rd platoon is being attached to E Co (engineers) to help augment their capabilities. At first, the plan had been to have one of the E Co medics cover the platoon, and I would stay with Bravo to cover the platoon we would be getting from D Co. This, however, has changed, and I am now flying out Thursday (I think) to E Co's area of responsibility. I'm actually happy with this change, as I have done most of my missions with 3rd platoon; they all know me and are confident in me and my abilities, and I know how they work. I think this is going to work out in everyone's best interest.
My address is changing just a little; all that is changing is the platoon assignment.
PFC RUFFIN, TROY
B Co, 3rd PLT, 2-7 IN BN
UNIT # 73431
KOREAN VILLAGE
APO AE 09371-3431
Still don't know much about the area for which we'll be responsible, or specifics on living conditions. As so much of this is up in the air, and it doesn't appear that any more information will be passed down to us, I am taking the "worst-case scenario" standpoint and anticipating not having the chance to use the phone or internet after I leave here on Thursday. If that is the case, my next chance to use them will be when I arrive at one of the larger bases on my way home on leave. Still don't have a confirmed date yet, but I have been told I'll be on the first or second flight out for the month. Rough estimate is 6-10 October, but will have a more definitive idea when I start my travels back towards the States.
I have most of my gear packed for the upcoming move; just the stuff I need on a daily basis left to throw in my bad. I'm also stuffing my aid bag with as many extra supplies as it will hold. For now, it sounds like I may be close to one of the established aid stations, though I don't want to be caught without the supplies I need.
The nice thing is that I'll be running missions right up until I leave for our new "home." This is definitely helping the time pass quickly. I haven't been keeping a calendar or anything, but we should be right around the "halfway point" for our deployment. We've heard talk of our return date being anything from mid-March to early April; most of us have decided to take the latest date and shoot for that...if we return any earlier it'll just be icing on the cake.
Not much else to report from here. If anything pops up in the next couple days I'll pass it along.
Best wishes
Troy
Monday, August 27, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
On the Move
Hi everyone,
Not much new to report regarding the move. As of right now I'm slated to fly to our new base on the 4th of September, so its coming up pretty quick. We won't know much more until we get there; the first two weeks will be spent doing some recon of the area to figure out where they want to put all of the different units. From what we've heard, while at Korean Village (our initial destination) our living conditions will not be so great; more than likely it will be 80 men in a tent, limited showers, and in all reality no chance to use the phone or internet. Once we move away from the base, we'll probably be building our own little outpost for either a platoon (25 or so Soldiers) or company (approx. 150 Soldiers) sized element. If thats the case, we won't have phone or internet up for a while; initial estimates are 2 weeks to 2 months. So, looks like I'll be going to back to snail-mail for a while.
We have our new address, which can be used already as we will be arriving around the time the first mail makes it there.
PFC RUFFIN, TROY
B Co, HQ PLT, 2-7 IN BN
UNIT # 73431
KOREAN VILLAGE
APO AE 09371-3431
We're still trying to find some background on why its called "Korean Village," but from what we've been told, apparently it used to be the center of a large Korean population around the time of the Korean War. Not sure why anyone would want to move to Iraq, nor are we sure if they were from North or South Korea. We'll see if we get any more info when we get up there.
I'll write again soon,
Troy
Not much new to report regarding the move. As of right now I'm slated to fly to our new base on the 4th of September, so its coming up pretty quick. We won't know much more until we get there; the first two weeks will be spent doing some recon of the area to figure out where they want to put all of the different units. From what we've heard, while at Korean Village (our initial destination) our living conditions will not be so great; more than likely it will be 80 men in a tent, limited showers, and in all reality no chance to use the phone or internet. Once we move away from the base, we'll probably be building our own little outpost for either a platoon (25 or so Soldiers) or company (approx. 150 Soldiers) sized element. If thats the case, we won't have phone or internet up for a while; initial estimates are 2 weeks to 2 months. So, looks like I'll be going to back to snail-mail for a while.
We have our new address, which can be used already as we will be arriving around the time the first mail makes it there.
PFC RUFFIN, TROY
B Co, HQ PLT, 2-7 IN BN
UNIT # 73431
KOREAN VILLAGE
APO AE 09371-3431
We're still trying to find some background on why its called "Korean Village," but from what we've been told, apparently it used to be the center of a large Korean population around the time of the Korean War. Not sure why anyone would want to move to Iraq, nor are we sure if they were from North or South Korea. We'll see if we get any more info when we get up there.
I'll write again soon,
Troy
Monday, August 13, 2007
08/13/2007
Hey everyone,
Its been more than a month since I last wrote, so I thought its probably time that I write again.
The previous month has been somewhat interesting. There have been a lot of changes in how we operate in town, and for a while we weren't running any patrols or other missions. This made for some very bored medics. We went from running three or four missions a day to coming to a screetching halt. Not sure if its ADD or what, but we certainly were getting restless. This is part of why I volunteered for the mission out into the middle of the desert.
We were told that we had a mission where we'd be supporting a Marine operation; our job was to provide a blocking position as the Marines swept through the desert, rooting out any possible insurgent cells or training camps. We were told that the mission would probably last up to a week, and be prepared to "rough it." There were no buildings where we were headed, so we'd be living out of our humvees. So we get packed and head off into the wide open desert, not sure of what we'll see.
