tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62857292011-04-21T21:37:01.723-07:00a heartbreaking work of stagnating geniality, e-rocky-confidential chronicles the experiences of a young man playing a small role in america's ongoing military undertaking in the mideast....noreply@blogger.comBlogger581100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1109011058341338662005-02-21T08:45:00.000-08:002005-02-21T11:01:50.926-08:00

I Wish I Was a HunterI stood in an outside line for thirty minutes baring teeth to the fiercest sandstorm I've seen in this deployment, and as I stood and blinked my eyes I thought long and hard about what e-rocky confidential's last post from the Middle East would entail.The post will wait. Hunter S. Thompson has gone the way of Ernest Hemingway.The yahoo! headline informs me that the

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1107874882082989662005-02-08T06:26:00.000-08:002005-02-08T07:01:22.083-08:00

Greetings From Kuwait-- Wish You Were Here This is more of a quick update than anything else: Along with the majority of my company, I flew from Baghdad International Airport to Kuwait on a C130 two days ago. It's a mix of emotions among our group right now: regarding our impending return to our former lives we are a spectrum from ecstatic to apprehensive; regarding our present tight schedule

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1107649196532206032005-02-05T15:39:00.000-08:002005-02-05T16:19:56.533-08:00

Escape From Baghdad This will be e-r-c's last post from the city that has been the focal point of the world's attention for the past two years-- but this will not be e-r-c's last post. I want to think that I've learned some things over the course of the past year that will be of use to me in the future, that have made me a better person or writer, or that might even be of use to others. I want

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1107315965939401392005-02-01T14:26:00.000-08:002005-02-01T19:46:05.940-08:00

The Waiting is the Hardest Part I was in my thoughts, mostly about how much I would enjoy my steak, when I fell into the sewage pit. KBR doesn't make it out to these parts, so for the past month we've been eating army food. Instead of some giant dining facility, which KBR builds wherever it establishes service, we've got the tent set-up with soldiers serving basic fare two times a day. It's

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1107201684367094722005-01-31T11:57:00.000-08:002005-01-31T19:17:36.610-08:00

Fire Works I think I may have actually seen some fireworks tonight. Then again, they may have been tracer rounds sent up to illuminate the sky, but those usually accompany the loud boom of artillery. There isn't any fighting going on, though-- there's no one left around here to fight. The situation is that the guys in this camp have been going out on raids throughout the surrounding area,

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1107153434340245922005-01-30T22:26:00.000-08:002005-01-31T01:23:30.353-08:00

All Together Now... It isn't a collective sigh of relief; it isn't an ecstatic cry of elation; it isn't a grim assessment of the moment's frustrations-- it is all these things together at once and more; it is a whirlwind. But that's just the blogosphere. What's it like in the real Iraq? All night I was surprised not to hear celebratory gunfire. After the Iraqi team's good showing in the

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1106884309665648092005-01-27T19:16:00.000-08:002005-01-27T20:05:15.446-08:00

What Would Hammurabi Do? How about I forgo any attempt at a clever re-introduction and just start typing? Alright then. Since I left you my computer's keypad has gone through bouts of intractability, its disk drive has died, and ultimately the machine stopped functioning altogether, resulting in the loss of a few different partial posts and an awful lot of photos. Blame it on sand and Hewlett

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1092276419834798542004-08-11T16:15:00.000-07:002004-08-11T20:24:12.840-07:00

The Milblog Commandments There’s another *milblog* that seems to have far surpassed mine in terms of popularity, attractively titled My War— Fear and Loathing in Iraq, and it has an account of what amounts to one of my worst nightmares: being found out by the unit leadership, and then being told to submit one’s writing for unit approval before each posting. I’m not clear on the details, nor

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1091229549014752502004-07-30T16:17:00.000-07:002004-07-30T16:26:21.210-07:00

In Pursuit of Regularity… There’s really an abundance of Iraqi blogs, and it can be difficult to keep up. The original rising star, whose name may or may not be Salam Pax, seems to have laid his site to rest, but he was just the beginning (not that his was the first Iraqi blog, necessarily— I have no idea— but it was certainly one of the best, and he’s the one with a book now published in

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1091075758994072382004-07-28T21:29:00.000-07:002004-07-28T21:51:14.556-07:00

