Wind Chill Factor

Its been hot. I hate to keep mentioning the weather but it has such an impact on our mission and our daily lives that I have to share it with you. Yeah, it’s hot in the desert in the summer. Duh, got it. But how hot does it get? You can see from the photo, how hot. This picture was taken at our back porch thermometer. Not exactly scientifically calibrated but in the shade it is 120 F at about 1pm.

We are routinely having days where it gets over 120F. This day was 122. Everyday gets 115 or hotter now. August is typically the hottest month where we expect temps of 130 +.

On a windy day it actually feels hotter. The heat index is over 130 now. The Air Force’s instruments still call it ‘Wind Chill Factor’ but that’s too ridiculous to write down so we just use Heat Index. Imagine standing in front of a huge hair dryer. That’s how it feels. There is no rain. The dust blows about 4 days out of 7. It sucks but it’s our Tallil. Drink water.

SABER 02,

out.

Happy Birthday To You!

Happy Birthday Sherrie!

I'm sorry I missed another one. I wish I could travel the 8,000 miles that separate us and celebrate it with you. Thank you for all you do: taking care of the girls, taking care of our home and taking care of yourself.

I love you.
I miss you.
Happy Birthday!


1-4-3
Joel

On The Road: The Pit Crews

When you and your family or friends take that vacation this summer and head out on the road you have the luxury of knowing that if things don’t go so good you have some options; Triple A, the next gas station, a cell phone, Wal-Mart.
When you are out on the road in Iraq you have to be self-reliant. There aren’t any E-Z Marts to stop at to buy a soda, Triple A isn’t going to come and give you a boost and you can’t just pull into the next McDonald’s to go to the bathroom. In Iraq a soldier on the road has to have a plan, have resources and have the training necessary to do what are routine tasks back in the states.

Our convoys start at COB* Adder. After we leave we join up with anywhere from 40 to 50 semis then we escort them for about 300 miles in a single trip. We travel primarily at night when its cooler, somewhat more secure and we don’t have to fight the traffic. In the Army we say that ‘we own the night’. For our convoys that is true. That’s the time of day when we do the majority of our mission.
The mission is to escort supplies from point A to B and make sure they get there safely. We escort things like parts, supplies, equipment, ammo and fuel. In fact, since we’ve been here we have escorted almost 5,000,000 gallons of fuel to various points in Iraq. At $4 a gallon back home that is a lot of valuable stuff.

Along the way we encounter the same problems on the road that you do. Traffic jams, fuel stops and flat tires. We plan our route to include secure fuel stops but sometimes you cannot plan for unexpected stops like when you are waiting for an IED to get cleared or you are stuck idling on the road until a traffic problem clears. When fuel runs low we pull out the 5 gallon ‘Jerry Cans’ and do a tactical refuel. The photo is SGT West, aka ‘Little Budha,’ putting about $50 of diesel in the tank. He’s wearing 60lbs of gear and its 110 degrees in the middle of nowhere.

‘Little Budha’ is like a one man NASCAR pit crew. I watched him on two occasions dump fuel into hummers on the side of the road. When we do roadside pit work there isn’t a pit and time is always an issue. The longer you take to fix or fuel the more exposed you are to the elements and to the enemy. We say ‘slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.’ In other words don’t get in a hurry and things will go a lot better. Little Budha is smooth. Especially when it comes to getting a truck back on the road.
Flats are another battle drill that is done with NASCAR precision. Every truck in the convoy has a job to do when a tire needs changed. Some move to form a secure perimeter. Another pulls next to the ruptured tire to shield the crew and provide power to an impact wrench. Still others stay with the convoy to guard the flock.

These pictures were taken at 3am on my last road trip. I felt like an idiot. I mean, I can handle myself when we are in contact. I can change a tire on my civilian truck. But I had not been a part of this crew when the Tire Change battle drill is executed. I just stayed out of the way, held a flashlight and took pictures. Mainly I just stayed out of the way.

From the time we called over the radio that we had a flat to the time we were pulling out with a fresh tire was probably 10 minutes. Sergeant Mayo and Staff Sergeant Woodmansee knew exactly what to do. One loosened the lug nuts while another got the jack and impact wrench out of the recovery truck. Then one jacked-up the 15,000 pound vehicle while the other got the spare off the back. Then the tire was replaced and the process was reversed. All this while wearing 60pounds of body armor and keeping their weapons nearby. These guys are good.
When things go wrong out on the road in Iraq these soldiers don’t do a whole lot of standing around and scratching their heads wondering what to do. They know. They execute. They roll on.

