Random Thoughts and Pictures for August

It is time for another random thoughts and pictures post, so here you go.

I promised a picture of the women who don’t dress very conservative, the power rangers, so here are they are. The first picture is taken just outside of the Basrah University and the second is taken in the market area near the Hyall Shuala area of Hyanniyah. What is remarkable about the second picture is that is a fairly conservative area and I was shocked to see a woman not wearing the black abaya.

Yes, folks that is me sitting on the hood of a late 1990s Mustang V6. This bad boy, with it’s optional bolt on, off center, hood bulge, was sitting next to an Iraqi Army checkpoint that I was visiting with the Brigade Chief of Staff, I couldn’t resist taking my picture next to it. The interesting thing is this isn’t the first Mustang that I’ve seen in Basrah, we passed a late 1980’s GT being towed about a month ago. I was scanning the side of the road looking for IEDs and almost didn’t realize it was a Mustang until we had gone completely past it, if it was an IED it would have got me. In the glimpse I got I think it was also a convertible but all I can be really sure is that it was a Mustang and that it did have the ground effects of the 1980’s GT.
So, how do you swap the transmission out of one HMMWV into another? Well, I would put the truck up on a lift and drop the transmission out or take both the engine and transmission out at the same time. Well the Iraqi solution, since they don’t have a lift, is to tip the HMMWV up on its side and then take out the transmission, then put the new one in. It's a good thing there is no Iraqi version of the EPA as well or else we would be in trouble for the oil/fuel spill spreading from the side. Oh well it's an Iraqi solution for an Iraqi problem.

Here are a couple of pictures of me out on patrol with the Brigade Chief of Staff, helping him check on the platoon and company positions with the Battalion Commander. Interesting story here is the British officer to my left in the picture. He just completed a two year tour teaching at the Armor Captain’s Career Course at FT Knox, where he taught with a good friend of mine Jesse Bell, and was his next door neighbor. Small world isn’t it?
Here is a picture of me reenlisting SSG Patrlja. He signed the rest of his life away to the Army for a bonus and the chance to be stationed in Hawaii. Sorry Shantel, the only way I can get to Hawaii is to volunteer for Iraq again, the Army’s already got me to 20 years.

Finally a picture of our toilet, you put a plastic bag into the plastic toilet, do your business , tie the bag off and then put into another plastic zip lock bag and then it gets burned. I never thought I would really like to have a port a john, but I really would in this case. Next to the toilet you can kind of see the wooden shower stall we built to take our bottled water showers. Personal Hygiene is oh so much fun in Iraq.

Cheese!

Our Iraqi Intepreter

Many of you guys have wondered about our Iraqi interpreters. These are the guys who let me understand the language and actually get my point across to my Iraqi counterpart and they are my link to the local population when we are out on patrol and I’m trying to get a feeling for what they think about certain issues that are important at the time. These guys share the same hardships we share, face the same dangers I face every day and even more when they return home on vacation and have to say they are working in other areas of the country but never admit that they work with the Americans. I know all of the Terps real names but we call them by aliases so that the locals don’t catch on to their real names and if they are insurgents use it against them.

We’ll start with Tom. He’s originally from Baghdad and is quite a character as you can tell from the pictures. Even though he’s from Baghdad he’s constantly telling the people here that he’s from Colorado, why I don’t really know but I think it is because the Team Chief lives in Colorado. We don’t let our interpreters carry weapons but we want them to know how to handle a weapon in case the situation comes up where they have to use one. That’s Tom in the second picture firing an M4 like he’s been doing it all of his life. When he got done on the range I told him that his last job must have been as an al-harbi (terrorist) and that is where he learned how to shoot. He just got really red faced and stammered a little bit. I give Tom a hard time quite a bit. He was very nervous when he first started working with us and I jokingly threatened to fire him one day. It has become a standard joke between the two of us and I have to tell him he’s fired at least once a day. Tom’s mom even asks him if I’ve fired him lately when she talks or sees him and wants to make sure that I’m keeping him in line. Tom is convinced that when he has enough time in service to the US Army that he will emigrate to the States, take his mom with him (he’s single) and join the Army. When he does go to the States he wants to change his name to Tom Ron Jeremy. For those of you who get the humor in that, I told you he was a character.