For Those Who Care Enough to Inject the Very Stressed  For my twenty-ninth birthday I received a syringe full of anthrax in my left bicep, sweetly delivered by a pixie-like medic in pigtails and horn-rimmed glasses. This occurred approximately 22 hours ago, after an all-night shift manning the shelter while listening to the Flaming Lips’ earliest, most aggressively spaced-out recordings— which  

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1088492625841057052004-06-28T23:52:00.000-07:002004-06-29T06:40:37.846-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, L. Paul Has Left the Building NOTE: Just as this post was going up yesterday, the internet connection failed, as it so often does, and this is my first opportunity to re-post it. It’s true: earlier today the Coalition Provisional Authority evaporated as sovereignty was officially bestowed upon the “Interim Government” headed by Iyad Allawi and Ghazi al-Yawer, in a small

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1088429104921477302004-06-28T06:21:00.000-07:002004-06-28T06:25:04.920-07:00

Blogs Are on the Way June has been a bad month for blogging, largely due to the fact that it's been pretty much a bad month in general. But fear not: things are looking up. I'll tell you all about it. Stay tuned.

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Saturday, June 5, 2004 I Got You in a Stranglehold, Baby Ted Nugent has come to Baghdad, and he’s brought Toby Keith with him. A few days ago there was an article in the Stripes about their concert at one of our other camps; the same day we began to see flyers for another show here in our particular area. Earlier today my teammate Reece swung by the site and informed me that he’d just seen them

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1085020192992178812004-05-19T18:45:00.000-07:002004-05-19T20:13:08.606-07:00

A Week of Living Dangerously, Part 1 Almost midnight, Saturday, April 24: I am crouched in the shelter and reading the rave write-up of some weapons-capture in the Stars & Stripes when the phone rings. It’s a staff sergeant in my company, telling me that I’m on the *red team* for the week that begins the following day. I’ll be the rear gunner for any convoys that our company performs over a

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1084069927794132452004-05-08T19:13:00.000-07:002004-05-08T20:45:17.153-07:00

A Letter From Baghdad Hey ya hey ya, I just re-read some recently sent messages, and realized that my last email to you wasn't really what you were asking for. Apologies. Honestly, there are times when I'm on shift and for whatever reason I'm struggling to remain awake and I'm in a whatever mood trying to take advantage of a window of internet connectivity, when I type things that make little

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1083427935360397302004-05-01T09:07:00.000-07:002004-05-01T09:16:35.356-07:00

Let the Gratuitous Self-Flagellation Begin One diligent reader was good enough to point out that, contrary to my earlier synopsis, when American troops encountered resistance in Fallujah, it wasn’t from al-Sadr’s forces— the Shiite al-Mehdi insurgence was emanating from Najaf, to the south, while the fighting in Fallujah has been a Sunni phenomenon. It’s like walking into a minefield, if you’

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1083156559647679522004-04-28T05:48:00.000-07:002004-04-28T05:58:46.496-07:00

A Day in the Life Sitting in a metal box mounted atop a ragged Humvee, sipping Saudi Arabian bottled water, I check my email for the first time in a long time and realize it’s been about as long since I’ve entered a blog posting. Our internet service has been spotty, to put it positively, of late— it’s got a lot to do with the fact that my team’s network is a part of a larger network that’s

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1082300318632559222004-04-18T07:56:00.000-07:002004-04-18T08:06:35.500-07:00

I Can’t Get No Satisfaction You know that there is a lot going on right now in Iraq. The death count for the month of April, 2004, is the highest since we started this thing, and we’re hardly halfway through the month. I’m still fortunate enough not to have lost any acquaintances, but my camp lost another one the other day. My friend Levi is really in the thick of things in a combat unit

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1081583392584243852004-04-10T00:48:00.000-07:002004-04-10T01:47:41.310-07:00

Looking at the Way They Look at Us Al-Aram is the Cairo-based Arab newspaper for which Edward Said, the late former president of the Modern Language Association, used to write. Said’s oft-contentious columns for the paper were very much against the American build-up to war in Iraq— but this article (not by Said, obviously) presents a picture in which the responsibility for the continued conflict

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1081450368040377552004-04-08T11:52:00.000-07:002004-04-08T11:56:36.013-07:00

