Our Office Christmas Tree

As promised in my last post, here's our pink office Christmas tree, courtesy of Gus, our macho Latino.

Sunday Morning

I can't believe it's been almost a week since my last post, but Janis was on my case about it this morning. Since my trip on Monday, it's just been Groundhog Day, every day. Not a whole heckuva lot is new.


We have a young Iraqi rug merchant on our compound. He's turned a shipping container into a rug store. He's a great young man, full of energy, always with a huge smile on his face. And he seems to be doing a fair business as well.

I'm able to get a little painting in once a week. Here's what my "studio" looks like these days, now that I've got an easel. (It's a piece of junk easel, but an easel nonetheless). All of you painters out there will appreciate my fine taste in taborets and lighting.

We're starting to get into the Christmas season. Some people are heading home for the holidays, a few decorations are starting to pop up here and there, and we have an inordinate amount of candy, cookies, and other sinful foods floating around the office. We also have a Christmas tree in the office now. My co-worker Gus, a macho Latino from Los Angeles, has a friend who sent him a small pink Christmas tree with a feather-boa angel on top. Gotta get a picture of it and post it here. As for me, I haven't really gotten into the spirit yet. Hard to do with our work schedule and this will be the second year in a row that I've been gone for the holidays. It'll also be the LAST time I'm gone for the holidays. No more.

Last night we had a big rainstorm move through. Big rainstorms mean big mud for the next five to seven days. Yuck. I could have done without that, thank you very much.

Okay, back to work. I have five contracting packages that I have to make some progress on today, and I can't make progress while poking away at my blog. Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Road Trip: Ramadi

I took a road trip today to Ramadi. Two of us from my office went out there to meet with some people about two projects that we're about to launch. This was my first trip to that part of the country and it was quite interesting.

Ramadi is about 90 minutes by up-armored vehicle west of here, pretty much a direct shot on their major east-west highway. Our little convoy went by the town of Abu Ghraib, including the infamous prison (now run by the Iraqi government). The land out there is FLAT, reminding me of, say the Texas panhandle. It's an odd mixture of desert and prairie, too - the reason is that even though there's almost no rain, the water table is just a few feet down, so trees grow remarkably well. The highway was in much better shape than I would have thought and we zipped along pretty quickly. I did notice, however, that the guardrails had been literally ripped out a few years back so that they wouldn't provide hiding places for IED's. Security now is pretty good. The Iraqi soldiers manning the checkpoints were invariably efficient and polite - I spoke with an Iraqi about that, and he said that this is a result of the training that US Marines provided over the past few years, so the troops they trained will understandably have some of the Marines' clipped efficiency and politeness. Good on 'em.

We met with some Americans at Camp Ramadi to discuss the projects. A little while later, a large cadre of Iraqi officials arrived. They will be the beneficiaries of one of my projects. One of my purposes in going out there was to meet with these officials and assure them that the project really is going to go forward. They've become very skeptical over the past few years of our efforts. Some of this is our fault: previous teams have told the Iraqis that the US would do this or that for them, only to have the project shot down at some other level. Of course, part of this is their own doing as well: they have a tendency to hear the phrase "we are going to try to do something" as "I promise you it will be done and that we'll give you $X dollars as well". So they didn't really believe that this project would happen. Since we need their cooperation and active participation, I wanted to make sure that they understood that, yes, it really is going to happen, and here's the timeline, and here's what they need to do to make it a success. Message received. I think. Insha'allah.

The trip home was much the same as the trip out, except that the Iraqi soldiers at the checkpoints were much more particular, and had to check everything out. Our security team said that part of the reason was that they are, in general, more particular about vehicles heading toward Baghdad; another part is that there were five bombings in Baghdad today and so they're being more vigilant ... after the fact, of course. But despite the checkpoints, the trip home went well and we got back on time.


I shot a whole bunch of pictures out the window of our vehicle. Please excuse the quality; we were usually moving pretty quickly, so getting anything was just a matter of luck. This is a typical side street off the main highway.

Out on the highway, there are lots of vendors selling fruits and vegetables. Our convoys don't stop, but I hear from some of our Iraqis that these fresh fruits and veggies are quite tasty.

Just to the north of the Victory Base complex, there is an area that was fiercely fought over during the 2003 invasion. Because it was a poor area, it has never been rebuilt.

Home, finally, after a long, successful day!

A Little This 'n' That

I just got back from dinner at Taco Bell. Yeah, I hear some of you out there making gagging sounds, but sometimes you just gotta have something that's NOT FROM THE DFAC. Doesn't matter what it is. It could be old shoe leather wrapped in a Stars and Stripes newspaper and you'd think it was the greatest thing in the world. Hey, it didn't come from the DFAC, it has to be good!

Our DFAC recently won some sort of award. None of us can figure out why. It has essentially no variety whatsoever. If it's Tuesday, you know what they're serving: the same thing they served last Tuesday, and the Tuesday before that, and the third Tuesday from now as well. As for quality, well, it's really not bad, but after a while, the same ol' same ol' kinda tastes the same ol'. Right before Thanksgiving, they actually decorated the place a bit. They hung yellow and orange and brown streamers from the ceiling and taped up cardboard cutouts of pilgrims and turkeys on the wall. Up front, they set up a scene with several plaster of paris figures that looked amazingly like inflatable dolls dressed in plaster pilgrim and indian outfits. They also, inexplicably, put up a 10' high, 20' wide styrofoam model of the front of the White House. Even the people that work there don't know why.

