patriot detail

today i participated in a patriot detail. patriot detail is a final send-off formation for fallen soldiers and airmen. we marched out to the aircraft and saluted the caskets as pall bearers loaded them inside. there was also a simple funeral onboard, and then the jet took off. tonight i will load our less unlucky soldiers onto a different airplane. other than that, nothing interesting to report.

medevac

not much going on around here... the weather is cooling off, with highs in the mid-90's. i worked at the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility (CASF)(like an emergency room for people flying out of country because of wounds) last night. helping carry and care for my injured brothers-in-arms was a powerful experience, and i'll be going back there again to help out. the people who work at the clinic are just about the nicest people on base. in other news, i signed up for the 150 mile run at the gym; so far i've got a little over 20 miles done. i guess when i finish i'll get a rad t-shirt. no attacks today.

predators

i just got back from the predator hangar (read about them here: http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=122). the predator is a remotely-piloted aircraft with advanced cameras and two missiles. i got to inspect the aircraft close up, and then i sat and watched the pilots fly around the balad area. the cameras can zoom in close enough to see people walking around on the ground.
we heard five mortars hit the base, and the pilots immediately scanned the countryside, searching for the mortar tubes (which would be hot, and visible in infrared). we found where the insurgents had parked a truck from the warm spot on the ground and we followed the warm tire tracks down the road. we never did find the people who attacked us, but now we know where they shoot from. as far as i know, no one was killed in the attack, so rest easy.
from attack, to interdiction, to writing about it online: 20 minutes. this war boggles the mind. from a technical perspective, tonight was the highlight of my trip so far. talk to you later.