The morning we left, it was briefed that we were supposed to be traveling at about 25mph to make sure that all of our vehicles could keep up. Great...this is going to be a long drive. As soon as we start down the road, the mechanics call up that their truck is having a hard time even making 25. Eventually the get the cobwebs blown out, and the truck is able to keep up. We make it to the one base between our town and our destination in the middle of nowhere. We link up with the rest of our group; all in all we have more than 30 trucks, and over 100 Soldiers, to include infantry, scouts, tankers, mechanics, and some support personnel. The drive out to our "destination" takes us about 6 hours, and it is well over 130-degrees, and some of the humvees don't have AC. This is not an enjoyable Sunday cruise. It got so bad that the truck in front of me started weaving on the road, and then came to a very sudden stop. I see the truck commander (TC) hop out and run around to the driver's door. He throws the driver's arm over his shoulder and starts pulling him out of the truck; even with all the water he'd been drinking, he still was dehydrated. I hop out and go take a look: eyes rolled into the back of his head, and not exactly all there...yep, time for an IV. So I run back to my truck, grab my aid bag and stick him right there in the middle of the road. His TC didn't even see me setting up the line; when he came around from his side of the truck after calling up to the convoy commander, the IV was already done. "Dang Doc, that was quick! You don't mess around, huh?" We put him in the medic's humvee (they sent two other medics with us) which had amazing AC, so he could cool off and take the rest of his IV. 45 minutes later and he was fine...back up and at 'em.
The drive took so long that we had to stop the convoy to fuel; we had a giant fuel truck with us, and we had a line of trucks on either side filling up...didn't even turn off the engines, just gas and go.
We finally got out to the area we were supposed to be staying at for the first night; it was on a little plateau so we could see the surrounding area. There was nothing out there; we landed smack in the middle of nowhere! For as far as the eye could see was nothing but sand, rock, and more sand. The place was flat, too, so we really didn't have to worry about anyone sneaking up on us...we had about 10 miles of warning before they would have even been close! When we stopped I went to all of the trucks from my company and made sure they were drinking water, and gave them a quick safety brief on the wildlife. All the snakes in Iraq are poisonous (to the point where they'll kill a healthy man) and there are 9 species of scorpions that can kill you. Not to mention the other little critters that make life miserable. So they're a little cautious at this point. As I get back to our truck, the gunner yells down at me to kill the spider running through our little "campsite." Yeah, it wasn't a spider, it was a scorpion; the first one we'd seen, and we hadn't even been there an hour. Turns out, sometime that night one of the guys got up to answer nature's call; on his way out he heard a "hissing noise," and started backing away. One of the other guys knew what it was: a soft-scaled viper, which, had he been bitten, would have killed him. Awesome...this trip is starting off with a bang.
We move out from the large assembly area to our respective areas of responsibility to assume our blocking positions. We find a little ridge on which to make camp, and proceed to set up tarps off the side or back of our humvee. We pounded in metal fence posts and then lashed the tarp to it; even though it was early morning, we knew that it was going to get ugly later on in the day and we were going to want some shade. Once the shade had been established, we started pulling out cots and turning it into "home." Life out there really wasn't all that bad; we had ice in our coolers (thanks to the freezer truck with 1,800 bags of ice), we had "food" (Meals Ready to Eat, or MRE's, which have a shelf life of more than a decade), and the only thing we had to do was watch the horizon for anybody trying to get through our line. Sometime during the day I looked up and saw some trucks way out on the horizon, so I let the other guys know about them. They started scrambling for gear and weapons until I told them where to look. Most of the guys couldn't see them because they were miles and miles away. After ten minutes or so, they could finally see things moving along the horizon. After that the guys were giving me grief for my "binocular vision." At least we know they can't sneak up on us! Turns out they were the Marine trucks on their push through the desert.
At one point while we were out there it hit 138-degrees...in the shade!!! Things were a little toasty. But, we had a pretty good breeze that kept things tolerable. We split our group in half, and in the afternoon they returned to our make-shift assembly area after driving through miles and miles of nothing looking for anyone. I think they saw one shepard all day, and that was it.
Around 5 or 6 that evening a sand storm started blowing in, so we decided to make sure our tarps weren't going to blow away. One of the trucks had guys filling sandbags to anchor their tarp. While one of the guys was digging, he had an unexpected guest. Since it was so hot out, we all had "unbloused" our pants, so the pantleg was open and allowed a little air to circulate. As he was digging, a scorpion ran up his leg unbeknownst to him. In the middle of digging, he got stung; thinking that it was a cactus he dropped his pants looking for the offending thorn. His search unsuccessful, he hikes up his pants, only to be stung two more times. Now searching in earnest, he spots what appears to be a large spider; after closer inspection he realizes that it is, in fact, a scorpion. He reaches down to brush it off, and manages to get stung again on the knuckle. So he and his group all start yelling, and one of the other guys manages to gorilla-stomp the critter into oblivion. He comes walking over (pants still at half-mast) saying he's just been stung. I have him take a seat on my cot so I can take a look at the injection sites. At that time, a big gust of wind pulls a fence post out of the ground, and promptly smacks him in the back of the head. (This was the same guy that nearly stepped on the viper the previous night. Poor guy was having a rough day) The injection sites were only a little red, and he felt fine except for some moderate burning in his leg. After inspecting what was left of the scorpion, I figured out that it was a non-lethal species (claws were too large and telson was too small) The only thing I had with me to give was some benadryl and ibuprofen. I called it up to the medics back at the large assembly area to make sure we didn't have a "mandatory evac" order while we were out there. After what felt like a revisitation of the Spanish Inquisition, they decided that they agreed with what I had done, and if he wasn't having any further symptoms he could stay out there if he wanted. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to get much sleep that night because of the pain. Wish I had had something more to give him, but unless he got shot, I couldn't give him any morphine.
We packed up the next morning and moved probably 20 miles down the road. This trip shouldn't have taken very long, but one of the mechanic's trucks got a flat, and they took almost 2 hours to fix it.
