Beyond Baghdad

Australia - Phillip Island

The main event of the trip to Australia was attending the opening round of World Superbike racing at Phillip Island.  I'd heard many times that the race circuit there is the most beautiful in the world, and I have to admit it's the best I've ever seen in person (but I'd like to visit all the tracks in Italy, Portugal and Spain just to make sure).

The track itself is beautiful, flowing up and down hills with many long sweeping turns, and the coastline is absolutely gorgeous.  Imagine Carmel, California, but instead of Pebble Beach golf course, someone built a racetrack there.  Those Australians are geniuses!!

 

The racing was fantastic.  In addition to the superbikes, the Australians raced some historic motorcycles that for an old man were gorgeous to look at.

In addition to the racing, Phillip Island is also famous for the "Penguin Parade".  The worlds smallest breed of penguin (approx one foot high) lives along the coast, and nests at one particular beach.  They feed all day and then at dark all swim ashore and waddle up to their nests in the sand dunes a couple hundred feet from the beach.  It is an amazing site to see, and they waddled right by us without even noticing.  Over 1000 penguins swim ashore each night.  Here's a pic of what the little fellows look like...they are actually blue, not black; and also the beach where they came ashore about 45 mins before the parade began. 

 

So that's about it regarding the vacation.  In addition to the interesting animals and scenery, I also discovered I enjoy Aboriginal artwork.  I hope you all get a chance to go somewhere fun soon. 

Australia - The Animals

One of the "perks" of coming to Iraq for a year is two weeks off and an all expenses paid trip to anywhere in the world.  Of course most people go home to see family...but with the kids being older and busy with school and work and missions, I decided to go the selfish route and head to Australia, where I visited with friends and friends of friends and made new friends.  Australia is beautiful and the people are very friendly and laid back.  If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it.  I'd like to go back there someday to live for a while and really explore.  As it was I spent some time in the cities of Brisbane and Melbourne...and the smaller towns of Cairns, Cooktown, Mount Isa and on Phillip Island.  The climate and landscape are quite diverse, from tropical rain forests on the Northeast coast, to arid California-like coastline in the South.

Of course what is really amazing is the different animals you see.  From cute kangaroos and cuddly koalas (yes these are real animals in the pics):

to noisy kookaburas and SCARY 15-foot long crocodiles:

 

As well as handsome dingos and goofy jaberoos:

Australia really is an amazing place, plus I ate some of the best Indian food I've ever had.  I think I only thought of Iraq maybe twice the whole trip...and it's a little tough getting back in the groove of work.

FNG

I had to ride the "Rhino" (armored bus) up to Camp Victory a few days back, to deliver hand-deliver some material for a project.  I got to meet some new people and see a whole new side of the war that was pretty interesting.  Unfortunately I can't go into a ton of detail about it here...but needless to say there are some pretty smart, hard-working motherf-er's on this planet and I'm glad most of them are on our side.  

On the trip back to the IZ we were just about to leave and there was one empty seat facing me, it was filled just before departure by an out-of-breath Brit.  I took one look at him and thought to myself "FNG"! 

If you've never been in the military or don't read many war-related books, maybe you've never encountered the acronym.  I believe the origins of the term FNG go back to Vietnam.  I don't think it was any earlier than that.  Now, whole units deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan as a cohesive group and stay together for the full year in country.  In Vietnam soldiers were drafted, went to basic training and then were flown off to Vietnam and assigned to units willy-nilly.  So there were new personnel always arriving to the unit, often to replace someone who'd been killed or wounded.

The NG stands for New Guy...can you guess what the F stands for?  It's usually a term of derision.  

How could I tell this bloke was a FNG?  First, he had the crazy wide eyes...darting about...with just a hint of panic.  He also had no idea how to do up his seat belt (a four point system) with a center "twist" buckle.  I offered advice of how to strap himself in and had a nice little chat with him during the ride.

His name was Ian.  He was born in Liverpool and had the exact same accent Paul McCartney had when you see him in the early days of the Beatles.  I told Ian I'd been stationed in England before and we talked about previous assignments.  I'd guess he was in his late 30's or early 40's, had been around a bit, but this was his first time in Iraq.  He was a bit worried about the ride across Baghdad and security conditions in Iraq in general.  The incident in Afghanistan where a local policeman had killed 5 British trainers had just happened a couple days previous.  Unlike the stories of FNG treatment I'd read about in Vietnam, I actually tried to put Ian's mind at ease and went out of my way to explain how things are now in Iraq and how relatively safe we are.  Why am I so nice?  It would have been funner to mess with his head, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.  

And I should have.  I mean he's only here for six months.  He just arrived and he'll be leaving before me.  Is there any justice in the world?  Oh wait, my teeth are straight and I don't have that totally gay accent.  All the smart, motivated Brits moved to America several hundred years ago.

Ian is here to work for a small NATO contingent that trains Iraqi soldiers and police (now you know why he seemed so worried).  They live and work down here at FOB Union III.  There are folks from lots of countries, burly Ukrainians, scrawny Italians, hot Dutch chicks, the gamut.  A bunch of good people really.  I think I may have mentioned Sergei, the Ukrainan who I run into a lot.  He has actually been to Votkinsk, the town where I worked in Russia for my previous job.  Back in the Soviet Union days he drove the missiles to and from the  factory.  Small world huh?  If you ever want to get a Ukrainian excited...ask them how much they like Russians.

