Back in Baghdad Again

So now I'm back in Baghdad. The trip was a 48-hour marathon. Asheville to Charlotte, Charlotte to Dulles, Dulles to Kuwait on the first day. The flight to Kuwait was twelve hours. It always amazes me that a big honking piece of machinery with over a hundred people inside plus tons of fuel and luggage can get off the ground at all, much less stay in the air for half a day. But they do. So the takeoff roll for me is an exciting time: the noise, the gradual buildup of speed, the vibration and bouncing, then it rotates back and feels like it goes straight up. That's cool!

Kuwait wasn't. It was warm and muggy. There aren't any regularly scheduled flights to Baghdad on Wednesdays, but there are plenty of other planes going back and forth. I put my name on the list for anything Baghdad-bound and waited for my name to get called. There were about ten flights on the board between midnight and noon, so I was up all night, cat-napping in the world's most uncomfortable chairs, and my name was finally called about 11 a.m. for a flight that eventually left about 3 pm. Yes, MilAir is not your normal airline. We landed without incident in Baghdad and I was back in my barracks room by 5:30, just in time for dinner at the DFAC.

Everything at work is changing. Almost all the people who were making my life difficult over the past couple of months are now gone - they left when the organization was officially disestablished last week. There are just a few of us left rattling around in the huge building. But that'll change in the very near future. My group is moving over to our new command, which is where our barracks are. So in a week or two, my commute will shrink to about a two-minute walk.

In the meantime, I'm fighting a cold. It hit hard this afternoon and I'm feeling pretty miserable. Yuk. I'm hoping it clears up quickly - I don't have time to be sick!

While I was home, I met with Ted McIrvine in my studio. Ted writes an online arts column that focuses on the western North Carolina area. Frankly, his article just blew me away. You can read it here.

So. I'm off to bed, with a box of Kleenex and some NyQuil. Hopefully, I'll be feeling better the next time I post something.

R&R Wrapup

Tomorrow, I start my trip back to the sandbox. My R&R is just about over. Being home is pretty much indescribable after being in Iraq for so long. I've got a completely different attitude now about "home" and what it means. Things that I took for granted before are now things to be savored. Some highlights:

- sitting in my own chair watching a NASCAR race on the tube;

- going out to dinner and having a meal that was cooked just for me;

- listening to my dog softly snoring;

- talking with old friends;

- seeing real art and artists;

- just being in the same room as my wife again;

- experiencing autumn in the mountains;

- hopping into my own truck to go somewhere;

and many many more.

Experiences like this are not to be taken lightly. Not anymore.

Here are a few photos from my all-too-brief time at home -

We went to the opening of the new Echo Gallery in Biltmore Park. Most of the artists are friends of ours and it was wonderful to see them get this great opportunity to help establish a gallery in this new section of town.

Yes, I got to spend a lot of time with my two hairy little daughters.

Here's Janis with our anniversary present to ourselves, a painting by our friend Genie Maples. Genie is one of the artists in Echo Gallery.

Right at the end of my visit was the peak of fall colors. The maple tree in front of our house went from green to this beautiful gold in three days.

Here are some fall colors in my neighborhood.

Here's my sweet little Indy, ready for her afternoon nap on our bed.

We had some beautiful flowers around the house, too. Smelled wonderful, too.

A Good Read

David Rohde (no relation to me that I know of) is a journalist for the New York Times. Last year, he was taken hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan and held for seven months. The Times has just published his six-part story on his captivity. It is well-written, eye-opening, and harrowing. Go read it.

More on R&R

Tent City, oil on panel, 12"x17"

I'm thoroughly enjoying myself on this R&R break. My cousin came down from Baltimore for a visit and we had a great time playing tour guide around Asheville. I've spent some time in the studio ... my own studio ... doing some drawing, painting, and just messing around. Most of what I've done has been wiped out or tossed in the trash, and deservedly so, but I think this small panel titled Tent City is a keeper. Art is one of those things you have to really work at to keep the creative juices flowing. I've barely been able to keep the rust off, and haven't gotten the rhythm flowing yet, but in this short time I didn't expect to. It's just nice to know that the eye and instincts are still there, even though they're not fully warmed up.

