The Hammer has Fallen

Well, the hammer that I have been waiting on has fallen. I knew when I accepted the Iraq contract that the war in Iraq was slowly drawing to an end. The Army is pulling out unit by unit and with less soldiers comes less need for linguists. Less linguists mean less medical personnel to take care of them. I, then, am leaving the Iraq contract.

I'm not sure where I am going, whether it be back to Kuwait or home. I would like to stay working for my company, but I do not want to be an emergency paramedic in Kuwait; I want to work as a remote site medic. My future depends largely on what my company decides to do and how they decide handle the situation going forward.

I do know however, that my time in Iraq and Kuwait has not been wasted. I have met some amazing people, had some awesome experiences, and saw things that I had only read about before. I feel truly blessed to have been chosen to come on this journey. I look forward to whatever the future brings, and I will welcome it with open arms.

As I said in my very first post.....BRING IT ON!

Keeping Us Safe...Or....Bringing the Fight

Indirect fire is fire delivered on a target that is not itself used as the point of aim for the weapon.  Usually mortars, but sometimes rockets or other stuff.  Balad's nickname is Mortar-rita-ville, a play on the 1977 Jimmy Buffet song "Margaritaville" due to the seemingly over abundance of indirect fire attacks on the base.

However, that isn't to say we don't fight back.  Enter the MK15 Phalanx Close In Weapons System.

The Phalanx is 4.7m tall and sports a 20mm M61 Vulcan Gatling autocannon that fires tungsten or depleted uranium rounds at 4500 rounds a minute, or 75 rounds a second.  It is radar guided and completely automatic.  When it senses an incoming round that meets its predetermined guidelines, it looses a fury of rounds that destroy anything in its path.  Hearing these things go off in the middle of the night is an amazing thing and I'm glad I'm not on the receiving end.

The first video is of the Phalanx right across from the PX on JBB, the second, somewhere on JBB and the third, Basra.  Good stuff.  Not my videos, but ones I found on youtube.com.  Make sure your speakers are on.  You really don't want to miss the sound.  The white flashes at the end of the videos are the incoming ordinance exploding when the depleted uranium slug hits them.

Rhino and Youtube

When there is too much dust in the air or it is storming, the helicopters don't fly.  If you are anywhere but BIAP or Baghdad, you are stuck on the ground.  But, if you are in BIAP and want to go to FOB Union III or FOB Prosperity, or vice versa, then there is only one option left--RHINO.  A rhino looks like an uparmored RV with tiny bulletproof windows and gun ports.  They travel in convoys (herds?) three times a day (migration?).  No more animal jokes, I promise.  They are skittish about being photographed (the people running the rhinos, not the rhinos themselves--last joke, seriously) so I took a picture of a picture to post.

To supplement my blog and for your viewing pleasure at home, I have made a youtube.com channel and posted some of my flying videos.  For those of you with slow internet connections, open the video page, click play, then immediately click pause.  Let the video load all the way, then view it.  It is a lot more enjoyable that way.  The link is:  http://www.youtube.com/user/medicevans   Take a look and see what you think.

Back in Balad.....Finally

 Warning: This post is long and picture intensive.  I went a little nuts with the pictures.

Well, it has been a saga.  A short saga, but still enough to prove again why movement in this country can be difficult at best and frustrating enough to make you pull your hair out at worst.  It can take a couple of hours start to finish to fly 50 miles, or it can take two and a half days.  I started two and half days ago.  Flights kept getting canceled at the last minute due to dust/sand in the air.  Apparently, it can look completely clear on the ground, but be too thick to fly through at the cruising altitude of a Blackhawk. 

I was finally able to make it off the ground this morning and fly to Camp Sather where, supposedly, I was to catch my connecting flight to Balad.  I don't think they do it on purpose, but the flight crews really screw with a guy's head.  We had a showtime, gear on, bags ready, and had walked out to the flight line.  The helo was on the ground, rotors turning, ready to go.  This particular flight is called the "ring flight."  It goes from base to base to base in a certain pattern, everyday.  We were headed to LZ Washington (in the IZ, yeah that's right, back where I came from) then to Balad.  The four people ahead of me were disembarking at LZ Washington.  That left three of us to finish the ride to Balad.  They let the four board, then turned myself and two others back.  The crew had to pick up a full-bird colonel.  Not sure of the math, but there it was.  No flight. 

