Rumie blows through town
Christmas was a little interesting, and not quite the same. I missed out on all the family events back home, but the people out here tried to make it as “Christmas-y” as possible. They had a nice dinner, really decorated up the chow hall, and even had a Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus walking around. Plus, I got some nice items from the family that I can use over here. Of course, I ended up working on Christmas, so that took some of the enjoyment out of it.
We did have some interesting visitors on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Donald Rumsfield blew through here on the 24th, just long enough to get off an airplane and get onto a helicopter and leave. On the 25th, we had GEN Schoomaker (the most senior army general) come through. Same thing – landed in an airplane and jumped on a helicopter out of here.
New Years was interesting. Like Christmas, I had to work it. Plus, there’s the no alcohol over here, so the partying level wasn’t all that much. Well, at least for those of us following that rule. We ended up busting some civilian contractors over here for drinking – and they got sent home, out of a job. We also heard stories about some of the Turkish contractors having parties with alcohol, but didn’t raid any of them at that time.
Speaking of raids, we did one recently on a contractor here. Came in early in the morning and caught two of them with contraband in their rooms or even trying to hide it – including the site manager. Both of them are no longer working in Iraq. The site manager was in COL Grayson’s office before I had even finished the report, trying to convince him to help him to keep his job. It didn’t work. We also found a bunch of porn videos or magazines throughout the compound, but just confiscated them. General Order 1 seems to be more heavily enforced with liquor rather than porn. In case you are wondering, the porn magazines are put through a shredder, the porn DVDs are broken in half, and the liquor bottles are dumped out with the bottles then broken. Some have called that “alcohol abuse”! LOL
We regularly catch cases of cheap scotch and other whiskeys coming in on Third Country National (mostly Turkish) convoys. They hide the stuff all over the trucks. Apparently, with General Order 1 in effect, there’s quite a black market for the stuff. I’ve determined that my role in this war is to protect this base from suicide bombers and liquor smugglers!
We’ve got some more raids lined up, and I’m looking forward to them. I’m the guy who plans, coordinates, and leads them - so it’s fun to see a plan come together and succeed. Plus, on this base, it’s about the most exciting thing that happens. In my job, I’m not out kicking in doors, so this is the closest thing I can get. And really, the expression on their faces when I take their photo with the evidence is just priceless!
I’ve got a laptop on order, and I’m just dying to get it. Hopefully, it won’t come crushed like my TV set did. I had kind of poo-poo’d the notion of the necessity of a personal laptop on these deployments, and now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t get one ahead of time. I’m really glad I brought a digital camera along with me. I carry that with me all the time and it’s really come in handy. There’s no place to get film developed here.
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