Military

Well, hello again all listeners, Family and Friends alike. First off, Happy New Year 2009!  This is the latest of the Newsletters from me here in Iraq. I know that I just sent out the X-mas update, but that one had a lot of old news to cover, and this is the first of the “new” ones. I want to do my best to get one done for all of you guys so that you are all updated on what we are doing, for the most part. There is always that “man behind the curtain” that will remain back there, maybe to be exposed one day… That phrase goes well, being that our new sector is all named and themed after The Wizard of Oz.

    Well, let’s get this party started. We have been busy as hell, moving into our new home and sector. We are stationed at FOB, (that’s Forward Operating Base), “Zulu”, (like that name, eh?), which is WAYYYY out in the middle of nowhere, with the neighbor FOB Summers up the road to our Northwest. That FOB is small and out in the middle of nowhere too. We are South of Baghdad, and the Tigris river skirts the North of the town of Suweyrah, which my Platoon, “The Red Rockets”, or “Fighting First”, (Red Platoon; of the Red, White, and Blue…), have as our main responsibility.

    To get to Suweyrah, we exit “Oz” onto the “Yellow Brick Road”, and cruise onto route Christy, which is the name of 2nd Platoon’s Medic. So when I report our routes to the rest of the Platoon, (I am the lead vehicle, being it a Tank, a Truck, or our MRAP), I get to say that we’re going down on Christy. Heh Heh. Anyway… it’s safe to say that we are always on the look out for the Wicked Witch and her Army of flying Monkeys. I always tell my Gunner to watch out for them. Dorothy and the Tin Man are harder routes for the top heavy MRAPs, so we are on trucks most of the time.

    Our FOB has a very small amount of men on it, how many I can’t say for OPSEC reasons, but when we see a woman, (what do they look like again??), it’s like a bunch of convicts in prison, if you can imagine; and we’ve only been here a month. Wow, can’t wait until 6-8 months into it. Charlie 1-2 IN started a game called “The Gay Chicken”. I won’t go into the details more that one guy starts gay things with the other, and the first one to back away is the “loser”. Well….I always “lose” one of “those” kinds of games. Christine, you don’t have to worry about me, I’ll stay away from the Dark Side.

    Once we get more North towards the city of Suweyrah, (probably roughly the size of Seward or a little larger), the routes turn to the theme of fruits, (like Baghdad with it’s alcohol routes, which are all just code for us to know where the heck we’re going for our missions.) Since I’ve been in, most of the routes were named after ex girlfriends, so guys would be like: “Amber’s rough, just like that psycho @*$&# of an ex wife!!” You guys get the gist of that. What’s more fun is that we live in tents, burn our own shit when the tank is full, and run out of water quick as we get re supplied every week, so we have to do laundry on certain days, and take 2 minute combat showers, (which beats NOT having them at all), and only flush to a very strict SOP. So we are living like we were in OIF II, and all those new guys that thought they would never have the joy of burning fecal matter, well; all of their wildest dreams have come true!

    So being as that our 1SG supplied us with a “Home Depot’s” worth of lumber, we are going at it in our spare time to make our home more livable. I got moved into a nicer tent for some of the higher ranking NCO’s, so it feels nice to have my own jack shack. So in our spare time, we unclog the shitters so we don’t have to burn it, do KP with the few cooks we have out here, (happy to do what they enlisted for, though), build up our living areas, move the piss tubes, (plastic pipe that goes deep in the ground to consolidate all that happy urine), fight large mutant rats, and shoot rounds out of our Northwest tower at iron mikes out there to kill boredom, then we can clean our weapon over and over and over again.

    We have Spawar phones though, 3 of them; and 5 computers with the internet, so guys can wait to get on there to talk to loved ones, buy out their amazon.com wish lists, and like me, maybe, just maybe, talk to their Loved Ones! I do, I know, but some people act like they aren’t married out here, it’s bizarre. Our interpreters live with us, and the Iraqi Army Battalion HQ is part of our little home away from home, we just have a big metal gate separating us, with the Iraqi Special Forces having a compound next to us too. Crazy guys, they all think they are Rambo, but when that unending belt ends….then what?? They find out the hard way, I guess. The coolest thing though is our complex system of security cameras, that aid the changing guard force, and provide the “gay chicken” players in the Company TOC, an opportunity to watch us pee when we don’t even know it!!

    Our Tanks were transformed and have the TUSK system on it, which is an urban combat upgrade kit, and we are in a VERY RURAL combat setting, so that’s that. The MRAPs, (Mine Resistant Ambush- Protected), are very protective, but very top heavy for the canals in the area, and most of us don’t want to drown in a canal in Iraq, so we don’t use them very often, but the 1151s get run ragged.

    Currently the Red Rockets have 15 people, as our LT isn’t here yet, as well as my Gunner, so I am down 2 guys right now. Normally I have 7 guys under me in my section. Normally, A section blazes a path into battle, but right now all we’re blazing is a path down the middle of the road to run everyone else off of it. EFPs aren’t a major problem in our sector, but we have found a few that were there awhile, (thanks out-going guys!). The outgoing guys were from 4th ID out of Ft. Hood in Texas. 1-10 CAV guys, and one of them, SFC Allman; a Scout Platoon Sergeant, was a Scout in 1-77 AR in Schweinfurt. A lot of us know him pretty well. They left the FOB looking nasty, but they built everything we have from nothing, so kudos to them.

    My Vietnamese driver; SPC Tran, was tasked to kill this pesky dog on the FOB for New Years, and cook him up. The outgoing unit took him with them though, and set him free so he can bug Iraqis at their checkpoints. I would have eaten him if Tran had cooked him. X-mas was special as we got some turkey meat and the Iraqis cooked some lamb for us, (pretty fatty the way they cooked it, but it didn’t give me the shits, so hey!), and we had the day free of patrols, so what did that mean? More WORK IN THE MOTOR POOL!! Wheeeee! We got our trucks even more pimped out though, and I gutted my TC station and re-wired a lot of my gadgets, taking out about 10 feet of un-needed wire. I also tore my seat cover out so I have more room with all my gear. I must be putting you all to sleep if I haven’t yet, so I’ll end this update quick.   

    The next Iraqi elections are coming up at the end of the month of January, so we are doing a lot of training with the IA and IP and assessing their guys, (a bunch of kindergarteners who like to play the “Gay Chicken” , that’s what I think of most of them. The Special Forces guys are nuts, but that is a pre-requisite to be SF anyway. We are keeping busy day to day, and I think I speak for most of us saying that our spirits are pretty high, at least until it’s 130 degrees outside! Christine is doing well in school back in Schweinfurt, and our little Cavalier Bobby has been a good boy. Christine is all set to get her Abeteur this May, and I should get R & R Leave around JUN, so that I’m not just sitting at home while she is at school, and hopefully we can take a trip to Italy, as she hasn’t been yet.

Well, it will all be real, and I will do my best to keep you all posted on some of the more interesting things that go on. Thanks for reading, and God bless you all!

 

Sincerely,

 

Red 12: Staff Sergeant Tim Hartmann, Suweyrah, Iraq