It's been a while since I last was able to get on this thing and fill you all in on what's been doing on so bare with me as I try and recap the past month or more....
When we finally did arrive at JBB, the original plan was our Brigade (who had been at JBB for 8 days already) was going to arrange for our permanent housing, CHUs (container housing units) but when we got out of the terminal, we were told that the All American billeting (open bay bunk bed housing) would be our lodging accommodations for the night. Awesome. I've been there before so I knew what to expect but it's not a place to stay for longer than a day or two. In the middle of the night, the C-RAM went off just outside the billeting...welcome to Balad.
Thursday
All in all, it's hard to think that a month has already gone by since I first got here and the progress that has been made. We couldn't have gotten where we are had it not been for the Air Force guys I'm working with. It's been a good experience so far and I am always learning.
On the 18th of July myself and 4 Airmen went to Ali Al Salem to head up to Joint Base Balad (JBB) and start prepping for our mission up there. After waiting for 4 hours, we found we were bumped off the flight and would have to stay the night at Ali. I've spent a few nights at Ali before and I was not looking forward to being put up in another tent with poor air conditioner. Fortunately being around Air Force guys, we were able to head over to the Air Force side of the Airbase and got put up in billeting....much better billeting than what we'd of been stuck with on the Army side. Guess it pays to know these guys.
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| Iraqi Kids Day....they loved my iPad |
Another thing our Brigade was suppose to arrange for us was a motor pool to stage our trucks, an office to operate out of, vehicles to drive around base, and billeting for the 121 Soldiers and Airmen that I would have under the Task Force I am in charge of. No such luck. Turns out if we wanted anything to happen for US we'd have to do it ourselves since their focus was on themselves. First thing first, transportation. Once again knowing Air Force guys helped us get a pickup truck to use for the short term. Unfortunately the air condition in the truck wasn't stellar. It took 10 days for Brigade to hand over a vehicle for us to use because they figured since we had managed to get one that we should be ok....guess they didn't understand that our living area, office, motor pool, and truck maintenance support were all over 2 miles apart from each other so with no cell phones or way of communicating it isn't possible to just drop my commo guy, maintenance guy and truckmaster off at their various locations since at any given time they might have to head somewhere else. After 10 days of not being fully functional, Brigade handed over the keys to a vehicle allowing my guys to do their jobs.
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| My room |
Next was to get out of the transient billeting and into our CHUs. This became a process! Took nearly an entire day to get everything worked out but after spending a day in them, we realized we had moved into the ghetto to the point of trying to decide if we should go red on our weapons (chambering a round) before leaving to head to the laundry facilities. Speaking of those...Senior Schraner and I spent 3 hours there doing our laundry with the air conditioner not working. That was the breaking point. The next day we headed to the Air Force housing office and once again, knowing upper level Airmen pays off...they arranged for us to have CHUs in the gated community...yea, that's right, the Air Force has a sectioned off gated community with cipher locks that are changed constantly....I think I need to transfer to the Air Force!
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| The Office |
Our office space has slowly come together. I brought up two computers to use but what good is a computer without a desk to set it on, a network connection, chairs, you know..things for an office? It took us a few days to scrounge these up and now we’ve got a semi decent looking office space. We moved into room that has expose wiring all over the place, the plywood floor boards sag when you walk over them and somehow there are boot prints on the warped ceiling…we ended up getting some chairs….rolling ones….but they didn’t roll. Small challenge.
After the first week here, we started receiving our convoys who will be operating out of here and that’s when things started getting hectic. Sleep became a luxury (as difficult as it was with my loud neighbors and a/c unit that sounds like a car going through a garbage disposal) as did food. Breakfasts consisted of a handful of trail mix and a protein shake, lunch was normal and dinner ceased to exist.