Finally at our new area of responsibility, we start setting up shop again. Same thing; tarp out, cots assembled and cold drinks close at hand. This is our third day out there at this point, and we're expecting it to go on for at least several more days. Around 2 pm we get the call that the mission is over, and to pack up to move back to our respective bases. Thinking that we'll be home in just a few hours, we set to the task at hand with a purpose. I don't think we'd ever stowed our gear so fast.
Turns out, we were in for a much longer mission. The same truck that got a flat blew another tire on our way home. On large trucks, the left side is reverse-threaded so the nuts don't spin off the tires going down the road; the right side is normal, though. These mechanics (who's job it is to know this) spend almost three hours turning the wrench the wrong way. During this, the convoy commander's truck breaks down; guess it had enough of the heat just like the rest of us. So now we're waiting for the tire to be changed, plus hook up the dead humvee because the wrecker they brought is already towing a humvee that broke down the day before. 4 hours after we stopped, we finally start moving again.
We're not half a mile down the road before the mechanic's shop truck blows the hoses off the engine. Great...we figured we were spending the night out there. But, at least this set of mechanics could reclamp an engine hose.
12 hours after we started our return trip we made it back to base. However, this didn't lighten our mood. While we were gone, the generator that powers our building had blown up, literally. Apparently the battery got too hot and exploded all over the generator. This left the majority of the building without power. The aid station still had lights, but the AC was out of freon and only blew in hot air. So, it was at least as hot inside the aid station as it was outside. Thankfully we had enough power to run a couple fans, which is the only thing making sleep a possibility in there. As of now (almost 3 weeks later) we still don't have AC. The temperature in the aid station is right around 95 through the day; not exactly the ideal location to treat a heat injury, but so far we're doing ok.
For once the rumors are true; we are, indeed, moving. Our move should happen sometime around the end of the month, and will be at a larger base further west than where we are now. We don't have a lot of details about where everyone will be living, or if we're planning on setting up any platoon or company sized outposts, so we'll have to get there first before we learn any of that information.
Apparently the base has an Army Trauma Team assigned to it, and has its own aero-medical evac unit (should be the Blackhawk medevac helicopters), so that makes our job a whole lot easier. Not sure what our mission will be out there. At one point, the base was used to do border patrol between Iraq and Syria, and we may end up doing some of that, though information is still forthcoming. Two of our three duffle bags have to be packed by this weekend to be loaded into the big shipping containers; thats the biggest pain associated with moving: having to pack all of our stuff. Especially after we've spent more than 6 months turning this little "hole" into a home. Oh well...we figured we'd end up moving before our tour was over anyway, we just wish it wasn't so hot when we have to move.
The nice thing about the move is that we'll get up there, do a couple weeks of "right-seat/left-seat rides" where the outgoing unit shows us our new sector, we'll run for a couple weeks, and then I get to come home on leave! I'm hoping that with everything going on, time will go by really quick and October will be here before we know it!
As of now, we're still doing missions out in town. Nothing really exciting, just the usual patrols. A lot of the city council doesn't want us to leave because we've done so well getting the city back on its feet again. Hopefully the incoming unit of Marines keeps the forward momentum that we've gained so we don't have to come back in here and do it all over again. They have a tendency to be a little heavy-handed and trigger-happy when it comes to a new town. Hopefully this new unit is different.
Other than that, we're trying to get all the immunizations and shots done before we move bases. Right now we're in the middle of trying to get everyone's PPD test done making sure they don't have Tuberculosis. Out here, though, its a genuine concern as most of the population wouldn't know what it is if they contracted it. So far we haven't had any positive reactions. Lets hope it stays that way.
Thats about all from my end of the world. I'll let you know how the move goes, and once we get there we should have a new mailing address, too. I'll send out some pictures from the desert mission so you can see just how desolate the landscape really was.
Best wishes
Troy
Its been more than a month since I last wrote, so I thought its probably time that I write again.
The previous month has been somewhat interesting. There have been a lot of changes in how we operate in town, and for a while we weren't running any patrols or other missions. This made for some very bored medics. We went from running three or four missions a day to coming to a screetching halt. Not sure if its ADD or what, but we certainly were getting restless. This is part of why I volunteered for the mission out into the middle of the desert.
We were told that we had a mission where we'd be supporting a Marine operation; our job was to provide a blocking position as the Marines swept through the desert, rooting out any possible insurgent cells or training camps. We were told that the mission would probably last up to a week, and be prepared to "rough it." There were no buildings where we were headed, so we'd be living out of our humvees. So we get packed and head off into the wide open desert, not sure of what we'll see.
The morning we left, it was briefed that we were supposed to be traveling at about 25mph to make sure that all of our vehicles could keep up. Great...this is going to be a long drive. As soon as we start down the road, the mechanics call up that their truck is having a hard time even making 25. Eventually the get the cobwebs blown out, and the truck is able to keep up. We make it to the one base between our town and our destination in the middle of nowhere. We link up with the rest of our group; all in all we have more than 30 trucks, and over 100 Soldiers, to include infantry, scouts, tankers, mechanics, and some support personnel. The drive out to our "destination" takes us about 6 hours, and it is well over 130-degrees, and some of the humvees don't have AC. This is not an enjoyable Sunday cruise. It got so bad that the truck in front of me started weaving on the road, and then came to a very sudden stop. I see the truck commander (TC) hop out and run around to the driver's door. He throws the driver's arm over his shoulder and starts pulling him out of the truck; even with all the water he'd been drinking, he still was dehydrated. I hop out and go take a look: eyes rolled into the back of his head, and not exactly all there...yep, time for an IV. So I run back to my truck, grab my aid bag and stick him right there in the middle of the road. His TC didn't even see me setting up the line; when he came around from his side of the truck after calling up to the convoy commander, the IV was already done. "Dang Doc, that was quick! You don't mess around, huh?" We put him in the medic's humvee (they sent two other medics with us) which had amazing AC, so he could cool off and take the rest of his IV. 45 minutes later and he was fine...back up and at 'em.
