Savior, Thy Name Is Braun!!

Oh happy day! Oh coffee sweet! Oh caffeine rush divine!

Yes dear readers, the 220V coffee grinder I ordered has finally arrived! Now, several folks, realizing my desperate need in these dark times, sent me ground coffee. For that, my friends, I am eternally grateful. Now, however, I am aptly prepared and fully able to take advantage of the fifty pounds (Fifty. Pounds.) of goodwill sent here by the eastside Starbuck's. Please note that other coffee is actually more than welcome here!

So this last week has been interesting. Not because of the folks coming through badging per se, but because of the incredibly welcoming environment, in which we find ourselves. See, temperatures are beginning to hit levels that are consistent with the desert environment. To wit, we have been experiencing highs of low teens. That's 110 to 115 for you folks at home. That's mighty hot. I know, Paul will happily pop on here and tell me it gets hotter. Yup, got that. Not complaining, just a statement of fact. So, machinery, like people, doesn't like to run at full capacity in hot weather. Odd how that works. Generators have been going out on a regular basis 'round here, which includes those generators that power my office. Normally I'd say, "such is life" and be done with it. The problem is that we have this one server that people access from other parts of the country on a regular basis. Random power outages disrupt that, which means it shuts down. That is bad. The power guys came by and tried to explain it all to me. I was nice. I listened (or tried to). At one point my statement was simply, "make it work and keep it working." Add to that, the A/C in my office is female. It randomly blows hot and cold air, it blatantly ignores the setting I have on the thermostat, and works well when the repair guys show up. QED.

On another positive note, Matt and Anjie (ok, Anjie mostly) sent me a box, which arrived here this week. The really eerie thing is that the very day prior to that, I had a serious jonesin' for purple Propel drink mix. I open up the box and lo, verily my jonesing had been a prophecy! Inside were three different colors of Prople (EXCELLENT!), a box of Menergy (energy drink mix, not sure the brand), a tub of hershey kiss cookies (very excellent) and some other stuff. Anj, Matt, thank you tons!!! The drink mixes by themselves were great, everything else on top of all that is fantastic too! In fact, I now have a cat to guard my ammo at night.


See? Cats get into the darndest places!

Enjoy!

Most of March, all of April, May and June. That's practically four months. That is, I believe, the longest single span of time Kim and I have been apart since we've been married. I remember when a friend of Paul & me told us she and her husband had never spent a night apart since they married. We both kind of thought that was odd. My first thought was, "what do they do on drill weekends?" Then I realized they don't deal with drill weekends. I have been in this profession all of my adult life. For all of the time we have known each other, the military has been part of what I do and am. Kim and I really don't know anything else. Our friends have different arrangements - the whole normal, no drill weekends sort of thing - and that just seems a bit, well, different. Someday that will change, I'm sure. I just wonder if we'll go six or seven months before Kim looks at me and says, "Umm...yeah. I need a weekend off. Can you go, you know, camping or something?" Although I kind of doubt that.

So what's going on? Well, some Turkomen workers are fixing Gina's air conditioning unit. This is the second day in a row these gents have been out here. Since they fixed my A/C yesterday, I'm pretty happy to see them here. I got billeting to give one of our linguists permanent housing, which is as it should be. Got a briefing ready, so I can brief some guards tonight. And I wrote up stuff about badging for my replacement, whoever that is. It's been a full day.

Kim, who still thinks I'm one great guy, sent me four pounds of ground coffee! THIS is why I married her!

July is coming up fast. One more month down, which means we're that much closer to home. I know I should have a more Zen outlook to this whole thing and really focus on enjoying the journey. Even do the whole, "see God in others and His daily manifestations" thing of The Rule. It's not always an easy choice to make. So, aside from just praying for my patience, please pray I might enjoy the journey more.

Enjoy!

Dad, my apologies, Happy Father's Day!! I was laid low by some lower GI issues Sunday and into Monday, so I wasn't up for much.

After talking this morning with Kim, I think we're both at the point where we want this to be over, but we're not quite violent about it. Add to that, I think we're both to the point, where we accept that yes, it sucks being apart, and things will generally suck until I RIP/TOA and go home. Leave will be nice, but it's all about the longer term. We both stay busy enough to ignore the suckage, but have yet to truly embrace the suck.

