It’s been a few days since my last post and to say that I have been busy has been an understatement. Who would have ever thought that we would be training in Iraq to get ready for Afghanistan. The Special Forces that are located here have been kind enough to take some time and train us up on some skills that have gotten quite rusty since we have been here. We have been working on shooting and some close quarters combat stuff, along with reacting to enemy contact and IED recovery drills. It’s something you hope you will never use but thinking it will never happen is what gets people in trouble. I rather be prepared and never have to use what I know than ill prepared and will probably be one of the most dangerous times in my life.
The Taliban are on the run and by the time I get there snow will be about ready to fall and the bad guys go home for the winter. Where I will be is going to be about 7k feet which is about 2k feet higher than Denver.
Along with training I somehow weaseled my way on to an MI-24 HIND helicopter flight. This helicopter is pretty cool and when armed is one of the most feared helicopters in the world next to our Apache of course. Unlike our Apache this gunship is made to carry 6 guys in addition to the pilots. So I was lucky enough to snag a ride.
I would love to post more pictures but each picture has been taking almost 20 min to post. My internet connection upload is very slow.
The weather here is about the same. We have seen a little reprieve in the heat as it only hit 118 today. The highest I have seen it was 125. My thermometer is in the shade so in the sun the temps are easily in the 140s. It’s almost painful.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
I may have used this before but Damn it's hot!!!
Today was the hottest day yet. I have told some people in emails tha we were lucky in that it had only been hitting 110 or so. We weren't so lucky today. Today hit 125 in the shade. Of course I spent most of it outside in the sun. It was probably 140 or so in the sun. Somebody is going to have to remind me what's so great about this place. It was just stupidly hot. Get this it rained for about 2 minutes. I was perplexed to see water hitting the ground and the HMMWV (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle)I thought someone was throwing water over the T wall at me.
This week should be better than most as we are training up and refreshing our skills before we head off to Afghanistan. The local SPecial Forves team is coaching us along. We are starting at 0600 and getting done about 0900 before it gets to hot. LOL it was 110 by 0930 this morning.
In the states we are so controlled in our training, over here we are free to do pretty much whatever we want as long as it is safe. For example in the states we aren't allowed to even handle ammo most of the time unles we are getting it and going to our firing position on the range. Here we have loaded weapons a lot of the time, and always have ammo on us. At a minumum I have my 9MM and 2 15 round magazines. When I'm out on a mission well lets just say that I have to use the word thousands to describe the amount of ammuntion we are carrying, not to mention the grenades and flares and rocket launchers. Bottom line is if we engage the bad guys we win. They don't want to go toe to toe with any american force. You shoot 1 round we shoot enough to make you stop. If you happen to be shooting from a building and are hiding well that what the rocket launchers are for lol.
So are training is fun, well for me it is. I'm pretty sure that some of the other rather be behind thier desks. Me, well I generally look for an excuse to get out from behind it. Some days I'm a softy and the heat gets the best of me but most of the time I rather be out an about.
Not much else to report. The coming days will bring a lot of changes as the polish begin leaving and this place turns over to an all american camp. I will talk more about that later.
Later for now,
Brent
This week should be better than most as we are training up and refreshing our skills before we head off to Afghanistan. The local SPecial Forves team is coaching us along. We are starting at 0600 and getting done about 0900 before it gets to hot. LOL it was 110 by 0930 this morning.
In the states we are so controlled in our training, over here we are free to do pretty much whatever we want as long as it is safe. For example in the states we aren't allowed to even handle ammo most of the time unles we are getting it and going to our firing position on the range. Here we have loaded weapons a lot of the time, and always have ammo on us. At a minumum I have my 9MM and 2 15 round magazines. When I'm out on a mission well lets just say that I have to use the word thousands to describe the amount of ammuntion we are carrying, not to mention the grenades and flares and rocket launchers. Bottom line is if we engage the bad guys we win. They don't want to go toe to toe with any american force. You shoot 1 round we shoot enough to make you stop. If you happen to be shooting from a building and are hiding well that what the rocket launchers are for lol.