The internet in our rooms is pretty much unusable now. If I try to go online from there, I literally get a book or a magazine to read while the pages load. The reason for the slowness is that the barracks only have a certain amount of bandwidth, and over the past few months, we've moved more and more people into the barracks as we downsized and centralized things, and everybody has a computer nowadays, so there we are. We probably won't get any more bandwidth since it's so frickin' expensive. So I go to my office in the evening, like now, and use my computer at work. Just what I wanted to do in the evening: spend even MORE time at my desk!

We haven't had any rain in a couple of weeks now, which is a good thing. Any time it rains, it takes at least five days for the mud to dry out. Walking on concrete-hard dirt is much easier than walking on slippery goo.

Despite my griping about the DFAC, the internet, and the mud, I have to say that I really love what I'm doing at work now. I'm convinced that I have the coolest job in the entire command. After months of work, two of my projects will finally go out for bids from contractors in the next couple of weeks. Both of them are projects to provide training to Iraqis all around the country in things like equipment maintenance, urban planning, construction management, facilities management, and several other areas. The Iraqis, at the worker level, are showing more interest in learning how to do these things for themselves. I've got three more projects in the development stage to create detailed plans for some critically needed services in one city, economic growth in another province, and a significant improvement to a large university. Not only are these important projects in their own right, but the Iraqis involved, from the provincial governor on down, are excited and anxious about them as well. To me, that's critical: what good is a master plan if the people you're giving it to just put it on the shelf? But it doesn't appear that's going to happen. Not only do they want the master plan, they want to be actively involved in putting it together. That's some serious buy-in.

Presidential Ponderings

There’s a lot of discussion today about President Obama’s speech last night. I gotta throw my two cents’ worth in. I read the transcript and thought it was an excellent speech. It shows a deliberate, thoughtful, and reasoned approach. Obama’s refocusing of the mission, I think, is right on target. Our main concern should be in ending the threat from Al Qaeda and other such extremist groups in the border area. Those are the loonies who attacked the World Trade Center and are the threat to the US and other western nations.

Lots of people are wondering why we care about Afghanistan. It has nothing in the way of natural resources, no industry, nothing much to trade with the rest of the world. Which is why it’s so poor, and because it’s so poor, the people (young ones particularly) turn to anything that offers them a smidgeon of hope and purpose. Which is what the extremist groups offer.

I don’t think we’re really there for Afghanistan. We’re there because its neighbor, Pakistan, has nuclear weapons. Al Qaeda would love nothing more than to get their hands on one of nukes. Pakistan is unstable, with a weak and corrupt civilian leadership, and its military and intelligence services have a long history of ties to Al Qaeda and other extremist groups. Apparently, those who support the extremists are still leery of giving them nuclear weapons, but who knows how long that will last. As long as the extremists were just a bunch of loonies running around Afghanistan, the only danger was that Pakistan and India would start lobbing nukes at each other. Now, though, the extremists are threatening the very existence of Pakistan. We can’t go into Pakistan to fight them (at least, not overtly), so we have to fight them in Afghanistan. I think that fight is worth it.

I like Obama’s approach toward the Afghan central government. He’s giving them a timetable: quit dicking around and weed out the corruption, because we’ll be leaving in 18 months, after we take care of Al Qaeda. (Well, we’ll see). Obama is already bypassing the central government and providing aid directly to those government agencies and local governments that have proven themselves capable. Good for him.

So, my bottom line, I think Obama’s on the right track with this approach. He’s got my support.

His predecessor, though, is coming under some scrutiny overseas. For the past couple of weeks, the British have been conducting an inquiry into the beginning of the war with Iraq. You really have to look to find any coverage of this in the US press – CNN seems to think that whether or not Tiger Woods was cheating on his wife is a much more important story. But today’s Wall Street Journal ran a report on the British proceedings. The revelations have not been surprising; rather, they’re high-level confirmations of things we’ve known or suspected for some time. The former British ambassador to the UN told the board that Bush was “hell-bent” (his words) on going to war with Iraq from the very beginning and even undermined the UK’s attempts to build international support. The former British ambassador to the US told the board that the White House was trying to make connections between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda within hours of the attacks. And Tony Blair bought into the invasion in April, 2002, five or six months before Bush & Co. started their public march to war.