I
This next interpreter is Angel. He’s our family man, since he is the only one with a wife and kids. He and I talk about kids quite a bit since he’s oldest daughter is just a little bit older than Macen and seems to be just about as ornery as Macen is. His wife just recently had a second baby girl and I know the team was as worried about the delivery as he was since we had him stuck in Basrah away from her when went into labor. Once he had his vacation he came back just like any proud dad showing off pictures of his newest princess and telling stories f how his oldest was jealous of the new addition. Just like Tom Angel wants to emigrate to the United States when he is eligible and take all of his family with him. He is amazed by the pictures of my house, yard and neighborhood, since you don’t really see anything like that over here and he can’t wait to get his piece of the American Dream. You'll have to cut him a little slack on the second picture I got him when he wasn't expecting it so that is why he looks so spaced

of

This is Tony he is the athlete/work out fiend. He’s always working out and can run rings around me with a soccer ball (that’s not hard though, it’s the ease with which he does it that’s amazing). He’s also Angel’s little brother, so that kind of makes our terp group more of a family affair. Tony and Angel are trying to get us to hire their other brother, but unfortunately we don’t need another terp at this time, so he’s got to go work with someone else. Tony had just finished college when he joined us so he’s English was actually a little better than the others because he had been practicing it more. The second picture of Tony is what he does when he's not working out, sleeping.

Lyon is our President or El Presidente. If you look at the pictures of him you might notice an uncanny resemblance to Saddam. Tom started calling him the president and it just kind of stuck. I tried the same “you’re fired” joke on Lyon one day and he just looked at me and said that I couldn’t fire him he was “The President”, with Tom vehemently nodding his head in agreement. That put me, the team second in command, right back in my place. Evidently I can’t fire a president. But I found a way to get back at him though, Lyon likes to sleep and will sleep in every chance he gets. Angel and Tom taught me the Arabic word for wake up, ogud, and I wake him every morning with a very loud ogud! Typically he opens one eye and tells me to leave him alone since he’s The President and goes back to sleep. Darn I just can’t win with him.

Our last terp is Yassir. Yassir is a little different from the other guys. He’s a little more soft spoken and quieter than the others, he’s also a little bit older, although maturity wise I’d say he was much younger. He’s a little more arrogant than the other guys, mainly because he was the previous Team Chief’s primary interpreter and he does a lot of interpreting for our current Team Chief. With the Iraqis position is prestige and he tends to lord it over the other terps that he mainly works for the Team Chief. With that said there has been a little re ordering within the terp ranks since we moved from Ramadi. When the main part of the team moved, Yassir was on leave and he stayed in Ramadi with me as we pushed out the last of the teams equipment, so by the time he got down here Tom and Angel were doing most of the interpreting for the Team Chief and Yassir was pushed down in the pecking order.

These are good guys and they are the future of Iraq and they definitely make my life much easier, since, despite what I write here, I know just enough Arabic to get in trouble. Unfortunately they want to immigrate to the States because it is safer there and they can make more money. My hope is that they go to the States but that they return when Iraq is stable so that Iraq can benefit from their knowledge and their drive.

15 months

Macen has finally reached 20 lbs - 20.3 to be exact (and 30 in tall). So he is now a forward facing tot in his carseat. The doctor we saw did express some concern about his low weight. She did give me some ideas to get him to eat more so we'll see how it goes. Speaking of eating, he LOVES strawberries. I lost count as to how much he was eating but if I had to guess... atleast 10lbs. Did I mention he LOVES them? He also took some bites out of a fresh nectarine and enjoyed it. Macen was down to one bottle for most of June and within the first week of July he was completely switched to sippy's. It was a really easy transition so that was a relief. Macen now has 11 teeth. Last month was a crazy teething month. Poor guy!

