Wet stuff falling from the sky

This picture was very pretty in person, I wasn't sure if I could actually capture the image to share with anyone, or if I wanted to.

The gruesome war monument.

Wet and chilly, but commerce is still happening.

This beautiful building didn't survive "shock and awe." Many of the "targets" were apparently in the great buildings of Baghdad.

Yes, it seems all are confused. Notice the look on Capt Connaroe's face... I think this was the point where Major Brott was explaining that we would have to clean our own latrine...

This is where we are going to build our little Jedi camp. The view is from the watch tower.

Another Cache, notice the white 2 liter bottle. That is HME, highly explosive and made from common chemicals (Home Made Explosive)... Yet another cowardly way to attack coalition forces.

It finally rained. The weather could not be better, if anything it is a little chilly at times. I spent many days in the past wishing it would rain. I don't plan on complaining about the rain any time soon, except for all the mud that gets tracked into my truck.

The mud here is an incredibly sticky substance. It seems to be part clay and dirt mixed, in many places not absorbing into the ground and creating a sort of slush. The atmosphere has become remarkably clear and easier to breath.

Soon we will be moving to Meade. We are all looking forward to finally getting set up and settled in. The unit that is housing us is very receptive and seem happy to have us around. If anything, our time on the road and exposure will be greatly reduced.

We now find ourselves needing to add more time to our visits to the IA brigade. It seems that most of the time when we arrive to the brigade there is a surprise, another cache. This is a very good thing, keeping the weapons out of the hands of bad guys. We need to add more time to allow EOD to come out and confiscate the bombs. The weapons (such as the machine gun) usually go to the Iraqi Army for some purpose or another.

I gave some candy to my IA counterparts and tried to explain Halloween to them. It is perhaps one of my favorite holidays and they seemed amused by the concept. One of the Jundi ran off with the candy and hoarded it. Go figure.

We got two new members on our team, we now total 16. Bond and Puma joined us on Friday giving us five interpreters. These two guys, natives of Iraq, are very easy going and easily fit in with us. Don't expect to see any pictures of them though.

Enjoy the pictures.

95-98% of a chance...

The title are Major Brott's infamous words.

The IA got called up to move. Apparently Gen Ali, the 17th Division Commander, decided to finally tell Col Maraud, the 55th Brigade Commander, to move his headquarters to within his own AO. We made a friendly visit to the new headquarters, a former US patrol base, Diesel. Diesel is located on the banks of the Tigris on the outskirts of Baghdad.

We decided that we would like to live with the IA at Diesel. After making many plans during the afternoon we mounted up to roll out to COP Meade. During our trip I asked Major Brott how likely we were to move to Diesel. According to Major Brott, we had a "95-98 percent of a chance."

An hour later, there became a fifty percent chance that we would move to Meade instead. An hour later, we were certain to move to Meade. It seems the battalion we will be supported by has no ambition of supplying us with what we need to sustain ourselves at Diesel. The truth is, the distance between the two posts is slight, so a 15-30 minute drive will take us to visit Diesel.

So here we are, now with a 95-98% chance of moving to COP Meade. Moving to Meade is actually a good thing. We no longer will need to have everything brought to us as it is all mostly provided at Meade, no longer will we need to be baby sat by a personal security detachment (PSD). Another good thing about moving to the COP is that we will spend more time doing our job of advising the IA instead of building a patrol base.

All is well... Our internet hookup might not pan out as well as we hoped, but we will make do. Our plan is to isolate ourselves within COP Meade so we don't get absorbed into their element and can remain somewhat autonomous. We should be moving within a week or so.

Time is flying by and we shall be home soon. Thank you mom for the package.

The picture at the top is of the only forked tree of it's kind we have seen... It's the little things that count here.

Hold down the homefront for us.

Progress

Okay, welcome back. I want to post when something significant happens, or funny, or memorable. The truth is that it seems a bit like ground hog day here. All is well though.

We are moving, but at the moment we are only moving to Mustang Ranch, aka PB Jedi. Rakasaan 6 visited the ranch last week and more or less declared that we will remain there. The boss likes to talk about momentum, which the IA seem to have harnessed. After showing them where the wood was they have learned to build (teach a man to fish... yada yada).

We don't take the credit for the momentum that the IA are on. The Iraqi Army IG visited today and were given a briefing by a well prepared Col Maraud. Apparently we don't know all about our IA counterparts.

The IA did invite us to go on a "raid" tomorrow for a suspected weapons cache. We won't be joining them which is probably for the best. The more that the IA do on their own without us the better.

PBJ is going well. Some of us are looking forward to moving out there and being on our own. There is a large sense of ownership with it. I'm personally looking forward to all the work that is to be done.