It's been great to see a lot of old friends, too. I've caught up on events with friends in their studios, the grocery store, on the street, over dinner, in the coffee shop, even in the dentist's chair. Most everybody is doing fairly well. This recession is really clobbering some, particularly my artist and general contractor friends. How some of them are making it, I don't know. One friend has a daughter who's autistic, and because of that, no insurance company will cover her. None. The right has been railing about "rationed" health care under Democratic proposals, but we already have rationed care - only it's by insurance companies whose focus is on profits, not health care. And speaking of ripoffs, I see so many of my friends who are working their asses off trying to keep from going under, and at the same time there are billions of dollars going out in bonuses to Wall Street execs who are already making fortunes. Something is seriously wrong here. Those bonuses would cover a lot of health care for a lot of autistic children, for example ... a much better use of resources than buying a new Ferrari for somebody that already has three. And I say that as a guy who appreciates Ferraris.

As I was writing, my dogs finally got up. We have a routine here: we humans get up earlier in the morning and have our coffee and so forth while the dogs sleep in until 9 or so. Then they come out and we have a big fuss over them, with their tails wagging, lots of rubbing of hairy little bellies, and a quick trip outside to water the grass. Then - BOOM - time for a nap again. They're both down hard and they haven't even had a walk or anything yet.

So now it's time to get rolling. Got a lot to do today, friends to visit, and projects to accomplish. I hope your day goes as well as mine is going to.

Picture Time

While I've been gallivanting around the world, I've kept my camera with me to capture a few happy snaps here and there.

When you go through Ali Al Salem, here's the 5-star hotel that they put you up in. See my previous post for some words on the complete experience.

This gent was catching a few z's in the Dulles terminal.

Taking my two dogs for their twice-daily 1-mile walk is such a joy.

My cousin Bridget is visiting us ... finally ... only took her TEN YEARS to come down from Baltimore ... and yes, I'm giving you a hard time, Bridget!

The three of us went to the Southern Highlands Craft Guild show on Saturday. I spent some time talking with some artist friends of mine there, and also got to listen to some really good bluegrass/mountain music from these gents.

Today, I got to spend some time in the studio, working on some projects and knocking out a small painting on a panel. Life is good.

And Now for a Little R&R

Home. It sure is good to be home. I'm in my own house, sleeping in my own bed, being with my wife, playing with my dogs. Life is good.

Had a great welcome-home. When I arrived at the airport, Janis was waiting out in the parking lot with the dogs. The dogs didn't see me until I called out to them. Their two little heads snapped around, there was a split-second hesitation as if they were thinking, "Daddy? Really?" and then they came running at me full-bore, jumping and licking and wagging their whole bodies. Janis's welcome was a bit more subdued since we were in a public parking lot but she made up for it that evening ... (okay, that was TMI; I'll try to restrain myself).

Unlike some of my previous trips home, I don't really feel a culture shock. Rather, I feel a great appreciation for all the little details of home. It's cool here, very green, and the leaves are changing. I'm looking out at my back yard right now, at the trees and juniper and the wet grass. I'm sitting at our kitchen table with a cappuccino that I made from my own little espresso machine. Janis and the dogs aren't up yet, and the house is still and quiet. I feel whole, blessed, and relaxed.

Going out and about in town is quite a change. I can drive my own car without having to check it out from some admin wienie. There aren't any checkpoints on the roads. No armed guards. The roads are in good shape. I'm dodging 18-wheelers, not MRAPs.

We took a road trip on Tuesday over to Pigeon Forge. It's probably the tackiest town in North America, but it's a beautiful drive to get there, and we needed to do a little shopping at the outlet stores. It was so good to get started whenever we were ready, to cruise down the 2-lane highways over the mountains, and see whole hillsides with trees changing colors. What a great day.

Janis put me right to work with a honey-do list. I've knocked off about 2/3 of them and am making progress on the rest. Feels good to putter around the house, y'know? No stress - get 'em done whenever, and if I don't, I don't.

Yesterday, I spent much of the day in my studio. No, I wasn't painting, I was cleaning. The place is, to use a highly technical Navy phrase, a shithole. My studio is in a 110-year-old industrial building, meaning it has it's charms, but it also has industrial-strength dirt, spiders, and bug carcasses. And cobwebs that shame the ones in bad horror flicks: big, heavy, gray, nasty things that drape across all the places you want to walk. I share the studio with another painter, but she hasn't cleaned the place since I've been gone ... and I didn't clean it last time I was home, either ... so it has about a year's worth of accumulated dirt/grime/gunk/cobwebs. So I'm doing a bit of spring cleaning. I don't care - it was just good to spend time banging around the studio again. I'll do some paint-slinging in a few days.