Macen has spent the last month climbing more or trying to climb. Myles ended up on top of the armiore and Macen was convinced he could climb the side of it to reach him. He started practicing his ball throwing skills. Unfortunately, he also throws them in the house. Macen discovered his artistic skills as you can see in the pic above. I brought out the crayons and he loves coloring. He also mastered some signing in the last month. He can sign more, dog, bird, fish, hat and telephone.

We are still spending alot of time outside - taking walks, playing on the slide, going across the bridge, and playing in the pool. He spends more time in the pool if he is dressed in regular clothes though. Not so much when I put his trunks on. He is getting good at holding my hand when I request it. The other night we took a walk around the "block" (it's kinda more like a triangle) in front of our house and he held my hand almost the entire time and walked it all. I was prepared to put him on my shoulders but he was a trooper.

British Army Units

As I mentioned in a previous post I want to describe the British units that I have been working with and some of the equipment that they have. Much of my information I have pulled from the actual British Army web site at www.army.mod.uk, so if you are looking for more information than what I am giving you then direct your web browsers that direction.

The British actually deploy one combat brigade plus over here at a time under the supervison of a division headquarters. The current brigade that is here is the 7^th Armored Brigade. The above picture is the patch that they wear. The 7^th Armored Brigade carries on the traditions of the famous 7^th Armored Division “Desert Rats” (rat depicted on the patch) that fought in North Africa against the German Field Marshal Rommel’s Afrika Korps during World War II. Battalions in the 7^th Armored Brigade are the 9^th Battalion 12^th Lancers (Prince of Wales), Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, 4^th Battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland (The Highlanders), 2d Royal Tank Regiment, 1^st Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, 3^rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, and the 2d Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment (Poachers) and associated support units.

The British organize their battalions into what they call Strike Battle Groups, much like what we call Task Forces. They cross level their tanks (Challenger 2s looks similar to an Abrams doesn’t it) and armored infantry fighting vehicles (Warriors, much like our Bradleys) and their artillery into a battalion Strike Battle Group. Currently there are a couple of Strike Battle Groups here, those battalions not organized into a Strike Battle Group form what they call the UK MiTT Group. I work with the UK MiTT Group. The above pictures show a Challenger 2 rolling out of the gate of COB Basrah, a Warrior on guard at the gate to COB Basrah,and the AS90 self propelled howitzer is a stock photo I took from the web .

The British do their MiTTs a little different than we do our standard MiTT. Our standard US Army MiTT consists of 10 or 11 senior officers and NCOs sometimes augmented by 6-8 junior soldiers who are assigned as gunner/drivers. The British on the other hand take a battalion and assign it to an Iraqi brigade and the battalion headquarters works with the Iraqi brigade headquarters and the two companies in the battalion each work with an Iraqi battalion headquarters.

The British rank structure is a little different than ours, as is their rank insignias. Luckily for me most of the Army officer rank insignia is similar to what the Iraqi rank insignia is (the Iraqis took their insignia from the British) so I have been able to figure out what rank everyone I’m talking to is. The NCO insignias are a little different and not all of their rank is equivalent to our rank. For instance they don’t have an equivalent to our Staff Sergeant (E6) and their Senior NCOs (E-* and E-9)are warrant officers (NOT the same as our warrant officers) and are addressed as Sergeant Major (Not necessarily the equivalent of our Sergeant Major). Confused yet? I was for about a week but I’ve got it figured out now….maybe, but don’t even get me started on their Royal Air Force and Royal Navy ranks which are just a bunch of squiggly lines or bars.

In my conversations with the British Officer and Soldiers I have learned a couple of things about their career paths that are different than ours. Most US Soldiers retire somewhere between 20 and 26 years time in service. British Soldiers on the other hand stay in between 25-30 years and in some cases longer. Their officers seem to make rank at about the same time in service or maybe just a little longer than our officers do. On the other hand I have met a British Corporal (E-4) who had been in the Army 14 years and a British Sergeant who had been promoted to Sergeant after 8 years in service. Our soldiers typically get promoted to Specialist/Corporal after 3-4 years depending on the situation and I’ve seen young Sergeants who have made Sergeant between 4-5 years (sometimes that shows in maturity level as well but for the most part we promote the right ones). Plus an American Soldier must be promoted to the next rank within a certain time frame or he has to leave the Army.