Resigning myself to another boring night of terminal sitting, I decided to make the best of it and have Taco Bell for dinner.  I was about a taco and a half in to a five taco binge when the guy behind the desk stood up and exclaimed, "All personell for Balad, grab your bags, police your area, get your gear on, and line up!"  I looked around at the nest I had painstakingly built for myself, thinking I would be there all night.  Ripping cords from the wall and my computer and wrapping up my headphones, I did a pretty good impression of an idiot.  As I was about to don my IBA, I realized that I had forgotten to take the plug adapter back to the USO office.  I skated across the wet floor (literally, wish I would have had a camera) and ran it back to the USO.  They were shouting at me to hurry up and counting down every five seconds.  I shoved the remaining tacos in my medic bag and ran to the flight line while trying to not knock myself out with the plates in my armor. 

I made it with 30 seconds to spare. 

This flight was my first during the day.  It is sooooo much better than flying at night. 

Getting ready to take off.

 

 

Date Palm Grove (I think)

 Bridge over the Euphrates.

 

Iraqi Tomb of  the Unknown Soldier

 

 Getting brave....took me twenty minutes to get this far.  

 

Inside of the Blackhawk

 

Patchwork of fields, note the irrigation canals.

 

Over Baghdad.  One of the Hussein son's palace in the background.

The "Gold Dome"   Our clinic in Baghdad used to be in one side of the base of the dome.

 

Flying in formation.  See the Blackhawk behind me?

 

Very introspective look coming into Balad.

 

This is my favorite shot.  The guy sitting across the helo took it.  Note the abundance of ground and absence of sky.  Also, my huge smile.  Better than any roller coaster!

 

IZ/Baghdad Update

Flying into Baghdad.

Interior of a C-130 at night.  Too bumpy to get a good clear picture, but you get the idea.

I have been in the IZ at FOB Prosperity in Baghdad, Iraq for almost two weeks and I haven't posted any pictures of the surroundings.  FOB Prosperity is my favorite base that I have been on yet.  It is easy to forget that you are in a desert country here.  There are mesquite and palm trees everywhere and even the occasional plot of grass has survived the enormous amount of foot traffic.

The coalition has placed most of the IZ security duties back into the hands of the Iraqis.  As such, many of the areas that we could previously walk to or take pictures in have become to unsafe to walk in as unarmed Americans or the Iraqis will arrest you for taking pictures.  The following pictures were taken from inside of an up-armored Suburban, which is why they may look blurry/dirty. 

FOB Prosperity and FOB Union III are the two US bases in an area of Baghdad that has been "roped off" so to speak and called the International Zone, IZ for short.  The IZ contains all of the bases for coalition forces and all of the embassies for the occupying nations.  The United States Embassy in Iraq has the distiction for being the largest US embassy anywhere in the world.

In the picture above, you can see the US Embassy on the right (long tan walls) and the "215" apartments on the left.  The apartments are considered the "red zone."

This is the "High Road" which runs on the north side of the bases.  The other side of the low fence is the "red zone."

 Much of the destruction from the initial 2003 campaign is still visible. 

Ba'ath Party House Headquarters

Sadaam's Presidential Palace (right outside of my CHU)

The following are some random pictures that I have taken while driving around the FOB or around the IZ. 

This is outside of FOB Prosperity.  The blue dome in the background is in Union III.  It was a mosque that has been turned into a hajii mall.

The t-walls on the left protect LZ Washington.  This is where most of the inbound helicopters land.

Driving down one of the roads on FOB Prosperity.  Note the t-walls stacked for storage on either side of the road.

 

The front entrance to FOB Prosperity.  This is looking back at the entrance after coming through.  Note the sniper/machine gunner's nest on the left top arch in the bottom right corner of the arch.  There are at least three guns in various positions trained on everyone coming through this gate at all times.

Taken by another person a few years ago.  Aftermath of a suicide bomber.

 

From left to right, picnic table, tree, mortar tube, grill, tree.  For when you want a relaxing day by the BBQ, but might need to fend off killer ants or insurgents.

 

  This was taken from the front steps of our clinic.  Behind the large tree sticking out of the top of the building on the left is where they found a bomb a few days before I got here.