It has been really good to see some old friends. Yesterday, some of them heard that I was around the studio and stopped in to say hello. Janis and I are going to have lunch with some more today. And there are more that I need to at least say hello to.

Now it's time to get moving. Got a lot of stuff to do today. And NONE of it is work!

Chilling at Ali Al Salem

I'm sitting in an internet cafe at Ali Al Salem airbase in Kuwait. This is the portal for all US troops going into and out of Iraq. I arrived here yesterday afternoon and will leave this evening. Not much to do here, which right now is fine with me. I'm decompressing.

Yesterday was the first leg of the trip home. They picked us up at 8:30 so we could check in at Sather (the USAF base at Baghdad Airport) at 9 a.m. Our flight didn't load up until 1:30 in the afternoon. Think about that the next time you gripe about having to arrive at the airport a half-hour early! I ran into two friends, one from the Embassy and one from my Corps training, who were also on their way out for R&R. You know you're getting to be an old-timer when you're running into friends at the airport, I don't care where you are.

The last time I flew on a C-130, I learned that you want to sit in the very front or the very back. The reason is that the passenger "seats" are really four rows of red canvas netting running fore-and-aft, with two rows facing each other on the right (starboard) side and two on the left (port) side. If you sit in the middle of these rows, you're jammed in with people on all sides of you and your knees and feet are sandwiched in between the knees and feet of whoever is sitting across from you. If you're in the very front or the back, you have a good chance at some leg room. So this time, I tried really hard to drag behind the others on the cattle-march out to the plane. It worked. I wound up sitting in the very back of a row, with nobody in front of me and nobody to one side. For a C-130 flight, this was heaven!

Previously, when flying in and out of Baghdad, it seemed like we taxiied to the Green Zone and back before our takeoff roll. This time I was ready for another long trek, but we made about two turns and off we went. The flight was smooth and uneventful (yay!) and we landed in Kuwait about an hour and a half later. Then there was the admin of checking in, turning in my helmet and body armor, and finding someplace to crash for the night.

Now, remember: this is a temporary military base. Accommodations are, to coin a phrase, "spartan". You're assigned to a tent and get to pick your own rack. Once you get to the tent, you'll find that it has 8 sets of bunkbeds. That's it. A concrete floor, a heavy canvas tent, an a/c system (more on that in a minute), and 8 sets of bunks. The bunkbeds, by the way, have a mattress with a heavy waterproof canvas cover. No sheets, pillows, blankets, or other sissy folderal. You're expected to sleep in your clothes, like God intended.

I was fortunate in that there were only 8 of us in there last night. And none of my seven new best friends snored. So it was quiet. It was also cold. Our a/c system cycled on and off between two settings: icy and frickin' frigid. It got so bad that sometime in the middle of the night I got up and went over to the terminal. They were showing the Yankees/Twins baseball game on the big screen all night long (it played three times that I know of), but the terminal has big black floppy armchairs and is a bit warmer than the tent, so I was able to doze. Got up sometime around sunrise, about the time they started calling all the flights and the noise factor went way up. After sleeping in the arm chair, my legs just didn't want to work right, and I must've been quite a sight as I staggered out the door like a drunk. Back to the tent, which was warming up a bit under the sun, and I slept another three hours.

Sometime around 9, I finally got moving. Wandered over to the Green Bean for a cappuccino and a really good Danish and read the Stars and Stripes newspaper cover to cover. Later, I found the gym and pushed some weights around. Felt like a new man after a shower and change of clothes. Had a long lunch at the DFAC and then came over here. Sounds pretty exciting, huh? The rest of my afternoon is going to be more of the same, at least until they take us over to the airport.

But for now, I'm a happy man. I'm unwinding, decompressing, and getting ready to go home. Nothin's better than that!

It's R&R Time!

FINALLY! I'm heading home in the morning! It's been six months since I've seen my wife and children (the two dogs). But tomorrow morning, I'm going over to the airport, and then sometime later (hey, it's military air: there are no schedules), I'll fly to Kuwait. And on Sunday I'll land in Asheville. HOME!

I haven't started packing yet, but what the heck, I'm just taking a carry-on and backpack. I figure, I've got clothes here, I've got clothes there, why do I need to take more clothes from place to place? A toothbrush, change of skivvies, and some entertainment (iPod, Kindle, computer), and I'm good to go. Oh, yeah: passport and orders, too.