Since I’m an Artilleryman by training I’ve been talking to quite a few members of the Royal Horse Artillery to see how they do things in the British Army. To start with their self propelled 155mm howitzer is different than ours (see earlier picture) even if it looks fairly similar. We do share the same basic 105mm towed howitzer, although we have made some modifications to it to meet some of our requirements that are different from the British. The British also have the same Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) that we have and which I commanded a battery (6 launchers) of in OIF I. As I was talking to the British Artillerymen I was shocked to learn that they have females, both enlisted and officer, in their Artillery Units. The US Army does have female Artillery officers but they only work on Field Artillery Brigade Staffs and typically change to another branch (Adjuntant General, Ordinance, Finance) when they get promoted to Captain, occasionally there will be a female lieutenant that stays Field Artillery but because of the restrictions on females in combat they spend most of their careers at Fort Sill either in the Field Artillery Brigades there or across the tracks in the Basic Training units. In the British Artillery females do everything, they load the rounds into the howitzer, cut the powder, sight the gun and command the gun. Amazing, since a typical 155mm round weighs just less than 100lbs and an artillery crew must be able to do a sustained rate of fire of 1 round a minute for 6 minutes or max rate of fire of 4 rounds a minute for 3 minutes.

That’s me checking out a British assault rifle. It fires a 5.56mm (.223 Rem) round and is very light much like an M4. The rifle is made by Heckler and Koch and is called a SA80A2. Notice that the magazine is behind the pistol grip and trigger. This is a design called a bullpup, don’t ask me why that’s just what it’s called. Since the SA80 fires the same round as the M4/M16 common sense would tell you that since the British are our allies that an M4/M16 magazine would work in a SA80. Believe it or not both militaries did something that was common sense, yes a M4/M16 magazine works in the SA80 and vice versa. As you can see the British, like us, have replaced the standard iron sights with optics. The British call this sight a Common Weapon Sight (CWS)and it has about a 2x or 3x magnification and can be used with night vision imagining, I believe, making it comparable to our ACOG which has a 3x magnification. What I didn’t like about the CWS was that the aiming point was solid bar that came from the bottom of the sight and ended in a point, you couldn’t see what was on the other side of the solid bar. Our common optics, the ACOG, Aimpoint M68, or the EoTech, all have either a red dot, holographic or illuminated reticle type system that can be seen through, of the three I prefer the EoTech.

We had some British engineers who were repairing an Iraqi Police Station and building a Joint Security Station for use by MiTTs (Military Transition Teams, my team) and PTTs (Police Training Teams) over one night for an American BBQ. I got several pictures of these engineers. This guy is modelling their outside the wire body armor, called Osprey and their version of a light machine gun called a, you guessed it, light machine gun, we Americans had to give our light machine gun an acronym SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon). The British get supplemental pay if they have to wear the Osprey for more than 4 hours and the rumor is that the supplemental rate is an an extra 200 pounds a month to wear the Osprey (compare the pictures of both the Osprey and my Improved Outer Tactical vest, not that much different are they) outside the wire, at an exchange rate of about $1 = .50 pounds that’s an extra $399. Inside the wire they wear a different vest that only has a small plate right over the heart on the front and back. While they may get extra pay for the vest the British still pay taxes while they are here.

Here is the British MRAP. They call it a Mastiff and what they actually do is buy a US Marine Corps Cougar and then add on reactive armor and slat armor to repel RPGs as well as other modifications. This thing is huge with its 6x6 wheels and the extra armor. Our 4x4 Cougars ,without the extra armor, have a hard time getting in and out of some places and I don't see how the British get them into some areas, they must have better drivers. HA HA!

I’m not real sure why Ford had to sell Land Rover, all of the British HMMWV equivelants are variants on the Land Rover Defender, they have uparmored (first picture) and unarmored short and long wheel base (second picture) versions, additionally all of the vehicles that would typically be a Suburban or Tahoe on an American base are Land Rover LR3s. So Land Rover does a rousing business with the British military.

