Lost in PodCamp Boston 3 (or, How I Learned to Love the Blog)

So a few weeks ago, I came across the Podcamp 3 registration site. "What the hell," I thought, "I'm trying to get people to drink this Kool-Aid at work... might as well taking a huge heaping gulp myself."

Day One...

... I arrive bright and early, ready to absorb everything like a sponge. Each session I attend I begin to notice two things...

(1) I should have attended two years ago...
...and (2) I am utterly, totally, helplessly in over my head.

Not only do most of these people really know their stuff, they all seem to know one another. WHAT THE HELL IS THE INSIDE JOKE? WHY IS EVERYONE LAUGHING AND HAVING FUN???

I see others in my boat... eyes glazed, pens furiously scribbling down presenters' words as if they were handed down from on high, trying to capture every nugget of information before it floats away, never to be uttered again.

Mercifully, the breaks between sessions are long enough that my withered, cramped hand can uncontort... still, WHY THE HELL IS EVERYONE HAVING SO MUCH GODDAMN FUN? HOW DO I?

I crumple into one of the many seats scattered throughout the building... and timidly strike up a conversation with one of the denizens of happy, uber-dialed-in attendees who are clearly shaping the future of the Web 2.0 world that I can only hope to blindly slog through...

Amazingly, these social media gods do not laugh at my presence, but take the time to answer my questions. Surprisingly, they too, at some time had to cut their teeth on this technology and their experience are not unlike mine.

Riding home on the train Saturday evening I have my PCB3 Epiphany... there is no inside joke. The exuberance displayed by attendees is borne out of excitment about not only the technology itself, but the seemingly limitless applications of it in the everyday world.

Day Two... I arrive bright and early, much more willing to expose the soft underbelly of my inexperience... and have fun doing so.

My only regret... I can't attend every session... and leech off of the collective brains of my fellow podcampers more...

Stop the Golf War!!!

Title is not a typo...

“I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

This is our PRESIDENT's supreme sacrifice in a time when thousands of American sons & daughters have paid the ultimate sacrifice for a war of convenience, a war of spite, a war of personal vendettas. It sickens me as a veteran of this war that it continues... I could continue to vent my spleen or I could pass the mic to Keith Olbermann, who summed it up so well here.

For the visual learners...

There you have it... Soldiers lose lives... Bush loses golf...

As of this post, 249 days, 17 hours, 20 minutes until Bush leaves the White House, and the nation, in ruins for someone else to clean up...

So there you have it...

As you can see, my dispatches ended roughly 5 months before my time in the lovely sandbox known as Iraq did. I'd like to say that was due to an increase in positive, affirming actions that helped better the situation, but in all honesty, it was due to apathy... it hurt to care, so I chose not focus on it...

I've been home for 3+ years, but Tower 5 is right around the corner... and my shift is about to start...

American Dreams (Sunday, August 8, 2004 19:17)

Hello All,

I am slowly working my way back into a weekly routine of dispatches, but I again apologize for the delay. I'm not sure if I have slipped into the doldrums of summer (and the midway point of this ever-inspiring deployment), but franlkly, I really have not found much rant-worthy as of late. The days pass in a blast furnace blur and much of the precious little down time we have is spent sleeping and avoiding the outdoors entirely. We now plan our days in ways to avoid being exposed to midday heat as much as possible. If my laundry is not picked up by 10 AM, I'll wait to pick it up the next morning, even if it means wearing a highly fragrant PT tee shirt for another day, no joke.

Perhaps it being less than a month after being home for two glorious weeks of friends, family, and several hundred cups of Dunkin' Donuts coffee (I'm a slave to corporate America, I know), I am less inspired to write. Perhaps being at the midway point of the deployment has robbed me of the ability to find humor where I once did. I don't know. All I know is that it is ungodly hot over here and the thought of "cooler" temperatures being a month or so away (by cooler, I mean 90 -100 degrees F) is of little solace whilst sitting in the 140 degree heat of those rolling ovens we call HUMMVs.