Over the last few days we had quite a few CHU's brought in. We have yet to install electricity and all of our amenities. Unfortunately we will be using wag-bags. Once again, a wag bag is a disposable container for #2. Hopefully the smoke from our burn pit will never blow our way.

Yes, I am CHU surfing in the photo above. Not safe, I know, but fun none-the-less. The top photo is of the IA's shopette. In the other photo I am pulling a semi with a flat bed out of the gravel with my handy dandy 4x4.

Nothing much exciting to report. I miss my family terribly as we all do, but the time is flying by. I'll try to post on a weekly basis in the future...

Hold down the home front...

Cache

Welcome back.

There is a lot going on here, as usual. Yesterday we went out to Mustang to finish building our t-wall compound. The IA had been busy, unfortunately they hadn't included us in their plans. We aren't sure if they don't trust us yet or aren't coordinated enough yet to be able to include us. Anyway, when we arrived we found out that they had gotten a tip about someone intending to place an IED. The 4th photo above is a 152 round, which was by itself.

After EOD arrived, the IA rolled up with a new find. A tip led them to the weapons cache (last two photos) above. We are once again proud af our IA bubbas for getting their job done.

The first photo is of an antiaircraft gun, a DSKA (?), which was also found with the 152 round.

The walls are finished on our compound finally. The only thing left with that is to plug up some corners with sandbags and have the gate put in. However, we are far from being finished. There are still many things to be done before we can move in. Yes, we may have to use wag bags at first... Guess what a wag bag is. Okay, I'll tell you, we will use them to go #2, then we throw them in the burn pit with our trash. It does rankle me a little to see all the trash thrown in a burn pit, only to add to the poor air quality and stink everything up, but there is little else to be done.

The other photo above, of the Humvee is from one of our recent "joint missions." This particular mission was to go retrieve a large fuel tank for the IA. One of our other joint missions was to take the IA to retrieve some wood from another patrol base. During our trip, the IA frequently throw trash out their vehicles, adding to the endless view of debris everywhere.

Many if not all of us feel that the IA only view us as a checkbook, not here to help them function, but here to give them things. But there is a positive side, Mustang is looking better and they are starting to do more to improve their camp. The improvements only seem to come when the CO is leave however... I must say, we will all be slightly amused if/when the IA Brigade is forced to move.

We hope we won't have to move anywhere other than Mustang. Vanderhorn is way out in the boonies, a long, bumpy drive made miserable by the MRAPs.

Well, enough for now, I'm never in need of something to do. Hold down the home front for us...

Jed, move away from there...

Vanderhorn or Mustang. We'll let General Ali decide. It seems we may not be moving to Mustang ranch, aka PB Jedi, afterall.

Our MiTT supports the 55th IA Brigade. We go where they go. At the moment, Mustang Ranch is in the northernmost part of their AO, questionably not in their own AO at all. So it seems we may be moving to Vanderhorn instead. We'll know in a few days or so. Unfortunately we won't get to build up Vanderhorn from scratch since we will be taking over for a departing company. Vanderhorn is located within view of the Tigris River. Perhaps I'll get some better photos of the river over time.

Today, Monday, few of us had the heart to really work on our compound. Some part of us are disheartened by the thought of the work we put in only to have to move elsewhere. At first we weren't excited at all about moving to Mustang, but over time we became excited at the idea of being on our own without the Fobbit rules and attitudes. (Fobbit refers to those who spend all their deployment within the safe confines of the FOB)

I'm sad to say that my IA counterpart, Lt Ashraf may be leaving the Brigade to run the automations at the Division level. That's unfortunate for me because he and I usually have long talks, more often talking about subjects completely unrelated to military matters. Despite my poor Arabic and Lt Ashraf's relatively decent English, we still manage to get along. His replacements are the two old enlisted soldiers who each have the personality of a goldfish.

I decided to remove any of the photos of our interpreters. I think there is very little chance that the interpreters might be put in danger because of the photos that I post, but I would rather keep their best interest in mind. In the future I will blur the faces of our interpreters.

Also, Major Brott took the awsome photo above of myself on a T-wall in the fading light. Enjoy

Well, I thought I had posted this one before. Apparently most of what I wrote previously didn't get saved before I lost my internet connection.

Hold down the homefront for us.

Who we are

Welcome back.

As always, there is a lot going on these days. We are actually taking a weekend to relax a little bit. We are all able to catch up on stuff and add to our lists of things to do. On my list was to give a more thorough introduction of the members of our team.