Like I said, these guys…and gals…are good.

SABER 02,
Out.

*A COB is a Contingency Operating Base. Basically it’s a secure place where we live and work.

Wind, Convoys and Heroines

It’s like a broken record….or these days a scratched CD. The weather. It continues to blow and blow. For the past two or three weeks we’ve had whats known as a Shamaal: winds that blow for days. It creates dust storm situations where visibility is often less than ½ a mile which is a big safety concern for our convoys and our aviation.

I’m going to try to catch another ride on a mission going north. I risk being on a three-day convoy that turns into six or seven days. When the winds shut down the convoys pretty much stop at the nearest coalition location and wait it out. It can be a long trip. I’ll risk it. I’ve got to get back on the road.

I’ll be riding with another Commando unit. Commando 2-6. I’ll be the TC (vehicle commander). My vehicle crew are old friends. One I’ve known and deployed with off and on for the past ten years, Sergeant Dale West. He’s a great guy from Camden, Arkansas. Dale is a super soldier, an infantryman with a passion for combat arms and a real leader.

The other will be my gunner, the soldier that rides in the turret for the entire trip. I met her for the first time on my last outing. SPC Poindexter. I don’t know her first name but she calls herself Barbie and she is from Oregon. She even has a nametag sewn on some of her equipment. She is something else; a very outgoing personality, not afraid to work hard and if you ever meet her you would see her infectious, positive personality immediately.

This 20-year-old soldier was with a unit that did their tour and went home a few months ago. She is one of a handful of soldiers who stuck around to help us fill our ranks. This mission will be her last. She’s going home in a few weeks after a hard tour.

Another interesting fact about her is she is has been decorated for heroism. An Army Commendation Medal with V device (for valor). I don’t know the details but I do know she has seen her share of fighting and when things got tough, she, and her machine gun, got going. Can you picture the girl in the photo behind a flaming M-240B machine gun? I can now.

SPC Poindexter amazes me. She would rather gun than do anything else. In fact, she says if Commando wasn’t going to let her be a gunner, she was going to pack it in. They let her gun and she’s been with us about 3 months.

Well I feel comfortable knowing I’ve got two real pros riding in my armored Humm-V. I’ll let you know how it goes.

That is, if the wind calms down.

SABER 02
Out.

Keeping Our Sanity

One thing about mobilizations is the routine. I wrote about groundhog day. You get the point that it is pretty routine most of the time. Something I’ve learned over the years and deployments is you’ve got to take care of your troops and yourself by setting aside time for yourself. If you constantly work hard and never do something that is non-Army, you will eventually get dull and become ineffective.

We have limited ways to do that here at COB Adder. There is the internet which helps a lot. We have movies to watch, books to read and we get plenty of opportunities to call home and stay in touch. Even that can get repetitive.

Softball has been a surprisingly good way to escape the routine. We were looking for something to do together outside of work so we put together a softball league. It is made of teams from Arkansas. There are several units from Arkansas here so it seemed a natural thing to do. What has surprised me is the enthusiasm the league has had. Sometimes all you have to have is someone to just get the ball rolling and that’s what I did. I put out the word and set up the framework for our ‘league.’ With a little marketing and the help of a few others in the squadron it took off.

Now we have a regular Friday night softball league and we literally have hundreds participate. It took off like wildfire. I think our soldiers were just looking for something to do that was non-military and fun. That’s what we gave them.

We have a makeshift softball field. As you can imagine, no grass and plenty of rocks. It makes a grounder very unpredictable. The MWR (Morale Welfare and Recreation ) unit has a very limited supply of equipment so we do have something to work with but there is a whole lot of sharing going on.
A typical Friday night is the various units of our organization are paired-up and we have a good-natured game. There is lots of teasing and comradery. We sit around, watch the games, drink non-alcoholic beer and give the umpires a hard time…we are our own umpires.

The faces change from week to week due to the fact that some people have to be out on missions every day of the week. That’s no problem. Our league is mission-sensitive and we don’t get too carried away with the rules. Its mainly here to escape the routine and have some fun.
Here’s one way you can help if you’d like. Do you have any old softball equipment that’s gathering dust in the garage? Maybe your kids moved out and left it there or you have replaced some equipment over the years. Well, we would like to have it.

Particularly right handed gloves for left-handed players. We only have one and its for a little kid.

