homicide-erumpent
Notebook

It’s the little things you miss

November 22nd, 2005 by Double Tap

Well, we’ve completed all of our required training here, and there’s only one more training event we have to accomplish - but that wasn’t required. We just thought it would be good for us. We do that in a couple of days.

We did see a little bit of the Kuwaiti countryside and I’ve determined that the deserts of Arizona look like a rain forest compared to the deserts out here. We must have driven two or three miles before I saw a single plant - and those were just some little scrub bushes.

In the meantime, we are trying to fend off the boredom of waiting for our appointed flight date. I’ve watched lots of DVDs borrowed from the other guys and I’m working my way through several books (not all at once). Since I haven’t had regular access to the Internet, I haven’t been able to start back into my master’s program - that will have to wait until we get settled in Iraq.

It’s the little things that you begin to miss over here. An ATM would be nice. There’s one, and it broke the other day - which I discovered after waiting in a half-hour line. There are several mini-PXs, but those aren’t all that exciting. Mostly like shopping a Circle K. Again, more lines to get in those. There’s a Subway, a Taco Bell, a Pizza Inn and a Panda Express, 31 Flavors ice cream and a Burger King - so we can still get American fast food, although sometimes the meat doesn’t taste quite the same (wonder what they are putting in there?).

The camp is filling up fast. I’m told there’s a big build-up leading up to the elections, plus the normal rotation cycle. What that means is all the lines to everything you want to do around here have grown exponentially larger. When we got here only a week ago, the line at night to the telephone was maybe 10 minutes long. Now, it’s closer to an hour. That’s particularly frustrating when you wait all that time and then get an answering machine. The Internet café wait is also an hour or so, and then you only get 20 minutes online. Basically, just enough time to check your email and maybe send a short one out. It’s gotten to the point where I write all my emails in Word back in the barracks, copy it to a thumb-drive, and then copy and paste into the email when I get online. Also, I’ve switched to trying it in the morning, at around 4 in the morning, to avoid the lines. Even then, there’s still a short wait.

The boys from 1-180 Field Artillery Battalion (my old unit) are now here. They just showed up the other day, looking jet-lagged out. Good to see some old friends there. They are also due to head north, but I can’t say where or when (or else I’d have to kill you). We also ran across some 2-180FA SECFOR guys, but I didn’t catch why they were down here. I suppose it’s because they are prepping to leave.

We’ve seen an interesting assortment of uniforms here. I’ve seen at least 20 different unit patches, at which point I stopped counting. Plus, there are some uniform alterations that I’ve never seen before, and I’m sure are not listed in any army regulation. Mostly different Velcro patches that people have added - blood type, patches sewn onto ACU material and then velcro’d on, etc. And, people are putting what I call “weapon wubbies” on their rifles. Basically, it’s a black or desert camo-colored cloth covering that’s velcro’d over the actions on their rifles and SAW machine guns. They are sold by all of the local alterations and sewing shops. I suppose it’s to help keep the dust out of their actions - which makes sense. Of course, every one of them has some sort of patch or slogan sewn into them - which is where most of the debate with the NCOs comes in - should they be allowed or shouldn’t they? It looks like our Sergeant Major will allow them - as long as nothing offensiv
e is written on them. I think they’re kind of cool - a little individuality in a world of uniformity.

One of the most striking things to me is the nonchalant attitude around here about ammunition. There’s a can of rifle ammo on every bus we ride on and the other day we loaded up our magazines for a rifle range while still en-route on the bus! That would be absolutely unheard of in a peacetime environment. Of course, this is war. Up north, we’ll be carrying ammunition on our persons everywhere we go.

Speaking of bus trips, our buses are driven by local Kuwaitis and their aroma leaves something to be desired. I’ve been told that Americans smell like sour milk to people from other countries (could be all the dairy products we eat), but unwashed Kuwaiti body odor is particular pungent (no offense to the Kuwaitis in the audience). The guy we had driving us the other day was causing eyes to water all the way to the back of the bus.

Also speaking of local Kuwaitis, we discovered that unlike rifle ranges in the U.S., you don’t have to pick up your rifle brass in Kuwait. Groups of Bedouins will converge on your range as soon as you move off of it to collect up the brass casings. Apparently, they sell it for money. Sad you have to make money that way. I know when you think of Bedouins, you think of guys riding on camels. Not so these guys - they drove up in old, beat-up Chevy’s and Fords.

By the way, we got our SAPI strike plates for our vests the other day. Those are the plates that stop bullets up to the size of standard assault rifle. Nobody goes north unless they have them. Of course, it only works if the bullet hits the strike plate - and no, they don’t cover your entire body. But, I know they are effective. I’ve seen a terrorist videotape of an American soldier getting shot in the chest and then popping right back up again. Must have surprised the hell out of the terrorist.

Another weird thing about being halfway around the world is the time differences with shows you used to watch. For example, I watch Monday Night Football on Tuesday mornings during breakfast, and all the morning shows are on during dinner.

One of the rules over here is that you don’t go anywhere unless you have a “battle buddy” with you, in case something happens. That sounds great, but it can be a real pain in the butt. We’ve decided that no, we don’t need to wake up our battle buddy to go with us to take a leak at 3 in the morning. But, just about anything else, you have to have your “buddy”. Usually, you try a few times to get someone to go with you wherever you want to go, but if you can’t find someone - you end up going anyway. Then, you employ what I call, the “drafting” technique. Like a NASCAR driver, you spot some other soldier who happens to be also going the same direction you are and you “draft” behind them. Usually, they don’t even realize you are following them. Then, when they change direction to somewhere you don’t want to go, you find someone else going your way that you can “draft”. Some guys have taken this technique to another level by actually asking the other soldier if they can walk with
them. Me, I tend to take the stealth mode so I don’t sound like an idiot. Anyway, this way we follow the letter of the law, if not the spirit.

For news, we get Stars and Stripes newspaper. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a free newspaper given out to all service personnel overseas. It’s full of Associated Press and Stars and Stripes reports and stories, including entertainment and sports. It’s up-to-date and comes out every day, so you can get all the sports scores and latest news.

I can’t wait to get out of here. The boredom is killing me. Some people say - “hey, at least our clock is running and we aren’t getting shot at”. That’s true, but I’d like to be doing a real job rather than stuck in our current holding pattern. Okay, enough for now. I’ll write again in a few days.

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