So are training is fun, well for me it is. I'm pretty sure that some of the other rather be behind thier desks. Me, well I generally look for an excuse to get out from behind it. Some days I'm a softy and the heat gets the best of me but most of the time I rather be out an about.
Not much else to report. The coming days will bring a lot of changes as the polish begin leaving and this place turns over to an all american camp. I will talk more about that later.
Later for now,
Brent
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
My 14th annual 21st B-day
So my 35th Birthday is spent in Iraq. It's not that big of a deal, I hate missing those other important days like the kids Birthdays and anniversaries, my own and my parents. What I miss most is just getting together with family and visiting and catching up on whatever.
Today has been like most other days. I went into work and found my door decorated with ballons and and a sign saying happy birthday. A little later that day all of the polish officers that live work in the building, its about 10 or 11 crowded into my office and sang happy birthday to me in Polish. They gave me a book as well which is written in Polish and English that talks about all of the things the Polish military has been involved in. It was really kind of neat. The Polish are very hospitable and go out of there way to help us celebrate our holidays such as Memorial Day and our Independence day. It is really a neat place to be when you think about it.
My fellow Illinoisans gave me a card which I will post a picture of if I can get it to upload. On the front it has puppies eating a cake which is kind of an inside joke. We tend to use puppies a lot when we are emphasizing things. For example "man my stomach is messsed up I left a bowl full of puppy S*&t, or another one that seems to be common when we are talking about detainees we often say he was as soft as puppy S&@t.
So not much else to say. I had some ice cream from the Dining Facility for my Birthday but then again I have that almost every night. I was hoping for a taco salad from the taco bar but instead I ended up with a crushed taco mess for dinner. Much to my dismay I realized to late we were out of lettuce once again.
Thank You for all of your emails wishing me a Happy Birthday it's nice to know that people still remember who I am, LOL!
Later and good night from Iraq
Brent
Today has been like most other days. I went into work and found my door decorated with ballons and and a sign saying happy birthday. A little later that day all of the polish officers that live work in the building, its about 10 or 11 crowded into my office and sang happy birthday to me in Polish. They gave me a book as well which is written in Polish and English that talks about all of the things the Polish military has been involved in. It was really kind of neat. The Polish are very hospitable and go out of there way to help us celebrate our holidays such as Memorial Day and our Independence day. It is really a neat place to be when you think about it.
My fellow Illinoisans gave me a card which I will post a picture of if I can get it to upload. On the front it has puppies eating a cake which is kind of an inside joke. We tend to use puppies a lot when we are emphasizing things. For example "man my stomach is messsed up I left a bowl full of puppy S*&t, or another one that seems to be common when we are talking about detainees we often say he was as soft as puppy S&@t.
So not much else to say. I had some ice cream from the Dining Facility for my Birthday but then again I have that almost every night. I was hoping for a taco salad from the taco bar but instead I ended up with a crushed taco mess for dinner. Much to my dismay I realized to late we were out of lettuce once again.
Thank You for all of your emails wishing me a Happy Birthday it's nice to know that people still remember who I am, LOL!
Later and good night from Iraq
Brent
Sunday, August 10, 2008
My trip to Baghdad
I returned yesterday from my Trip to Baghdad. I left late Wednesday night/ early Thursday morning. The Chinook came in about 1230 or so and picked us up with about 50 other people. All helicopters fly in pairs just in case they have problems. We landed at a couple of other places before we made it into Liberty pad which is one of the landing spots for camp Victory. The flight was pretty uneventful for the most part except for when they decided to dump some flares. Now as I understand this is a fairly common practice. They use flares to fool heat seeking missiles. Now no one shot at us but sometimes when they fly over certain areas they use the flares just in case. Anyways it was a surprise to most of us on the helicopter.
So we made it into Bagdad pretty late and went to bed not long often getting settled. I should add that we (one of the other members of the team) stayed with some of our Ukrainian acquaintances. That was very convenient otherwise we would have had to worry about a vehicle and getting around. They took care of us for the duration of our stay. Now camp Victory is one of if not the largest military Camp in Baghdad. There are at least 2 other large camps in Baghdad not to mention the green zone. It is huge compared to my little camp Echo. Camp echo is about 1.4 miles around camp victory is 29 miles around.