Anyhow, enough sniveling about the heat. On with the rants...

I recently was made aware of a little fact that caused me to say "it was probably a good thing I was home on leave when I was." For those of you who do not know, I was home for two weeks in early July. During that time, Camp Bucca had a little Fourth of July celebration. Now, I always though the FOurth of July was a commemoration of our Indpendence, most likely because the actualy name of the holiday is "Independence Day." Regardless, Bucca had a "party" and elected to invite British forces in the immediate area (they had been kind enough to include us in their celebration of the Queen's Birthday earlier in the year). The Brits graciously accepted and the party was on. Part of the celebration was to include a reading of the Declaration of Independence. The document that delcared our independence from oppression under a British tyrrany. The document that sparked the war for our nation's liberty. You know, basically the most important document (perhaps secondly only to the Constitution) in the history of the United States.

Well, because political correctness, social awareness, and whatever else you like to call it reigns supreme over the UNited States Army's ability to effectively wage war, upper leadership, in a move that outraged, well, basically everyone, provided an edited version of the Declaration of Independence that omitted references to British tyranny and oppression, so as not to insult or slight our guests.

(let us pause to allow the author to work up the head of steam necessary to really get this rant going correctly...and now, without further adieu, let the rage commence...)

Okay, we've been sent to this goddamn country to liberate a people who would not fight for their own freedom, for a people too willing to follow the words of violent men who embrace hatred too much to ever allow true freedom to flourish. Fine... I'm willing to do my job here... it is what I signed up for and what I do.

While politicians use us for sound bytes and poll ratings, we live the hell that is war. Not because we like violence and pain, but because we truly believe that somehow, someday, our actions will bring forth a better way of life for those people we've been sent to help. In short, we believe in the principles of our country, though not always the politics.

Now, I can understand that some things that have happened in the past still smart -- some wounds do not heal quickly... nonetheless, to revise an offical document of substantial worth, on the day its very essence is celebrated, solely to play the role of gracious host, is completely ludicrous. It bastardized the entire day. I really do not think the Brits would get their knickers in a bunch over a few lines referring to events of 225+ years ago. If they were to take offense, let them them be offended. Do not take to a stage and tell us our country is the greatest country in the world, a country worth fighting and dying over, a country worth killing for, and then read a "scaled back" Declaration of Independence. If we want to be on the top, we've got to be willing to be a bit lonely...

I'd love to continue this rant, but I fear lack of sleep has hindered my ranting ability, so I will end this now. I promise I'll work myself up into a lather before my next dispatch...

For now, I hope all is well and look forward to hearing from all of you...

Keep some emails coming...

Mike

A Long Overdue Update (Wednesday, July 28, 2004 16:29)

Hello All,

Sorry for the rather drastic lapse in time since my last update, but time has been, well, constrained as of late, and further complications with the communications tent only served to increase the frustration of finding both the time, as well as the working equipment to get these dispatches out.

As some of you know, I did get the opportunity to travel home earlier this month for a much appreciated two week rest and relaxation leave. The time flew by and I found myself on a plane distined for the Middle East much too quickly for my taste.

So back to the communication problems that made these dispatches such a bear. The computer tent, one of few viable links to the outside world, had a nasty habit of crashing every four or five seconds. Our crack team of commo wizards (the Commo unit we all love to hate) did a little (and I do stress the adjective "little") research and found that personal laptops were to blame, as they were lifting IP addresses assigned to the permanent PCs at the tent. Ok... simple fix, right? Come now, you've been victim of my foolish rants long enough to know that in the Army, NOTHING is simple. So personal laptops become prohibited from the tent, which means I can no longer pore over my laptop, tweak and trimming my rants at liesure. Now I must focus all my insanity into whatever I can type in the 30 minute timeframe I'm allowed. Ok, I can deal with that -- forces me to think on my feet. Until the computer tent continues to crash like a drunk Kennedy on a bridge. Now the commo wi
zards, who, I believe, fall under the command of a drunk chimpanzee, discover a component has fried, which, apparently, had NOHTING to do with the fact the tent was only recently air conditioned. So a work order is put in... and the wait begins. Now, since everyone from Halliburton to my uncle's ex-college roommate's goldfish has a contract over here, THE WAIT can take anywhere from ten days to a light year. The contractor, who is based further north, decides against traveling through Baghdad and the other scenic locales of Iraq, and requests someone come up to retrieve the component necessary to fix the problem. Now, in a fit of utter brilliance, higher command decides it is not worth the risk of soldiers' lives to get a measly computer part, a decision I for one appluad. So commo continues to be down.

