Baghdad, Iraq.

The advance party for the Green Berets’ replacement team is going to arrive in Baghdad today. This advance team is going to be with us for a week or so, getting a feel for the operation, and gathering any information they can to help them when they show up later in the year. Their flight was supposed to arrive in the early afternoon, so we headed up to Baghdad to pick them up.I have received a wealth of varied items to hand out to kids. Generally, we keep fifty orso Hearts and Minds bags ready, but the rest of the loot is stored in one corner of the C hut. The Marines found a sticker in there that they love, and were proud to show me that they had put it on the 25 humvee.

The convoy consisted of one Special Forces humvee, one Anglico, one El Salvadoran, plus a 5 ton civilian truck that need supplies from Baghdad.

The plan was to be back tonight, with the understanding that we might stay the night in Baghdad. Everyone was in a great mood, as this was like a vacation. We mounted up, and hit the road. There was not much traffic at first, so we made good time.

Since this was a low threat mission, everybody got a chance to fill positions that are not their normal jobs.

The Lance Corporal hurt his hand during the 4th of July….um…he fell down.We hit our first slow down about halfway to Baghdad. Some mines were reported on the road, and the Army was taking care of them.

We crossed over to the other side of the road to proceed on, leaving those guys to their mines and hopefully uncaffeinated drinks.

The highway system in Iraq is scary because you can pick either side of the road to drive on.

Being in a military convoy is the heat because all civilian traffic has to pull over for you. This will probably be the toughest adjustment to my driving when I get back home. Well, that and not being able to throw rocks or shoot at cars that I don’t like, both of which are supremely satisfying.

As we got closer to Baghdad, there were a lot more signs of the war. There are armored vehicles that guard the road perched atop overpasses.

There are also a lot of old VBIEDs along the road.

We must of passed half a dozen of the old burned out car bombs, which was strange. Not unsettling, just sort of freaky. Spirits were still high when we got to Baghdad. The Special Forces went through the entry gates first, followed by the rest of the convoy, with us last.

The gate guard asked, “Who are you?”
Staff Sergeant replied, “That’s classified.”
Not to be put off, the guard insisted, “Who are you with?”
Staff Sergeant pointed to the Special Forces truck and said, “We are with those guys.”
The guard was getting annoyed. “Are you guys SEALs?”
“Um…no.”
“Marines?”
“Yep. Oorah.”
“Fine. Come on in.”

We went over to the Special Forces motor pool to get the air conditioner fixed on the SF humvee. It may seem like air conditioning is not necessary for steely eyed commandos like us. However, when the temperature is nearly 120 degrees, and you are carrying around 50 pounds of armor, weapons, and ammo, air conditioning is really, really neat, and it is good to have it working.The vehicle was going to take a while to get attended to. We got a loaner Land Rover Defender 110 to cruise around Victory, and set about finding when the ODA guys were going to show up. As luck would have it, their flight from Germany was canceled, and they were to be here the next morning, which meant we had to spend the night in Baghdad. Again, this is a good thing because Baghdad was like a vacation for us.

Camp Victory (the main Coalition Headquarters) is actually a HUGE sprawling complex of Saddam’s old palaces. It wasn’t so much like the command center of a war in progress as a business park. There are bus lines, movie theaters, barber shops, multiple PXs, and such a variety of buildings of various functions that show no evidence of being even remotely related to the war. To the casual observer, this is just another military base, with no sign whatsoever that there is a war on.

The Special Forces group took over Saddam’s favorite palace up on a hill, and the other nations have taken over various palaces and buildings around the campus. The primary building has become sort of like a Pentagon for all the main Coalition staff types. The El Salvadorans managed to get us a tour.It quickly became apparent that we were no longer in the field, but right there at the center of everything. Firstly, Baghdad has all these crazy rules about wearing hats and saluting. You also have to wear all your rank insignia and uniform devices, which I only brought as an afterthought. And it has been quite some time since I was in such celestial company. I am one of the senior officers at Camp Charlie. But O-4s are a dime a dozen in Baghdad. I saw more colonels there than I have seen since I was mobilized. Mostly, though, was the appearances. Everybody in Baghdad is wearing a clean and pressed uniform. They all have fresh haircuts and shaves. Nobody was dusty or dirty. We felt rather scruffy. I also noticed that while most people were wearing body armor, it was clean. My body armor has gotten a somewhat ‘used’ look. It is not dirty, really, but you can tell that I have been wearing it a lot in the field. All the body armor I saw in Baghdad looked like it had just come out of the wrapper.