coalition forces creative writing 101

a few days ago, i went the this base's scrap yard. we needed some metal and a few other things; on tuesdays you are allowed to dig through everything and take whatever you want (for official use, that is). balad air base has been here for a long time, so if there's one thing in the scrap yard, then there will be a huge pile of it. the first thing you see is a broad expanse of generators. they are all here because they are broken, but i suppose they have some useful parts. then there is the pile of air conditioners, followed by at least a few thousand folding cots. rope, barbed wire, cables, small engines, scrap metal: then the military vehicles. row after rusted row of bombed-out, shot-up, burned, crashed, and crushed humvees, tanks, and armored personnel carriers (APCs). each one of the vehicles has a tragic story behind it, and someone probably died within each one; each skeletal cab like a fruit rind around a dark seed- a fruit that beckons its seeds within and uncreates them- a perfectly symmetrical end to life.
the seats aren't comfortable. the air conditioning can't keep up with this climate. the side windows are eight-inch squares of 3-inch-thick bulletproof glass. a humvee is not a pleasant place to be in a battle. most of the body is made of fiberglass. the area around the cab is a combination of steel and kevlar sheets. they may look intimidating, but that all changes when you've seen one close up that has failed to protect its owners. shredded and pockmarked steel. frayed skeins of kevlar, faded from the sun (a known and pervasive weakness of kevlar). bullet-proof glass with bullet-holes in it. most of them are only burnt husks. many seats are missing. the military is fastidious about human remains.
tanks with armor 5 inches thick that looks like melted wax: imagine sitting inside a sweltering steel box while 10 to 20-pound shells impact your armor with enough force to form a craters the size of a basketball. i picked through the debris; boxes crumbled to reveal blackened and melted MREs. thousands upon thousands of rounds of ammunition laying about like fossilized poppies- the heat from the fires caused the powder to explode, leaving burst cylinders everywhere. signs of daily life- maps, water bottles, hand-written labels on levers and buttons. a hefty piece of bulletproof glass that melted into a huge yellow raindrop. sandbags that melted and slid off the turret, leaving green trails of plastic like flaming slugs.
the experience was a sobering one, at once both poignant and mysterious, and more moving than any sanitized memorial wall or tower could ever be. and no, i'm not allowed to bring any of that stuff home with me.
at one point, i stepped off the top of a tank onto an ammo box, but the ammo box gave way and i fell onto the lowered loading ramp; i did kind of a somersault on the way down and put a nice gash in my hand, but i'm all right.
i was wondering if when a soldier is killed his gear gets placed back into the supply system for reuse.
life is getting more serious as the days go by- i think that as the officers and chiefs get acquainted with the base and get briefed, they take into account more and more the gravity of our duties. (which i can't discuss :-) me, i already had a pretty good handle on where i am, so it's a nuisance to have constant eruptions of leadership in areas that i have already figured out.
before we left, i made up a number of decals for the airplanes here. all i can say about them is that they are on all of our jets, somewhere (secrets are lies! secrets are lies!). last night i was dispatched to the flight line to apply one of these decals to a jet; it was the last jet to get the sticker because it was in the air on a mission when i put on the others. i got there early and watched the plane land and taxi towards me. something you may not know is that, with a few exceptions, jets are louder from the front than from the rear. the exceptions are when it first starts up and when the afterburner is on. most of what you hear when they fly by is the sound of the air passing over the first-stage vanes at hypersonic speed.
the jet shrieked furiously as it turned towards me and stopped. the engine quieted abruptly and the canopy opened; as the pilot crawled out, i set up my ladder and climbed up onto the rear of the aircraft. the engine, shuddering to a slow halt as the turbine spun down, sent tremors through the fuselage into my boots. for a few seconds, my body and the jet were vibrating- moving- in perfect unison. part of the 26,000 pounds of thrust in that machine was transferred to me, and from me to the sere night air, in the form of motion and tiny amounts of heat- giving away energy the way a charging lion might run you down and continue after its prey without ever even acknowledging your existence. something mighty and terrible; something powerful and aware, but choosing not to beware of you; leaving you smaller. i rubbed some dust off of a skin panel and it was warm, trembling, tensed... a sharp, crouching beast under my feet. the jet had come back with fewer bombs than it had left with- somewhere, at that moment, there were craters and devastation- leaving the strange round tracks of a war machine along a wild but calculated hunting-trail. as i finished my job, the jet got refueled and inspected. i pulled away in the van, and it was preparing to take off again for another mission.
i understand why i am a symbol of death to some people. i understand the hate, fear, and awe of standing powerless beneath the subjugative whim of a faceless power. once you finally understand the jet as a machine, you can control it. but when you have experienced the jet as a bestial agent of secret and ancient principles, you can understand what it's really doing- you can understand what is really filling up that airplane-shaped piece of space.
conscience is actually two words: con, and science. con you know from contradict, condemn, conflagrate, and contest. it means 'against'. science comes from an older root, meaning 'to cut' or 'to separate'. when parts of your life contradict other parts, there is conflict. condemning your bad parts will get you nowhere. when your mind cuts itself into two opposing realities, that is conscience. this is where the old cartoon gag of an angel on one shoulder and the devil (also an angel, interestingly) on the other comes from. it goes as far back in history as early religion, when people tried to reconcile their often mutually exclusive internal desires with two opposing internal beings- a physical one and a spiritual, otherworldly one.
i was thinking that when i get home, instead of a 1,000 yard stare like real vets get, i might have like a 10 or 15 yard stare. "i try to talk to him, but his eyes just burn half-way through me...."
well, goodnight everyone. i'm spending way too much valuable sleep-time writing. i cleaned the filter on my a/c today and it's just perfect in here now.

sorry i took so long

it's been a while since i've had anything to write about. i think i've already mentioned how little actually happens around here. it's a little weird; all i see are jets and humvees and machine guns, but nothing actually interesting or new happens. i suppose that's a good thing. our tools and benchstock have finally arrived, so that when we are (not) busy (not) fixing things, we'll have everything we (don't) need to (not) do the job. bitter sarcasm? how unpatriotic!