Last week and this week and probably next, the Regiment is doing a physical check on all badges. This is good, as it gives me a solid baseline for the database. It's bad, because I have senior NCOs in my face asking, "hey sir, why isn't this whole thing perfectly updated all the time?" Hmm...good question. Let me think...maybe because it's a 20K item database, which is constantly growing, and in order to update it (read, "clean up from previous owners") I have to dedicate manpower that I don't own (or I can stop badging, which folks don't want). See, I can go in and terminate something, but that doesn't mean much if it's not done for real. Doing so has taken one of my soldiers probably about two weeks working several hours "overtime" on this (his initiative totally). So it's improving, but not at one hundred percent. Add to all of this, this job isn't "sexy". It's inside the wire. There is NO CHANCE of me receiving a CAB if I do this job. This means that most officers who are here and are combat arms won't want to do this. Me, I have no issues with it. I became very comfortable a long time ago with the fact that if I don't get a CAB, that's OK (it's all about vision and mentoring and being a professional, not about collecting hardware for my chest). The Army was very free with them up until the last 18 months or so and then started tightening down on the standards of winning one. Back to the original point: there is very little overt glamor in this job. It's all behind the scenes. The coolest part of this job is knowing that we are able to find, on the average, about two to four "juvenile delinquents" a week.

I do, however, have a mini fridge in the office now, so there might be a few folks who want this job. Having a fridge is sweet! Finally - cold water, cold diet cokes, I can store breakfast foods, steaks for the weekly cookouts, the mind boggles at the possibilities! All I need now is to get one for the CHU.

Enjoy!

Picture Time!!!

Back again everybody!! OK, time for pictures. I've decided to try and give somewhat of an introduction to the area, and what we have here little by little.

Not really. These are random pictures and thoughts to go with them. They are, however, all related to what I do here.


OK, this first image is the Turkish flag. We are close to Turkey, so many Turks work here. And they put their flag on almost everything they own. There's one slight problem, which is, Mosul is really in Kurdistan (OK, it's on the border of it). Kurds and Turks don't like each other. If the Turks flew their flag as much in Mosul as they do here on the FOB, they'd be shot at. A lot. It's a lot like having two rival gangs living on the FOB.



This is me at the combat patch ceremony. Chief Smock is "patching" me. Velcro patches make this sort of thing possible. It was kind of cool, so I won't make fun of it. And the Chief is one of the best Officers I've met. Him "patching" me was really an honor.










This is inside the badging compound. The white door on the right, there in the shade beyond the red roof thing, that's my office door. Those concrete barriers beyond that are new. The Engineers put those in. Go Engineers! Folks are happy about the barriers, both for the blast protection they afford, and because they help add some privacy to the area. My people all live & work in this compound, so those were sorely needed.





This is the other side of the t-walls. Here is where I really need Kelly's help. I'm thinking of just a BIG "See Rock City" sign to paint on here. I really don't want to go with a military (or Turkish) motif, so what do you think?











This is Starbuck's coffee. I like Starbuck's coffee (I like Kempf's too Joe, but I cut my teeth on this stuff). One of the Starbuck's in Evansville sent us fifty pounds of this stuff. Fifty. Pounds. That, in and of itself, is incredibly cool. If this picture were larger, you'd notice three key words on the bags: Whole Bean Coffee. Not only did they send us coffee, I'm told they sent us a grinder too. OK, life is good. The grinder was (key word here) 110 voltage. EVERYTHING in this country is 220. So far so good? One of our soldiers plugged it into a wall socket and proceeded to burn it out (*cough* Berlin *cough* transformer *cough*). I've also been told it was this soldier's third appliance he's burned out. Third. One I can understand. Two, maybe he just didn't get it, but THREE? Anyhow, I found a place online and ordered one for 220. Life must go on.

I had originally wanted to use this as a lead in to discuss Starbuck's coffee as the Evil Empire and such, but I just don't feel like it. I mean, let's face it, Starbuck's did for coffee, in general, what Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada Brewing Company did for the craft brewing industry in the USA. Do I think that everything they sell is great? By no means. I prefer Intelligentsia espresso to anything available outside of Italy (Black Cat blend is the best, period), and Starbuck's espresso is plain old bland (personal opinion). Plus, I was mail ordering the stuff before anybody had ever heard of it, so I think I have some street cred on this one. Besides, Intelligentsia has better stickers.

So those are the pictures. I'm real nervous about taking pics inside the wire, as some of the stuff is legitimately not allowed to be photographed, let alone posted here. But, I will attempt to continue to capture appropriate images of Marez for you all.

Enjoy!

Hello everybody! This is the post from the office, the intent being to update all of you on happenings here. I promised Kim I'd post pictures, which I will do either later tonight or tomorrow. There'll be something for almost everyone in that post - I plan on soliciting professional graphic design advice (Barton, stay tuned!).