Your fearless narrator goes home on two week R&R, returning to find the computer tent operational, but personal laptops still banned. For the past two weeks I've spent every spare minute of tower duty (which adds up to a lot of minutes) ruminating over what to report from lovely Club Bucca. The first two weeks of duty after returning from home evoked little more that a string of profanities that would make a trucker say "well, I'd never..." and as I try to maintain some semblance of a gentleman, I opted to cool off a bit and wait for the right moment to resume communication with the outside world.

Cooling off is not something easily done in a desert environment, especially during the hottest months of the year, as I found out first hand.

It was a day like any other here. Hot, sandy, and windy. 140 degrees. We were on an escort mission to a British field hospital north of us. Sitting in the drivers' seat of my trusty uparmored, air conditioned HUMMV, which, like very other one, had a broken AC, I thought to myself, "so this it what it feels like to be a pizza." When we arrived at our destination, we did what every troop is wont to do -- we checked out the British version of a PX to see if there was anything they had that we didn't, so we could buy whatever it was, whether we needed it or not, to be the cool kids on the block. Finding nothing that met our stringent criteria, we settled to get some food and a cool drink. Waiting for our food, I noticed I was hardly any cooler than I was in the confines of the HUMMV, and, on the contrary, feeling as though I was actually getting hotter. My team leader advised me to seek some shade and start drinking more water, so I headed for the HUMMV to grab a water
out of the cooler. By "headed for the HUMMV" I mean staggered almost drunkenly in a direction generally towards the HUMMV. Team Leader didn't like that, so he guided me to shade and grabbed my Combat Lifesaver Kit. In a few minutes I was prepping my own IV line, wondering how the hell I was going to stick my own vein, especially when it looked to me as though I had four arms. At that point, a kindly Brit reminded us that we were at a field hospital and actual doctors would happily treat me.

Two days later, I arrived back at Bucca, having survived first a heat-related injury, and then, perhaps, the worst part, two days of British "food." I've since returned to regular duty -- light duty is a joke anyway -- and I currently finding new meaning to the word "hot." Apparently, for the past few days, this area's temps have been THE hottest in the world, leading me to believe Iraq is actually a gateway to Hell and the fires we see burning at oil refineries are actually portals to the underworld.

So that has been my life in a nutshell. A very, very, very HOT nutshell.

I promise I'll try to be better about the dispatches -- I know you all need something to delete from your inboxes with some regularity.

I'll leave you with another installment of "Things I Cannot Do In Iraq."

I cannot name the camel skull we keep in the barracks "Isadore" in tribute to the Camp Commander.
I cannot ask the Brits "so do the car bombs remind you of the good old days of the IRA?" (Erin Go Bragh)
I cannot label my saline solution bags "margarita," "martini," or "Jagermeiester"
I cannot say "so the assassins have failed me again" when greeting a squad leader
I cannot refer to Iraq as the biggest cesspool in the biggest hellhole of the world.
I cannot throw ice cubes at the soldier stationed in the Guardian Angel overwatch tower to remind him of hailstorms
I cannot, while home on leave, call television cameramen "f**king vultures" to their face, even if that is what they are
I cannot, while on pass to Kuwait, ask soldiers stationed there if they actually get paid to do what they do
I cannot blare the Ramones "Blitzkrieg Bop" at full volume to "get things started" at four in the morning (hey! ho! let's go!)
I cannot ask Iraqis "why the hell would you WANT to live here?"
I cannot call in "packs of angry ostriches" while in towers (and no, there are no ostriches over here... ...yet)
I cannot announce "that was another waste of day" upon entering the chow hall for dinner chow
I cannot try to fry an egg on the hood of a HUMMV (it does work, though)

Well, there you have it, more things not to do if you wish to remain promotable in IRaq.

