Changes they are a comin'

While most of the folks in America were pinned to their TV's watching copious amounts of hyperbole on Anna Nicole Smith's mysterious death and unfolding paternity battles, we in Iraq witnessed a potentially pivotal historic event. Today after over 2 1/2 years of continuous duty, our Commanding General - Multi-National Forces- Iraq, Gen. George Casey, (One of the folks I broadcast the morning briefing too) turned over command to incoming Lt Gen. David Petraeus. While history will inevitably tell this story, the writing on the wall tells me we are about to take an exciting but challenging ride. Time and public opinion are not on his side – he has a lot to do and not much time. The most immediate affect to me – after all this blog is all about me – I get another "field trip" escorting media out to Al Faw Palace at Camp Victory. YeeHa! That’s right; I actually did some real Public Affairs work. Go figure. This great trip includes a yet another convoy down Route Irish, this time in what's lovingly known as the Rhino. Think heavily armored tank meets the short bus. Regardless I enjoy getting out and about. Its actually fun interacting with all those news correspondents I recently spent so much time watching on CNN, Fox, CBS, etc. during my media capture days. While at the Palace I run into "The Diplomat" a close friend from my Navy combat training program. We play catch-up and his stories about living conditions in Victory make me really appreciate life at the Embassy. (It's good to see old friends) At least I have a restroom and shower in my hooch instead of having to walk 300 yards for the facilities. The transition takes place without a hitch and interestingly enough, doesn’t have a lot of the fanfare of other ceremonies I've seen.

We get back to the IZ after lunchtime at the DFAC, so we decide to take a quick detour at the Al Rashid Hotel for a bite. This is the hotel made infamous by Bob Arnot of CNN and all the US Networks during Gulf War One. Unlike most things I've seen here in Iraq, this place has potential to be a world class hotel (that is if you don’t mind your world-class hotels having huge built-in guard towers) and based on the great Genie in the Jug fountain that looks like something out of Las Vegas, there is evidence of a once opulent hotel but war and time have done this place no favors.

We sat down to eat lunch at an extremely large dining room with few tables and even fewer dinners. This may have once been a really busy place, but now its one step above the hotel in "The Shining." Oh except it's in Iraq and there's no snow. OK well it's almost empty. The waiter comes over to inform us that all they have is Iraqi food – in a warning tone. "Outstanding – Something not cooked, processed, or served by KBR… I'll take whatever you got." The waiters (yes multiple –as in more waiters than customers) laugh at our delight and then begin bending over backwards to serve us. Humus, salad and olives - Outstanding. Mixed Grill – I think I have my appetite back. Iraqi bread – Woohoo we scored - Let's eat! I realize I'm eating on actual stoneware with actual metal utensils. Its not plastic plastic and more plastic. For a few minutes I almost feel like a person again. Then we get the bill… In Iraqi Dinar… Oh yeah I remember this process. You eat something you pay for it. Well Alright I guess I can do that… but do you take US dollars?


For the past couple of days I've seen more of Iraq than I have in my two months time in the rut of back and forth between my hooch and my office space. If we are here to support these folks and help them help themselves, being visible is a good thing. If we want to continue isolating ourselves and create a bigger rift from their population then staying in our rut of is the better policy. If you read Lt Gen Petraeus doctrine he believes in getting his forces out and about to the communities… I love my newly found field trips - Here's to hoping we work his doctrine.

A view from the above…

Today we had a re-enlistment ceremony for our YN2. Her location of choice? The roof of the Embassy. We all gathered top-side (literally) and the view standing near the emerald green dome is amazing. Seeing things from height gives you a totally new perspective. On one side of the palace, a bombed-out relic of a palace hit by several JDAMS and the crossed swords of the marching grounds - This is the IZ aka "green-zone" - FOB Central. Other than all the troops and security, it seems quiet… Desolate. On the other side, directly below us I see the many roofs of our Hooch community - Trailer parks with palm trees on steroids. I scan out past the compound over the river and for the first time I get an unobstructed view to the heart of downtown Baghdad's "Red-Zone". Amazingly enough, there is a lively active municipality over on the other side. They have traffic like any other city. They have large scale construction projects with building cranes like any other city. They have pedestrians walking about like… I think you get the point. Essentially there is life over there. Make no mistakes this is also where VBIEDS and random gunfire happen almost daily but it doesn’t resemble the desolate combat zones I see through TV news. The beauty of a camera is the view is limited to what the shooter provides. The drawback to a camera is your view is constrained to what the shooter provides. All I can say from my perspective up here is there is active life over there - And where there is life… there is potential.

Oh… You mean I'm really in another country?