December 14, 2003 Every Good War Memoir Deserves Its Touchstone Flashback Sequence: “We Got ’Im” Sunday morning, awaken to the chirping of birds. Sunlight streaming in through Venetian blinds paints yellow lines across the cowboy hat that sits atop a bust of Elvis Presley in the corner. I’m on a recliner and under an Afghan in the next corner, and as I gaze up there are black-and-white photos of

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1081447689089441472004-04-08T11:07:00.000-07:002004-04-08T11:48:06.640-07:00

Strange Days Yes, things are a little bit crazy. I’m hearing loud noises, and they seem to be outgoing artillery. A couple hours ago, someone rapped on my shelter door and announced, “Whateveryoudo…” (wheeze) “don’tlettheshot…” (big breath) “godownforanyreason…” (finally cathces breath) “because some helicopter just went down or something… so if anybody loses com’s [ability to talk on the

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1081110599244743732004-04-04T13:04:00.000-07:002004-04-04T13:35:30.590-07:00

Alas I've squandered another internet-session surfing from website to website in a zombie-like trance, soaking up everything from the *occupation*-weary dejection of Iraqi bloggers to the election-crazed hyperbole of American pundits... and now there's no time for a proper e-r-c update. But I owe you this much: I am okay. The convoy never took place, although we wasted an entire day with the

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1080874043092562932004-04-01T18:46:00.000-08:002004-04-01T18:51:47.340-08:00

Curiosity Killed the Cat About five hours ago, at a quarter ’til midnight, just before arriving on shift at the worksite from where I now write this blog post, I was informed that after manning my communications shelter overnight I’d be participating in a convoy this morning. Convoys are very serious affairs. Other than the uber-serious convoy that brought the first wave of the First Cav into

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1080870837392339702004-04-01T17:52:00.000-08:002004-04-01T18:13:38.543-08:00

Thursday, February 26 A Pretty Good Group of Guises Since my team was the company’s first to go *in system*— to situate our shelters, run our cables, erect our antennae, and maintain telephone “subscribers”— we were initially exempt from the various *details* that inevitably befall soldiers in America’s military. Now that everyone else has followed suit by going into system according to schedule

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1080481536775065832004-03-28T05:37:00.000-08:002004-03-28T06:21:38.153-08:00

Wednesday, February 25, 2004 Fighting Errorism Reece and I arrived at our worksite and learned that our team had been *volunteered* for a detail: one of us would have to go to the CP trailer (whatever those letters stand for, they refer to the company’s headquarters/ office) in a few hours to participate in a “sweep”. My first thought was a mental image of a squad of despondent privates walking

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1080395904037242512004-03-27T05:57:00.000-08:002004-03-27T06:04:26.686-08:00

Irregularities at Work I’m at work right now, with only a few minutes left to my shift. It’s both a blessing and a curse, but my worksite is where I get my internet access, and my work schedule is irregular to say the least. Basically my team has somewhat covertly adopted a plan to mazimize everyone’s down-time; after working twelve-hour days, seven days a week, ever since arriving in Baghdad,

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1079670641902216252004-03-18T20:25:00.000-08:002004-03-18T20:34:01.873-08:00

Shoot First, Ask Questions Forever After Yesterday, several hours before the explosions and their attendant hysteria, my C.O. (commanding officer, company commander) stopped by my worksite. As captains go, he’s a really likeable guy— the sort of person who calls everybody “buddy” and makes self-deprecating redneck jokes. He asked me if I’d heard from home. “Yeah, sir— been getting lots of

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1079665266134042672004-03-18T19:00:00.000-08:002004-03-18T19:04:26.390-08:00

Like a Modern-Day Corporal Clinger The Oregon Commentator posted this link to The 213 Things Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army. Here’s a soldier who copes with a deployment by living entirely within his own imagination, making the occasional foray into reality only to amuse himself with the fact that others seem not to get it. The catch is that other people do get it—otherwise

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1079664273938034082004-03-18T18:44:00.000-08:002004-03-18T18:47:53.610-08:00

Pretty Much the Indispensable Recap of the WMD Saga Thus Far This is sort of long, and it’s also a book review (indicating that perhaps to get the full concept one would have to read the book), but the article brings together the various turning points in this ongoing story, illuminating what might be lost if we were merely glancing at the passing headlines. So if you’ve got a few minutes,

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1079663627717526052004-03-18T18:31:00.000-08:002004-03-18T18:44:20.733-08:00