For those of you who receive this, please forward it along to anyone who may not have gotten it, as I am still working the issue on updating my ARMY address list from my OUTLOOK list.

Also, 500 bonus points and my undying gratitude to ANYONE who can locate a men's size medium "Punisher" tee shirt. Weird request, I know, but the Punisher is one bad ass character and his skull tee shirt would make one hell of a battle flag when rolling through the streets.

Until later,

Keep on rockin' in the free world.

D

Camp Bucca, A Case Study

Hello All,

As I said in my last dispatch, I'll make every attempt to include some humor and / or wit into my dispatches. I realize I just sent out the last one, but I've got a few dispatches sitting on my laptop waiting to be sent out. Due to a slight stomach bug, I've spent the majority of my downtime either sleeping, puking, or wishing to die. I'm feeling a lot better, so here are the works of brillance my virus-deluded mind created while lying in my bunk, wondering "is this what it feels like to be shot in the stomach?"

Also, attached are a few pics of the area, including some of the neighbors we've befriended...

29 APR 2004
Camp Bucca, Iraq

So it has been right around two months since we got “in-country.” Two down, ten to go… or 13 to go, should we some of the poor bastards selected for involuntary extensions at the end of our term. The honeymoon was over before we left Ft. Dix and most of us have come to terms with our brothers-in-arms and roommates for the next year or so of our lives. Nonetheless, as there always is in large groups, there are those who see fit to continue living in Iraq as if they were at home, living on their own, without thirty-something roommates sharing a rather crowded double-wide trailer. There are multiple ways of dealing with these urchins of barracks life. One can meet them head-on, and deal with the inevitable shouting matches, grudges, and petty BS that follows. One could wage a silent war against them, slowly gaining support in other platoon members slower to anger or more tolerant of others. Or, one can simply ignore them entirely. Now, this may not be the most aggressive of the tactics available, but it is by far the most entertaining. By first completely divorcing any attachment to said individuals, you can objectify and “televisonize” them. By viewing them more as a prolonged sit-com than the thorn in your side, their exploits can be rather comical.

Take for instance, the “yea-yea,” or Homo surpassus. This interesting creature can be seen hovering around conversations among other members of the platoon, always on the prowl. The have a tendency to strike after particularly amusing or inspired anecdotes, and their “battle cry” is typically initiated with an opening “yeah, yeah… that reminds me of the time when I…” Normally, whatever follows is either (A) completely fabricated, solely to gain acceptance of others, (B) dismissive, used to subjugate the teller of the previous tale, or (C) positively mind-numbing and pointless, usually told simply for the yea-yea to hear his own voice.

Another barracks beast to keep an eye out for is the Angry Dude, or Homo Enrageous. Angry Dudes are characteristically full of seething rage over no discernable wrongdoing. Prone to frequent innocuous, but loud, outbursts, Angry Dudes will rant and/or rave to anyone within a three building radius about how he got screwed by (A) his team leader, (B) his squad leader, (C) the deployment in general, or (D) all of the above, plus more. Extreme care should be exercised not to provoke Angry Dudes, for the mere question “how are you?” can set off an hour-long tirade. Warning: Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to reason with Angry Dudes. Not amount of logic will make sense to this creature. They are simply angry. Efforts to diffuse said anger will only yield more.