It seems that some of the British seem to wear some very distinctive headgear, ok they wear funny hats, the principle though is similar to our awarding of tan and green berets to the Rangers and Special Forces soldiers.

You’ve already seen this picture of the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, shaking hands with members of the 1^st Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers or just First Fusiliers. The rumor down here was that the distinctive plume in the beret was won during the American Revolution. Luckily for the First Fusiliers that was not the case, or there might have been a rash of missing berets as some nameless Americans try to regain some lost honor by swiping the berets. Actually the hackle, that’s what the plume is called, was awarded to the Regiment of Fusiliers for defeating a French force, who wore the same hackle on the island of St Lucia in the late 1700s. So basically the British stole the French’s head gear and their honor. I’d of just left the headgear and taken the honor.

The 4^th Battalion Royal Regiment of Scotland, 4^th Scots, also wears some distinctive headgear. The hat is called a Tam O’Shanter after a character in a poem and is similar to a beret with a little ball on top. Each battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland wears a different colored hackle while in combat uniform.

If you had noticed some of the units that I have talked about have a region of Great Britain in their name, Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, and the 2d Battalion Royal East Anglian Regiment. These regiments recruit exclusively from Scotland and East Anglia (Eastern England). So you have to be from these areas to join these regiments. In the Royal East Anglian Regiment, it is broken down even further, each company draws from a certain county in the East Anglia region. Makes for strong bonds if everyone in your unit is from your home area.

Finally just in case you are wondering the British do have their own version of the National Guard and Reserve. They are called the Territorial Army and they drill on about the same schedule as our Guard and Reserve and they also deploy overseas in support of both operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Water toy

He loved feeling the water pressure on his hand and as he kept playing he got use to the water splashing in his face.

Bath time fun

Okay, the elephant part is funny but pay attention to his expressions between playing with the elephant. This is what I have been trying to get for you for awhile but he always wants to be behind the camera. It's like he's saying hmmm but asking a question. Yesterday we had a 5 minute conversation this way. I'd ask a question and he would have the same response for every question. It's funny and pay attention to his eyes. Your son can get quite expressive with them. He did this to me yesterday in the highchair. He was getting in trouble for throwing food on the floor and he threw in the eye blinking. I had to turn away because I was laughing so much.

Breaking News……James shakes hands with Democratic Presidential Hopeful.

That’s right folks, I actually shook hands with Barack Obama today (In case you couldn’t tell that not me in the above picture though). He flew into COB Basrah this morning and had a meeting with the British General (not the one I made mad the other day, but that Generals boss) who is the head of Multi National Division –South East (MND-SE). I knew he was coming in and I had to have some Soldiers and Marines available to greet him, but I only knew when he was supposed to meet and greet the soldiers not what the rest of his itinerary was. I found out he was in the building when I left the Operations Center to go get a couple of real brewed coffee only to find him shaking the hand of the girl who runs the coffee shop (sorry partially obscured by a support pillar) . The girl, who is British, was much more interested in shaking a Presidential hopefuls hand than making me a cup of coffee, I see where I rate. Why doesn’t the world revolve around me again????

The two above pictures are Obama shaking hands with one of my Marine augments, Cpl Perez, and CPT Jeremy Hahn, one of the advisors on my team. The Marine mentioned that while Obama was nice and personable he didn’t spend too much time talking to him when he learned the Marine was from Texas.

Here is the photographic evidence, of me shaking hands with Barack Obama. My politics may be a little more conservative than his, but you never want to miss out on the chance to shake hands with someone who might be the next President of the United States. Of course he wanted to know where I was from and when I told him Missouri, he wanted to know from what part. Of course he would have no clue where the bustling metropolis of Perry is, so I told him the Hannibal area. After a brief conversation about Mark Twain (that always comes up when I mention Hannibal) he then asked if my family had been affected by the floods and I told him no but that the rains had made the majority of the crops go in late, which seemed to briefly catch his interest.

I must admit that if it had been Hillary you would never have heard about her visit. There really isn't a polite way to say what I think about her so I'll just leave it at that.