Tangential Pedantic Note: *Fun With Asterisks* I’m not sure how it started, but people seem to be using asterisks as the *new quotation marks*— not to set off dialogue, but moreso to identify certain quasi-cliche terms as being dubious— not necessarily to be sarcastic, but moreso just to put a sort of arm’s length between the term and the writer employing it, or to indicate that possibly there’

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1079659279890919602004-03-18T17:20:00.000-08:002004-03-18T18:54:02.780-08:00

A Simple Desultory Phillipic (Or How I Was Donald Rumsfelded Into Submission) The other day as I exited the dining facility and climbed into my team’s Humvee, I noticed with idle curiosity a large group of Spanish soldiers eating together right there in the parking lot (we have both Spanish and Estonian troops at this camp; I haven’t noticed any other nationalities). It’s commonplace to see them

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1079556876712449782004-03-17T11:53:00.000-08:002004-03-17T13:08:56.293-08:00

Packed Like Palladines in a Crushed Tin Box Moments ago as I sat in my shelter listening to Beck— Invite me to the Seventies, like some seasick man— you'll do whatever you please, and I'll do whatever I can. Titanic, fare thee well— my eyes are turning pink. Don't call us when the New Age gets old enough to drink. 'Cause Lord only knows it's getting late. Your senses are gone, so dontcha

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1079544677506242662004-03-17T09:29:00.000-08:002004-03-17T09:41:36.060-08:00

(Thursday, February 26, 2004) Sleepy Eye-Dust and the Spiders From Mars These Iraqi spiders are more huge than I could ever have imagined, then One of them has bitten Preyor, and he himself has become a spider, then Preyor’s broken clavicle seems to have healed nicely: this was the stream of thought as I awoke in a jolt from the depths of slumber to a rumble that shook our trailer— and the

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1079528321997690712004-03-17T04:57:00.000-08:002004-03-17T05:07:15.996-08:00

Zippety Doo-Da Well I just got reliable internet access a few days ago— so the good news is that a) I no longer have to make the arduous journey, requiring other individuals and multiple vehicles, to that other part of this encampment in order to add posts to this blog, and b) I can now update the blog on a pretty-much-daily basis. The not-so-good news is that in the rather-busy past three weeks

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1077706022311763592004-02-25T02:45:00.000-08:002004-02-25T02:49:50.840-08:00

JUST A LITTLE CURSORY USER ADVISORY If you’re new to this blog, you’re probably going to scroll around as the whim strikes you— but if you’ve been keeping track you’ve probably noticed that instead of posting new entries every day, I’ve been posting several entries at a time, on a sporadic basis. This is because I now get internet access infrequently, and for short little time-blocks even then.

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1077705629877728482004-02-25T02:39:00.000-08:002004-02-25T02:43:18.513-08:00

Armageddon It Then on Sunday night we got what we’d been waiting for. I had just exited my shelter and was standing at my team-mate’s door to tell him something job-related when we heard a loud clap that seemed to make the earth shudder. Over my shoulder, a bright yellow flash momentarily illuminated a hill in the distance. Four more of these explosions followed. Reece and I— Michael Reece is

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1077705174849562582004-02-25T02:32:00.000-08:002004-02-25T02:35:43.560-08:00

The Schadenfreude’s Red Glare So as we stood there on Saturday night— my team-mate Reece; Criswell, a guy from another team; and I— wearing every protective item we’d been issued, our pro masks in their carriers strapped to our hips (the military neologism for this uniform is “full battle rattle”), not quite convinced yet that danger was imminent, feeling strangely ebullient in the face of

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1077704826922683692004-02-25T02:25:00.000-08:002004-02-25T02:29:55.700-08:00

You Heard It Hear First The tense events of the past three nights have served as a sort of wake-up call. On Saturday night I was sitting in my communications shelter, enjoying life in general as I listened to “99 Red Balloons” or “Come On Eileen” from my team-mate’s “Monster 80’s Volume 2” disc, when a captain I didn’t know hurriedly approached my shelter door to ask me why I wasn’t wearing my

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1077702429772918672004-02-25T01:46:00.000-08:002004-02-25T01:49:58.233-08:00

