Back In Iraq

I’m back. Back in Iraq. I’ve been busy the past couple of weeks moving in, moving around and learning from the unit we are replacing. My blog maintenance has been lacking….kind of like my own little writer’s strike I guess but I don’t have reruns.

Anyway, after a short Sherpa flight I made it to Iraq. (A Sherpa is a very small, ugly, cargo plane….sometime known as the ‘Vomit Comet’). I’m currently located in south central, Iraq at a former Iraqi Air Force Base known as Tallil. (Google Tallil, Dhi Qar Iraq and you’ll get pretty close). The largest city it is near is An Nasiriya (it makes the news occasionally) Tallil is huge. Since the beginning of the war it has evolved into a big base that supports a lot of different coalition efforts in Iraq.

Tallil isn’t very far from Basra which has been making a lot of news the past few weeks. Believe me, we are watching the news from Basra but currently it hasn’t affected our part of the operation. We hope it stays that way.

Let me tell you about my new neighbors from the coalition who live here. Here you will find Australians, English, Romanians, Fillipinos (primarily working here), civilians and probably a few others. From the U.S. we have representatives from all branches; Navy, Air Force, Army (hooah!) and Marines. There are a lot of people here.

I mentioned the unit we are replacing. They are known as the 11th TRANS. They are an Army transportation unit whose wartime mission is to conduct ship-to-shore logistics operations. In fact, when they salute they say their motto, “Over the shore”. Well, they got the sand part of their wartime mission right, but the Army left out the water part. They’ve been doing convoy security operations up and down the Iraqi highways for the past 15 months. It’s strange how things work out.

Now they get to go home and I’m glad to help them on their way. Be proud of these Americans.
They’ve been doing a tough job over here for a long time. They’ve had to adapt to harsh conditions, unfamiliar missions and an extended time away from their families. They are really special soldiers. I’ve known them for about 2 weeks now and I haven’t heard one of them complain yet. They are a great bunch of soldiers and you can be proud of your Army. I am honored to stand in the same battlespace as them.

I’ll tell you about my counterparts and our transition in my next writing.

“Over the Shore!”
SABER 2, out.