The drive took so long that we had to stop the convoy to fuel; we had a giant fuel truck with us, and we had a line of trucks on either side filling up...didn't even turn off the engines, just gas and go.
We finally got out to the area we were supposed to be staying at for the first night; it was on a little plateau so we could see the surrounding area. There was nothing out there; we landed smack in the middle of nowhere! For as far as the eye could see was nothing but sand, rock, and more sand. The place was flat, too, so we really didn't have to worry about anyone sneaking up on us...we had about 10 miles of warning before they would have even been close! When we stopped I went to all of the trucks from my company and made sure they were drinking water, and gave them a quick safety brief on the wildlife. All the snakes in Iraq are poisonous (to the point where they'll kill a healthy man) and there are 9 species of scorpions that can kill you. Not to mention the other little critters that make life miserable. So they're a little cautious at this point. As I get back to our truck, the gunner yells down at me to kill the spider running through our little "campsite." Yeah, it wasn't a spider, it was a scorpion; the first one we'd seen, and we hadn't even been there an hour. Turns out, sometime that night one of the guys got up to answer nature's call; on his way out he heard a "hissing noise," and started backing away. One of the other guys knew what it was: a soft-scaled viper, which, had he been bitten, would have killed him. Awesome...this trip is starting off with a bang.
We move out from the large assembly area to our respective areas of responsibility to assume our blocking positions. We find a little ridge on which to make camp, and proceed to set up tarps off the side or back of our humvee. We pounded in metal fence posts and then lashed the tarp to it; even though it was early morning, we knew that it was going to get ugly later on in the day and we were going to want some shade. Once the shade had been established, we started pulling out cots and turning it into "home." Life out there really wasn't all that bad; we had ice in our coolers (thanks to the freezer truck with 1,800 bags of ice), we had "food" (Meals Ready to Eat, or MRE's, which have a shelf life of more than a decade), and the only thing we had to do was watch the horizon for anybody trying to get through our line. Sometime during the day I looked up and saw some trucks way out on the horizon, so I let the other guys know about them. They started scrambling for gear and weapons until I told them where to look. Most of the guys couldn't see them because they were miles and miles away. After ten minutes or so, they could finally see things moving along the horizon. After that the guys were giving me grief for my "binocular vision." At least we know they can't sneak up on us! Turns out they were the Marine trucks on their push through the desert.
At one point while we were out there it hit 138-degrees...in the shade!!! Things were a little toasty. But, we had a pretty good breeze that kept things tolerable. We split our group in half, and in the afternoon they returned to our make-shift assembly area after driving through miles and miles of nothing looking for anyone. I think they saw one shepard all day, and that was it.
Around 5 or 6 that evening a sand storm started blowing in, so we decided to make sure our tarps weren't going to blow away. One of the trucks had guys filling sandbags to anchor their tarp. While one of the guys was digging, he had an unexpected guest. Since it was so hot out, we all had "unbloused" our pants, so the pantleg was open and allowed a little air to circulate. As he was digging, a scorpion ran up his leg unbeknownst to him. In the middle of digging, he got stung; thinking that it was a cactus he dropped his pants looking for the offending thorn. His search unsuccessful, he hikes up his pants, only to be stung two more times. Now searching in earnest, he spots what appears to be a large spider; after closer inspection he realizes that it is, in fact, a scorpion. He reaches down to brush it off, and manages to get stung again on the knuckle. So he and his group all start yelling, and one of the other guys manages to gorilla-stomp the critter into oblivion. He comes walking over (pants still at half-mast) saying he's just been stung. I have him take a seat on my cot so I can take a look at the injection sites. At that time, a big gust of wind pulls a fence post out of the ground, and promptly smacks him in the back of the head. (This was the same guy that nearly stepped on the viper the previous night. Poor guy was having a rough day) The injection sites were only a little red, and he felt fine except for some moderate burning in his leg. After inspecting what was left of the scorpion, I figured out that it was a non-lethal species (claws were too large and telson
We packed up the next morning and moved probably 20 miles down the road. This trip shouldn't have taken very long, but one of the mechanic's trucks got a flat, and they took almost 2 hours to fix it.
Finally at our new area of responsibility, we start setting up shop again. Same thing; tarp out, cots assembled and cold drinks close at hand. This is our third day out there at this point, and we're expecting it to go on for at least several more days. Around 2 pm we get the call that the mission is over, and to pack up to move back to our respective bases. Thinking that we'll be home in just a few hours, we set to the task at hand with a purpose. I don't think we'd ever stowed our gear so fast.
Turns out, we were in for a much longer mission. The same truck that got a flat blew another tire on our way home. On large trucks, the left side is reverse-threaded so the nuts don't spin off the tires going down the road; the right side is normal, though. These mechanics (who's job it is to know this) spend almost three hours turning the wrench the wrong way. During this, the convoy commander's truck breaks down; guess it had enough of the heat just like the rest of us. So now we're waiting for the tire to be changed, plus hook up the dead humvee because the wrecker they brought is already towing a humvee that broke down the day before. 4 hours after we stopped, we finally start moving again.
We're not half a mile down the road before the mechanic's shop truck blows the hoses off the engine. Great...we figured we were spending the night out there. But, at least this set of mechanics could reclamp an engine hose.
