Hillah, Iraq.

Today we took a trip up the road to a nearby camp. The ODA guys had to meet the ODA team there to talk about SWAT training. I went for two reasons:

1. I wanted to meet the helo guys we have been working with face to face.
2. Make friends with the Seabees.

The first is pretty self explanatory, but not so the second. The old ODA team at the other base had angered the Seabees somehow, to the point where they weren’t speaking with each other, even though they were the only Americans on that base. When the new ODA team showed up, the Seabees refused to talk to them, too. It was hoped that a Navy guy who was a friend of ODA could somehow mend the fences.

The meeting with the helo guys was great. I was introduced to the ODA FAC, who, in turn, took me over to meet the helo guys. Turns out the FAC is something of a legend in country. He worked during the battle of Fallujah, where he dropped a lot of bombs. He is also known for running air battles while hanging on to the side of an Apache. I could not have asked for a better introduction. The helo guys were pleased to meet me, and I them. We talked a bit of shop, and I learned a lot about how they do business, and what I could do to work better with them. They flat out said that they love to work with me, and encouraged me to send them more missions.

I wasn’t able to find the Seabees. Their door was locked, even when we checked back after lunch. I will try again next time I am up there.We headed back to Camp Charlie, arriving in the early afternoon. Since the enhanced uniform restrictions were still in effect, I really didn’t want to go anywhere. I realized my hooch could stand for a cleaning, so I pulled pretty much everything out of it to allow for a thorough cleaning.

There is a certain art to cleaning a hooch. After removing everything, I swept out all the dust and dirt. I gave up mopping the floor because the mops have gotten so caked in dust that mopping a floor often makes it even dirtier. I now have a giant squeegee that I use. I pour water on the floor, then squeegee it out the door. The first washing resulted in a bunch of mud pushed out the door. I repeated the process, and got out some dirty water. A third try made it acceptably clean, although my definition of clean my have been influenced by the heat.

We are approximately half way through the deployment, so I decided to rearrange my room. I moved my bed to the other side of the room. I also consolidated all of my gear into a single locker, and moved the spare locker out to the C hut to hold my weapons. Now all of my stuff is on one wall, which creates the illusion of more space. I was also happy to discover that my bed now sits in directly in the flow of the air conditioner, making it a lot cooler to sleep.The mail truck came in, delivering a substantial number of packages. SSGT got a package that we long assumed lost or stolen. About six weeks ago, SSGT’s girlfriend ordered him a combo coffee machine/espresso maker wired for hadji (that is, non-American) power. The package was to be shipped from Finland to the American APO, and thence onto to the coffee enthusiasts at Camp Charlie. Alas, the package just disappeared for weeks. When it finally showed up, we learned that the package had somehow gotten out of the US Military postal system and into the Iraqi Postal system, which is not nearly as efficient. I will pause here to allow you to draw your own conclusions and make your own jokes. Furthermore, at some point the Iraqis decided that this coffee machine was actually a mail bomb, and were prepared to blow it up until an American explosives disposal team figured out that it was, in fact, just a coffee machine. The box was sort of patched together, then shipped on to us. We sat there looking at this battered box in the back of the cargo humvee. On one hand, we were annoyed that it took so long, but finally we decided that we were just happy to have it here.

We took it to the team room and began to set up our own coffee bar. We cleared off the top of the shelving system, and drilled a hole in the back for the placement of the microwave oven that used to sit on top. The old coffee pot is yesterday’s news. Now that the top of the cabinet was clean, we set up the
machine, as well as all the accouterments that are required to make a proper cup of coffee: sugar, spoons, cups, and the like. We also cut a water bottle and wrapped it with duct tape to make the frothing jug for the steamed milk. We had to sample the product as we got checked out on the equipment, you understand. However, dropping two or three lattes into an empty stomach long deprived of espresso was like licking a high power line. I am sure we irritated everyone.

Chow time came around, and we didn’t feel like walking with all our gear on. We drove the mail truck over to the chow hall, and parked along the concrete mortar shelters by the chow hall. The guard said, “You can’t park there.”I was hopped up on three lattes, and not about to take crap from a Polish private. Plus, I had a gun in my hand.

“Why not?” I asked.
“It says no parking.”
“Where?”
“Down there.”
Way down at one end of the line of mortar shelters, the words “No Parking” was stenciled on the side of one shelter.
“I am not parking there. I am parking here.”
“You can’t park anywhere along here.”
“It doesn’t say that. It says no parking down there. I am parking here.”
We started to walk inside, but the private was annoyed. Fortunately, we saw a major from another unit.

SSGT yelled, “Hey, Major. Your mail is in the back of that truck.”
“Really?” he replied, “Thanks!” and began walking towards the truck.
I turned to the private and said, “The major is taking the truck.”
The private gave me a look I am comfortable calling “Surly”, with perhaps a dash of “Disgruntled”. But he gave up trying to stop us.

Back in the team room, SSGT and I were discussing the wisdom of drinking so much coffee rather late in the day when, fortunately, a mission came up.A SWAT guy had been hurt in a car accident, and the SWAT wanted our medics to look at him. We loaded up the vehicles and rolled out. SSGT and I discussed the possibilities of getting kabobs and bread, in our opinion the best thing to take the edge off all that caffeine. We got to the hospital without incident, and SSGT and I sent the interpreter (interpreters are called terps) looking for food. We gave him six bucks, which he felt was far too much money, but we wanted to buy a lot of food for everybody. The terp found some kid who knew a restaurant, and the kid ran off with our money. We waited, and watched the kid run to the restaurants across the road from the hospital.

Meanwhile, the Special Forces guys got word that there was a VBIED driving around Hillah, and they wanted to go find it. We quickly headed out, sad because we never got our food or money.

I am not sure what we were hoping to accomplish by going to look for a VBIED. I wasn’t even sure how we were going to go about it. It is not like the car bombs have VBIED painted on the side. I was also not sure what we were going to do if we found it. But, drive around we did, which was an experience by itself.

We have generally been to the nicer parts of Hillah, as that is where most of our business takes us. Hillah is a nice town, but like any, it has its bad parts. And I am here to tell you that we visited all the bad parts as we drove around visiting informants in search of information. There was a lot more random automatic rifle fire in these parts of town, and the locals prefer red tracers. Standing in the ‘parking lot’ of one slum, I reflected that a guy hanging out after midnight in this part of town has many of the same concerns that a guy hanging around after midnight in parts of south Atlanta: I wouldn’t do either without a machine gun.

Ultimately, we never found the VBIED, and I suspect the Green Berets were just out looking for a gun fight, which, happily, we also didn’t find. However, it was just the thing for working three lattes out of my system.