No surprises there, really, since Bob Woodward reported many of the same things in his books Bush At War and Plan of Attack several years ago. Still, it’s one thing when a reporter says these things in a book he’s trying to sell, and another when they are coming from high-level officials who were involved. This investigation promises to be very embarrassing to Bush and Blair for their arrogance, duplicity, and stupidity in the run-up to the war. As it should be.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! I hope you have a wonderful holiday. I got to sleep in this morning, a very rare treat. Then a group of us went on a "One Lap of VBC" sightseeing tour. We treated ourselves to some cappuccino and a little Cinnabon, paid homage to SFC Smith, who earned a Medal of Honor in a small courtyard near my old building, and visited Flintstone Village again. A few months ago, a group of soldiers worked with the Iraqi Boy Scouts and Girl Guides to paint over the graffiti in several of the rooms, but the graffiti is back in spades. We finished up with lunch at Sather Air Force Base, which is part of the Victory Base complex. In typical fashion, the Air Force has the best DFAC on the entire complex, at least in my opinion. I just went for a jog, and will do some painting here in a few minutes. This evening, the command is going to have a lamb roast outside. Should be a lot of fun.

Now I want you to give yourself a quiet Thanksgiving treat. Watch this video of an incredibly beautiful piece of music. The composition is "Il Silenzio", written by the Italian trumpet player Nini Rosso in 1965, based on "Taps". This particular performance took place in August, 2008, in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The trumpet player is Melissa Venema, who was 13 years old at the time. I never knew a trumpet could be so beautiful.

A Bit of This and That

Things have settled down with me now. My little dog Soozee has responded very well to her medications and you would never know that a week and a half ago she nearly died. Her appetite is back, she's going on her walks every morning and evening (a full mile each time), and she's rambunctious around the house. One side effect of the steroid medication is that she has suddenly taken a great interest in humping her sister, Indy. And Indy has gotten sick of it. (Indy has also conveniently forgotten that, when she was first on the same meds 20 months ago, she did the same thing). So Soozee looks like she's going to continue to be a healthy, happy dog.

While Soozee's crisis was going on, life here in Baghdad continued. We're definitely getting into winter now. The temperatures have dropped, with highs in the 50's or low 60's. Definitely jacket weather. It's the rainy season, too, which is no fun at all. When it rains, everything turns to mud. It's a slippery, sticky mud. Most of it is pretty shallow, maybe an inch deep, with hard-packed dirt underneath and this slippery goop on top. The only shoes to wear in this mess are Army boots. You need something high-rise with deep chunky treads on the bottom, and Army boots are it.

This is the DFAC parking lot. Imagine having to shlep through this every time you wanted to go eat. And imagine having to walk a half mile along a busy, muddy road before getting to this parking lot. And then having to walk back. Sounds like fun, huh? It does? You're sick. We carpool.

And here's a typical Victory Base drive in the rain. This road may or may not be paved. Doesn't matter, it's got an inch of slippery mud on top regardless, plus big ol' puddles and potholes and ditches scattered randomly around.

I've made an interesting discovery about the military postal system. I've got a subscription to Time magazine, but over the past two months, I've only gotten about a third of them. Who knows where the rest go. But you know what does make it to me? Their renewal notices. Haven't missed a one.

We have the most complicated timesheets to fill out that I've ever seen. When I was in the Navy, of course, we didn't do it at all, but in the civilian world, you have to account for every minute. I don't know about you, but just filling out a basic timesheet makes me feel like I'm working at McDonald's as a shift worker. In my current job, it's even more complicated, because I have to account for the time spent on different projects so that my time can be billed against them. Very much like a lawyer's "billable hours", only lawyers aren't as high on the status ladder as McDonald's shift workers. But somebody here has a sense of humor. Our timesheets are called "Time and Attendance" reports, or T&A forms, for short. 'Nuff said.

Our internet has been really bad in the rooms lately. I keep hearing rumors that they're going to upgrade the servers and fix all the problems, but we'll see. We've been having issues in getting our computers, which we brought with us from our old office, to work with the systems here in this new office. Ever notice how IT techs always seem to hold all other IT techs in contempt? A typical conversation:

Me: "Well, the tech came by and said he saved the pst file to my hard drive."

Tech: (snort) "Who was it?"

Me: "Joe."

Tech: (eyes roll, disgusted tone in voice) "Oh, well, that explains it. WE do it the right way, those guys don't know what they're doing." And he proceeds to spend 10 minutes changing files around on my computer. He leaves, I reboot, and now my email doesn't work at all. It's Joe's fault, of course.

The Armed Forces Network shows news programs from all the reputable networks, plus Fox. I've noticed that CNN puts up the BREAKING NEWS banner at random intervals. Now BREAKING NEWS to me means that something big is happening, like Nancy Pelosi just got caught in bed with Rush Limbaugh. But no, evidently CNN thinks BREAKING NEWS applies to an Anderson Cooper interview with a B-list movie actor I never heard of. Most annoying - I get all excited thinking something important is going on, and it's just Anderson. Again.

Fox seems to have a policy that 75% of its anchors and reporters must be blonde babes. I don't complain too much, as long as the volume is turned off. But they have this need to justify the blonde babe's existence on the screen, besides just being eye candy, so they'll say something like "Jane Doe, PhD". Well, I can put a lot of letters behind my name, and as my wife will tell you, that doesn't mean squat. Why don't they just be honest? "Jane Doe, Hot Chick".

And that's the way it is, Tuesday, November 24th. Good night.

- Skip Rohde, CDR, USN (RET), CD PgM, BSME, MBA, BFA, SoB