I was getting a bit stressed out the past few days. I scheduled my trip for right after the new federal fiscal year. Not too swift, there, Skipper. What with all the financial confabulations going on with setting up the new FY accounts, I didn't get my orders until this morning. Still don't have confirmation that my airline ticket has been paid, but they assured me that it would be done today. And if it isn't? I've got American Express. Don't leave home without it. I'm goin' HOME, by damn!

'Nuff said. Got some packing to do. Next time I post, it won't be from here!

Still Surviving

We arrived at work yesterday to a rather frightening sight. Thick smoke was billowing up from someplace very close to our building. The closer we got, the worse it looked. I went down to a guard tower and took this picture. The actual fire was about a quarter of a mile away, right at the entrance to the base. We thought that a suicide bomber had struck. Today, we heard the rather mundane news. It was apparently started accidently by the driver, who had squatted underneath his gasoline tanker trailer to cook his breakfast. Yes. Cook his breakfast. Nobody was hurt, but there was one helluva big load of dishes to clean up.

I haven't made any posts in a while because my blasted internet connection has rarely been up. It's going now, but I'm typing like a mad man, trying to get this post in so that all my fans (all three of you) know that I'm still alive and well.

Our hectic pace at work continues. Our Exalted Leaders are still revisiting the how and why of reorganization. I'm pretty frustrated - we're three weeks into the implementation phase of our transformation, and they're still trying to figure out what we're going to transform into. Meanwhile, I have stacks of real work on my desk: new projects that need to be started, questions from the field to be answered, one major set of decisions to be negotiated with one of our primary clients. And what am I told to do? Make colorful flow charts of our processes. The very same processes that we're not doing because of all this transformation stuff.

If I ever say I'm going to work for the Corps of Engineers, or the Army, again, will somebody please just shoot me?

On the positive side: The weather here is cooling down. The middle of the day is just warm, say in the lower 90's, and morning and evening are pretty much perfect. There have been no more sudden squalls and only a few very minor dust storms. Good jogging weather. I'd be outside running, if it didn't mean getting up at 5 a.m. I don't do 5 a.m. For anybody. Sorry.

And on the really, really positive side: in four days I'll be heading home on R&R. I am way past excited. It's been six months since I've been home and that's too long. So any time I get stressed in the office, I just shut my eyes for a second and think, "there's no place like home ... there's no place like home ..." Clicking my heels together in patent red leather pumps doesn't do the trick though - I still have to get on that C-130.

Soon!

Happy Birthday, Janis

Today is my wife Janis's birthday. No, I won't say her age - I value my life. We had our first date 18 years ago this very day, when we went out for dinner and a movie. (Pretty original, huh?) She's celebrating it in some unique ways: having some of the windows on our house replaced and simultaneously wheeling and dealing on eBay. Our neighbors are going to have her over for grilled hamburgers later on tonight. Wish I could be there!

I made my first deployment back in the Dark Ages. It was 1978, to be precise, and I went with my first ship on an Indian Ocean cruise. The only way we had to communicate with home was with hand-written letters. They could/did take weeks to make it to their destination. Mail was a high-priority item for the deployed fleet. It would come from the APO in San Francisco, then flown out via whatever route they chose to Diego Garcia, then flown again up to the aircraft carrier we were with. The guys on the carrier would sort it into bags that would be picked up by the daily helicopter runs and dropped off at each individual ship. A couple of hours later, we'd hear those words "Mail Call!" over the 1MC (loudspeaker to you non-Navy folk).

It's quite different now. This screen shot was taken just a few minutes ago when I was having a video chat with Janis. Being able to see and talk to her nearly every day (at least when our internet is up and running) is really a godsend. And, if nothing else, there's email. It all makes this deployment so much more tolerable.

One thing hasn't changed. Mail can STILL take weeks to get here. Go figure.

Anna Laube

I discovered a really good musician not too long ago. Anna Laube is a singer/songwriter. She has a bluesy, folksy quality and a beautiful voice. Her songs are stories ... and as an artist whose paintings tell stories, I have an appreciation for that. She has some videos on YouTube, although my favorite song of hers, "Goodbye Blue Monday", isn't there. Still, she's good, and definitely worth a listen.

