A place for military to hang their hat

[Tokoz]

In his own words, "They've paid the price. They've made the sacrifice."

My RL name is Carl. I'm the one he mentions in the interview about the program.

[imported_Leannae]

Also in his own words:

"Essentially, the idea is to provide military personnel and their families another method of communication, while they are stationed away from their families."

I'm not stationed away from my family. So again to me it's getting something for nothing. Being retired, I don't get the same benefits as active duty to begin with, why take advantage of something designed for active duty just because? I didn't join up because I knew later in life I'd get certain benefits. And I certainly didn't join up because I wanted to siphon the government for anything free. Unlike Bill Murray in Stripes, I didn't join up for the cool free digs of clothing. [;)]

Any away from home time I spend now isn't military related so before this becomes a heated debate, appreciate my motives for NOT wanting to take advantage of and scam a free CD key. Morally, it's not right because I am not stationed away from my family and not active duty.

[imported_Leannae]

If this ends up a duplicate post, I apologize in advance.

okay it did end up as a duplicate so I deleted the second.

[Hyacinthe]

Let me say this while it is still calm, cool, and collective here....

Disscusion is ok but lets keep it friendly.... In my mind all military is family, past, present, and future warriors (from any nation). We all have at least this in common.

My main reason for making this thread was to start a place were we could introduce ourselves and trade stories...

And Tokoz, the ROUS post was comic!! ( I would have liked to have seen it posted here btw... it would have fit just right !!)

~Hy [H]

Bored at work... I've eaten a whole med [pi] half a thing of cheesey bread (same size as med [pi] ) and 40 oz of Coke......... [:|]

[imported_Leannae]

But, but, but... HY! He's a grunt! He's ARMY! [:P]

Point taken, which is why I didn't want it to become heated and asked that he just please accept my reasons.

[Tokoz]

Oh the reasons are fine. It's your choice....

Didn't realize that other services referred to all Army as "grunts." In the Army that's just Infantry... :p

I'll pull out the Power Stuggles Part One story and post that here. I've had a few companies express interest in publishing that blog, because you can actually see the pivot point where PTSD started to kick in....

[Tokoz]

Power/Sunday 11 May 2003
A little back history of the chapel that I'm working in. First off, it's just a tent that measures about twenty by ten feet. It has "windows" of a sort, but has a blackout cover that also acts as a good insulator. It has a rubberized tile floor and a wooden door area in the front to help keep out the heat. On the desk I mentioned earlier is written,
"Dear UMT, To supply AC Power to this tent, you must run a 100ft power cord to the phone tent. God bless."
The phone tent is a larger tent right next door where soldiers can go to use satellite phones (only work with an AT&T phone card) and laptop computers (that's important to note, because they both run on independent power.).
Two weeks before my arrival one of the units provided an extension cord to run the 25 feet between the tents. That cord was stolen shortly before I arrived and three lighting units were chained together to continue to span the distance until another cord could be procured. These lights were never turned on (they didn't need to be) and were plugged into a power strip that had been almost literally thrown over one of the dividing walls in the phone tent.
Enter me right before the LDS service (my own religious denomination). I'm given an extension cord in a box (so I assumed it was new) and told that it is to replace the lights outside. I'm asked to go ahead and replace it.
Well being the high speed soldier I like to pretend to be periodically, I immediately went out and replaced the cord. When I came back in I didn't have any power at all. What I didn't know, was that neither did the phone tent. I'd blown a fuse.
Well, I think, the lights in the tent must have been too much for it. So I go back in and disconnect the lights from the power strip and plug it all back in again. Well, little did I know that during the brief period of time that I had the extension cord unplugged, the people in the phone tent had thrown the switch and restored power.
What I also didn't know, was that as soon as I plugged the cord back in, they lost power again. When I returned inside the tent, I discovered that I still didn't have power. Now I started messing around with power configurations inside the tent. The whole time I'm doing this, the people at the phone tent have isolated the one switch that is giving them problems (the one that goes to my power strip) and rather than testing that out, they decided that it was easier to completely disconnect it from the fuse box.
By this point, my testing has proven that there is no longer any power from the power strip. So I went in the phone tent and found a couple more power strips and threw them over the wall to where I could reach them. Now the lights are not connected, all that's left is my laptop and my pocketPC. I plug in the extension cord again and immediately power goes out in the phone tent. (I managed to notice it this time.)
Time for church then. I attended the LDS service.
Hmmm, I think while I?m sitting in church, maybe the surge protector shorted out when the main power strip did. So after the service I bring out the surge protector. I had just finished plugging it in and noticing that it got power and didn't douse the lights in the phone tent when a soldier comes by.
I explained to him what I was doing, and apologized for the inconvenience. He was fairly understanding and agreed to my final test to see if the problem was the extension cord. I plugged in the extension cord (with nothing else attached to it) and the lights again went out. I thanked the soldier for his patience and then told him that now that I knew where the problem lie, I could fix it.
I then put everything back the way it was (except for the power strip that had been disconnected) and was back in the tent about to hook everything back up when another person came in, presumably a Non-Commissioned Officer. He started yelling at me for messing up the power in the phone tent and demanding to know where I got permission to do such a thing.
My chaplain then stepped forward and introduced himself. Rank has it privileges and whatever rank that soldier was, it was lower than captain. He left shortly afterwards.
I returned back outside to finish fixing the problem. The chain of lights had been disconnected and the pieces thrown apart, and the power strips had been moved back over the wall.
I surrendered. The 1900 (7pm for civilians) Protestant Religious Service was held in the dark, but I'm sure the Power Struggle will continue tomorrow or later.
Later Notes:
I had no idea how much these power problems were going to plague me.

