Hillah, Iraq.

Today I paid for the slow day yesterday. Mission started early at 0630. We went to an Iraqi Army training camp to visit. While there, some Iraqi officer asked me for my digital camera. As in, “Give me your digital camera.” I played dumb by ‘thinking’ that he wanted his picture taken:

Apparently, Iraqi males think nothing of just asking your for stuff. Give me your sunglasses, give me some water, give me an orange, give me money. They don’t really take it personally when you say no, but it is irritating. Some other officer yelled at him after I took his picture, and he ran off somewhere. We then went to the range. I shot my M-16, and got it sighted in pretty well. I also got to shoot the 50 caliber machine gun mounted on top of the humvee, which was really cool.

Then another stop at a school that is opening. This one was located down near the Euphrates River, along a long straight road that has ditches on either sides, but not much else in the way of landmarks. The Chief asked me if I would be able to talk on an airstrike, and the question came as a rude shock. My job is to call airstrikes, and I hadn’t done the first thing to get ready for that. I immediately resolved to get the call for airstrikes prepared as soon as I got out of the humvee where ever we were going. I also realized that this is a tough place to do a talk on*. I got busy working up the request for close air support (CAS), and confirming with our guys that we had some smoke grenades and lasers, and a regular talk on was going to be impossible.While I was working this out, the [secret army commando team] guys were controlling traffic on the long road. Mostly, locals would come to a stop until they were waved through, and then drive slowly past. However, one guy must have really been jamming to the radio or something because he came hauling ass towards the stopped vehicles. One of the army guys yelled, then yelled louder and pointed his gun, and then fired a shot right to the left of the guy. The driver slammed on his brakes, screeched to a halt, and held up his hands with a look on his face like he fully expected to get shot. After a moment of making him sit there, the SF guy waved him through with hand signs to drive slowly, which he did with much in the way of apologetic looks and shrugs. Just so you know, the SF guy said that the next round was going into his engine block or tires, which is an ultimate pain to get fixed here. Gunshot wounds they can deal with, but just try getting a new set of tires.

* – A talk on is a technique by which the ground controller directs an aircraft to the target. We can measure with less than a meter accuracy with GPS and lasers, but good technique is to talk the pilot onto the target so he knows exactly what he is looking for. It is a lot harder than it sounds. You can try it with a friend. Go outside, and pick some random item. Then try to get your friend to tell you what the item is without pointing to it. Generally, you go big to small. Say you are in your front yard, and you have chosen the mailbox as the target. Ask your friend if he sees the driveway. When he does, tell him that the driveway ends in a street, and ask him if he sees that. Then ask him if he sees the grass next to the driveway, and then if he sees the item in the grass next to the driveway and street, get him to tell you what it is. You may be surprised at how hard this is. Then think about doing between a guy on the ground and a pilot in the jet.