Iraq - The Early Days

Well the weather has started to cool off reaching mid 90’s at its high and I have been waking up to the 60’s, feels nice. Since I last wrote my big things to do were my spending budget and getting the Motor pool connected to the network.

First the budget; our Battalion has a shortage of automation equipment over here and it is one of my duties to identify the shortages and filter the needs versus the wants of all the soldiers my section supports. Believe it or not that is the easy part; the tough part is all the paperwork it takes to submit the request on up the chain for the final approval. I had to write three Memorandums of justification per item that I am requesting and had 72 hours to get it done as I was given a very short suspense. I identified five major areas where we could use a little help; printers, monitors, phones, switches and uninterrupted power supplies. Along with the memos, I also needed three quotes. You would think no problem with the internet and all, but there is a catch, all three quotes need to be from Iraqi vendors; the US is trying to stimulate the economy over here. This has been an interesting challenge, but nothing that couldn’t be solved through email; it only took me about three weeks to get what I needed. Now the process moves forward, oh, did I mention that I shouldn’t expect to see all this equipment until a month or two before our rotation here ends. The process takes that long to get approved, so basically we are setting up our counterparts.



Our first big project here was to get the motor pool reconnected to the network. The motor pool is about 350 feet away from the nearest network switch and CAT5 pretty much loses its signal strength after 300 feet. The unit before us had them connected via CAT5 using a pair gain modems. They suspended the CAT5 from the double HAS over to the motor pool, probably about a 450 foot run. Shortly before they left they took their modems back and the cable got cut; thus they lost connectivity. LT Grupe tried some magic with his wireless CAISE system, but it just wasn’t working so we had to do it the old fashion way. My guys worked with the motor pool to get them to use one of their forklifts to break up the ground for a trench. My guys trenched the 300 plus feet, secured some PVC piping and ran a new line of CAT5. I had some spare switches that LT Grupe worked some magic on, and with the help of some of his CAISE HDSL modems, we were able to get the motor pool back up and running (see pictures of us trenching).

This little endeavor, along with another similar project coming up goes to show just how important and how much we rely on technology for our jobs. I won’t say to do our jobs, because we can still perform the tasks that we need to get done, but for sure technology makes them easier and us more efficient. I have heard soldiers say that their jobs are not as glorious as being out there on the front lines kicking in doors, but it is because of all of our specialties that makes our Army the best in the world….you just go ahead and ask someone how important their email is to them or their phone service, and I think they all will say that they “can’t live without it.” Whether it is for business or MWR, the internet is coveted by everyone, and it is my team’s job to make sure it stays up and running.

On 18SEP our Task Force suffered the first casualties of our deployment. A Chinook helicopter carrying 7 soldiers from Kuwait to Iraq crashed. The soldiers killed were mostly from Texas and Oklahoma. When something tragic like this happens, the Base goes under what is call “COMMS BLACK OUT” and nobody is allowed to communicate with anyone back home. This is out of respect for the families affected and to allow for proper notification. So if you hear of anything or see anything on TV, just be patient, I will send something out as soon as the ban is lifted, usually within 72 hours. It is one of my jobs to advice the commander on how to ensure that essential means of communication stay active while trying to minimize the use of those considered less essential.

During this blog posting, I ran the Air Force Half Marathon, the Army 10 miler and the Navy 5k. I placed in the top 10 of all races, and yes there were more ten runners in each race!

On 4 October in honor of Duck opener back home, I purchased some pellet guns in the morning and then SPC Wiering and I went out hunting around 1800. I have some pictures and a little video footage of that adventure.


This week I also broke down and bought a bike for $50 bones….actually a bike is the best way to get around on this side of the base. If I hadn’t mentioned already, the base is basically divided in two East side (Blue) and the West Side (Green), colors representing Air force and Army. There is a road that circles the perimeter called Victory loop and we are not allowed to run or bike on this road, therefore we are restricted to our sides of the base. We can go to the “otherside” if we want, we just need to take a bus or drive one of our NTVs (NonTactical Vehicle) over there. On the East side is where you will find the Olympic size pool and the movie theater, go figure!!

Not too many pictures this time around, I will have some more, so check back often to see what I’m up to.

As always, enjoy the pics.