Out The Gate

And so it begins. I took a couple of convoys south to Ramadi. It just happens, you know?

The first one, last week, I worried a bit. Showed up at the Marine camp at 0600, following a few hours sleep as I readied (and fixed, and tweaked, and re-readied) my gear. I'd been an idjit and lost my M4 sling somewhere (I think it got nicked when I was in San Diego), so had to jury-rig one for the trip. I'd met the Marines a few days earlier and they'd invited me along to see an Iraqi security HQ in the capital of Anbar province – kind of like the local FBI office.

We drove in those big monster vehicles (MRAPs) you see on the news, lots of room on the inside but not very comfortable. Not a lot of windows, and the glass was dirty anyway, so hard to see – but enough of a view to see the countryside. Much more green than Basrah, at least while we transited what the Marines acronymically like to call the western Euphrates river valley, i.e. the werv.

We went almost two weeks ago now, so the crisp memories of that first trip are fading. I remember bouncing out the main gate, the gunnery sgt in the turret entertaining everyone with wry comments about other drivers, pink houses (ok, mauve) along the side of the road and exclaming every time an Iraqi driver cut on our side of the road to pass someone. They are pretty crazy drivers, careening all over the road – I'm not surprised there are so many accidents.

Impressions: the green zone along the Euphrates was lush and brilliant in comparison to the dry, orange-colored escarpments; the roads were falling apart, reminded me of the Pennsylvania Turnpike; lots of Iraqi's have fruit stands on the side of the road, full of produce; others sell gasoline out of plastic jugs; still others own a “gas station”, which is the tanker portion of a fuel delivery truck dropped on top of a berm and they just attach a gravity fuel dispenser to the nozzle; the town of Hit is full of cesspools that serve as a moat, channeling traffic through Iraqi Police (IP) checkpoints – a perfect way to limit and check traffic coming in and out of town (it is as if your town was surrounded and there was only one way in and out; we passed trucks full of scrap metal, cement and boxes of trade goods; on top of one truck there were three sheep, looking very unconcerned; none of the highways have guard rails, all torn up – just vertical legs left; there are lots of police checkpoints that we went through – people who worry about the Patriot Act shouldn't – its kind of like a 24/7 sobriety checkpoint, hard to imagine; we crossed the Euphrates on a pontoon bridge with no guard rails – a little scary the first time.

We stayed in Ramadi for a few hours for a meeting, met a bunch of Iraqi's, took some pictures of the palaces and then drove home. The Marines let me ride the top turret position on the ride home. That was fun, but you're pretty exposed to the elements – if I'd known I would've brought my goggles. I had a good view of the countryside from up there and could look down into cars and trucks as they passed by us. Nothing too interesting happened, though I remember thinking it odd at one checkpoint that the IP's had stuck bright plastic flowers and painted sunny scenes all over the concrete barriers – I suppose they were just tying to make people feel better about having their ID's checked. At another point an IP convoy passed us and there was a guy sprawled out on a couch in the back of one truck, chatting happily away on his cell phone. We also passed some Iraqi Army outposts – guarding narrow passes or bridges – and some of those looked remarkably primitive, just some sand bags, a berm or two and a flag. I had a pretty severe headache by the time we got back.

The second trip happened a week later, this time we went to the same palace first but then went on to the Navy base in Ramadi. That was pretty cool, sitting alongside the Euphrates some friends crossed to meet us by boat. We stayed the night talking with people and I met Jason, a good friend of mine from my Reserve unit. We went through Chief induction together, so he's a brother to me. He'd been out here all winter and was getting ready to leave (he should be home by now). That's him in the attached pic. Went for a run around his base and stayed up half the night talking. It was a good trip, made some good contacts.

Otherwise things progressing ok, two steps forward, one and a half back -- working with the Iraqi's is kind of like teaching a class of ADD college kids, smart but unfocused -- but it is very enjoyable. Becoming close friends with three of them, it would be hard to live in their shoes.

Included a picture of my first full moon. Only six more to go... :)

More later, Timo

Fair Winds and Following Seas from a Brown Sand Box Sailor!