Back to Ian, the FNG.  As I mentioned...I was trying to help Ian out...calm him down...explain what was going on.  As we leave our bases, we load a magazine of ammo into our weapons...just in case.  So before we left I explained that all to Ian, he popped a magazine in his pistol along with the rest of us at the proper moment.  Once you arrive at your destination, you get out of the vehicle and "clear" your weapon, remove the magazine and check the chamber/barrel to ensure there aren't any bullets left behind.  This (hopefully) prevents any accidental shootings.  Well after we get back on the Rhino I notice that Ian's magazine is empty.  He hasn't even been issued ammo yet.  How hilarious is that?  I'd had him load an empty magazine into his weapon.  Here I am making fun of the FNG and he's thinking to himself, "why is this bloody yank wanker telling me to put an empty mag into me barker?  Bollocks!"

And that dear friends, is why you should always be nice to a FNG.  We were all there once, and no one is immune from a bit of irrational behavior now and then.

See you around the FOB Ian!

War is Hell

We threw a pool party yesterday.  There's a little hotel complex with a nice pool inside the international zone, right along the Tigris river.  We are giving it back to the Iraqis on 1 October, so we decided to throw a little office party there for the folks who work for me, and a couple other offices who work nearby.  About 40 people showed up.  It was the prettiest day in Iraq since I've been here.  Skies were clear, and the high temperature only about 98 degrees. The complex and pools were beautiful.  I was one of a small number of people to jump in from the high platform pictured.  I didn't peek over the edge, just got up there and ran off it.  If I'd stop to look before I leaped I would have chickened out.  (Is there a moral there somewhere?)  Sometimes you just have to leap.  It was creepy though, I felt like I just kept falling and falling...I didn't squeal but I did keep my eyes closed.

There was a military band that played later in the day, as a last gasp celebration.  They were really good, a five piece rock band with a five piece horn section to back them up.  Played some Reel Big Fish, some Jazz, and some old Funk.  I would have paid to see them in the US, and I usually hate military bands.  A few of the contractors who've been here over a year told me it was the first day they've had in country that they weren't focused on work, so they really enjoyed themselves.  Here are some pictures.  Don't you wish you were here??

Desert Palms

dust covered palm trees
breeze rustles long drooping leaves
what have they witnessed

Middle Eastern Moon

Here's a picture I took of the full moon the other night.  I'm pretty sure that what looks like a star next to the moon is really Venus.  The tall dark shapes are the concrete barriers around our trailers. I thought the pic came out pretty good for just a point and shoot camera and no tripod.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but for some reason the moon has always looked more beautiful in the middle east when I've been here.  Especially the crescent moon.  I can't prove it but I'm pretty sure that's one reason why the crescent moon is the symbol of Islam.

I still remember one particular night in Saudi Arabia back in probably 1993, with the crescent moon and Venus low on the horizon and the sky was so dark you could just see tons of stars.  You couldn't have painted a prettier picture.  One of the top two or three night skies I've ever seen.  I actually had a dream a couple weeks back that the sky was clear and I could clearly see the Milky Way.  I guess that's what weeks of dust storms will do to you.  Between the dirty air here and the lights from the city, you don't see too many stars...only the brightest ones show up.

Looking Back

So I've been in Iraq almost a month now. I wish I had something else super-interesting about Iraq to write, but for now I don't. I'm in a routine of working, getting to the gym just about every day and sleeping. That's my life in a nutshell. It looks like I will be moving down to the International Zone in two weeks, and it appears to be a permanent move, so hooray! That will mix things up a bit.

I've been accused of liking to make lists. The last couple days I've been reminiscing about all the places the military has taken me over the years. So here's a list of all the places I've lived or visited overseas. I've got a few sub-categories: places I've actually lived and worked, places I flew over or near on reconnaissance missions back in my enlisted days, and places I visited on vacation.

I entered basic training on 15 Jan, 1985, and spent most of the next two years in training. Rachel was born while we were stationed in San Antonio, Texas. My first overseas assignment was to Okinawa, where Brittany was born. Other than Okinawa, I worked at Osan, South Korea for a week. I flew on RC-135's off the coast of Russia over the Sea of Japan and Sea of Okhotsk mostly, and one time up along the Kurile and Aleutian Islands to Alaska. I also flew on missions overland South Korea along the DMZ, and off the coast of Vietnam.

After Okinawa, we went to Germany, where Corey was born. We were only there a year, and three months of that I spent in Turkey flying on EC-130H's during the "good" Gulf War. We flew over Northern Iraq supporting the fighters dropping bombs on Saddam. While in Germany we did manage a vacation to France, Switzerland and Austria. Because the Russians pulled out of East Germany, my unit was shut down...then it was off to England.

Lindsey was born in England, and I flew for three years on RC-135's again. In multiple trips I spent a total of six months in Saudi Arabia flying along Southern Iraq supporting the "no-fly" zones we imposed on Saddam in the early 90's. I also visited Crete a couple of times for missions. In addition to the Saudi Arabia/Iraq border, I flew on missions over the Baltic and Barents Seas, the South Atlantic, the Western Mediterranean, and the Adriatic Sea when the Serbs were fighting the Croats and Bosnians in the early 90's. We vacationed in Scotland and Spain, and I later visited Wales on my own.

After the UK, it was back to the US. My enlisted flying days were done, and I haven't been permanently assigned overseas since that time. But I have worked in Bahrain for a couple weeks, Italy for four months (while we were bombing Serbia to protect Kosovo), and Iraq (the first time) for eight months. On that Iraq trip I spent several days in Kuwait.

My last job entailed a lot of travel to Russia. I made eight trips there that totaled up to almost one year. We spent a few days in Germany on the way in and out of Russia. I also made a couple trips to Kazakhstan for a total of about six weeks. Now I'm back in Iraq again, with a two day visit in Qatar on the way in. That seems like a lot -- working in a total of 15 countries -- but keep in mind, almost 23 years have gone by since Uncle Sugar shipped me overseas the first time.  And I have to say I'm thankful that I stumbled into this career.