A particularly interesting species of the barracks kingdom, the Awkwardly Honest Guy (Homo veritas) will provide the most brutally honest assessment of any situation, whether or not it pertains to him, regardless, even, if he was asked. In a recent conversation between two soldiers regarding an incident at the IF, an AHG took it upon himself to walk back three rows on the transport bus to tell one soldier the detainee he was dealing with could have easily beaten him in hand to hand combat, had it not been for the presence of the second soldier. Not only was this comment unsolicited, it was also extraneous, for the first soldier was thanking the second soldier for backing him up. While such comments, when delivered with tact and compassion, can actually augment conversations and open them up to more participants, when delivered derisively and bluntly, they do nothing more than breed contempt and awkward silence from those at which such comments are directed. Effective defense against AHGs involves foresight – one must be aware of an AHGs presence and crop conversation to topical, light conversation until they leave the AO (Area of Operations).

The bane of casual-pay doorways everywhere, the Perpetually Poor Guy (Homo pauperis), is known to skulk about the AO near the Casual Pay office of finance units. Quick to latch onto anyone nearby, PPGs employ tactics of attrition and occasional pity to talk their victims into submission by constantly reminding them of the five hundred mouths he needs to fill back home, how he has no cash available, but will have some soon and just needs a floater to get him by, etc. Said individuals will often be seen making large purchases (Xbox’s, DVD players, etc.) but will never have enough to cover expenses such as toiletries and sundry items. The best way to deal with PPGs is to assume their own visage. Should one be caught in their line of sight, walk directly to them, smiling confidently, as if greeting a long-lost friend. Patting them on the back denotes a further sense of intimacy and camaraderie. Once the trifling matters of petty conversations is dispensed with, ask the PPG for a five-dollar loan until you can make a run over the PX. The actual dollar amount is not vital to the scheme. In some cases, the need for a lesser amount of money will indicate to the PPG that the defender is really hard off if even such a pittance is needed. Once “cornered,” a PPG will awkwardly fidget as he explains how he’d really like to loan the money, but he left his wallet in the barracks, HUMMV, or how someone else owes him money and he’s short until he collects.

Similar to Homo enrageous, Homo vendettas, commonly known as “The Victim,” is another barracks creature that will launch into seemingly endless tirades over nothing at all. Rather than displaying blinding anger towards anyone in his line of sight, The Victim will instead proceed to explain to anyone and everyone about how he is getting screwed over by any combination of people, places, and things. In this individual’s mind, the Army is out to get him, his leadership is definitely out to get him, and his wife or significant other is without a doubt doing god-knows-what-with-god-knows-who and he must get emergency leave immediately to rectify a situation with someone who screwed him over in the private sector. As with enrageous, it is best to give vendettas wide berth, lest he latch onto your side to explain to you how the food-service operators must hate him because he only got twenty French fries when everyone else got easily twice that.

Perhaps the most threatening, or at least, troublesome, of all barracks bastions, the Super Sergeant, a.k.a. THE NCO, or Homo bossus, is one individual to avoid at all costs. Typically a junior non-commissioned officer, this individual clings to his rank as if it was handed down by Divine intercession itself. While a certain amount of tact and respect must be displayed to said individual (in most cases, he does outrank his prey), it must be understood that in the grand scheme of things, the most notable difference between his prey and himself is a rung or two on the pay scale ladder. Quick to join in the festivities and bravado of the enlisted men, he will quickly revert to a defensive posture should he become the target of good-natured ribbing. Displaying a natural aversion to any real work, delegation is his most effective tactic. During a recent trip into the field, a bossus was spotted nearby a group of soldiers carrying boxes of water into trailer. An E6 was leading the crew and asked for any other available soldiers to help. When troops rose to help, bossus grudgingly rose, then walked into the barracks, avoiding all work. When later confronted, he explained that he was a Sergeant (E5) and that the detail was “enlisted” work. The presence of the E6, he explained, was simply because the Staff Sergeant did not know how to effectively delegate tasks. Defense against bossus is limited in its scope, as when he outranks his prey, there is virtually nothing short of outright defiance of an order that the enlisted man can do. The best survival tactic is simply to grin and bear it. Without griping, explain to other NCOs, when asked why you’re the only one doing a hands-and-knees police call across a gravel pit looking for any small bits of trash, that you were ordered by SGT So-and-so and were just wrapping up, but wanted to make sure the area was satisfactory to avoid more wall-to-wall counseling. This will usually yield an inquiry into the legitimacy of the original order. Great care must be afforded to insure such inquiries are made in enough of a round-about fashion to avoid retribution.