i sleep as much as i can. the time is just flying by. this place feels like my home now. it sounds weird, but after about a week, my mind just starts treating wherever i am as all it knows. i have a lot of company here, and i've actually been happier/busier than i was at home. my days are like watching a boring war movie; a lot of sitting around watching AFN and you never actually see the explosions, and no one dies. think "apocalypse now: administrative offices" and you'll get an idea. or m.a.s.h. filmed with the actors' stand-ins instead of alan alda.

look: i have a lot of time on my hands. if there's anything anyone wants a picture of, or a picture of me next to, or maybe even ironic messages scrawled on a bomb for you, please ask.

i just tried to do a google search, and the military's websense censoring program blocked it because it fell into the category "tasteless". tasteless like their food! ha! ha! bad joke. sand has this effect on my sense of humor. my jokes are like, "yeah, well if was that ugly, then, um..... never mind." i don't even try any more.

i think i had my first run-in with sand flies tonight; they are like tiny little mosquitoes, but they hurt when they bite.

oh yeah, today was my first day off. i spent most of it reading and sorting out my pictures. then i'm going to go get a haircut, and then go running. sound like fun? it is.

it's all sunshine and skittles

i've been eating a lot of MREs lately (meals ready to eat) (MRE overview). some of the meals come with candy in them, like skittles or m&ms or charms (which have been in rations since world war 2). some of them don't; today i had pasta that came with a 400 calorie powdered milkshake instead. personally, i kind of like them. it's like fast food that's clean, nutritious, and filling.
an interesting sight in iraq is the sky. during the day it fades from white near the sun, to blue above 40 degrees up, to brown between the ground and the blue. it's kind of hard to explain; i'll show you pictures when i get back. at night, the moon is brown. you can't see many stars, and the ones you can see are yellow. it's a very strange place to be.
after i got home from work today, i was sitting on my bed, talking to my roommate. suddenly there was a ground-shaking thump (i'd call them explosions, but that word has a lot of hollywood implications, like flames and slow-motion). it was closer than i've ever felt; i hit the floor so fast i bruised my knees. it was all a blur. two more blasts went off by the time i got my helmet on; i got my flak vest on and croushed on the floor, waiting. nothing happened for a few minutes, so i sat down, trying to catch my breath. my roommate had his helmet on and was muttering obscenities. the explosions felt like they had gone off a hundred yards or fewer from our dorm. a few minutes later, there was still no warning siren- it must have been a controlled detonation (blowing up old bombs and ammo) that no one told us about. the experience taught me a valuable lesson, though: keep your flak vest near and your helmet nearer. it probably took me 10 seconds to get dressed; if i hadn't put my helmet in my backpack, it would only have taken 5.
imagine that you're having a nightmare. you're standing near some railroad tracks out in the country. you see a train coming. it's a long train, going very fast. all of a sudden, the engine jumps the tracks. all the cars behind it leapfrog over it, coming straight at you. a million tons of steel are out of control; they could land on your side of the tracks and kill you, or they could land on the other side harmlessly. running won't do any good because they're coming too fast. there's nothing you can do. you stand there for a few endless seconds, helpless and terribly fascinated, paralyzed. that feeling is how i felt.
actually, scratch that. imagine you're in a small room and there are bombs falling out of the sky at random targets. one of those targets might be you. that's how it feels. i know how people in dresden felt. and people in baghdad, tokyo, london, berlin, and paris. americans have no idea, absolutely no idea, how lucky they are, on a really emotional level.

operation iraqi boredom

hello everyone-
things have settled down a little bit in the last few day since we all started working shifts. i work from midnight to noon, so my workdays are nice and cool (70 degrees).
only 2 attacks today; i didn't even hear them. i'm not really worried about it.
i hear that it's pretty cold back home. i still like the heat more than cold.

i don't have much to say today. my day looks like this: 2330-1200: work, 1400-2230: sleep.
there aren't a lot of repairs to do these days, so we spend most of our time looking for spiders and scorpions; i would have enjoyed it here as a kid. i'll try to find something exciting to write about tomorrow.
talk to you later,
ben

this is where i stand

these are posted in the order that i wrote them, so things will seem kind of mixed up. i don't always have the time to post every day. here's an overview of the last few days. i apologize if my writing is stilted or incoherent, but my mind is on about a thousand other things.

just left hahn, germany. it was about 50 degrees there. i didn't see much of germany except the gift shop and the runway. notable overheard comments from the flightcrew:

"please remain certain that your lap belt is sincerely fastened."