While I was there I got visit the big PX (think Walmart) but didn’t buy much. I bought some body soap for one of the guys since our little PX (think convenience store). I couldn’t really buy a whole lot since my whole purpose for being there was to get new armor plates for our new bullet proof vests. Each plate weighs between 6-9lbs and I had to carry 10 of them home plus all of the clothes and stuff I already had.
While I was there I got to visit Saddam’s Palace. The Military has turned it into a very large office building. In the hallways they have built 8 foot walls and made office space out of those because the hallways themselves are almost 30 ft wide. My pictures just don’t do anything there justice. I needed a wide angle lens because everything is so huge. There are only 3 floors but each floor is double the average floor of any building.
So nothing else was to spectacular I hopped on a Blackhawk for the ride home at about 1030 last night the ride was only 40 min but it was kinda of hellish. Metal seats with canvas strung between the bars, but that’s typical of almost all cargo type aircraft. The seats are meant to be stowed so they can carry stuff if need be.
So I made it home in one piece not that I expected any issues.
On another completely different note. My picture of what is this. Well I was told the wrong thing so my clues are a little off. It is a big tower that they use to look into the city. It’s stuck and not working right now lol.
Later for now,
Brent
So we made it into Bagdad pretty late and went to bed not long often getting settled. I should add that we (one of the other members of the team) stayed with some of our Ukrainian acquaintances. That was very convenient otherwise we would have had to worry about a vehicle and getting around. They took care of us for the duration of our stay. Now camp Victory is one of if not the largest military Camp in Baghdad. There are at least 2 other large camps in Baghdad not to mention the green zone. It is huge compared to my little camp Echo. Camp echo is about 1.4 miles around camp victory is 29 miles around.
While I was there I got visit the big PX (think Walmart) but didn’t buy much. I bought some body soap for one of the guys since our little PX (think convenience store). I couldn’t really buy a whole lot since my whole purpose for being there was to get new armor plates for our new bullet proof vests. Each plate weighs between 6-9lbs and I had to carry 10 of them home plus all of the clothes and stuff I already had.
While I was there I got to visit Saddam’s Palace. The Military has turned it into a very large office building. In the hallways they have built 8 foot walls and made office space out of those because the hallways themselves are almost 30 ft wide. My pictures just don’t do anything there justice. I needed a wide angle lens because everything is so huge. There are only 3 floors but each floor is double the average floor of any building.
So nothing else was to spectacular I hopped on a Blackhawk for the ride home at about 1030 last night the ride was only 40 min but it was kinda of hellish. Metal seats with canvas strung between the bars, but that’s typical of almost all cargo type aircraft. The seats are meant to be stowed so they can carry stuff if need be.
So I made it home in one piece not that I expected any issues.
On another completely different note. My picture of what is this. Well I was told the wrong thing so my clues are a little off. It is a big tower that they use to look into the city. It’s stuck and not working right now lol.
Later for now,
Brent
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Don't let the cold water burn you
Thats what one of the ukrainians said I was on my way to the shower. I thought man he screwed that up, thinking he got his English all mixed up. I thought he was telling me the Hot water was really hot.
I step into the shower and now I'm a little cautious so I turn the shower on all cold which is always at least 85 degrees or so, the cold water is never really cold. They fill up these big plastic tanks that are 10-15 feet tall and 10 feet weide. They fill them almost every day which is important to the story.
The Cold water comes out and almost scalds me. Come to find out the water didn't get filled today so the low level of water combined with 2 days in the sun made it a nice hot water heater. It wasn't really scalding but it was about as hot of a shower as you would want to take.
Now this isn't my first experiance with this type of thing. When I was in Kuwait many years ago the cold water would get so hot it would scald us. We then got smart and turned off the breakers on the hot water heaters which were inside our little trailers. We then had a cold water reservoir in which to shower with.
Since I'm talking about water. I guess I should give another clue to my picture I took. So there it is... the clue that is "water"
Well I've got my new body armor. I took a break to type a little. Everyone set up thier armor a little bit differently depending on how you work and what you do. There is a lot of trial and error so it takes some time to lace in all of the ammuntion pockets and first aid kits and what not.
