I was struck by the unreal nature of technology this weekend, how very science fiction-like our world has become. Take for example this blog. Here I am, in Baghdad, using a small laptop computer to post blogs via a wireless connection on the internet! I use instant messaging to real-time "chat" with my wife, e-mail to stay in touch with friends and family, and now I've discovered VOIP to be able to make calls over my internet using the built-in microphone on my computer to talk with my kids on the weekends. Simply amazing. And all this from a war zone!
I was talking with one of the younger Soldiers yesterday and it occurred to me, he'd never known a time without e-mail. He was laughing as I told him how, during my earlier deployments, my wife and I used to number our letters (written on paper and sent in an envelope) because mail out to the carrier was so hit and miss, letter number 11 might arrive before letter number 8. By numbering the letters, we could keep up with the news and know if we missed something referenced in a letter we hadn't yet received.
I will say, I like today's way of keeping in touch better than how I used to have it. There's something comforting about being able to read my hometown newspaper online, check my kids' grades through a web-access grading program, and keep in touch with the real world every day.
Cheers, Pearl
Monday, December 17, 2007
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Sameness and routine
I’m not sure if this entry is going to make sense to someone who’s not here, but here I go anyway.
The thing that has made this tour the most difficult for me (other than separation from my family) is the sameness of the days. I need to caveat this with the fact that I’m not someone who goes out on a patrol every day, so other Soldiers might have a different perspective than I. But, day in and day out, each day is pretty much like the one before. I attend routine meetings, I work in the same relatively small area, I travel the same routes to eat, to church, to the PX, etc, and, except for the temperature, the environment offers little variation. We work long days and each day seems to be just like the one before.
So, what helps pass the time? Routines! (I told you this might not make sense.) It is odd, but for me, keeping routines helps pass the time. For example, the folks in my office and I eat lunch and dinner at the same times every day (except Sundays when we have a cookout for dinner). We exercise in the afternoon. Every three days we have “cycle of life” (laundry) that we drop off and pick up at lunch (they run on a 72 hour cycle so that’s what we use as well). My mornings are filled with the same meetings (roughly) every day which eats time until a little before lunch when I can get on my computer and get the due-outs from the meetings accomplished. And, amazingly enough, the days move by. Counting down the number of days until my tour is complete always seems a little depressing as the number of days goes down slowly and still seems like a lot of days. Having a routine schedule gives me intermediate goals throughout the day and week to look forward to. It is an interesting phenomenon for me: the days are long but the weeks are short. The weekend (Sunday being the only day that has a different schedule than the others with church, a trip to the PX to get a haircut or buy something I don’t need, and the dinner cookout) suddenly appears after what has seemed to be a short week full of long days.
As you might imagine, I am very much looking forward to breaking my routines with R&R. As a matter of fact, this time next week, I should be in transit home for 15 days of glorious leave!
Cheers, Pearl
The thing that has made this tour the most difficult for me (other than separation from my family) is the sameness of the days. I need to caveat this with the fact that I’m not someone who goes out on a patrol every day, so other Soldiers might have a different perspective than I. But, day in and day out, each day is pretty much like the one before. I attend routine meetings, I work in the same relatively small area, I travel the same routes to eat, to church, to the PX, etc, and, except for the temperature, the environment offers little variation. We work long days and each day seems to be just like the one before.
So, what helps pass the time? Routines! (I told you this might not make sense.) It is odd, but for me, keeping routines helps pass the time. For example, the folks in my office and I eat lunch and dinner at the same times every day (except Sundays when we have a cookout for dinner). We exercise in the afternoon. Every three days we have “cycle of life” (laundry) that we drop off and pick up at lunch (they run on a 72 hour cycle so that’s what we use as well). My mornings are filled with the same meetings (roughly) every day which eats time until a little before lunch when I can get on my computer and get the due-outs from the meetings accomplished. And, amazingly enough, the days move by. Counting down the number of days until my tour is complete always seems a little depressing as the number of days goes down slowly and still seems like a lot of days. Having a routine schedule gives me intermediate goals throughout the day and week to look forward to. It is an interesting phenomenon for me: the days are long but the weeks are short. The weekend (Sunday being the only day that has a different schedule than the others with church, a trip to the PX to get a haircut or buy something I don’t need, and the dinner cookout) suddenly appears after what has seemed to be a short week full of long days.