Perhaps the most vexing of all creatures is the final beast we will study today. With an apparent aversion to personal hygiene, Homo odiferus, commonly known as The Stinky Guy, is a creature who has decided that in lieu of good old soap and water, dust and sweat are an appropriate cleaning combo. Mimicking the sparrows, that take dust baths to rid themselves of minute sand fleas, odiferus will complete several days of duty rotations without visiting the shower trailers. Perhaps it is their connection with nature, or an environmental effort to conserve water, that compels these individuals to not bath. Now, while such hygiene habits (or, more appropriately, lack thereof) would be construed as abnormal at home, consider the ramifications of an environment comprised solely of dust, driving wind, and greater-than-one-hundred-degree weather. A good way to spot said creature is for a simple glancing inspection of their toiletry kit. Should the lettering carved into their bar of soap remain legible for more than two days, it is safe to assume an odiferus is in your midst, as if the distinct “musk” would not be indication enough. There is little than can be done to deal with such a creature. Perhaps the overwhelming odor affects their brain patterns, but overt hints such as “hey, man, you STINK! And we’re not talking ‘a long day in the field stink…” we’re talkin’ ‘what the died in your uniform?’ STINK!” do nothing to remind them to shower and in some cases, causes a longer lapse between cleanings. Hold your breath and move to locales upwind.

The above delineation of barracks beasts is in no way to be construed as a comprehensive catalogue of unsavory characters found in your barracks. In many cases, one individual may display a propensity towards any combination of the aforementioned disorders. The combinatrix is virtually unlimited. There are species yet to be discovered. The creatures found above are the most prominent and in some cases, most dangerous individuals to be encountered. By maintaining the proper distance and at times the proper “ask-me-if-I-really-give-a-good-god-damn” attitude, they can also be the most entertaining. For added enjoyment, once adept in interpersonal dealings with said creatures, pit one against another to discover the subtle nuances of each character and what it takes to truly set one off. Tears, shouting matches, and the occasional idle threat indicate progress.

Miss You All!

D

Lonsome, Orn'ry, & Mean

Hello All...

Pardon the Waylon Jennings-inspired Subject header... just seemed to fit.

Okay... so what have we learned thus far...
1. In Iraq, if it crawls, flies, walks, or scurries, it can kill you.
2. There are a lot of things I cannot do without facing Disciplinary Action.
3. The longer a soldier stays in-country, the more bizarre his sense of humor becomes...

I think we'll leave the list at that for now.

So another week has passed. We are now four days away from being here for two full months... which means, considering the way soldiers tours are being extended, the uncertainty that ANY leave will be permitted, that this is the Year of the Monkey (woohoo!) in the Chinese Zodiac, the Olympics and elections are coming up, and Ms. Cleo's Psychic Hotline predictions, we should be home by at least 2025. If all goes well...

We had a week of entry control points, the highlights of which included death matches between scorpions and camel spiders, all of which have decided this past week was the perfect time to makes their mass appearance here at Bucca. Not too much of anything happened, though we did recieve a very interesting sociological study into the life and times of the street kids of Umm Qasr. A group of teens headed by Ali and Michael Jackson (he swears that's his real name) set up shop at a control point to sell useless, cheap trinkets to any GIs willing to part with their hard earned combat pay. Half the fun is bartering with the kids, which involves repeatedly reminding them we have M-16A2s and M9 9mm pistols and could just TAKE their stuff if we saw fit. Well, Ali and MJ run then show. THey send the other kids on runs to resupply their stocks of cheap pre-war Iraqi flags, bayonets of the old Iraqi Army, scarves, and whatever else is not nailed down in Umm Qasr. FOr the downright low price of $15 (US), you too can walk away with two bayonets, a flag, and a handful of "Saddam" dinars, perfect for absolutely nothing, since they are not even worth the material it took to print them.

