First 9 Days

Day 1 (Mar 21) – After getting to have dinner with my sister Nancy and the kids, and having my brother Pat drop me off at the airport I was able to talk United out of a business class seat to Frankfurt. Food, half of a James Bond movie, and I was out. I think I slept 5 and a half hours out of the 8 and a half hour flight. We took off at 11 at night, so day 2 started almost right after I got on the plane.

Day 2 (Mar 22) - We got an hour and a half on the ground in Frankfurt before getting on the next flight. I had a chance to talk with one of the new contractors that I’ll be working with in Iraq. Good guy who used to fly UAVs for the Army. The next flight was only 5 and a half hours to Kuwait City…but it seemed like it lasted twice that long because I had to sit in the back. Because of the time change we got into Kuwait at 9 pm and had to wait until 10:30 before the Army transport came to pick us up to take us to Ali Al Selaam Airbase to check in. I didn’t hit the pillow until 2:30 and didn’t sleep until 5 am. I racked out in a tent that could accommodate about 20 guys in bunk beds…there were only 4 of us in the room that night. Wake up was at 7 am so my Navy guys could take me up the road to Camp Virginia.

Day 3 (Mar 23) – I was determined not to mess with the new time zone, so I forced myself to stay up all day. I’m pretty sure I looked like a zombie, but I spent the day checking out the new camp. Subway, Nathan’s Hot Dogs, a donut shop, Baskin Robbin’s Ice cream. If you looked past the tents, and the uniforms, and the Humm-Vs, and the sand…we weren’t too far from home. The base exchange sells everything from clothes to snacks to electronics. The USO had free internet, but the lines were always a couple of hours long and filled with junior enlisted guys who had no other means to contact home. There’s a base theatre and a chow hall and all the other stuff we need to keep us busy in our down time. The guys that were my temporary hosts were busy setting getting me a gun and making sure I had a place to spend the next night. This base was predominantly filled with Marines, but had a bunch of Army and Navy guys, as well as soldiers from Belgrade, Finland, Australia, Romania, and a bunch of other places. Last nights camp had about 250 twenty man tents. This one had about a thousand. Instead of 3 guys in a tent, I got a whole tent to myself…but was sleeping on cots instead of beds. The shower trailers were about 100 yards away, and the toilet were 100 yards in the opposite direction. I popped a sleeping pill at 8 pm and didn’t wake up until 7 the next morning.

Day 4 (Mar 24) – Today’s big event was to get my Humm V qualification. I had a 20 year old Sea Bee (construction man in Navy terms) pick me up at my tent after morning chow and we went into the sand dunes to see what skills I had with the big rig. We spent an hour and a half trying to tip that thing over. It’s rated to go up and down 60 degree embankments and can drive sideways on them up to 45 degrees without rolling over. I think I gave it a good workout. We drove over big logs and mud puddles that were put on one of those courses you see on car commercials to prove what a vehicle could do. It was like big kid go karts. After I finished screwing around out there, I went to the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) to get a briefing on my Close Quarters Combat training and Convoy training that I’d be leaving for the next day…it would last 3 days. They issued me a 9mm Berretta that I soon discovered would be at my side from that moment on. After I finished this, I was told to go away for the rest of the day and continue to acclimate myself to the new time zone. I was tired by 2 PM, but I knew I had to stay awake until 10 so I’d be ready for tomorrow’s events. I walked the 3 mile perimeter of the camp just to keep from getting tired…I only made it until 9 PM.

Day 5 (Mar 25) – After getting up at 2 am I had a hard time getting back to sleep. I laid there until 6 and finally gave up. I headed out to the TOC and talked to my guys about the plan for the day. They were going to drive me to the Udari Range an hour away to go through some training that is designed to make me an asset in case the convoy I’m a part of is ever attacked. The drive there was the first chance I had to see the Kuwaiti countryside “outside the wire”. It was sand for as far as the eye could see, with barely visible sprouts of green poking through here and there. The surprising things was that there were herds of sheep, goats and camels (all with shepherds walking around behind them) grazing on this barely visible vegetation. There were solitary tents sitting in the middle of the desert, with no permanent structures around anywhere…but the roads were no different than the highways in the states. The average speed seems to be about 100 miles per hour. When I got to the range I found myself to be the only Navy guy amongst about 200 Army personnel, and 2 Air Force guys. The Air Force Lieutenant Colonel was the first person I met in the last five days who outranked me, and it didn’t even cross my mind until I saw him. I wondered where all the senior officers were hiding. That first night was filled with a series of briefings about what we were going to be doing over the next couple of days. The camp was run by a bunch of retire non-commissioned officers who were all from special forces backgrounds. At about 9 pm they told us we had a choice of whether we wanted to sleep on the plywood floors of the briefing tents, or outside in the sand and open air. Considering the sand storm that had kicked up outside, I chose the floor. I fell asleep quickly…and woke up again by 1 am.