The past week has been pretty decent. Temperatures are low for this time of year, so it's stuck under 105. Not complaining, just observing. I have had to take pains to make it a "drama free" week. Invariably, anytime a large group of people is stuck in one place with a limited amount of things to do, drama ensues. Mostly, it's been drama from outside the unit, which means I get to go to the office, shut my door and the problem is solved. See...I know how to do things like unplug the phone, or simply turn email off. Handy skills to have in today's world. Suffice to say, most drama is just that. It's all for show, there's nothing substantial about it at all, really. So, I listen, pretend to look interested and then walk away. I have established Badging as a Drama Free Zone. Which reminds me, I need to get the Sharpie out and write that on the wall. NB: My walls are white. I forget things. SO, in order to combat this particular issue, I have taken it upon myself to write myself reminders for important things. For example, next to the door, on the wall at eye level, I have written, "Remember your CAC." Otherwise, I forget it in the computer, walk half a mile to chow and remember I left the stupid thing in the office. People come into the office, see my signs and giggle. I must admit, it is an attempt at humor, to some degree. The intent is also to break away from the military monotony of this existence. I mean, let's face it. Very few people in the Army actually write things on their office walls. That's outside the norm.

In his blog two years ago, Paul had made mention, more than once, of the friction between Active and Reserve Component soldiers. Thankfully, I have not had much of that at all. Mostly, I think, because I control a commodity everyone needs, which means I can stay above that nonsense. Plus, I tend to ignore it. After all, if folks really piss us off, we have "technical difficulties" with the badging equipment, or maybe the application is "lost" down at enrollment, or any number of other pitfalls. Yes, it's childish, but it works: message sent, message received, attitude goes away. Yesterday, I was explaining the rules to an infantry lieutenant. He was a nice kid. Operative words here are "nice" and "kid". I was already in a bad mood, as my staff (an E4, E5 and E7) had explained all of the details once to him, and he wouldn't listen to them. That irks me. Fine, so I talk to him. He kept dropping terms like "active duty" and "combat arms". Finally, I had my fill of it. I told him, "LT, I have more active duty combat arms time as a Major than you have in the Army, so let's get past that." It's true too. He kept arguing too, which is what I didn't understand. I finally turned it into a one way discussion: here are the rules, they're MNF-I policy, that's how it will be. I felt bad for jumping his ass about it, but polite discussion failed. On the positive side, I never lost my temper, never shouted, never raised my voice. So, it was good all in all. And he said "hello" to me today and was happy about it, so problem solved.

Such has been the highlights of my week. Lifting and running have progressed well, as my knees aren't in pain during squats any longer and I'm just at an average 10 minute pace on the treadmill. Slowly but surely, I'm speeding that pace up.

When I saw it, thought several of you would appreciate this one.

And what would a post of mine be without media references to the war? Have some public story on AQI, which I found interesting.

Finally, ILE update. I am very close to being done with the coursework for phase two. That will leave two essays to write, which should be fairly straightforward, then it's on to the third and final phase!

Enjoy!

BDA

Alright, last night was Al Del Mar and Dane Cook and some other guy. They were outstanding. Not just Dane Cook, although he was absolutely fantastic!! They were all good. Last set of comedians we had were lame. Not partially, but all the way. These guys packed the house and then some! Dane Cook was just...wow! It was a great show.

So yeah, the show rocked.

The group I sat with is a loose collection of folks who all live in the cans around mine. We hang out and chat in the evenings, maybe go work out (randomly), sometimes play cards, drink near beer, etc. It passes the time and we enjoy it. I don't do it nightly, but often enough to not be a stranger. All of us work with my unit somehow. We got to talking tonight about how much the 3ACR folks hate the National Guard. It all kind of started when one of our NCOs walked a female soldier back to her can (a friend of hers is attached to our unit and so she comes over to hang with us, as we're infinitely more fun than the cav). Anyhow, her 1SG noticed she got walked back by someone from outside his pack and came unglued. No "thank you for walking my female soldier back and keeping her safe". Anyhow, we got to talking about the bias. In my meditations, it struck me as a manifestation of the need to prove something. Like we or they have to strut and talk badly about the other just to show we have our "street cred". This is kind of anathema to the kind of person I think I am. Most people I deal with on a daily basis here, regardless of unit or component, tend to heed what I tell them. First, I have the advantage of being a Major, and that cannot be ignored. Second, I know I'm smarter than the average bear, and provided I stay in my lane, I sound like I know what I'm talking about. Third, I refuse to kiss ass. Lastly, I'm not here to prove anything. Really, I'm not. The Old Man put it best: be professional, be polite, be prepared to kill. I show up, I'm professional, I'm polite, I stick to the rules and ensure that folks don't walk into the Badging Cell and start doing their own thing. The other advantage I have is I can usually refuse to badge people if folks get too ungodly stupid (it's the ace in the hole). Usually, folks walk out of our offices with a solution and thanking us after walking in with a problem. To me, that speaks volumes. And the Regimental Commander's interpreter went through the exact same badging process that everyone else did. It's rather a great equalizer.