" shh.... sleeeep.... you're getting sleeeeepy..... you want to go to sleep...... you don't want any peanuts..... no pretzels..... hell no you don't want no coffee..... sleeeeeeeeppppp...... shhhhhhhhh......"


we arrived at al udied air base in qatar this morning at 4. i didn't really get any sleep on the flight here, but i don't feel tired anymore. the plane landed and we were greeted by a few officers handing out bottles of water. traveling in the military is not that bad; you get treated almost like a dignitary everywhere you go, plus you have almost no responsibilities except for being at the right place at the right time with your bags. there are no airport terminals or security checks- just walk up to the plane and get in.
once we got in-processed at al udied, we were left to figure out how to get lodging and food. i waved down a major in a pickup and he drove us to the other side of the base where the tents where. the base itself is huge- i never actually saw it all, and i could just barely make out gigantic construction projects to the east and the west. the air here is different. besides the unholy heat (110 degrees last time i checked), the air is pinkish-brown with dust so fine that it's hardly there. everything that's been out in the air for more than a day has a fine scum of dust like dried sweat.
after we arranged a tent and found the chow hall, all there was to do was wait. and wait. and wait... this is the military. you are an asset, and they are happy to leave you in the desert somewhere waiting for something to do like a boxcar on a railroad siding. in the center of the base housing area there is a huge white twin-peaked tent with chairs and benches underneath. the entire first day we sat there, sweating. just sitting there without moving still worked up a sweat. plus, i was in my uniform, which didn't help. but that's life. the second day in qatar i managed to get some sleep and food and reading done. it already felt like i'd been there a week. that night at around midnight we boarded a c-17 bound for balad air base in iraq.

all of our bags were put on pallets. i got on the plane with a rucksack containing my helmet and flak vest and sat in a jump seat near the wing. our baggage pallets were loaded in the rear of the aircraft, and we took off briskly into the sweltering dust. the c-17 doesn't have any windows; the only concession to sight-seeing is a 3 inch porthole high up the wall of the fuselage to check for engine fires. for those not used to military air transport, the c-17 may be quite a shock. sudden, prolonged dives, swerves, and bumps are the norm. think of sitting on a bed with two jumping 6-year-olds. we were told when we crossed into iraqi airspace, and we donned our helmets and vests. when we were about 30 minutes out, the pilot started evasive maneuvering. this included the same dives and swerves as before, but more pronounced. like, your feet floating off the floor pronounced. as there were no windows, the actual landing- unannounced and unexpected- came as quite a surprise, and we were all pretty relieved when we came to a halt at the edge of the runway.

a short walk from the runway brought us to the in-processing station, a ramshackle pre-fab with plywood floors. this is a pretty good description of balad itself. everything is dirty, broken, mismatched. there are diesel generators outside almost every building powering truck-sized air conditioners. everything that was here when balad was an iraqi air base is still here, but mangled and bombed and decrepit. you can't actually see very many buildings here, because they are surrounded by trapezoidal concrete barriers. the whole place looks like a filthy gravel parking lot. everything is brown. there is a reason that military equipment here is all the same mustard color; when you wipe the dust off with your finger, the paint is the exact same color as the dirt.
in-processing took about an hour and a half. as we waited for the buses to take us to the other side of the base, we heard a loud THUMP that we could also feel in our chests. across the airfield near the hangars i saw a cloud of black smoke. i whipped out my camera and took a picture before the sirens began howling that single note and we ran back into the prefab. some people had been standing outside without their helmets or vests on- that changed rapidly.