This is what my schedule for that week looked like:
Monday
0630 Get up
0700 Breakfast
0800-1700 Work
1800 Dinner
2000-2330 Get some sleep
2330 Get up
Tuesday
0001 Visit the TOC (Tactical Operation Center) to verify inbound convoy
0100 Link up with new convoy team
0130 Escort convoy to yard
0145 Welcome brief
0230 Escort convoy to billets
0330-0730 Get some sleep
0800-1800 Work
1800 Eat
2000-2330 Get some sleep
2330 Get up
Wednesday
0001 Visit the TOC to verify inbound convoy
0100 Link up with new convoy
0130 Escort new convoy to yard
0145 Welcome brief
0230 Escort convoy to billet
0330-0800 Get some sleep
0800-1800 Work
1800 Eat something
1900 Get some laundry done
2300 Visit TOC, find out convoy is delayed
0001 Get some sleep
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| Convoy Loading up |
0800 up
0900-1800 Work
Skipped dinner
1830-2030 Get some sleep
2100 Visit TOC
2330 Finally find out convoy is delayed
2345 Grab some food at midnight chow
Friday
0030-0230 sleep
0230 Link up with new convoy
0330 Escort new convoy to yard
0345 Welcome brief
0400 Escort convoy to billets
0630 Work out
0800-1300 Work
1300-1630 Nap
1700 Daily meeting
So there's just a glimpse of how sporadic that week was. I think one day I remember sitting in the truck waiting on Chief Schraner and I had a crossword out on the steering wheel...I fell asleep (sunglasses on) and when I woke up to him getting in the truck, the my hands hadn't moved keeping the crossword up as if I was still awake. Overall, it's not too bad. The crew I brought up here to support this mission have been really good to work with. It's different working strictly with Air Force guys but I've learned a lot from each of them.
With how things have been going with my higher unit, we as a group have to find comedy in whatever we can...at any given time. Just last week, as I was walking towards the shower trailer I thinking about how much it would suck to take indirect fire (mortar attack) right then because I had to go to the bathroom so bad and having to duck into a bomb shelter until the all-clear was sounded would have resulted in an unsanitary bunker....fortunately for me, just as I opened the door to the trailer, the Klaxen (siren and 'take cover! take cover!') sounded. I turned to see that another army guy was just a few steps away so I held the door for him. As I step into the trailer, an Airmen dove for the floor, sliding towards me, toothbrush in hand, and covers his head. The other Army guy and I step over him like nothing happened. Might sound dry or whatever but if a round hits exactly where we were (a trailer surrounded by concrete barriers), it was our turn to die, no use getting all worked up.
With how things have been going with my higher unit, we as a group have to find comedy in whatever we can...at any given time. Just last week, as I was walking towards the shower trailer I thinking about how much it would suck to take indirect fire (mortar attack) right then because I had to go to the bathroom so bad and having to duck into a bomb shelter until the all-clear was sounded would have resulted in an unsanitary bunker....fortunately for me, just as I opened the door to the trailer, the Klaxen (siren and 'take cover! take cover!') sounded. I turned to see that another army guy was just a few steps away so I held the door for him. As I step into the trailer, an Airmen dove for the floor, sliding towards me, toothbrush in hand, and covers his head. The other Army guy and I step over him like nothing happened. Might sound dry or whatever but if a round hits exactly where we were (a trailer surrounded by concrete barriers), it was our turn to die, no use getting all worked up.
One day earlier this month the base sponsored what they called "Iraqi Kid Day" where the youth of the surrounding towns/villages were allowed on base to hang out with volunteers. They had the rec center set aside for games, face painting, food, and dancing (hokie pokie, macarena etc). I hadnt volunteered and didnt know it was going on so when I walked in the door, it was a littler weird. The reason I had gone there was to get on the internet with my iPad. As soon as I took it out, there were little boys asking me what it was, how it worked....so I opened up the camera and showed them pictures and took pictures of them. Bad idea! As soon as I did this, all of them wanted to take it and make video, take photos of themselves....which isn't the part that I minded, it was when they were playing tug-o-war with it to the point where it almost got dropped multiple times....on top of that, they stole my soft cap and worse yet, my sunglasses! In the end, I got everything back, some good photos/videos and a good story to tell.
Although things have settled down a bit and we have found a routine, things are always coming up to change things. For example, this mission is very high visibility...it is so much of an interest that an Aif Force 3-star general who had flown in to Iraq to check up on the operations of this base that he etched out a small piece of time to come down to where my Airmen and Soldiers live to meet them and say a few words. This general has literally thousands of Airmen who fall under his command (He's the highest ranking Air Force in all of Iraq), and he took time to come talk to us. Pretty sweet.
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| Lieutenant General Goldfein |
All in all, it's hard to think that a month has already gone by since I first got here and the progress that has been made. We couldn't have gotten where we are had it not been for the Air Force guys I'm working with. It's been a good experience so far and I am always learning.
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