Oh, and if you're wondering, I've had a couple of halfway-decent days since my last post, so I'm not nearly as tired and grumpy now as I was then, thank God!

... and then there was one

My friend Joe left Iraq today on his way home. His deployment here is over and he's on his way back to the real Navy, where the water is salty, ships are gray, and men don't wear cammie pajama outfits to work. Joe's the last of our little Band of Buddies to leave. Everybody else has gone home or been transferred to other bases in-country. There was Robert, who's home now - he was our absent-minded professor, always taking pictures of things he shouldn't and getting away with it ... usually because he was never aware that he wasn't even supposed to have a camera there! There was "Air Force Joe", a really smart guy who kept a tight rein on his projects. He went home, too. There was Eric, a scary-smart Air Force captain who is (literally) an astronautical engineer, who is now in Fallujah to work on a sewer project (aren't you impressed with the way the Army decides where to put people?). And Cody, another scary-smart Air Force guy with a PhD in aeronautical engineering, who's running construction projects down south. And now it's just me, the retired-Navy-guy-turned-artist, still working away here in Baghdad. Bummer.

I'm heading home in two weeks for some R&R. I need it. I am tired. Been here almost six months now and have had a total of two days off, not counting our Friday half-days. For most of that time, I've been working on one crisis or another, trying to plan this project or that transformation plan. Even when a plan gets accepted, it can be undermined almost immediately by some minion with an axe to grind. It happened again just a couple of days ago, where we were being directed to provide information that we already provided weeks or months ago. Don't you guys read your frickin' mail? It's getting old and I'm "crisis'd out". Getting an attitude - cranky and "who gives a shit" at the same time. I need a BREAK!

So in two weeks, I'll go home. See the wife, play with the dogs ... or see the dogs and play with the wife. Visit with friends. Take a nap on the couch. Go to a restaurant and have a dinner that was cooked just for me. Drive my truck around and not have to go through checkpoints. Mow the yard. Spend some time in the studio.

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

Wall Drug

Monday Musings

My friend Joe is going to leave us in a few days. Joe hates foo-foo, frilly, girly stuff. So, naturally, the women in the office teamed up to decorate his desk with as much pink, foo-foo, frilly stuff as they could find. I don't think you can find anything pink in the BX today ... it's all been dumped on Joe's desk.

Joe got a lot of going-away gifts. (Yes, we have a strange custom here ... we wait until somebody has already cleaned out their stuff and pared their belongings down to what can fit into an airplane carry-on, and then we give 'em lots of new stuff to take with them. Makes sense, no? No.) If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that burgers have a special place in the hearts of the Band of Buddies. So here's what I gave Joe:

Camp Hope Burger

Oil on canvas, 4"x5"

We had a big storm blow through here the other evening. I was driving back to the office when it hit. It was amazing - we had a "tan-out": the blowing dust was so thick that I could not see the sides of the road, and the only way I saw the vehicle ahead of me was because of his taillights. I completely missed the turn-in to my building (the turn-in is about the size of an entire Wal-Mart parking lot), but found the entrance to the back lot. The wind and dust was dying down, but then the rain hit. Wow. BIG drops - the kind that make an audible "blop" when they hit, only they were loaded down with all the dust in the air, so they were really mud drops. I, of course, had my white shirt on. It became a white-and-brown-polka-dot shirt. Fortunately, I got it in the washing machine a little later and it cleaned up okay.

The wind, though, evidently played havoc with communications systems all over the place. Our internet in our rooms was knocked out and has been up intermittently since then. It's been bad at work, too - our satellite antenna got blown all over the roof and it took our IT guys a couple of days to get our system back up to a somewhat-unacceptable level. All this right at the end of the fiscal year, too. Our cost and budget people are about to go postal.

Last week, I wrote a post about our support contractors being sent home. The ones who are leaving have all left now. Yes, they can be sent home that quickly. Fortunately for us, some of them will be doing more or less the same jobs from back in the States. The difficulties we face are the 7 or 8 hour time difference, the fact that they're only working 40 hours a week instead of the 65+ that we are, and they're off on Saturdays and Sundays, which are regular workdays here. But at least we have some support. The reason for all this? Money. We don't have as many projects underway anymore, so we don't need as many people helping us. Even for those who are still needed, there is a big cost savings to moving them back. It costs an obscene amount of money to have an engineering and management support contractor in-country, but the same person working in the States only costs a ridiculous sum. And the difference between an obscene amount and a ridiculous amount is quite significant. Sometimes I think I'm on the wrong side of the business. But then, I still have a job, and most of them don't ... hello, unemployment line!