12 hours after we started our return trip we made it back to base. However, this didn't lighten our mood. While we were gone, the generator that powers our building had blown up, literally. Apparently the battery got too hot and exploded all over the generator. This left the majority of the building without power. The aid station still had lights, but the AC was out of freon and only blew in hot air. So, it was at least as hot inside the aid station as it was outside. Thankfully we had enough power to run a couple fans, which is the only thing making sleep a possibility in there. As of now (almost 3 weeks later) we still don't have AC. The temperature in the aid station is right around 95 through the day; not exactly the ideal location to treat a heat injury, but so far we're doing ok.
For once the rumors are true; we are, indeed, moving. Our move should happen sometime around the end of the month, and will be at a larger base further west than where we are now. We don't have a lot of details about where everyone will be living, or if we're planning on setting up any platoon or company sized outposts, so we'll have to get there first before we learn any of that information.
Apparently the base has an Army Trauma Team assigned to it, and has its own aero-medical evac unit (should be the Blackhawk medevac helicopters), so that makes our job a whole lot easier. Not sure what our mission will be out there. At one point, the base was used to do border patrol between Iraq and Syria, and we may end up doing some of that, though information is still forthcoming. Two of our three duffle bags have to be packed by this weekend to be loaded into the big shipping containers; thats the biggest pain associated with moving: having to pack all of our stuff. Especially after we've spent more than 6 months turning this little "hole" into a home. Oh well...we figured we'd end up moving before our tour was over anyway, we just wish it wasn't so hot when we have to move.
The nice thing about the move is that we'll get up there, do a couple weeks of "right-seat/left-seat rides" where the outgoing unit shows us our new sector, we'll run for a couple weeks, and then I get to come home on leave! I'm hoping that with everything going on, time will go by really quick and October will be here before we know it!
As of now, we're still doing missions out in town. Nothing really exciting, just the usual patrols. A lot of the city council doesn't want us to leave because we've done so well getting the city back on its feet again. Hopefully the incoming unit of Marines keeps the forward momentum that we've gained so we don't have to come back in here and do it all over again. They have a tendency to be a little heavy-handed and trigger-happy when it comes to a new town. Hopefully this new unit is different.
Other than that, we're trying to get all the immunizations and shots done before we move bases. Right now we're in the middle of trying to get everyone's PPD test done making sure they don't have Tuberculosis. Out here, though, its a genuine concern as most of the population wouldn't know what it is if they contracted it. So far we haven't had any positive reactions. Lets hope it stays that way.
Thats about all from my end of the world. I'll let you know how the move goes, and once we get there we should have a new mailing address, too. I'll send out some pictures from the desert mission so you can see just how desolate the landscape really was.
Best wishes
Troy
Sunday, July 22, 2007
7/22/2007
Haven't had the chance to get those pics ready to send yet; our power's been out most of the night...generator decided to run out of fuel. Its got a 1500gal tank on it, and it ran dry. Yeah...well done there. Hopefully it decides to stay running since without it we don't have any AC. We'll see...
Should have time to get those pics off to you tomorrow sometime. I think you'll be impressed.
Sounds like you guys have had a good time with your mom in town. What all did you guys do?
Had a little bit of excitement today...I got to play firefighter this afternoon. Something in the burn dumpster exploded and caught several of our hesco barriers on fire. The hescos are just a tough cloth inside a wire frame that we fill with sand/rock/dirt for cover. Plus, there was a bunch of wood and crap out there too that was burning. So, off we go (four of us) armed with a couple cases of water and one shovel. I think it took about 30 minutes, but we managed to put it out. My clothes still smell like smoke too; probably from when I was trying to shovel dirt onto the hotspots. Oh well.
Hit my personal best in the gym the other day. Benched 205 pounds 9 times (needed a little help with the 10th); not bad for me, considering I weight just over 170. I'm happy because just a couple months ago I could hardly do 4 sets at 135lbs. Everybody's asked what I'm taking to get gains like that...I'm not even taking protein shakes, and we've got guys here spending hundreds of dollars a month on all kinds of crap.
So our schedule is still pretty boring; I've been on one mission in the last week. I'm starting to lose my mind...there's only so much here you can do to kill time. I've gone through so many books; guess I'll just have to ask around and see what other people have. The guys are doing a lot of blocking positions and traffic control points...nothing where they need a medic out there; at this point I think I'd rather be out there just sitting in a Bradley than being bored out of my skull back here. Hopefully this changes sometime soon.
Well, the AC should be running again in the aid station. I think I'm gonna head to bed.
Later, John
Troy
Should have time to get those pics off to you tomorrow sometime. I think you'll be impressed.
Sounds like you guys have had a good time with your mom in town. What all did you guys do?
Had a little bit of excitement today...I got to play firefighter this afternoon. Something in the burn dumpster exploded and caught several of our hesco barriers on fire. The hescos are just a tough cloth inside a wire frame that we fill with sand/rock/dirt for cover. Plus, there was a bunch of wood and crap out there too that was burning. So, off we go (four of us) armed with a couple cases of water and one shovel. I think it took about 30 minutes, but we managed to put it out. My clothes still smell like smoke too; probably from when I was trying to shovel dirt onto the hotspots. Oh well.
Hit my personal best in the gym the other day. Benched 205 pounds 9 times (needed a little help with the 10th); not bad for me, considering I weight just over 170. I'm happy because just a couple months ago I could hardly do 4 sets at 135lbs. Everybody's asked what I'm taking to get gains like that...I'm not even taking protein shakes, and we've got guys here spending hundreds of dollars a month on all kinds of crap.