"LT, I need your assistance on this, can you come over?" Those few words began my adventure for a day that was well on its way to being otherwise uneventful. "We need to attend a meeting, would you mind driving us over to the Iraqi Government Building?" Drive? You mean leave the compound? Get outside these prison walls? Like actually get behind the wheel of an auto and do what (for me) comes naturally? SWEET! "Grab your Body armor and let's roll…" Thus begins the adventure of requisitioning a vehicle; locating said vehicle and driving my new up-armored SUV around the IZ. This thing drives like a tank. Driving over speeds bumps actually requires a bit of spinning-out and squealing of tires just getting this monster over the hump. Even then the backend suspension literally crashes back to its positive state. This is the epitome of a soccer mom's safety vehicle. I can already see cautious parents all over America ordering this "advanced" safety package to keep their kids EXTRA safe. After all it'll take bullets and a head on collision and keep on going. It's only a guess, but I bet this beast even gets 5 gallons to the mile. Good thing they have all this Oil around here.

As I pull out of the guarded lot, it suddenly strikes me that I don’t have an Iraqi driver's license. I'm then comforted by the fact that most Iraqi's don’t have an Iraqi driver's license. And even if they did whose gonna pull us over? Who has time to give out speeding tickets around here? Knock yourself out kid; this is the wild-wild west. It's better than the back roads of Montana. Unfortunately, I have to admit there is something perversely freeing and appealing about less than rigorous law enforcement. I digress.

Now, the drive is only half the adventure. For the first time since arriving I actually felt like I am in a foreign country. What sticks out in my mind is the condition of Iraqi Govt. Building. It is in need of repair and it isn't all that clean. It takes me a bit of time to realize there are no contractors; no KBR. This place is being repaired for Iraqis by Iraqi's. That and all its inhabitants, it reminds me of any administrative building in Mexico or Spain. They even smoke in doors. After climbing some narrow stairs I finally meet our Iraqi Govt counterpart; funny that - it only took 2 months. Guess they are working on the "Iraqi OK" time line. This is just a short introductory meeting. Turns out he's ex-Navy so we have a bit in common. Hopefully there will be several more of these to come.

After our meeting we head for home but decide to make a quick detour to pick up some freshly made Iraqi hearth baked flat bread. This is amazing stuff famous here in the IZ. People buy it by the bag full for a buck and bring it back to the office. The bag never lasts more than two minutes before it's all gobbled up. What happens next stuns me… We walk up to the window to order the bread from this particular vender but are intercepted by the proprietor who invites us to come inside to see how it's made. While this is a great opportunity, it's also somewhat unexpected. To call the establishment a building, well that’s just wrong. It's nothing more than a shanty with a few basic (historic) tools. But taste is more important the looks. Or host reaches down into this big wooden bin and grabs a couple of pieces bread just pulled from the flame and hands it to us."No charge my friend! US soldier – Hero! No charge" This is not at all the hostility I've seen on TV. These guys are running their business – successfully I might add – and they are genuinely happy to see us. (Here is my "Starbucks theory" at work.) They ask me to take pictures with my boss and want me to get some shots of them at work. I even get some video. These guys are proud of their business and their two pet pigeons. What?!? Pigeons in a kitchen?!? Well this place will never pass a US health inspection – And I think I'm OK with that. When the bird lands on some of the pieces of bread in the wooden trays that are waiting to go into the brick oven… Well I try to get a snapshot of it because it's just that shocking – it's comical. I spose this is "secret" flavoring and so much for the mystery of what makes this bread tastes so good. The kindness is so counter to my expectations. They just gloat over us, trying to carry on a conversation and continue to invite us to take more pictures and show us how everything works. They were so nice I started to feel a little tense – suspicious. My situational awareness alarm starts screaming at me. I size up the room, location of every person, weapons status, and clearest course of action - if / when. I nudge the boss, grab one last shot of video and a bag of bread - we pay the guys anyway – They give us more free bread "for the road" and we make our way back to the vehicle. I briskly drive away keeping my head on a swivel until I get the heavy beast back to the parking lot.

To be fair the risk factor was low. Their "suspicious" behavior is just typical Middle Eastern hospitality - something that we Americans have become so jaded to, that our internal BS alarm can't help but kick off. I later learn these shrewd businessmen get US troops all the time and when newbies (like us) come rolling in, they know they have potential regulars so they hook us with a tour and free bread. Incentive based marketing tactics – Advanced CRM: These guys had me at hello!

