Holy Guacamole

Greetings and Good Morrow!

I keep getting reminded to make another blog post, however I did say a few posts ago that I was planning on updating around once a week... and this will be one week since I made a post. Alright everybody, here we go.

Something I forgot to mention when I talked about my convoy to ACS4 (the FOB in the middle of nowhere) that I was reminded of by Mr. Elzufon in his letter - I passed Alexander the Great's old fortress en route to ACS4. Unfortunately, it's not very impressive to behold. This is probably due to both age, and the Taliban taking pleasure in destroying historical sites.

Last Friday I took my first trip to FOB Walton, which is where BN is located as well as some other units in the BDE. Life is nice there - they have a PX, a collection of local shops that form a bazaar, and one hell of a DFAC. It was Mexican themed for lunch when I was there and wow did they have a selection. Guess what they had at their toppings bar? Guacamole. Yes, guacamole. The most holy of all avocado based foods. For those who know my affinity for guac, you can imagine that there was very little left by the time I was done with it.

Before I left Walton I grabbed a basic carpet from the PX to cover the floor space in my room. The command living-tent is only me, the 1SG, the CO, and MSG Lazar. We have lots of room, which is nice. Admittedly, I was fine with the little cubicle I had when it was 7 people in the tent, but this works too. Besides the carpet, I also have an actual, full-size desk in my area now too. How did I get this you ask? Well...

I know the medics have been (thankfully) bored lately. SSG Hufford is my buddy and I know he likes building things, so I went to him asking if he could build me a little desk for my computer and mouse, so that I could have a solid base for... playing some computer games. Yes. Don't judge me. He said he would build it, but I had to scrounge up a piece of plywood and some 2x4s for him. Being the Contracting Officer, I am aware of the resources that we have as well as what DYNCORP has. I went to the DYNCORP office and talked to the Site Manager (with whom I have a good working relationship) to make sure I was taking wood from OUR pile, and not theirs. He asked what the wood was for, I said a desk. He asked who was building it, I said we were going to build it. He said they could build it, I declined. He said they might have an extra desk like they have in their offices, I said it wasn't necessary. He called his Indians on the radio anyway and they ran in and confirmed that there was an extra. I accepted. Is this ethical? While it is illegal for me to take gifts from contractors who I audit, it turns out that everything DYNCORP has at our site is technically property of the US government - they are merely custodians of it. My conscience is clear and I have an awesome room setup now. I have yet to play games on my shiny desk, but one of these days... game I shall!

Speaking of gaming, me and SSG Barker have set up a poker league at BP3. While I'd love for it to be big and inclusive, we are doing a $5 buy in (people play better poker when money is involved) and as we learned from MAJ Winters in Band of Brothers, a leader should never put themselves in a position to take money from their Soldiers. However, since we're a small FOB (technically a COP), and E6's (SSGs) are section chiefs and squad leaders, that's where we drew the cutoff - the CO agreed with that decision, but does not play himself. In the inaugural game SSG Barker won everything and I ended up losing $10 because I bought back in... my usual fate in AC. I hate losing. I hope he enjoys cleaning the porta-johns with a toothbrush (I kid).

Lots of people grow "deployment mustaches". I have rolled my eyes at this trend, until LT Marzouca challenged me. I am now 48 hours in. I plan on growing this stache out until I truly can't take it anymore. I look pretty gross with a stache, but hell, who am I trying to impress?

While we're on impressing people, I eat dessert now. Yes, that's right people. The crusader against sweets is now eating dessert. Sometimes a piece of half frozen cheese cake or pecan pie is quite the mood booster. In fact, it's often quite good and I sometimes need it to keep my calorie intake high enough. I wouldn't want to come back a scrawny, wimpy girly-man. Schwarzenegger would never approve of this.

Something interesting to note about war is that the little things that you don't think about often make a huge difference. Who works the longest hours, day in and day out? Why, it's the Soldiers who gear up and go on patrols, right? No. It's the cooks. Those guys (and gal) work their tails off. Long days in a sweltering kitchen. What caused a panic at the base? Was it lack of bullets? No, it was that we ran out of plastic flatware (which I quickly restocked by heroically making side deals with the neighboring posts to acquire cases ASAP). It's kind of amusing - nobody ponders things like that when they're thinking about war, but logistics for every little aspect is so important. Yes, I know Napoleon pointed out that an army runs on its stomach, but I'm trying to make a more general point here. Anywho, I see the cooks working hard and try to support them any way I can. This past Sunday was "surf and turf" (seafood and steak) day which is the most popular. I asked for notice when this day was coming up and went to the chow line to help them serve. If I do say so myself, I make an apron and blue gloves look good. I think that it had the intended result of raising the cooks’ morale, giving them a bit of a breather, and actually raising a lot of the Soldiers' morale seeing the XO in there yelling at them and serving up food.

Now it's time for more war-like talk.

The proper combat patch we’re authorized is that of the First Armored Division (1AD). I’m excited to have this patch, as it is “Old Ironsides” – one of Patton’s old commands. However, we will be wearing our DE Guard griffin-head patch as our combat patch while we’re over here because the locals know the 1AD patch… and hate those who wear it. Apparently the CAV guys have a reputation for being nasty and disrespectful to the locals. Good job active duty guys once again.

The units before us never did foot patrols around BP3/RSI, but we decided to start. Primarily to get a view of what the enemy would see looking in at us and to sweep the area for possible attack positions being set up, IED emplacements, or tunnels being dug. Another reason for the foot patrols is to put a human face on the foreigners who occupy the big, loud compound and interact with our neighbors. The PTIDS kept overwatch on the foot patrol the entire time and CO leadership who was not on the foot patrol (like me) followed them the whole way via the PTIDS feed. It looked just like a video game except… real life. They could radio to us to get a look on the other side of a wall and we could do it. Wow. Technology. All of you reading at home will be happy to know that we are, in fact, a much harder target than we thought originally. We identified a couple of weaknesses however, and will be making moves to fix them.

Last night we heard helicopters flying very close to us (one was close enough to shake the ECP) and commented that something was going down and perhaps our QRF would get spun up again. It turned out to be Kiowas flying in blackout. Shortly thereafter there were some explosions. The power of our military is so, so cool. I’m glad I’m not on the other team.

There is a big, very high profile mission coming up in the next week that had to get the green-light from the Sec-Def. We’ll be involved in it. Should be cool, and that’s all I’m saying about that.

There should be new pictures up within an hour of me posting this. The video of the convoy is taking much longer than expected, as Windows Movie Maker has decided that it would like to crash when I try to edit the video clips. Go figure.

I thank you all for your support. This is my 43rd day in theater and 71st day since being deployed, not that I'm counting or anything. Much love.

LATER

*Update* Our newest interpreter "Ramen" just brought food fresh from the market to the TOC. Lamb, beef, and chicken (all cooked), flat bread, rice, spices, sauces, cut vegetables. Amazing. AMAZING. You thought Ali Baba was good. This will be worth any amount of time it forces me to spend in the latrine.