As you might imagine, I am very much looking forward to breaking my routines with R&R. As a matter of fact, this time next week, I should be in transit home for 15 days of glorious leave!
Cheers, Pearl
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
What is normal?
I've been watching "Band of Brothers" on DVD lately (one of my birthday presents). In one of the later episodes, there is a scene where hot showers are brought in to these men who have just come off the line after defending Bastogne and taking the town of Foy. As I was taking my nice hot shower this morning (like I do every morning), it occurred to me that I need to clarify what's "normal" around here.
I live on one of the largest military complexes in Iraq; it is actually a bunch of smaller bases all grouped together. There are four PXs I can think of (a large one near where I live and three smaller satellite shops) plus a Cinnabon, a Pizza Hut, a Taco Bell, a Popeye's Chicken, a Subway, a Burger King, and a Green Bean's Coffee (all of the food places are in trailers) scattered around. I am a relatively senior officer so I have a room to myself and share a bathroom with one other senior officer. I have wireless internet in my room. I work in a headquarters for a large unit and we have reasonably significant facilities. On major installations like this one junior folks have roommates and have to walk to a trailer with showers and toilets. So, even among those who live on this complex, I have things pretty well.
I say all of this to contrast with what many Soldiers here in Iraq in outlying posts live with day in and day out for 15 months. The outlying posts are small. Some have running toilets but many only have porta-potties or old fashioned burn toilets (the waste is burned in a 55 gal drum with diesel fuel). Food is prepared off site and brought in large plastic containers. As they are small, they are shelled and attacked more often than the major installations. There are no PXs, no specialty shops, no a lot of things. The Soldiers there run constant patrols and only rotate back to the larger installations a few days every couple of weeks or so. Also, the base they rotate back to still probably doesn't have all of the amenities of my installation. I think a conversation I overheard in the PX just down the road from my HQ sums it up pretty well. One dusty, skinny Specialist (E-4) while looking at the rack of fishing poles in the corner said to his buddy, "What the hell are these guys doing here that they have time to fish?!"
So, while I appreciate all of you who read my blog to get a glimpse of life here in Iraq, I feel obligated to tell the full story for all of us here as best I can. I think I read in Stars and Stripes that there are about 160,000 of us here right now. I would guess there are about 160,000 stories to tell about life here. Thank you for taking the time to read about one of them.
Cheers, Pearl
I live on one of the largest military complexes in Iraq; it is actually a bunch of smaller bases all grouped together. There are four PXs I can think of (a large one near where I live and three smaller satellite shops) plus a Cinnabon, a Pizza Hut, a Taco Bell, a Popeye's Chicken, a Subway, a Burger King, and a Green Bean's Coffee (all of the food places are in trailers) scattered around. I am a relatively senior officer so I have a room to myself and share a bathroom with one other senior officer. I have wireless internet in my room. I work in a headquarters for a large unit and we have reasonably significant facilities. On major installations like this one junior folks have roommates and have to walk to a trailer with showers and toilets. So, even among those who live on this complex, I have things pretty well.
I say all of this to contrast with what many Soldiers here in Iraq in outlying posts live with day in and day out for 15 months. The outlying posts are small. Some have running toilets but many only have porta-potties or old fashioned burn toilets (the waste is burned in a 55 gal drum with diesel fuel). Food is prepared off site and brought in large plastic containers. As they are small, they are shelled and attacked more often than the major installations. There are no PXs, no specialty shops, no a lot of things. The Soldiers there run constant patrols and only rotate back to the larger installations a few days every couple of weeks or so. Also, the base they rotate back to still probably doesn't have all of the amenities of my installation. I think a conversation I overheard in the PX just down the road from my HQ sums it up pretty well. One dusty, skinny Specialist (E-4) while looking at the rack of fishing poles in the corner said to his buddy, "What the hell are these guys doing here that they have time to fish?!"