More to the point, I didn't go into this deployment with any sort of great or grand need to come back with a combat action badge. As the Army has grown very tight on the qualification requirements for this award, this requires me INTENTIONALLY placing myself in harm's way, which smacks vaguely of Catch 22. Honestly, I have no intention of leaving the wire without some operational need to do so. My job is not to go out, leave my post, and tool around just so I can brag about...something. My job here is to run the Screening and Badging Cell. And to enable and empower staff coordination. It's a small world, but it's MY small world. We keep dangerous people off the FOB, which seems like a pretty big deal to me. It's not sexy, it's not super dangerous, I don't get to smell the wolf or shoot people up. And I sign my name more on any given day than I ever did getting into the Army. It is, quite literally, the poster child for an almost invisible job. But if nobody did it, things would be pretty messed up. Strangely enough, I kind of like it.

Coming full circle, I have absolutely nothing to prove. Nothing at all. I'm not ashamed of what I do, nor do I think it's unimportant. I have no need to be acknowledged by someone I don't even know as some sort of hero person single handedly conquering the Islamic hordes.

A glass of wine would be nice, though.

It's all about humility, which is, in it's essence, truth. You know what the truth is? The truth is that nobody on this FOB is any better than the other. Nobody has a corner on the market for being God's Gift To The Army. Most folks are here to do their job, do it well and go home in one piece.

For what it's worth.

Enjoy!

Post then bed...but wait, first I need to...

Looking at my track record, I was so proud to figure out how to beat the NIPR firewalls and post from the office, but still average a post a week. I should be ashamed of myself. And I am. I feel pretty bad about it. You're not buying that, are you?

Didn't think so.

So, I spent an hour on the phone with Kim as she's driving north to visit my parents. That is one tough lady. She won't claim that, but she is. She has this cold and is still making the 8 hour trek northwards. She also has the bone marrow transplant, the voluntary career change and a couple college degrees under her belt. AND she puts up with me. That's tough. That's double tough.

A quick update and then I must get some sleep. Tomorrow is a run day, and I honestly want to run. The experiment I'm kind of doing here is to find out if I can adequately prepare for (at least) the APFT's 2 mile run just on a treadmill. Last APFT I ran was last month, here, with nothing but treadmill runs and hit 16:33. Now, for a 39 year old, that's not bad. Cool thing would be to break 16 minutes, which I think is attainable. I know it's boring. But hey, they're "good enough" for world class marathoners, so they might be good enough for me. Add to that, I don't want to spend hours running outside. Outside around here is not nice - it's hot, dusty, dry and seriously lacks non-gravel covered surfaces. I would say people shoot at us, but when I run, the habibs tend not to fire rockets - too early in the morning (going back to a basic tenet of mine: the "insurgents" are human, all humans have patterns, it follows then that the insurgents operate in patterns).

Today I spent in meetings, which means I walked a lot. Don't mind walking, as it keeps me from sitting on my butt all day. It also means I deal with all the aforementioned annoyances. It is what it is. The meetings were productive. I should be able to add something to my continuation binder as a result and make life that much easier for my successor. It's all about coming to a consensus and documenting it.

I was asked what I'd do if I were king for a day. One thing is replace the Regimental CSM with someone who isn't bipolar. Honestly, it feels as if we spend too much time cleaning up after he kicks this or that vendor/random local national off the FOB. I can say nothing nice about the man, so I won't say anything. The other thing I'd do is give us joes here a means to have an adult beverage once in a while. Ration card it, something. A glass of wine every so often would be nice, and would give this place that much more of a civilized air.

I'm just about halfway done with phase two of three for ILE, which is CGSC with a twist (read COIN and COE and Joint Forces stuff). Plan is to blast through phase two this month. That'll set me up well to be done with this whole ILE nonsense by the end of August. As someone who is a professional educator, I like their distance learning approach, but their assessments are amateurish at best. It is painfully obvious to me these assessments were designed by people who have NO background in education, let alone tests and measurements. I mean they're awful. CLOZE exercises and simple fact regurgitation to assess understanding of some truly complex theories. I'm just really disappointed. Not too badly disappointed, of course, as this makes it easier for me to get ILE done with. Since I need to graduate from ILE to be elligible for LTC, it's all good. Disappointing, but good.

Not much new going on here. Dane Cook is supposed to perform here tomorrow, so I'm definitely going to that (shoes? F*** shoes!). That'll be cool. Oh, it's June, which means May is over. Which means we're halfway done with the deployment overall. and I'm that much closer to leave.

Again, not much new happening. Thank you again for the prayers! Keep 'em coming. And call Kim. :)

Enjoy!