the next few hours passed uneventfully. we were issued new body armor, which turned out to be twice as heavy as the stuff we wore on the way in. it has two ceramic plates that provide enhanced protection. it's used, of course, and i think i might have gotten the dirtiest, sweatiest vest on the base. we found our dorms in tent city. some of us were put in green tents, but i got a dorm room. the room is comfortable enough with the 5 of us. showers are just down the hall, which is very nice. no more getting in uniform just to go to the bathroom at 3am. the sheets i was issued are hand me downs from someone who was here in the past- pink and white lacy sheets and a blue pillow with faded blood stains. we got mattresses, but they stick out a foot past our cot so it's hard to sit on the edge of your bed without sliding off.

at around noon we gathered in tent city for a briefing by one of our officers. after some warnings about the heat, we heard another explosion. this one was considerably closer than the blast we saw in the morning, and we rapidly took cover. once we were comfortably hunched in tents, the air raid siren went off and we waited. and waited.... note to self: don't follow a lieutenant colonel to the nearest tent; no one else will, and the two of you will not have anything to talk about for 40 minutes.

i did make it to the dfac (dining facility) eventually and the food turned out to be all right. the half-mile walk probably makes anything taste better. after lunch i took off my uniform and put on the official air force pt gear. i wouldn't care if it was bright pink; anything is better than a uniform in this heat. i spent some time walking around tent city and setting up my room. i met up with the other people from my shop- we had all been split up on different aircraft and tent assignments. i took a shower, and no shower will ever live up to that one. the dorm room is set to 80 degrees, but it really feels colder than that. i needed my blanket to sleep. then at 6pm another mortar fell, another siren, more waiting. but me- i was sleeping, and i only woke up to hear the 'all clear' announcement. a quick aside- the iraqis who are firing on the base don't have any way to aim at anything, nor of knowing what they hit. a typical mortar operation consists of a launcher and a spotter; the launcher shoots the mortars in the general area of the target, and the spotter calculates corrections based on where the first shots actually landed. it usually takes several shots to hit a decent-sized target. the people here don't have spotters, or even proper launching tubes. they fire one shot and run, because we have rapid response teams outside the fence who take care of this type of thing. basically, what they are doing is like throwing water balloons over a really tall fence into a yard you've never seen, and not being able to tell if your aim was correct or not. this is a large base; i'd guess that over 99% of the real estate is just dirt. the odds of the mortars hitting anything or anyone is demonstrably low, and fatalities are very rare.

it looks like i start work in earnest tomorrow morning. my email address that i can access is benjamin.riordan@mndulu.ang.af.mil - feel free to email me any questions or just say hi. and this ends my first day in iraq.

six hours left.

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
~ Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

"Patience often gets the credit that belongs to fatigue."
~ Franklin P. Jones

"Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain."
~ Cicero

well, the time has come.
tonight i'll be departing duluth IAP on a commercial airliner towards germany. after germany i'll go to iraq via a layover in qatar. the city i'll be in is about 8 hours ahead of us, so it's early morning there.
if you want the weather in iraq, click here. (it's not the exact city i'll be in, but it's close enough.

all of my checked luggage is on a pallet at the base already; all i need to bring with me is my paperwork and my carry-on, which i haven't packed yet. i'll be bringing my ibook and a few books, but since i had trouble sleeping this morning, i'll probably fall asleep as soon as i get on the plane. i have to report at 12:30 a.m. but we don't take off until 3:45 a.m. (i hope this helps illustrate what i mean when i say that getting there is worse than being there... in the military, at least.) this inconvenient timing means that i'll have to say goodbye to everyone before i actually leave, but it will allow me to concentrate on my job. i hope it isn't raining tonight.

rose will be here at the apartment with the phone while i'm gone, so if there's an emergency or something you can call. i still don't know what kind of access to email and phones i'll have over there, so please don't worry if i'm pretty quiet for a while. it sounds like the first few days will be a lot of tent-building and sand-bagging.

i need to finish packing and take my last real shower for a long time. i'll miss you all.

"Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came."
~ Abraham Lincoln