So our schedule is still pretty boring; I've been on one mission in the last week. I'm starting to lose my mind...there's only so much here you can do to kill time. I've gone through so many books; guess I'll just have to ask around and see what other people have. The guys are doing a lot of blocking positions and traffic control points...nothing where they need a medic out there; at this point I think I'd rather be out there just sitting in a Bradley than being bored out of my skull back here. Hopefully this changes sometime soon.
Well, the AC should be running again in the aid station. I think I'm gonna head to bed.
Later, John
Troy
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
July 4th update
Hi Everybody
Its been a while since I last wrote, and since I have a little time before my next mission, I thought I'd try to send out an email and let you all know what we've been up to.
As we all knew would happen, the weather here has gotten extremely hot. Since we don't have a thermometer here on our little base, we don't have a day-by-day report of the weather, but it has been over 120 on more than a few occasions. Typically the temperatures are between 115 and 120, though it can easily climb higher. Even with all the heat, we still are keeping a high operations tempo; we've been running missions day and night, and on a number of occasions have been out walking through town during the hottest part of the day. The local population has a better idea regarding the heat than we seem to; during the most intense part of the day, they close down most of the shops and they go home since very few people are out at that time anyway. The shops reopen sometime in the late afternoon and remain open till after sundown. We are sure that we are the butt of jokes when the locals see us walking around wearing all that gear in the middle of the day; we usually just joke about being able to speak Arabic when we walk past them, and even though we don't know for sure what they're saying, it can't be far from "Stupid Americans...only they would be out walking in this head." Oh well...at least they know we're tough, if a little lacking in intelligence. At least we haven't had any heat injuries.
Read an interesting article in the newspaper we receive over here; it had to do with the rumors that are going around Iraq regarding the American troops. Some we're sure are the propaganda spread by the insurgents, such as Americans eating babies and stealing children, or that the airborne troops dye their berets with enemy blood (their berets are maroon). Some rumors we're not sure where they got their start. My favorite is the idea that Americans have a "cold pill." I thought this was a pill for the common cold, but I was wrong; apparently a lot of Iraqis believe that we take a pill that keeps our bodies cold and enables us to wear all that gear out in the sun. Boy don't we wish!!! Another rumor is that we all wear x-ray glasses that allow us to see through cars, walls and even people's clothing. We're not sure if they are referring to our sunglasses, or if they're talking about our night vision; I suppose if you didn't know what our night vision goggles were, it could be easy to think that. However, we don't mount our NODs on our helmets until it gets close to sundown, and we usually don't see the crowds of people at night like we do during the day.
Over the last month we were in the midst of a struggle to move us to a different area of the Anbar Province. My battalion of about 1,000 Soldiers is "on loan" to the Marines, and the Marine general in charge of this area wanted us moved out of this city and closer to the Syrian border. They wanted us to be running border patrol missions, trying to stop the flow of arms and combatants from Syria into Iraq. Our Army bosses didn't think this was a good idea, especially since we've got a pretty good relationship with the local Sheiks and the city council. In the end, we won; this means that we'll be staying here for at least a couple more months. We're pretty sure that we'll end up moving before our tour is finished over here. There's good and bad to moving; it won't be a lot of fun having to pack up everything and move out of this area, but if/when we do move it'll mean that this city is up and running on its own and doesn't need our direct supervision. For now we're happy with staying right here where we are. We heard that if we had moved to the bases closer to the Syrian border we'd be without AC, phones, internet or showers...definitely a step backwards. Our home may not be much to look at, but at least its home. Its dirty, it smells, and we don't have a lot of creature-comforts, but at least we can call/email and take a shower every once in a while.
Things around town have been quiet for the most part. There've been a couple incidents, but for the most part the town is doing pretty good. All of our guys are still doing very well and have suffered no injuries apart from the usual bumps and bruises. The big obstacle that we're trying to fix is the electrical supply to the city. In a neighboring town, some insurgent blew up the power plant that supplies all the power to the city. So for the last couple of weeks the locals have been living without AC or lights. Some of the bigger houses have generators, but its usually only the wealthier families that can afford those. Most of the population have taken to sleeping in their courtyards or on the roof (they're all flat roofs over here) since its a lot cooler outside at night, plus they don't have to worry about dew. A couple of nights ago we went into a house and I was checking to make sure the courtyard was secure; it was dark and as I was going around the corner of the house I almost tripped over a sleeping child. Thankfully I didn't wake her, as I'm sure that would have been a rather frightful awakening. Always something to keep us on our toes.
About a month ago we had to give up one of our medics to cover for another unit that was short; that left us with 3 medics instead of 4. We've definitely been "earning our keep" with all the missions we've been on. I just hit my 200th mission this afternoon, and we're not yet half-way through our tour. So far we haven't had any problems covering all the missions that have come up, and have all been sharing the increased load. Brown (the medic retasked for a month) left in early June, and from then until November we'll be running with 3 instead of 4 medics. He was working in the aid station through June, and is now on leave, and the next three months in a row we will have one of our medics rotating back to the States for R&R. I think we're more than happy to take on a little extra work because we know that our break is coming up soon. Usually we can even out the schedule to make sure no one medic gets swamped, but there have definitely been days where I've gotten back off a mission at 4 in the morning and had to get up two hours later to head back out again. At least it makes the time go by quickly.
I was helping out our Marine counterparts with some screening physicals for the Iraqi Police applicants. We got to chatting during a break and one of them said that they'd be Stateside within 90 days; I did some quick mental calculations and told him that I had more than 90 days before I went on leave! Most of the Marine units here do 6 to 7 month deployments, and then usually come back after 6 to 12 months off. We keep giving them grief because with the new rotation the Army has handed down, all of our Active Duty units do almost 3 of their deployments in a single go. They usually counter with something along the lines of "I'll drink a beer for you guys when I get home...and you still have 8 months to go." Point taken.