Day 6 (Mar 26) – Wake up was 4 am, but I had already been up…rinsed off with my water bottle, and eaten my MRE (Meals ready to eat) out of the plastic bag it came in by the time everyone else started to got up. I wasn’t tired, but I knew I would be later. I just hoped it would be after we finished our close quarters combat drills. By 5:30 we were assembled on the range and waiting for the sun to come up so we would have enough light to see what we were shooting at. The drill would be to move and shoot in close proximity to the rest of our group and we made our way throw a series of scenarios. I now know that nothing keeps you awake more than an M-16 going off less then a foot from your ear as you are concentrating on walking…or running…and shooting well enough to hit a target. We finished the drills by 9 am, in time for the next sand storm to kick up. A few minutes later I experienced my first “mud storm”. That’s what happens when it starts to rain in the middle of a sand storm. It actually comes out of the sky as mud and cakes to you immediately. The sand out here isn’t like what you find on the beach. It’s the consistency of talcum powder, and it goes everywhere you don’t want it. After a few minutes all the sand is wet enough not to fly in the air any longer…and it turned into a regular downpour. Wouldn’t have been a big deal, except we were given strict instruction not to bring a change of clothes for this little expedition except socks and underwear. We were all soaked to the bone…and the desert is still chilly this time of year. After a couple more briefings and lunch, we all got into a few dozen Humm-Vs and headed off to practice a “dry run” of the convoy training that would help us to identify IEDs (improvised explosive devices), and how to react in the event our convoy is ambushed. Sergeant Flowers has distinguished himself as both the class clown, and one of the non-comms who can keep his team in order. He came up to me and informed me that he had worked it out so I would be on his tactical team in the trail gun truck, which is a modified Humm-V with a turret on top and a 50 caliber machine gun mounted to it’s roof. He also warned me that his team only talked in British accents once the tactical scenarios began. I became Luftenant Commander Maloney to he and his crew, and our duties included guarding everyone else’s backsides and making sure no one violated the integrity of the convoy. Once out on the course, our dry run only lasted an hour before the lighting started striking so close that we had to get the guys down from the turrets so they wouldn’t be zapped. We decided we were ready for the real deal the next day and headed back to camp. The rest of the day was spent talking our way through the scenario and trying to find creative ways to dry our clothes without offending the female soldiers. Each meal was an MRE, with different main dishes in different airtight bags. None of them were good, but we were too hungry to care.

Day 7 (Mar 27) – Another 4 am wake up call, and we were on the road by 6 am. Another 3 hours of sleep for me before the plywood floor became too uncomfortable to lay on anymore. Our group of 15 Humm Vs and a couple of 5 ton trucks were the first to be evaluated on the course. Fake roads, fake buildings, but real people and cars trying to do threatening things to the convoy to test the soldier’s skills. Explosions going off to simulate IEDs, and dummy IEDs planted to test our ability to find them. We kicked ass. These guys were awesome at what they did, and they brought me up to speed quickly. We left the course confident, but wet once again as the rain fell once again through the turret opening in the roof. I was glad to put this training behind me and head back to Camp Virginia for a shower and a change out of three day old desert camouflage. The Navy guys were there a few minutes after I got back to the range headquarters, and we headed out at 120 miles an hour across the pristine desert highway. We got back to the Camp and went through what was becoming a rote procedure. Show the ID badges at the first checkpoint, drive to the second check point and get out…open all the doors of the vehicle, including the hood…leaving all bags and possessions for inspection as we go to the weapons clearing barrel to ensure we’ve taken the ammo out of our guns while on base, and have no rounds chambered. Once through, I got my shower and took a 20 minute nap before heading to the TOC to clean my gun and wait for my buddy “Boot” to show up to pick me up. Rich “Boot” Gourley is an F-14 Radar Intercept Officer (RIO)…think “Goose” from Top Gun…who talked me into coming over here to take his job in Iraq. He has been here for 6 months, and you’ve never seen a happier guy then him when I walked through that door. The TOC was ¾ of a mile from my “hooch” and I’d been walking it several times a day, but Boot had a Yukon that we took back to my tent to collect my gear. We headed up the road to Camp Victory at the Kuwait Naval Base, where we planned to wait until midnight when a ship would take us out on a 5 hour voyage to an oil platform (starting at midnight) that is home to some of the guys that are going to be working for me. We got to the Camp in time for dinner, and found out shortly there after that the sea state was too great to make the trip that night. The crew of the vessel told us we’d have to wait until the next night. We found some open racks in an open bay barracks and I slept from 9 pm until 8 am the next morning.

