Hillah, Iraq.
The new El Salvadoran leadership wanted to go meet the Coalition Leadership in Diwaniyah. Knowing that opportunities to get out the gate will be rare for awhile, I volunteered to be on the escort. The Anglico Colonel wants to come for a visit, which is great. There are some misconceptions about the Hillah Fire Team which can easily be dispelled by a visit. Additionally, the colonel’s duties are almost exclusively administrative. If he comes to visit, he can come out on missions with us. Marines love this sort of thing.The trip to Diwo was uneventful. The new El Salvadorans are still quite cautious about driving in combat conditions. I felt like a target as we putted along, instead of our usual and difficult to shoot at speeds. I was also shocked when the vehicle in front of us kept using turn signals. That is simply not done here.
Arriving in Diwo, I was again struck by the marked difference in living conditions and personnel. The base still seems huge, and they want for nothing in the way of food, supplies, or materiel. There was a mixup in communications, and we never met our colonel before we had to leave.The El Salvadoran leadership decided on an impromptu inspection of some of the civic projects sponsored by El Salvador. This was something of an inconvenience to the Anglicos as we had brought a trailer to Diwo to collect our mail for the first time in weeks. The trailer full of mail somewhat hampered our fighting ability, but thankfully nothing happened. Fortunately, we had brought a bunch of Hearts and Minds Bags, which the local kids were happy to receive.
Alas, we were not able to go home yet as the El Sals decided to visit the mayor of Hillah. Anglico provided security in front of the mayor’s office, near a traffic circle.
Traffic circles seem like a pretty good idea from a traffic management perspective, providing everybody obeys certain assumptions. To my knowledge, drivers are supposed to enter a traffic circle, joining the traffic flow in the agreed upon direction. I understand this direction to be counterclockwise, but I cannot speak for certain of the Iraqi position on traffic flow in traffic circles.
However, it appears that most of the drivers in Hillah cannot speak for certain, either. Most of the cars entered the traffic circle then turned in the direction that pleased them. I lost count of the near collisions and locked up brakes. Car horns were in constant use.
We finally went back to Camp Charlie, and spent the rest of the afternoon rehearsing for the change of command ceremony tomorrow. I submitted an air request for a flyby at the beginning of the ceremony, a request surprisingly and quickly approved.
Can’t go wrong with an air show.