When I'm done I will take a picture of my armor and the next time I wear it I will post another picture of me. It's not much different but it is a little lighter and a lot more comfortable. The big thing I like about this one is it comes in a long size. Before I use to joke that my body armor looked like a halter top. It didn't really even cover my belly button. This one comes all the way down to my belt line.
Well anywasy back to my toys.
Brent
I step into the shower and now I'm a little cautious so I turn the shower on all cold which is always at least 85 degrees or so, the cold water is never really cold. They fill up these big plastic tanks that are 10-15 feet tall and 10 feet weide. They fill them almost every day which is important to the story.
The Cold water comes out and almost scalds me. Come to find out the water didn't get filled today so the low level of water combined with 2 days in the sun made it a nice hot water heater. It wasn't really scalding but it was about as hot of a shower as you would want to take.
Now this isn't my first experiance with this type of thing. When I was in Kuwait many years ago the cold water would get so hot it would scald us. We then got smart and turned off the breakers on the hot water heaters which were inside our little trailers. We then had a cold water reservoir in which to shower with.
Since I'm talking about water. I guess I should give another clue to my picture I took. So there it is... the clue that is "water"
Well I've got my new body armor. I took a break to type a little. Everyone set up thier armor a little bit differently depending on how you work and what you do. There is a lot of trial and error so it takes some time to lace in all of the ammuntion pockets and first aid kits and what not.
When I'm done I will take a picture of my armor and the next time I wear it I will post another picture of me. It's not much different but it is a little lighter and a lot more comfortable. The big thing I like about this one is it comes in a long size. Before I use to joke that my body armor looked like a halter top. It didn't really even cover my belly button. This one comes all the way down to my belt line.
Well anywasy back to my toys.
Brent
Sunday, August 3, 2008
August
So August is here and another month has gone by. I know I have discussed this a bit but the months and days that are in the past seem to have flown by. When I look ahead it still seems like a long road. I have been here for 4 months and been married for 5. My poor wife is holding down the fort but I know it's tough for her.
August is suppose to be the hottest month much like back at home. You may be interested to know that our latitude here is similar to that of Georgia. Georgia is warm but not this hot. So far our hhottest dat has been 121. I hope we don't see the 130s that we are being promised. My little trailer air conditioner won't keep up when it get's that hot. The last couple days it's been freezing up on the inside because it is working so hard to keep it cool. If you call cool 84 degrees. But in comparison to 120 84 seems pretty damn cool.
Today was the 2nd time I have been to our laundry only to be told my laundry can't be found. Today was my last day of clean underwear, lol I will figure something out for tomorrow.
People are now starting thier mid-tour leaves. We have one on the way back and one more left the other day. One more leaves next week. Micca and I have decided that I am going to wait until Christmas. We figured I would do a long stretch and take it towards the end of my tour so it won't seem as long when I leave again. Being home for christmas will be special at least being home around then. Sometimes it's hard to predict the flights and what not.
NOthing witty tonight just my boring life in Iraq.
Brent
August is suppose to be the hottest month much like back at home. You may be interested to know that our latitude here is similar to that of Georgia. Georgia is warm but not this hot. So far our hhottest dat has been 121. I hope we don't see the 130s that we are being promised. My little trailer air conditioner won't keep up when it get's that hot. The last couple days it's been freezing up on the inside because it is working so hard to keep it cool. If you call cool 84 degrees. But in comparison to 120 84 seems pretty damn cool.
Today was the 2nd time I have been to our laundry only to be told my laundry can't be found. Today was my last day of clean underwear, lol I will figure something out for tomorrow.
People are now starting thier mid-tour leaves. We have one on the way back and one more left the other day. One more leaves next week. Micca and I have decided that I am going to wait until Christmas. We figured I would do a long stretch and take it towards the end of my tour so it won't seem as long when I leave again. Being home for christmas will be special at least being home around then. Sometimes it's hard to predict the flights and what not.
NOthing witty tonight just my boring life in Iraq.
Brent
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