Day 8 (Mar 28) – We cruised over to Camp Arifjan late in the morning to work out some difficulties some of our contractors were having with entry visas into and out of Kuwait. We spent a long time walking through the huge exchange there, eating at a galley with silverware that wasn’t make of plastic, and drinking Starbuck’s coffee. The Petty Officer that was serving as our driver needed to make some runs to pick up and deliver supplies, so we decided to go along with him. We made it back just in time for the Commander that was hosting us to ask is I could change into civilian clothes and act as a “battle buddy” to the driver as he dropped some people off at the airport. There I was with jeans and a tee shirt, my 9mm strapped to my thigh, going off to ride along the Petty Officer that had been driving us all day. They require 2 people to be armed escorts whenever a vehicle leaves the base…but it’s Kuwait, and nothing ever happens down here so I decided I was qualified. The Petty Officer got a little turned around and we didn’t get back to the base until about 10 pm. I had to be to the ship by midnight, so I went and packed my gear once again and made a quick trip to the chow hall before heading to the piers.

Day 9 (Mar 29) – We made it to the ship by 11:45 PM only to be told by the Skipper that we wouldn’t be departing until 2:30 AM. He also informed us that the only place he had for us to lie down was on the deck plating of the ship, and once the wind started blowing over the bow it was bound to get pretty cold. We opted to stay up all night and drink coffee and watch the first for episodes of “24” on the TV in the galley. We got underway on time, but after the second episode the Skipper called us all to the main deck of the ship to inform us that he lost power on one of his engines and had to turn back for the Naval Base. We decided the trip wasn’t meant to be, and decided to head up to Camp Bucca, Iraq, once we got back into port. We pulled back in by 7:30 AM, and were packed up and on the road by 9:30am. After a couple of stops on the way, we made it to the border crossing by about noon. They had a couple of convoys going to Camp Bucca, but we weren’t able to get on the first one, so we had to wait until 4 PM to catch the next one. The preferred method of travel in the convoy is in a big armor plated RV known as a Rhino, but that would be full of contractors on this trip so Boot and I was told we’d have to ride in the tactical vehicles. Just like the training I had finished a couple of days before, I got into a gun truck with a 50 caliber mounted on top. They put me in the lead vehicle, and the Air Force Sergeant in command gave me a briefing of what he needed me to know. It was amazing to see how good these guys were at what they did. 20 vehicles, from semi’s, to 5 ton trucks, and us in the tactical Humm Vs, and these guys intimidated and coerced every vehicle that came within 200 meters off to the sides of the road to ensure the integrity of the convoy and the safety of all the soldiers and supplies it contained. Most of the Iraqi kids along the routes road their bikes or ran up to the sides of the road to wave as the convoy went past…but these guys were too intent on looking for danger to wave back. The ride only took 40 minutes, but despite the fact that I hadn’t slept again last night, I was jazzed up for the entire ride. They called out every possible hazard to the vehicles that followed, and kept a keen eye out for anything out of the ordinary. And this is in the safe part of Iraq. Once on base we went directly to my new command center to meet the guys. I got a tour of the various work centers, and they showed me one of the UAVs in action. The mission was just ending, so I got to see the recovery, and it all worked just like they told me it was going to. Cool stuff…I’ll decide if I can write more about later. After that we all went to chow together, before returning to my newly issued Humm V to bring my gear to my hooch. I found the packages you guys have already sent waiting for me, and it is all appreciated!!! I haven’t had much access to the internet until now, so I’ll catch up over the next few days now that I’m “home”. As I finish this, I’m pushing 40 hours of being awake and I’m heading off to crash for as long as I want. Boot and I decided we could start the turnover whenever we feel like it tomorrow, so I don’t think I’ll be lacking any sleep tomorrow. Anyway, I’ll keep you updated as the weeks pass. Hope you’re all well! T.