So, while I appreciate all of you who read my blog to get a glimpse of life here in Iraq, I feel obligated to tell the full story for all of us here as best I can. I think I read in Stars and Stripes that there are about 160,000 of us here right now. I would guess there are about 160,000 stories to tell about life here. Thank you for taking the time to read about one of them.
Cheers, Pearl
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Friends
I went by to visit Toonces (of the Gritty Kitty Blog fame) the other day. I had found out by reading her blog she was here on VBC but it is such a large facility that often people you know might be here but if they don't live or work nearby, you never see them. Turns out she works right next door to one of my subordinate units on the other side of the base from me.
It was great seeing her again! We'd last parted ways in August as wide-eyed newbie EWOs heading off to the great unknown, and now, we are seasoned old-timers, sharing stories and frustrations and lessons learned from our time here. She's doing well and seems to be enjoying her job here as much as I do. If you were wondering about her extended absence from cyberspace, she's a victim of Army blog filtering (see one of my previous rants on that subject) and has had to develop a round about way of posting through e-mails to her mom. But, she's back up and online so please visit her site.
Many of the Navy guys I worked with when I first arrived are rotating back home soon. Like I said in reference to Toonces, my group of EWOs are about the be the "old guys" with all of the experience and knowledge. However, the guys who are going home in time for Christmas have taught us well and I'm sure that we'll be able to pass along the same level of instruction to the nuggets. While at the beginning these tours look so very long, once you're in the churn, it is sometimes surprising just how quickly time goes by.
Cheers, Pearl
It was great seeing her again! We'd last parted ways in August as wide-eyed newbie EWOs heading off to the great unknown, and now, we are seasoned old-timers, sharing stories and frustrations and lessons learned from our time here. She's doing well and seems to be enjoying her job here as much as I do. If you were wondering about her extended absence from cyberspace, she's a victim of Army blog filtering (see one of my previous rants on that subject) and has had to develop a round about way of posting through e-mails to her mom. But, she's back up and online so please visit her site.
Many of the Navy guys I worked with when I first arrived are rotating back home soon. Like I said in reference to Toonces, my group of EWOs are about the be the "old guys" with all of the experience and knowledge. However, the guys who are going home in time for Christmas have taught us well and I'm sure that we'll be able to pass along the same level of instruction to the nuggets. While at the beginning these tours look so very long, once you're in the churn, it is sometimes surprising just how quickly time goes by.
Cheers, Pearl
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Rain and football
Well, the mythical rain I'd heard so much about finally came today...sorta. It rained for about 3 minutes as normal rain and another five or six as light rain early this morning. So, what we ended up with was enough rain to mix with the moon dust to make mud but not enough rain to wash everything down and clean it of accumulated dust - the worst of both worlds. Fortunately, except for a few puddles, the mud isn't too bad and is already starting to dry out to begin the dust cycle again.
It's not too hard to figure out I am not a Naval Academy graduate but rather received my commission through NROTC at the University of Memphis. I have been trying to tell all of the Army guys here at my unit that they can shout "Go Army, Beat Navy!" to their hearts' content but for me, it's just another football game. This last week leading up to the big game yesterday was the last straw as I received any number of videos and e-mails bashing the USNA. Well, after months of taking it as the only Naval Officer on the staff, I finally decided to embrace it all and took up for all of my fellow Canoe-U officers. Last night I wore my "Fly Navy" sweatshirt with pride and watched, with some sympathetic embarrassment I have to add, the Midshipmen of the Naval Academy absolutely destroy the Cadets of West Point 38-3. I have to say, today has been quite subdued around here. Thankfully, both this unit and I will be able to watch next year's game at home.
Lastly, speaking of football again, Troy lost their final game of the season to Florida Atlantic and so it will be the Owls instead of the Trojans meeting my Tigers in New Orleans. It is a tough defeat as the only other Troy losses this year came to ranked teams and now they share the Sun Belt championship with the Owls. So, I suppose it's just as well I won't be home in time for the bowl game after all, but nevertheless I sure am looking forward to catching the remaining college bowl games during my R&R leave over Christmas.
Only a few weeks now and I'll be seeing my family for the first time since July - whoo hoo!
Cheers, Pearl
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