We had another incident with a humvee last night, but thankfully I wasn't sitting in it at the time. All of our vehicles have internal fire suppression systems, which is nothing more than a big bottle of Halon and an activation switch. (I can hear all the fire and hazmat guys cringe at that one) Halon is the gas used in the system to put out the fire, but its not something you want to be around when it goes off. Last night as guys were loading their gear into a humvee the Halon system somehow got activated. Thankfully we were still inside the wire and not cruising down the road. It wasn't a full purge of the system, but rather a partial discharge; unfortunately one of the guys took a blast right to his face. He was lucky, though, and after I flushed his eyes with a couple bottles of water he was still able to go out on the mission. He's just really lucky he didn't take a big breath of it, as we probably would have had to medevac him out of here.
The city is slowly getting its feet under it. We've been doing a lot of missions with the Iraqi Police in the hopes that someday they will be able to stand on their own. During one of our missions we ended up in the house of a city council member, and since we weren't on any time constraints, we sat and had a long conversation with him. He said that the general attitude in the city is good; shops are open that haven't been in business in over a year, new homes are being built everywhere, the schools have good attendance, and the people feel safe walking down the streets. He said that this wasn't possible more than 6 months ago; he said that they are lucky our unit was the one assigned to this town, because he feels we have taken a genuine interest in rebuilding his city. He said that there are still people who don't want us here, but that they want even less for us to leave. Baby steps...
We just finished another mission; we've been doing pretty good at locating people on our "bad guy" list. Either they're getting complacent, or we're getting better at it. We're also starting to see a lot of information coming in from the local people themselves; just last week someone tipped off the IP's about a weapons cache in a cluster of houses by the river. Sure enough, there was a large stockpile of weapons; normally our bomb squad likes to blow it up in place, but since the neighborhood was friendly to us, we didn't want to give them any reason to change their minds. They took it back to one of the other bases and later that night they shook the sandbags we have in lieu of windows. Its definitely nice to see some positives steps being made.
Its 5:30am, Happy 4th of July! Not sure if theres anything special planned here, but I'm sure they'll come up with something. Since we were out so late, I'm hoping to get a chance to sleep; right now I'd take sleep over festivities. One of the lieutenants was joking with a bunch of lower enlisted guys saying that they were going to be able to shoot off flares and rockets and throw grenades and all kinds of stuff that goes "boom!" They got so excited and were about to run off and prep their stuff when he told them he was just kidding. It'd be fun, but we'd probably scare the town pretty good if we started going through our arsenal...best not to chance it.
I think thats about it from my end. My 25-hour day is finally at an end, so I'm gonna go rack out, or at least until someone kicks my bed and tells me to get up for our next mission...we'll see how long this actually lasts.
Best wishes to all
Troy
Its been a while since I last wrote, and since I have a little time before my next mission, I thought I'd try to send out an email and let you all know what we've been up to.
As we all knew would happen, the weather here has gotten extremely hot. Since we don't have a thermometer here on our little base, we don't have a day-by-day report of the weather, but it has been over 120 on more than a few occasions. Typically the temperatures are between 115 and 120, though it can easily climb higher. Even with all the heat, we still are keeping a high operations tempo; we've been running missions day and night, and on a number of occasions have been out walking through town during the hottest part of the day. The local population has a better idea regarding the heat than we seem to; during the most intense part of the day, they close down most of the shops and they go home since very few people are out at that time anyway. The shops reopen sometime in the late afternoon and remain open till after sundown. We are sure that we are the butt of jokes when the locals see us walking around wearing all that gear in the middle of the day; we usually just joke about being able to speak Arabic when we walk past them, and even though we don't know for sure what they're saying, it can't be far from "Stupid Americans...only they would be out walking in this head." Oh well...at least they know we're tough, if a little lacking in intelligence. At least we haven't had any heat injuries.
Read an interesting article in the newspaper we receive over here; it had to do with the rumors that are going around Iraq regarding the American troops. Some we're sure are the propaganda spread by the insurgents, such as Americans eating babies and stealing children, or that the airborne troops dye their berets with enemy blood (their berets are maroon). Some rumors we're not sure where they got their start. My favorite is the idea that Americans have a "cold pill." I thought this was a pill for the common cold, but I was wrong; apparently a lot of Iraqis believe that we take a pill that keeps our bodies cold and enables us to wear all that gear out in the sun. Boy don't we wish!!! Another rumor is that we all wear x-ray glasses that allow us to see through cars, walls and even people's clothing. We're not sure if they are referring to our sunglasses, or if they're talking about our night vision; I suppose if you didn't know what our night vision goggles were, it could be easy to think that. However, we don't mount our NODs on our helmets until it gets close to sundown, and we usually don't see the crowds of people at night like we do during the day.
Over the last month we were in the midst of a struggle to move us to a different area of the Anbar Province. My battalion of about 1,000 Soldiers is "on loan" to the Marines, and the Marine general in charge of this area wanted us moved out of this city and closer to the Syrian border. They wanted us to be running border patrol missions, trying to stop the flow of arms and combatants from Syria into Iraq. Our Army bosses didn't think this was a good idea, especially since we've got a pretty good relationship with the local Sheiks and the city council. In the end, we won; this means that we'll be staying here for at least a couple more months. We're pretty sure that we'll end up moving before our tour is finished over here. There's good and bad to moving; it won't be a lot of fun having to pack up everything and move out of this area, but if/when we do move it'll mean that this city is up and running on its own and doesn't need our direct supervision. For now we're happy with staying right here where we are. We heard that if we had moved to the bases closer to the Syrian border we'd be without AC, phones, internet or showers...definitely a step backwards. Our home may not be much to look at, but at least its home. Its dirty, it smells, and we don't have a lot of creature-comforts, but at least we can call/email and take a shower every once in a while.
