What a day …

Today has been interesting.  I started off by hitting the road shortly after 6AM to attend Counter-IED training.  It compressed everything you (n)ever wanted to know about Improvised Explosive Devices into a 4 - 5 hour class.  How they’re constructed, how they’re emplaced, how they’re activated, you name it.  There’s a reason we recycle dead batteries here, and it has nothing to do with the environment.  The insurgents have been known to extract the cores and string them together and use the residual power left in them to set off an explosive.  They’re little freakin’ MacGyvers, taking our trash and turning it into bombs.

I wish I’d attended this class early on during my deployment, rather than a month before my departure.  But I’ll be sure to get my relief signed up to take it.  We don’t go outside the wire much here, and thus far never in a vehicle convoy, but it’s still good info.  I have a whole new respect for the grunts that face these things on patrol every day, as well as the EOD techs who defuse them.

At a very early breakfast before class started, I got another inkling of that “You’re in prison” feeling.  The DFAC closest to the training site actually had boxes of grapefruit juice!  None of our regular DFACs have had it lately, and we’ve taken to hoarding when we do find some, then stashing the juice in the fridges in our hooches.  I’ve been on a dry spell for about a week, and was ecstatic when I was able to snatch up three boxes.  It’s amazing … frightening, even … what I get excited about.

Speaking of getting excited, I came back into the office this afternoon to find a box from my beloved waiting for me.  The vultures had already spotted the word “cookies” on the customs slip.  They started circling.

So I teased them.  First, I pulled out the three boxes of Ocean Spray Cran-Pomegranate drink mix.  Plain old bottled water gets old real fast, you know.  Then the two cans of pizza sauce, in anticipation of our next Hajji Pizza night.  Then the two tins of anchovies to go on said pizza.  After playing with the foam peanuts, I finally gave them what they were waiting for … milk chocolate-macadamia cookies and oatmeal-cranberry cookies, which have surfaced as the current favorite.  The last shipment of cookies (a bag of each type) didn’t last 24 hours.  We’ll see how long these last.

Heroes Among Us

The story of Sergeant First Class Leroy Petry, the most recent Medal of Honor winner, tells us yet again of the greatness to be found in ordinary Americans.  SFC (then-Staff Sergeant) Petry, an Army Ranger, on patrol in eastern Afghanistan in 2008, was shot in both legs during a firefight.  He grabbed an incoming live hand grenade which threatened his troops and, in the process of tossing it away from his position, it detonated and his right hand was blown off.  I probably would have curled up and died at that point, but SFC Petry is made of sterner stuff.  He applied his own tourniquet and continued to call in fire on enemy positions.  Did I mention that he did this on his eighth deployment (two to Iraq, six to Afghanistan)?

The Commander-in-Chief presented the Medal of Honor to SFC Petry in a White House ceremony on Tuesday:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/us/politics/13obama.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha24

SFC Petry has a prosthetic hand, but was nonetheless allowed to re-enlist in the Army last year.  Real or prosthetic hand, he is a leader who will serve as inspiration for young soldiers enduring the deployments out here.

Nine Medals of Honor have been awarded for service in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.  Only two have not been awarded posthumously.

If this story doesn’t make your eyes mist over, and make your chest puff out with pride at what these young soldiers are doing on the front line, I don’t know what will.

More Introspection

Yesterday, I posted some comments about the start of a good day.  And that good day continued.  Might have had something to do with the fact that my departure date is now less than five weeks away.

It was also enhanced by a long talk over a good cigar with a fellow BOTL, or Brother of the Leaf.  He’s just passing through, awaiting a flight to Kabul, where he’ll be working in my old shop, the Knowledge Management Cell at IJC.  He’s also the guy I referenced yesterday, who was so kind as to bring me a stash of cigars.

Let’s call him … Daniel, or Dan for short.  When Dan decided to deploy, he surfed the web looking for info on life downrange.  He found this blog, and has been a faithful follower ever since.  He told me he appreciated the objective, sometimes brutally frank assessments of the life of a civilian deploying into a war zone.  He also mentioned that he … and his wife, who also reads the musings of the Wirehead … was a little apprehensive about my comments on Man-Love Thursday.  I was sorely tempted to tell him that, as the FNG, it was his turn in the barrel.  But my better instincts took hold, and he breathed a heavy sigh of relief when I told him it was really just a way for those of us who served in a real military service to rag on the Air Force people around us.

So, harkening back to the Godfather of Soul, I still feel good ... I knew that I would.  I’m ecstatic that this blog, rather than just being a vanity memoir, has actually served a useful purpose.

Oh, almost forgot to mention … last night was pizza night again.  We got the grill back on a loaner basis.  Courtesy of a CARE package, we had some good pizza sauce, mushrooms, and a sprinkling of oregano.  Artichokes and anchovies are coming in a forthcoming package.  Here’s a pic of my pizza; I thought to photograph it only after I’d wolfed down the first big wedge.

  

Yep, those are jalapeno slices on the 'za.

Shades of James Brown

If it weren’t for the numerous legal injunctions barring me from singing in public, you’d hear me belting out “I Feel Good!”

First off, I was able to get the door to my hooch working, so I didn’t have to do any more emergency egress evolutions.  That, of course, didn’t stop the jackals and hyenas from tearing into me this morning, rehashing the story for those who hadn’t heard about my exploits.  My saving grace was the “Woman with Crazy Eyes” who sat at our table during breakfast.  She seemed normal enough, but she was sitting to my side and I didn’t get a look at her eyes.  But the lads throttled back on giving me grief, so I was grateful for the respite.

Later on this morning, following a hearty breakfast and with a big-ass MOAC (Mother of all Coffees) sitting in front of me, there’s a knock at the office door.  In comes a stranger bearing gifts.  More precisely, a stranger who’s been reading this blog since Day One, and he wanted to present me with a handful of stogies he’d brought all the way from Old Virginia Tobacco Company.  What a wonderful way to start the day!  And he brought good stuff too!  I was most amused when he said he was glad he arrived in theater on a Saturday, as he was a little apprehensive about Thursday nights … as was his wife, who also read the blog.

Then, after logging into my e-mail, I got word that we have final SCIF accreditation for the data center. 

We had another IDF attack last night.  Two rockets.  Thank God that Hajji can’t hit the broad side of a barn.  And the attack took place shortly after 8PM.  The little turds better not do an encore tonight, I don’t want them messing with the Area 82 cigar night.

Back to the Old Me

The kinder, gentler John of the previous post is gone.  I left him in my hooch this afternoon.

Around lunch time, I went back to my room to retrieve something.  What is was, I can’t remember anymore.  When I got up to leave, the doorknob was jammed.  The door would not open.

I tried everything, including brute force, but to no avail.  So I raised the window as far as it would go (not very), popped out the screen, and wedged my big behind slowly, painfully out the window.  My 56-year-old body was not meant to bend in those directions.  After getting out and dusting myself off, I tried to unlock the door from the outside.  No joy.

When I got back to the office, I asked around for the phone number for the facilities service & maintenance office.  “Why?” they asked.  I told them, and in the process became the cause of the most amusement they’ve had in days.  “Good thing you lost those 30 pounds, huh, John?”  Or maybe, “I didn’t know people over 50 could bend like that.”  Buncha friggin’ jackals …

I had left the office for my room after my TS e-mail account crashed yet again, it’s been Tango Uniform for the better part of the past three days.  This has not been a very good day for me so far.

So welcome back, my friends, to the cranky old curmudgeon you’ve come to know and love these past few months.  Maybe I'll have another meal at the DFAC that tastes like buttered ass to make my experience complete.