Hillah, Iraq.
I was brewing coffee this morning as the Green Berets were gearing up for a quick run over to the embassy. One of the Green Berets, Zeus, remarked that with all his armor and weapons, he would have been a knight in medieval times. I said, “Zeus, titles of royalty are forbidden to Americans by the Constitution.” Zeus thought for a minute, then said, “What about the Fresh Prince of Bel Air?”
“You got me there.” Zeus went further and declared himself his own country, but nobody has sent ambassadors yet. Soon after coffee, we had one of the most intense sandstorms I have seen yet.
For comparison:
The sandstorm raged most of the afternoon. I used the time to work on the stereo for my humvee. I cut a section out of the bottom of an ammo can, and build a wood tray system that fits snugly in the ammo can. The stereo is affixed to this tray. The whole rig bungees to the top of the regular radio stack. This was the hardest part, in my opinion. The Lance Corporals are going to build a box to contain the speakers, and I will wire it up. I don’t think that it will take more than an afternoon to finish. After chow, I got an email from some Major on some air planning staff. The email stated:
1. The Camp Charlie Landing Zone (LZ) is way too small for the helos you want, and besides it will blow away all the tents.
2. We need more imagery on the assault landing zones before the helicopters can commit (even though the helos said they are in).
So, I wrote back that the Charlie LZ is HUGE (it is), and we sent them the grid coordinates of the four corners. Oh, and by the way, there are no tents inside Camp Charlie. Our resident Power Point wizard managed to get some UAV footage of our targets, and we provided the staff guy with video capture images of the assault LZs.
[time passes]
About 10PM, the same staff guy wrote back to say there is no way all those helicopters would fit, and besides there isn’t an acceptable site survey of the LZ. And there isn’t enough time for the helos to brief. And you can only fit one 53 at a time on the assault LZs. So the mission is not going to happen. I wrote back (including the Special Forces HQ guys, and virtually everybody else involved in the air planning of this mission) that the LZ managed to hold four Blackhawks when the Undersecretary of State visited two days ago, which also implies that there is an acceptable site survey. One helo at a time on the assault LZ is fine because that is our plan. And we have already flexed our schedule for briefing. The helicopter squadron wrote me to say that they had no idea why this staff dork wants to cancel our supercool helicopter ride, because they are all ready to go. There is a great disturbance in The Force…. One of the Special Forces guys is going to leave soon. He is trying out for an even more elite Army commando unit that doesn’t even officially exist, but the name rhymes with smelta. I can’t tell you what it is for security reasons. Anyway, we had a going away party for him. The guys going to the embassy had picked up a few cases of (nonalcoholic) beer. The party was soon in full swing, and I decided this was the perfect opportunity to break out the remaining pool equipment I had been saving. So far, the only pool toys have been the beach ball and the pool float. The pool float is extremely popular. You have to get to the pool early if you want the float. But tonight I broke out the pool floaties, and the inflatable Shamu. Hoo boy did we have fun. It is my very sad duty to report that the beach ball did not survive the evening. The fun thing about being in a war with no female supervision is that you can do all the things that you and your friends think would be fun, but girls won’t let you do. Like play a game that is a combination of dodge ball, football, and water polo. In the dark. Where it is okay to push people into the pool. And aim for the head. The game may have contributed to the demise of the beach ball, but as the beach ball has gone missing, there is no conclusive proof one way or the other. And it is not like we were not safety minded, because everybody had to leave their guns on the deck next to the pool.