Things around town have been quiet for the most part. There've been a couple incidents, but for the most part the town is doing pretty good. All of our guys are still doing very well and have suffered no injuries apart from the usual bumps and bruises. The big obstacle that we're trying to fix is the electrical supply to the city. In a neighboring town, some insurgent blew up the power plant that supplies all the power to the city. So for the last couple of weeks the locals have been living without AC or lights. Some of the bigger houses have generators, but its usually only the wealthier families that can afford those. Most of the population have taken to sleeping in their courtyards or on the roof (they're all flat roofs over here) since its a lot cooler outside at night, plus they don't have to worry about dew. A couple of nights ago we went into a house and I was checking to make sure the courtyard was secure; it was dark and as I was going around the corner of the house I almost tripped over a sleeping child. Thankfully I didn't wake her, as I'm sure that would have been a rather frightful awakening. Always something to keep us on our toes.
About a month ago we had to give up one of our medics to cover for another unit that was short; that left us with 3 medics instead of 4. We've definitely been "earning our keep" with all the missions we've been on. I just hit my 200th mission this afternoon, and we're not yet half-way through our tour. So far we haven't had any problems covering all the missions that have come up, and have all been sharing the increased load. Brown (the medic retasked for a month) left in early June, and from then until November we'll be running with 3 instead of 4 medics. He was working in the aid station through June, and is now on leave, and the next three months in a row we will have one of our medics rotating back to the States for R&R. I think we're more than happy to take on a little extra work because we know that our break is coming up soon. Usually we can even out the schedule to make sure no one medic gets swamped, but there have definitely been days where I've gotten back off a mission at 4 in the morning and had to get up two hours later to head back out again. At least it makes the time go by quickly.
I was helping out our Marine counterparts with some screening physicals for the Iraqi Police applicants. We got to chatting during a break and one of them said that they'd be Stateside within 90 days; I did some quick mental calculations and told him that I had more than 90 days before I went on leave! Most of the Marine units here do 6 to 7 month deployments, and then usually come back after 6 to 12 months off. We keep giving them grief because with the new rotation the Army has handed down, all of our Active Duty units do almost 3 of their deployments in a single go. They usually counter with something along the lines of "I'll drink a beer for you guys when I get home...and you still have 8 months to go." Point taken.
We had another incident with a humvee last night, but thankfully I wasn't sitting in it at the time. All of our vehicles have internal fire suppression systems, which is nothing more than a big bottle of Halon and an activation switch. (I can hear all the fire and hazmat guys cringe at that one) Halon is the gas used in the system to put out the fire, but its not something you want to be around when it goes off. Last night as guys were loading their gear into a humvee the Halon system somehow got activated. Thankfully we were still inside the wire and not cruising down the road. It wasn't a full purge of the system, but rather a partial discharge; unfortunately one of the guys took a blast right to his face. He was lucky, though, and after I flushed his eyes with a couple bottles of water he was still able to go out on the mission. He's just really lucky he didn't take a big breath of it, as we probably would have had to medevac him out of here.
The city is slowly getting its feet under it. We've been doing a lot of missions with the Iraqi Police in the hopes that someday they will be able to stand on their own. During one of our missions we ended up in the house of a city council member, and since we weren't on any time constraints, we sat and had a long conversation with him. He said that the general attitude in the city is good; shops are open that haven't been in business in over a year, new homes are being built everywhere, the schools have good attendance, and the people feel safe walking down the streets. He said that this wasn't possible more than 6 months ago; he said that they are lucky our unit was the one assigned to this town, because he feels we have taken a genuine interest in rebuilding his city. He said that there are still people who don't want us here, but that they want even less for us to leave. Baby steps...
We just finished another mission; we've been doing pretty good at locating people on our "bad guy" list. Either they're getting complacent, or we're getting better at it. We're also starting to see a lot of information coming in from the local people themselves; just last week someone tipped off the IP's about a weapons cache in a cluster of houses by the river. Sure enough, there was a large stockpile of weapons; normally our bomb squad likes to blow it up in place, but since the neighborhood was friendly to us, we didn't want to give them any reason to change their minds. They took it back to one of the other bases and later that night they shook the sandbags we have in lieu of windows. Its definitely nice to see some positives steps being made.
Its 5:30am, Happy 4th of July! Not sure if theres anything special planned here, but I'm sure they'll come up with something. Since we were out so late, I'm hoping to get a chance to sleep; right now I'd take sleep over festivities. One of the lieutenants was joking with a bunch of lower enlisted guys saying that they were going to be able to shoot off flares and rockets and throw grenades and all kinds of stuff that goes "boom!" They got so excited and were about to run off and prep their stuff when he told them he was just kidding. It'd be fun, but we'd probably scare the town pretty good if we started going through our arsenal...best not to chance it.
I think thats about it from my end. My 25-hour day is finally at an end, so I'm gonna go rack out, or at least until someone kicks my bed and tells me to get up for our next mission...we'll see how long this actually lasts.
Best wishes to all
Troy
Monday, July 2, 2007
the changes
I recently posted a new picture of troy in Iraq. I was struck by the transformation from the fun light hearted kid from Iowa to the Soldier I see in the picture. I thought you might like to see the comparison a little closer.
The picture on the right was Troy just as he was deploying to Iraq, and the second was taken recently after he has been in country for some time.
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