We barely have enough equipment to field a team. Only a few of us brought gloves or bats on the outside chance we would play the game. Well, don’t go out of your way but if you do have anything like that laying around send it to me at the address on the right and we will put it to good use.

Softball is just one of the ways we keep our sanity. Can we play softball up until Christmas and still stay sane? We’ll see.

Batter up!

Saber 2,
Out.

Groundhog day…again

It’s the beginning of June.
Its 122 degrees
Its Groundhog day.
Again.

What is our daily routine? I’ve been wondering what to write in this blog. Of course I want it to be interesting so you’ll come back and read more. I guess that’s the TV marketing guy in me. Well, I’ve wrestled with that. Most of what I do on a daily basis I consider boring. Maybe it isn’t to you but I’m sure some of it will have you saying, “so what?”

Well, here is a little. We say that every day is Groundhog day because there is so much repetition. For a staff officer like myself, a lot of what I do is routine. Even for the soldier who lives his deployment on a rotation of sleep, eat, maintenance, mission, recovery, do it again, it is Groundhog day. We live a life of cycles.

My day begins at about 5am. I get up, make the coffee on my crappy little German coffee pot. Community coffee, dark roast…black is better in the morning. I’ll turn on my TV and watch one of the 9 TV channels that the American Forces Network pumps into our mini cable system…it’s a bad signal but it keeps me company in the morning. Ill watch the news and like you, tune it out because it’s more about Obama andHillary.

About 15 of us have purchased a satellite internet system so we can have internet in our rooms. What a blessing that has been. It’s a little faster than dialup but it is a window to the outside world. Hats off to our commo guy, CPT Pierce (note his blog on the right).

I turn on the computer and see if my wife is on and talk to her for a few minutes. 5am here is 9pm at home. Ill tell her good morning and tell her Im off for a run. She’s probably herding the girls to bed so her day is still winding down. After about 30 or 40 minutes of running in the morning sun Ill get back to my CHU (Containerized Housing Unit…or what most people call a trailer). After I cool down Ill turn on the camera and chat with her for about 30 minutes. A great way to start of a day. Ill eat a little in-trailer breakfast, get a shower, dress and get on my bike for the 1.5 mile ride to our headquarters building.

Ill usually get in the office (a small one) at about 0830. My analysts have already been to work since about 7 pulling down reports of enemy activity that have occurred in the last day or so. My first big event of the day…every day…is our Squadron’s Operations and Intelligence briefing. It’s my job to brief the commanders on what has occurred along our routes against coalition convoys, and any other attacks that affect our mission.

That’s’ my job. I study the bad guys. More on that another day.

By the time the O&I brief is done its almost 11am. The morning is shot so we head to the DFAC (Dining Facility) for lunch. We fight the crowd of a few thousand other Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines who happen to go to lunch at the same time. The chow is good. More than enough for us to eat. Then its back to work to get ready for our second big event of the day…the Convoy Briefing.

The convoy briefing is probably the most important my section does on a daily basis. It directly supports the mission we are on. I have 3 soldiers who work directly for and with me preparing this information. They are great Americans and I’m proud of them for what they are doing. You can be proud of them too.

More on the briefings another day (is this a recurring theme here?) Groundhog day continues.

After the briefings the two analysts are done. They go off to do whatever analysts do when they aren’t working. They read, watch TV, workout, surf the internet.
I continue my day by working on the myriad of other tasks I do. I analyze enemy activity, prepare briefings for higher headquarters and subordinate units. I requisition special maps for our operations. I am also in charge of some areas of security and anti-terrorism. I do a lot of things…and never seem to get any of it done.

At about 1600 its 8am at home so I try to call home every other day. I am fortunate to have a DSN phone in my office that can reach the states with no fee. It’s a crappy connection with a 3 second delay but I am glad to have it. 8am is a good time to call my wife since she’s just getting her day underway. Since its summer I can talk to my girls for a few minutes but it is 8am and they aren’t very chatty at that time of the morning.

The afternoon turns into evening. A few of us late workers go to chow together again at about 1800 then we come back and prepare a few things for the next day or finish up work of the current day. At about 20 or 2100 I ride my bike back in the dark to my CHU (trailer) and watch a little TV, work on this blog, I may workout or read. Then its hop in bed at about 2300ish and get some sleep.

Another Groundhog day complete.
Another Groundhog day begins tomorrow.

SABER 2,
out.