Hillah, Iraq.

Big, high visibility mission today. We went to an Iraqi police graduation ceremony. The last one in February was attacked by some booger eater with a car bomb, and we weren’t going to let that happen. As I promised myself, I worked up the CAS request as well as a medevac request right off the bat.

The graduation went off without a hitch, except for one SF guy eating another SF guy’s granola bar, which caused some heated discussions. We then visited the SWAT compound (another set of requests), followed by the governor’s office (yep, more requests). Obviously, I have been using my GPS a lot, and I would like to give a tip of the hat to Garmin, who make an excellent product. Their product is definitely protecting and saving lives, and I really, really like mine.

Here is me at work:

Also, Underarmour and Camelbacks are great pieces of gear. Underarmour is like wearing an airconditioning shirt. I sweat a bit, and then I actually feel cold as the moisture is wicked away along with a bunch of body heat. And Camelbacks are so amazingly useful that I cannot imagine not having one, particularly in a military environment.

Slow afternoon, except for one of our interpreters shot himself by accident. The interpreters (terps) were all going out to lunch, and as they cleared the gate and charged their weapons, one shot himself in the leg. Clean flesh wound, and he was medivaced quickly. In fact, he was back by sunset. The SF guys dug the bullet out of the floor of the car for him to keep.

I have fallen into the military habit of pretty much sleeping whenever I am not working. Standing around in the sun wearing over 50 pounds of gear and weapons takes it out of you, and the fact that my hooch is dark and highly air conditioned makes it hard not to sleep. I have even been giving up X Box to catch an extra 30 minutes of sleep.

At the evening meeting, one of the SF guys had a corn dog. I asked him how he was going to eat that and not look really, really gay, and he said, “Watch.” He loaded it down with hot sauce, and then, turning it sideways, ripped off a big hunk in the most unsuggestive, impossible to mock, and even a bit aggressive manner I have ever seen food eaten. I told him I was impressed, and he said that he had learned a few things from years of eating in Army chow halls.

If I could ever endorse one product, it would be Metamucil. It absolutely does what it says, and nothing beats gastrointestial distress like a healthy shot of colon blow.

Oh, and smallpox vaccination sucks. Not as bad as getting smallpox, but this is a drag. For four or five days, nothing happened. I assumed that my superior superhero immune system has just beaten up the smallpox. But then a small bump appeared, and now it is a bump the size of a dime. It doesn’t itch really, but my armpits (I assume lymph nodes) have been aching today.The real shame of the whole thing is that I will now have a scar on my otherwise museum quality arms.