[Tokoz]

Drug Deals and Power Cords/Saturday 31st May 2003
When I was in business college we spent time studying the most successful businesses in America at the time. We read from a book by Tom Peters (and someone else whose name I can?t quite remember) called In Search of Excellence. It was a good book. They mostly looked at the things that these successful companies all had in common and other things that just made them stand out.
One of the things that a few of these successful companies encouraged was what the book referred to as ?boot-strapping.? This is where money or material that is supposed to be for one project is redirected without proper approval, into a project that the company may not know yet is bound to be more successful.
The military has it?s own form of boot-strapping and they call it (with the military you know it?s either going to be an abbreviation or something somewhat vulgar or both) a drug deal. Your supply might have too much of one thing and not enough of another, so you negotiate and trade, sometimes even under the table, with someone that lacks what you have too much of and has too much of what you lack. You?d be surprised at how often that works out.
It turns out that the supplies for our hot chow were had that way. That?s why the last two days we haven?t had any. (We did get a hot breakfast today.) Something went wrong with us being on the list to get T-Rats and so we were not getting any. Our cooks though were going around and procuring the extras that some units had. I?m not sure I want to know what we were giving up for it, especially if it was internet and power supplies.
I don?t normally get involved in drug deals, but I ended up in a situation where I didn?t have much of choice really. I?ve been waiting for power for a long time now and my last hope finally fell through yesterday. I tried my usual, ?It would really help the chaplain out? line but I think the SFC I was talking to realized that it was really me that was after the power. No sale. He did suggest though that I see what maybe the brigade chaplain could do for me.
So bright and early this morning, I headed over the brigade chaplain?s office. I caught him just as he was leaving for a meeting, but he told me that he was having problems getting his power set up, it seemed like his cord had a short or something. If I could get him set up though using that particular cord, then he would have an extra that I could use.
It gets a little funnier though. When he and his assistant got back, I learned that what was really happening was this power cord was too much for the generator and kept blowing the circuit. Sound familiar? If not, you might need to go back and read the earlier entry called ?Power Struggle.?
I checked the cord out and discovered that the problem might have been with some splicing they had had to do on the cord. About half the wires had been cut in the splice. I re-spliced one side of it. The other problem might have had something to do with the fact that most of the brigade was running off of one generator. The chaplain?s stuff might have just been too much for it. SSG ? , the brigade chaplain?s assistant, got it hooked up to another generator and it seemed to be working good.
What did I get out of this? Power. I got a 25 foot extension cord, a copy of the Book of Mormon, about 10 copies of ?Our Daily Bread,? a Jewish Chaplain?s kit (I can use that for some more boot-strapping next week), and now I have power in my room, so I don?t have to worry about charging up the laptop and then going to my room to type off battery power.
The other interesting happening today had to do with SSG ?, the brigade chaplain?s assistant. Forgive another somewhat crass entry, but this was pretty funny.
In the course of visiting the brigade chaplain, we were invited to go to the terminal area of the Baghdad airport and visit Father? (you might remember him as being the one that actually saw the ROUS other than my chaplain.)
The Iraqi Airways people are very anxious to get their company working again, but it has been a while. I haven?t been able to get an actual time when they ceased to function, but it might have been as long ago as the first Gulf War. As we approached the terminal we saw several planes that were somewhat gutted, including a 747 that had its engines removed, and another small commuter plane with no wings.
That was haunting enough, but the terminal itself was electrifying. There are no lights yet in there and the floors and furniture are covered in dust. It is mostly intact, including an arrivals board with three ?delayed indefinitely? flights listed and an Air France departure also listed as ?delayed indefinitely.? The lighting is dim and the place is full of shadows. You simply do not see an empty deserted modern airport at all, especially not with everything still mostly intact.
If Saddam?s ghost was to suddenly appear anywhere in Iraq, that would be where?d I expect it to be, and not even at the ammo dump I visited a couple of days ago. It was an eerie place.
Well I learned something about soldiers in general and SSG ? in specific. Remember that I mentioned a little while ago that the sewage doesn?t work here? Well that didn?t stop soldiers who were seeking toilet facilities from using the toilets in the airport. I?m told that almost all of them are filled to over-flowing and of course, cannot be flushed.
But apparently there?s a typical soldier in our party. SSG M still went from rest room to rest room, looking for one that didn?t smell to high heaven. We never found one, and even if we had, I have to wonder what anyone would have done about it. On second thought, maybe it?s better in cases like this, to just not wonder.