It’s Not Easy Being Green Aside from the Stars and Stripes, news is rather hard to come by. Scanning the magazine section at the PX, a person can’t help noticing that they’re all old. Anyone who’s ever had a subscription to a monthly publication knows that a given issue will arrive in mailboxes and on magazine racks at least a couple weeks before the date on the cover— so I found it sort of

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1077702274633529162004-02-25T01:33:00.000-08:002004-02-25T01:47:23.123-08:00

“They Can Kill You, But the Legalities of Eating You Are Quite a Bit Dicier” Reading, perhaps not surprisingly, is a major focal point of my energies over here. About a week ago I finished Infinite Jest— an astoundingly good book, at once a hysterical and merciless satire and a somberly compassionate encyclopedia of the compulsions that consume us— and since arriving at that novel’s finite

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1076845310810776002004-02-15T03:39:00.000-08:002004-02-15T03:44:25.716-08:00

Hunting High and Low The other night I went driving around looking for a phone. I work on the night shift, so I just had the other guy from my team on that shift cover down while I went exploring. One of the gate guards gave me some funky directions to some free phones— free in the sense that they’re DSN (acronym uncertain; accesses a worldwide network of military phones) so I just had to call

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1076844772152215952004-02-15T03:27:00.000-08:002004-02-15T03:35:27.186-08:00

A Good LAN is Hard to Find The internet situation is this: being that my job is in communications, given the right set of circumstances I’ve got pretty good access to the worldwide web whenever we’ve got our own network in place. However: people who are considerably more high-appointed than I am in this operation are working according to a schedule that does not consider my blog a priority. I

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1076843806073469202004-02-15T03:09:00.000-08:002004-02-15T03:23:08.716-08:00

Back in Black! The convoy from Camp Udairi, Kuwait, into Baghdad took three days. After a great deal of fanfare— our company breaking down into teams to branch off and travel with the various units that we support; convoy commanders having everyone line up standing in the sand to walk around like ducklings following a mother duck; then breaking down further into serials, half the time setting

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1076842838248154752004-02-15T02:56:00.000-08:002004-02-15T03:07:07.170-08:00

REQUIEM 1) Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 2) Johnny Cash: Unchained 3) Dandy Warhols: 13 Tales of Urban Bohemia 4) Pixies: Doolittle 5) Electric Six: Fire 6) Gogol Bordello: Multi Contra Kulti vs. Irony 7) The Clash: London Calling 8) Operation Ivy: Operation Ivy 9) Faith No More: Angel Dust 10) System of a Down: Toxicity 11) Beck: Odelay 12) Beck: Midnight Vultures 13)

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1076842488140505092004-02-15T02:53:00.000-08:002004-02-15T02:57:22.840-08:00

HOORAY I’m safe, alive and kicking in Baghdad. Thank you for all your prayers, wishes, hopes, thoughts, astral projections, etc. No one in my convoy serial was hurt in any way; many have not been so fortunate. It’s going to take me several posts to fill in the gaps, so without further ado…

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1075517278791169632004-01-30T18:02:00.000-08:002004-01-30T19:02:00.466-08:00

OUTLINE OF AN UPDATE 1) Well I figured out the thing about double-posting. First I thought I had discovered gold when I realized I could edit previously posted blogs; then I thought that I had stepped in poo when I realized that the edited blog gets posted as a new blog, with a new date; finally I found that I just have to delete one of the posts, depending on whether I'm more concerned with

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1075107263892034732004-01-26T00:51:00.000-08:002004-01-26T01:29:45.170-08:00

A WHOLE NEW METAPHYSICAL CAN OF WORMS So we stood in formation for about an hour, staring straight ahead at the buses that awaited our boarding, waiting for one person who was nowhere to be found and would receive no reprimand due to his rank. This, after our First Sergeant started yelling excitedly for everyone to rush out with their gear to get on the buses the minute they arrived, a full

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1074501471133113112004-01-19T00:33:00.000-08:002004-01-19T00:39:48.746-08:00

...And another thing... Very soon we'll be retrieving our vehicles from the port (yes they finally arrived!), and when we do that we'll be away from here, and thus I'll have no access to the internet. I'd love to give you a better picture of things, but it goes back to the whole edict regarding the release of information about troop movements. Ixnay. Expect a hiatus of indeterminate length.