FREEDOM!!! Or Sleep does a body good…

So this is what a rested soul feels like. Remove cobwebs from brain… Last night I went home early and this morning I actually got to sleep in… 6 hours of sleep - OUTSTANDING! For the past couple of weeks I worked in my new position (the one that keeps me up all hours) and due to a lack of depth I had to continue doing a few of my prior responsibilities from before. One of these jobs was the morning brief "broadcaster" for the Commanding General. Essentially I read a script over a mic and lots of folks including senior leadership listen. Obviously it’s a high visibility job and it was sold to me on the idea that it was good for my career but in actual fact I was tasked because of my radio experience from a past life and for some reason no one wants it. I think they are afraid of the Four star. I thought it was sort of fun and most folks read the script in a monotone voice without much inflection but I read it like the broadcast journalist that I once was because - well - it is news and honestly I don’t want to bore myself to tears as I read. Problem? Well this task takes place first thing in the morning. My other work keeps me here till all hours of the night. Hmmm – conflict of time? This makes me a bit inefficient, tired and all around a rough individual to deal with (Hence the reason a couple of friends are calling me an evil combination of Eeyore and Tigger). It also keeps me from doing any personal business such as laundry, picking up the hooch, SLEEPING! But suddenly there is a light – I don’t have to read anymore. Someone else has taken the reigns from me. I spose having a surly cantankerous reader was becoming counter-productive for the team.

What difference does a day make?

Another long day… When I say day, what I really mean it was a long continuous set of hours. More than 60 continuous hours of waking time dispersed with an hour or two of sleep here and there. Whether it’s the constant "emergencies” of my inconsistent and complicated schedule, continuous explosions and helo’s flying close hulled just above the hooch, roommates erratic sleep patterns, or whatever I have just had another very long day. I wish it made time go by faster but that’s not the case. It just drags on very slowly and the meetings feel like they span a weeks time. If I was in combat and all my fellow battle buddies were in the same madness, perhaps I’d understand the reasoning a bit more, but these long days and hours are mine alone and more of an effect of inefficient resource management than anything. Regardless it makes it difficult to find any sort of routine. The one habit I am trying to develop, in case you haven’t noticed, is updating this blog on a regular basis. But days like this make it difficult. So when you notice a delay in my publishing a new entry I ask for your patience … I’m probably having a LONG day.

I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought or processed…” Llyod Dobler

Today I realized just how far I am out of my element. Watching news of the now infamous Boston – Cartoon Network "Bomb scare", my one and only comment to my battle buddies is… Damn what an insanely successful street-level guerilla marketing promotion. I wish I had thought of it. But amazingly in the land of Hooah, I get labeled everything from a money hungry corporate marketing hack to an indecently shallow plastic promoter with no sense of concern for people. "Peoples lives were at risk…"

What?!? From a plastic toy – A Lite-Brite?!? We used to play with these things in grade school…

As I saw the early events unfold on TV and heard, what turned out to be less than accurate, descriptions of the "dangerous" devices I thought, "Oh boy… here we go again." When I actually saw the first glimpses of the comical (literally) Lite-Brite I immediately knew someone had blown this thing WAY out of proportion. I knew for a fact there was nothing sinister at hand. It was a marketing campaign of the best kind. Someone beat a drum and the media amplified it to indescribable proportions. (Warning: soapbox) What concerns me more is our obsession with nurturing a culture of fear. Everything (and I mean everything) has become a threat. This same level of paranoia burned down the Reichstag in 1933 and more recently had us chasing a boogie man called WMDs. $700 billion dollars later and what do we have to show for it. If we continue down this path and place all responsibility on governments to protect us from the world then we have already lost our war on extremism. More disconcerting is our loss of what makes Americans so special… spirit, courage, personal responsibility and most definitely common sense; What happened to the idea of fearing nothing but fear itself? (Steps off soap box)

On the bright side a 2 million dollar investment nets an estimated half a billion dollars of worth of advertising for a Time Warner subsidiary. Yay for corporate hacks - Let’s contract these guys for Iraq.

The lengths we go through to preserve tradition…

As a Texan, American Football is a religion. It starts early… Grade school, Middle school, High school, College… Hook em Horns! Everyone knows I Bleed Orange!... NFL!
Honestly I was a little late to the sport being a swimmer most of my life, but early in my college years, I found the Longhorns (and the Cowboys.) Life has been complete ever since. Well almost – there was that dropped ball at fourth and goal this year by a certain Cowboy quarterback but I digress. For the Past 11 years I've hosted a Super Bowl Sunday Bar BQ rivaling any gathering for a "traditional" holiday. (Last year I actually smoked around 150lbs of meat.) So this year, I wasn’t about to let a trivial excursion in Bagdad stand in the way of such a paramount tradition. Along with my typical cohorts in crime, I am hosting the party The 12th Annual Breedlove SuperBowl BBQ Big Bash "long distance." Hey this is the digital revolution after all. My biggest challenge is watching a ball game between 3 am to 6 or 7 am. Essentially were not sleeping tonight. But the ability to call home and share an experience and talk with friends that are such a long way away (mentally and physically) is just too enticing. Lately when watching folks celebrate some religious festivals with violent passion, I ask myself, why is this 1400 year old event so important? Then I remember the USC loss to the Longhorns in 06 or a Super Bowl party I need to host…
Yeah – It's that important!