[Tokoz]

The Road Through Baghdad and Power Struggle: Episode Three/Thursday 12th June 2003

Today we drove out for a change of command ceremony to a company that is pulling duty on an airfield (other than Baghdad International Airport). We went in a convoy, so were fairly well protected, although it did take some aggressive driving to get there and back.
When I was right out of high school, I served a mission for my church in Florida. There are two cities in very close proximity to each other in that state and I hope that I?m remembering the names right: South Miami, and Coral Gables. Coral Gables is a very affluent neighborhood, with walled estates being more the norm than the exception. South Miami is literally right across the road and is very poor. Many of the people that live there work as servants for the rich homes in Coral Gables.
The differences between these two American cities and Baghdad are almost as stunning as their similarities. Realize that it just my first impression, so it might be a little misadjusted, but. Both showcase the two extremes of classes, and accentuate the fact that how you?re born is often how you stay, no matter whose dreams you hear about.
They are different in that it isn?t just one street that divides, it is many. In Baghdad, palaces and other large and extravagant public building rise up among places that I can describe as nothing more than slums. True that happens in the states, but not quite like this. Two blocks of slums, followed by a block that looks like it might be middle class, followed by more slums, followed by some major palace. The pattern continued through the few miles into Baghdad that we traveled.
I saw quite a few bombed buildings. I knew that our bombs were hyper-accurate, but I didn?t think much of the media assessment of that until I saw a whole barracks building completely reduced to nothing more than infrastructure, but the wall about twenty feet from it perfectly intact.
One of the buildings seemed to be a mosque, but it could have just as easily been a hidden anti-aircraft battery. After seeing the barracks, I have a hard time believing that our technology wouldn?t be able to tell the difference. If it was a mosque, I wonder what kind of person would make it become a military target.
The drivers on the road seemed to want to kill us, but I think that was how they viewed everyone on the road, not just Americans. Most of the people on the streets smiled and waved. I know that we actually get some supplies from companies in Baghdad. I hope that we are good business for them.
As we went under an overpass, I noticed that someone had spray-painted, ?Go home US.? on the concrete. But the letters in black had been X?d out in blue paint. I know that the Army didn?t bring blue paint with it, so it was more than likely an Iraqi that made the X. and one that made the original sign as well. Does it mean that opinions are changing? Or does it mean that they aren?t really sure what they think?
Near the airfield that we were going to is the beginning of some major construction. There are no definite walls to it really, just lots of pillars and arches. The cranes that were working the site are still there, but they don?t move. Construction has stopped.
All around it are unused construction supplies and rubble from destroyed buildings. The two seem to argue with each other. Just another oxymoron created by war, I guess.