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1074500469736396742004-01-18T23:14:00.000-08:002004-01-19T00:31:21.500-08:00

Acquiesence A sigificant portion of my day is consumed by standing in a variety of lines. First there's the line to the chow hall: it moves amazingly quick, with the third nationals asking you what you want in pristine American English and pumping their arms to put food on your plate and rush you through, yet with all the people here the line can extend to about an eighth of a mile right around

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1074421373022180832004-01-18T01:41:00.000-08:002004-01-18T02:28:04.826-08:00

Train in Vain Whoah, the trainin' we been doin'. Yesterday we went over the techniques for clearing a room-- you know, five guys with lots of gear and weapons held to their faces kick open a door and rush in yelling and shooting. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad they're training us on this stuff. But: if it ever comes down to a Signal unit performing this sort of task, we've already lost the war.

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1074238568078056822004-01-15T21:40:00.000-08:002004-01-15T23:38:01.560-08:00

International Deflations Well the C.Q. was pretty much what I expected: sitting in a chair for a couple hours, making some minimal attempt to sit erect and thereby *look professional*. I got to finish Cacciato, and I've got to say I'm impressed. The author is Tim O'Brien, and the book won him a National Book Award in '78 or '79 or something like that. I was incorrect yesterday: in the chapter

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1074168403179651712004-01-15T03:17:00.000-08:002004-01-15T04:12:08.153-08:00

The Eye of the Tigris The rain has stopped, the sun's been shining, the puddles and lakes are evaporating/ being absorbed into the sand, and I'm now able to walk around without getting lost. This is my first time posting during the day-- I guess it's about 5:20 a.m. back in the CST right now, but it's about 2:20 p.m. here in Kuwait (I haven't changed my watch yet, and I don't know if I will...

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1073980749997422442004-01-12T23:05:00.000-08:002004-01-13T00:02:03.240-08:00

School's Out For Ever This place is a gargantuan construction zone. I'm at Camp Udairi (yoo-DAR-ee), pretty far inland within Kuwait. I'm not sure how long the U.S. has had a presence here at this camp, but from how much building is going on I'm guessing it's a fairly recent undertaking. Cranes, mounds of dirt, half-built towers: all over the place. Walking from my tent to the *chow hall*, I get

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1073874267529878122004-01-11T17:55:00.000-08:002004-01-11T18:24:48.290-08:00

New Found Lands After about seven hours of basically being held captive-- you know, no guns pointed at anyone's head, but it was implicit that we were not to go anywhere-- we finally boarded a plane around midnight (CST) on the morning of the 10th in Fort Hood, from whence we flew to Gander, Newfoundland (the pilot repeatedly called it New-Found-Land... perhaps he was amusing himself); Shannon,

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1073482545345106572004-01-07T03:11:00.000-08:002004-01-07T05:43:38.380-08:00

The Flight of the Fumblebee 1) The flight date is getting changed once or twice a day. Who knows why. Something to do with there being flights leaving all the time, and it being up to the units that are leaving who'll be on which flight, and some unit commander who's really high on this thing they call *the food chain* keeps changing his mind, keeping his options open. Consulting his astrologist

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1073371882121409332004-01-05T22:31:00.000-08:002004-01-05T22:55:10.300-08:00

WHATEVAH So I learned today that I'll be heading out three days sooner than projected... which leaves me with just over 48 hours left in the states, in which time I've got to drop off my car at my second cousin's house, write out I-don't-know-how-many checks, etc. Last night I shaved my head. We're talking Full Metal Jacket boot camp bald. It fits my state of mind at this point. All the great

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1073324591034412142004-01-05T09:39:00.000-08:002004-01-05T09:43:29.810-08:00

ANOTHER GO AT THIS THING So it's day two of trying to be a blogger. I haven't seen yesterday's blog, haven't even seen the site itself... I understand that the server is having some difficulty right now with new posts, that the posts are being saved but not appearing. Whatever. We'll see what happens when I post this.

...noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6285729.post-1073277670824393922004-01-04T20:30:00.000-08:002004-01-04T20:41:29.490-08:00

OKAY, ALRIGHT So it's T-minus 7 days until lift-off, folks. On my last Sunday morning in the barracks, we had soldiers standing on the balcony in their slippers and bathrobes, ravenously sucking down cigarettes and forties of malt liquor as they phoned home or socialized, making the most of their freedom while they've got it. And so today I introduced myself into the world of weblogging. This

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