At any rate, Ali apparently did not like the cut of the profit he was receiving from MJ, so he saw fit to stab MJ in the bicep and rip the knife out, doing SEVERE damage to MJ's arm. MJ, in turn, made a visit to the local "doctor," who for the low, low price of $20 (US) did a stitch job that a drunk monkey could have done blindfolded. There are five "sutures" where there should be AT LEAST thirty.

Because our medical teams are tasked out, it is not our mission to set up a clinic for the locals, and the fact that I am an idiot, for the past week, I have been Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, err, Man for young Mr MJ. Using the very sparse supplies in my Combat Lifesaver bag, I have been treating his wound, which grows worse by the day. Today, he could not even extend his arm, the pain was too great. A medic did give him some antibitoics to stave off infection, but MJ saw fit to sell his meds for more money. So now, it is apparent, MJ will likely lose the arm (if he is lucky) or die as the wound grows gangrenous and spreads to his torso and heart. Good times, right? Worst part is, he doesn't know how bad the wound is and how badly he needs to care for it. So myself and a few others in my position do our best in what will be a losing battle for this kid.

He and Ali remain friends and neither see anything wrong with what happened -- it's simply how business is done day to day here. If anyone is looking to send anything over here, basic first aid material and Nitrile gloves do come in handy, especially to those of us whose hands are irritated by the latex gloves we work with...

Aside from "ER, Iraq" not too much has happened this week. We were priveleged to see one Iraqi truck driver delivering our bottled drinking water get out of his truck to be searched wearing nothing more than boxer shorts and a tee shirt. Sorry, ladies, I was unable to get a photo of this fine specimen of manliness...

We did host a wayward British convoy who entered our control point with the intention of driving straight through to Umm Qasr. After repeated attempts to communicate to the Convoy Commander (in English, though it can be a tricky language to our British counterparts) that there was no direct road and he was driving into a camp, he entered anyway, insistent there was NO camp at all. Twenty minutes later, said convoy exited our control point, a confused Brit exclaiming... "well I'll be snookered... there is a bloody camp here!"

I'll leave you with a few more things I have discovered it is not in my best interest to do while in Iraq.

1. I cannot take the ATV's used by the 107th out for joy rides.
2. I cannot take SSG Pellerin's sock puppet monkey, Bamboo (a gift from his kids) hostage and hold him for ransom
3. I cannot try to twirl an M9 (unloaded, of course) and sling it into my holster John Wayne style...
4. I cannot tell the LT to "go open the gate for ASO, we're busy over here" when he comes to visit our Control POint.
5. I cannot play Johnny Cash's "Boy Named Sue" more than three times in a row without ticking someone off.
6. I cannot say "whoa! is that a bo... oh never mind" when conducting vehicle searches.
7. I cannot use "lack of interest" as an excuse to take a day off of duty.
8. I cannot blame the 107th and the 160th for everything. (though they still do tick us off to no end)
9. I cannot refer to the detainees as "damn, dirty apes," while in classes on how to handle them.
10. I cannot, under any circumstances, refer to the First Seargeant and the COmmmander as "Hekyl and Jekyl."
11. I cannot ask for "the soup du jour followed by prime rib with a decent Cabernet" at dinner. All I get is blank stares from the Pakistani food service employees.
12. I cannot throw water bottles out of the Guardian Angel overwatch tower just to see them explode, especially if my team leader just happens to be about three feet away from the landing site.
13. I cannot clean my rifle in a sandstorm... is just does not work.
14. I cannot yell "Dammit, Sgt. Hutton, I'm a doctor, not a mechanic!" when the HUMMV breaks down.

and
15. I cannot request the PX to stock surfboards, "just in case God decides to send a giant tidal wave to wipe this damn beach out."

Well, I hope this email finds everyone well. Keep the emails and mail coming. I think my muse is back on strike, but we'll have a little chat and I'll try to make the next update a little more inspired.

Go Red Sox, Die Yankee Scum!

D