I?m told that this was to be the world?s largest mosque. It was to be Saddam?s tribute to the Arab world. Now it sits silently, looking like it?s ambition is undecided as to whether it will stand or fall. A good part of me hopes that it will stand and if it does, it will be as a tribute to the Iraqi people that worked for it, not to the leader that failed it. I hope that it will be completed someday, but for now, it is just another part of the journey on the road through Baghdad.
The rest of the day, just to prove how fickle life can be, was pretty humorous and so needs to be separated from my trip through the city. The story behind it begins last night, after I?d gone to bed.
Throughout the day, the sergeant in charge of the PX had been trying to get his lights working. In the process of doing that, he stumbled into the wire that connects my lights as well. I discovered this during the day, but figured that he was done working on it when I went to bed.
I admit that I go to bed a little earlier than most, so don?t go thinking that what happened was rude or anything, but shortly after I go to sleep, I wake up because both lights in my room are on. I sit up in bed and am about to hit the switch off, when the sergeant next door pops his head in. ?It works.? he tells me.
I can think of quite a few responses to that comment, but I want to have lights for tomorrow, so I keep my mouth shut. He?s got it worked out so that I have lights, but me being what I am, I have to ask him if there?s outlet power as well.
He says that he doesn?t know, but borrows an American to German plug adapter (not as useless as it sounds here) and forces it into the outlet, then he tries to plug in my laptop. No power, so we leave it be. After he?s gone, I turn out the light and try to get back to sleep.
It was during the change of command ceremony today that I remembered that the outlet he?d used has a switch on it. I wondered if he had thrown the switch. When we got back, I turned on the switch and was thrilled to see my laptop was getting power. What I didn?t know was that something somewhere in the outlet wiring was frying at the moment, and.
Yep, they?d lost power to the entire compound.
I have light again, but not through the switch and no one anywhere is daring to even look at the outlets.
I?ve been ordered not to plug in anything anywhere that hasn?t been approved first and to stay as far away from wiring as possible. While they ordered that in jest, there might be more sense to it than they know.
Later Notes:
At some point after this another incident happened regarding me and power at the compound. In order to get to the trash area in the back of the compound, you had to walk past the generator. On one occasion, as I was taking out some garbage, the generator happened to stop just as I was walking by.
I tried to hurry on, knowing that I?d be blamed for it, but the same sergeant who had ordered me to not plug in anything, happened to poke his head out of a nearby window and yell, ?Rossi! I should have known.?
Well they required someone else to take out the trash from then until main power was restored. I was not trusted around any form of wiring, generators, batteries, or other people?s personal electronic equipment.

[Hyacinthe]

Army = Grunts / Groungpounders
Marines = Jarheads
Navy = Squids
Air Force = chair force / flyboys

Of those I have been called a flyboy (by my father lol 14 year Navy vet to which I had to respond, "At least I've never been refered to as Seaman, Now go crawl back into your hold Squid").

Tokoz, I think I know what the other airfield your talking about is. Does Balad ring any bells? It's only a few miles north of Baghdad International.

~Hy

[Hyacinthe]

Sorry for taking so long to get back in the tread.. I normally lurk on the forums while I'm at work. My off time is divided between wife, kid, and Horizons.

~Hy