Hillah, Iraq.

Most people think of Meso and South Americans as inable to plan something out. I am here to tell you that this is not the case with the El Salvadoran military. Those guys are ALL about planning. With the upcoming VIP visit, they are really spooling up over pretty much everything. We have been sitting through briefing after briefing, the last of which was 83 power point slides including one detailing the VIPs route through two different buildings. Then we had a meeting with one of their captains on exactly how he wanted us to park our vehicles at one of the sites. I figured there was no point for a meeting, and even if we did have one, it shouldn’t take more than the amount of time it takes to point at a map, but somehow we stretched it out to nearly 30 minutes.I started getting phone calls from the Air Force squadron tasked with providing our air support. They have some questions about the operation. However, our secure phone won’t talk to their secure phone. I signed up for a secure Army
email address, but it hasn’t been activated. He can’t email me, so I really have no way of communicating with him. It is frustrating to be talking to the guy on the normal phone to say that I can’t answer his questions because the line isn’t secure.