The tour was amazing. The palace is huge, and there are lots of people running around with stacks of paper. The bathrooms are nice, with actual rooms instead of just stalls. And there is plenty of toilet paper, which is nice as I hadn’t brought any with me, which is the usual practice in Camp Charlie. There were also paper towels for drying your hands, which we don’t have at Camp Charlie. I felt like I was in the big city for the first time.

After the tour, we went over to the PX. Our PX is a single trailer that is open on occasion. Camp Victory has at least two PXs, one of which is open 24 hours. One can spend a whole afternoon walking around the store. In addition to all the sundries one might expect (some of which aren’t available in Camp Charlie), they have electronics, food, CDs and DVDs, running gear, grills and charcoal, sunglasses, dietary supplements, all the uniform devices you could ever want, clothing, greeting cards, and such a comparative wealth of stuff that I was almost overwhelmed. I bought things that I needed but can’t get normally. I also remembered to get the patches that I passed on last time.By now it was lunch time, so we went to eat at the chow hall. Such a chow hall I had never seen. It was easily four times the size of the impressive one in Diwaniyah. There were six hot chow lines, as well as a short order grill. There were two stir fry stations where you could get stir fry to order. There was also a separate line for (I suspect) a specialty item of the day, which happened to be “Taste of India” today. There were coolers with five different colors of Gatorade, as well as coolers full of drink boxes. I thought I had more than a passing knowledge of drink boxes, but here were ones I had never even heard of, in excessive quantities. There were two ice cream bars with over half a dozen flavors, as well as all the toppings. The hot fudge was kept hot, as was the caramel. Also, there is a full time shake maker at the ice cream bar, who would also make a banana split or sundae, if you pleased. And there were crackers for the soup.

I loaded up my plate with custom spicy stir fry and taste of India, and a large bowl of New England Clam Chowder with a lot of crackers. The rest of the guys were similarly feasting. We sat next to two Air Force types, who grinned as we raved about the quantity and quality of the food.

“You guys aren’t from here, are you?”
“Nope. This is some amazing chow.”
“Funny. We were just complaining about it, but I don’t think we will anymore.”

How they could complain with all this variety and quantity escapes me. I knew that I would regret lunch halfway through the spicy stir fry and curried chicken, but I was not going to let a groaning stomach detract from this feast.As we finished up chow, a Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant happened by, and struck up a friendly conversation. When we told him we were 4th Anglico, he grinned and said, “I have heard of you guys. You are down in Hillah working with the Special Forces. I heard you guys are doing great things.”On the way out, I talked with a SEAL Lieutenant Commander to express my condolences on the recent SEAL casualties in Afghanistan. He asked who I was with, and when I said 4th Anglico, he, too, said he had heard we were going great things down in Hillah.

This sort of shocked us, as we have just been doing our thing. In fact, the Team Sergeant got a bit annoyed. He wants to know what other people are doing if our work causes so much to do that people are talking about us. We are just fighting the war, in his opinion.

We drove back over to check on the progress of the air conditioner repair. The Team Sergeant rolled a few feet past the stop sign at a checkpoint, which really irritated the Private manning the checkpoint. The SF looked at him pityingly because he felt so strongly about the importance of stopping exactly at the stop sign.

The humvee was not ready, so we opted to go back to the PX. The Team Sergeant has been grumpy of late, so I asked him how fresh his tin of dip was. It is not possible to get fresh dip in Camp Charlie, so I bought him a new fresh tin of Copenhagen, as well as a sleeve of the stuff for the guys back in Hillah. Fresh dip did a lot to improve his mood.

Recently, a friend of mine mailed a beach ball and a pool float, which, of course, were a big hit with the Buff and Tan crowd. While we were in the PX, I asked a clerk if the PX happened to have any pool equipment.”Pool equipment?””Yes”, I said, “I was hoping to buy some pool floats.”She looked at me sadly, then asked, “Do you remember where you are?” I guess she hasn’t heard of our pool. Yet.

The exchange also offers the sale of vehicles back in the states. The sale is free of tax, and there are substantial rebates for service members serving in a war zone. I am not in the market for a new vehicle, but those new pick up trucks sure do look good.

We finally called it a day, and headed back to the SF area to sleep. I gave fair warning that I snored loudly, so they better not complain in the morning.