One of our interpreters, Michael, is in the next photo. His name isn't really Michael. They choose their names while in training and apparently Michael chose his name after Michael Jackson. KC wishes he was joking when he told me that... Michael is always a pessimist, but he is a great interpreter.

The second photo shows 3 of our team members hard at work. I would like to say that this is what they all do while the rest of us are busy, but that would only be about 1/3 true.

On the left with the bug eyed glasses is Cpt Connaroe. The youngest member of our team, he may be one of the most ambitious. His follow up assignment will make him a "temporary civilian" while he is at law school. Captain Connaroe has two modes: run and off.

In the back to the right you will see SFC (P) Connaughton. At 31 years old, we are all proud of him having made the list for promotion to Master Seargent. As we call him, KC is our S2 NCO, or our Intel NCO.

SFC Parker is the closest in the photo. Our NCOIC, SFC Parker fits in nicely. He is our infantryman, our expert in all (most) things combat. SFC Parker seems to have fathered most our the IA soldiers. Everytime we pull into Mustang all the soldiers are delighted to see him. We also call SFC Parker "7".

The next photo shows Captain Dresch, "3". Our resident engineer and Operations Officer, Cpt Dresch can be relied upon to make all he touches into perfection. His doings have earned the phrase "Dresch right Dresch." Just don't touch his pencil. "3" once stayed behind during a mission to complete something only he could do, meanwhile the rest of us feared he would rearrange the office in our absence.

The last photo shows LT Alaniz smiling as he always does. From what I hear, he was even smiling after he nearly severed his thumb with the Rhino. LT is our S1, our Personnel Officer. We also call Lt "1".

Nearly two months

It's hard to believe, but yes, we have been here nearly two months. Time is flying by, thankfully, because none of these guys I see everyday are anywhere near as good looking as my wife.

We have been busy as usual, but seem to have taken a step back and are now gathering our strength for another big push towards our move. As usual there are many situations that may depict where we actually end up and for how long, but for now we are still moving to Mustang Ranch. So we are standing by awaiting the next Frago. Oh yeah, the name is now "Patrol Base Jedi," mainly because most of the contracts for our PB, especially the big ones, have gone up under the name of Jedi. No, Major Brott didn't make a command decision as to the name of the patrol base. (see new post by Maj Brott explaining the classification of bases here)

I'm sure you are wondering about the top photo. Neither of them are propane tanks, they are actually 120 kg bombs found in a cache by the IA. You can barely see the RPG round standing up behind the back bomb. We decided to confiscate the bombs from the IA, calling in coalition EOD to remove the bombs.

On a typical day here at FOB Falcon there are a few controlled detonations by EOD. We were able to hear and actually feel the concusion from the detonation of the bombs from Mustang. I must say some of us were quite proud of our IA bubbas for removing those monsters from the streets here in Baghdad.

We are still waiting to see if Col Maraud (Jaba) retains his command after his 90 day probationary period. This guy is getting promoted in January to BG. How, we aren't sure. Col M is more concerned with his new living quarters than securing and actually seeing his own battle space. Jaba has Major Brott convinced that he thinks we are here merely to provide funds to help him. Maj Brott told Jaba that he can use his funds to buy some plywood, the reply being something like "what do I need a Mitt team for then?" Jaba seems to think we are nothing more than a check book. More than one of us are hoping Jaba gets relieved. But if he doesn't then we will find a way to work with him.

Our days off are called "reset" days. The reset day consists of weapons cleaning and catching up on whatever needs catching up on. In my case I usually mess with the trucks or try to track something down on the FOB.

We normally (ok, always) get some ribeye steaks from the dining facility. SFC Colon usually grills the steaks after SFC Parker seasons them. They are far better than the boiled and fried versions from the Dfac. In the second picture I'm enjoying a Becks beer. Yes, it's a non-alcoholic beer, but I've nearly convinced myself that they taste good. We are going to try to find something else to cook on the grill. Once we are established at Mustang (aka PB Jedi), I intend to build us a nice brick bbq grill. We just need to track down some nice brick, mortar and grates. There are even briskets frozen at the px in biap... So here comes some smoked brisket with some palm or eucalyptus flavor (???).

Well, tomorrow we are expecting 5 of our first CHU's to arrive at PB Jedi. CHU stands for Compact Housing Unit or something clever like that. They are used and they aren't double wides, but it's only for the next 10 months. And the sure beat a drash or gp medium tent.

I suppose I should go back and read what I wrote, promising to post in the future. I'm sure that I'm lousy at replying to questions as well... All in good time. I'm still compiling pictures of the rest of the team to post their profiles, according to yours truly. I'm not sure I'm going to flatter any of them since there would be no fun in that.

Hold down the homefront...