Thursday Thoughts

We continue to have internet problems here in our barracks. Apparently, our influx of new residents has overloaded their antique server. So for four of the past five nights, our internet has crashed hard. I've been very frustrated. Living in a war zone is such a bitch!

I discovered this new brand of potato chips in our DFAC. The name says it all. Well, no, it doesn't.

Yesterday was a big day for those of us who are Navy. It was the Chiefs' promotion. Unlike the other services, when an enlisted sailor is promoted to E7, he or she enters into a whole new realm of responsibility. The Navy Chiefs are a special community - they are expected to be leaders of their sailors, trainers of junior officers, and advisors to more senior officers. They even wear a different uniform than junior sailors. Well, except here in Iraq, where they have to wear the ACU's or DCU's (meaning the pajama uniforms like all the other services). And unlike all the other services, all Navy Chiefs go through a rigorous training and indoctrination period together and are all promoted on the same day. Together. Yesterday was that day. Twenty seven sailors were promoted to Chief in a beautiful and moving ceremony at Al Faw Palace.

The Chiefs marched in as a unit singing "Anchors Aweigh" - and very well, too! After the National Anthem was sung a cappella by a Navy Chief, and Rear Admiral Morneau provided some very poignant remarks, the Chiefs were "pinned and covered" - meaning their anchors were pinned on their collars and their new cover with the Chief's insignia was placed on their heads.

Making Chief is not easy. It's a major step in a sailor's career. And this young lady, a newly-minted Chief, had tears streaming down her face. She wasn't the only one.

Congratulations to all our new Navy Chief Petty Officers! You all still make me proud to be part of your company.

Black Monday

Our drawdown is gaining steam. Today, most of our support contractors were notified that their services will no longer be required and that they'll soon be sent home. Some will leave in as soon as two days, while others will be here for two or, at most, three weeks.

I don't know quite how to make the impact of this event clear to you. Many of these people have been here for two, three, or more years. Some arrived in the summer of 2003, when the war was still fresh in everybody's memory. These people have seen our presence ramp up, they lived through the insurgency, they survived mortar and rocket attacks, and all the while they built bridges and water treatment plants, schools and electrical substations, clinics and oil pipelines, and literally thousands of other projects. Their corporate memory is phenomenal. But now we're drawing down, with only a couple hundred projects still ongoing and very few left to start. Fewer projects means fewer people to monitor and manage them. So all these people with all this experience are going home.

Their work is going to fall mostly on those of us who are employed by the government, whether civilian or military. It's going to be very difficult for me, personally, I am certain of that. I've only been in-country a year, and working for the Corps for five months, so my corporate memory is pretty small. (My wife says that all my memory is pretty small ... and I won't argue that point!) So I'm going to be back on the steep side of the learning curve again, probably starting tomorrow. Damn, and I was just getting to the point where I thought I knew what I was doing!

A friend of mine from the Embassy visited us today. He and I had a good time catching up on the news ("hey, didja hear about ol' (fill in a name here)?") Later, I took him over to Flintstone Village. I visited it back in May and wrote about it here. I saw a few interesting changes. Most notably, a local Boy Scout troop came in and painted over the graffiti in some areas. Here's what one room looked like in May:

And here's what it looks like now:

Quite a difference! The marks you see here are not graffiti. The Scouts have painted the walls with prints of their own hands, flowers, and birds. Here's another section of wall in the same room:

Of course, some other bozos have already started tagging the freshly-cleaned walls. Let's hope they get sent home soon, before they can do any more damage.

Wednesday Update

I've been wanting to post an entry for the past couple of days, but our internet in the rooms has been down in the evenings. Our net here is better than it was in the IZ. It's faster and they don't have those ridiculous filters, the ones that blocked me from updating or even accessing my own web site. However, now that my command has settled in to the barracks, we've overloaded their system. So it runs fine until all of a sudden it crashes. And that's the end of your access until the next day. Come to think of it, I better get busy ... it's just after 8 pm and it's about lights-out time for our Net.

So I finally got around to taking a few pictures and thought you might be interested in seeing a little bit of my world. Then again, maybe not. But here they are, anyway.

This is my room. As barracks rooms in Iraq go, this is top-flight. It's in a real building, with real furniture and a real bed. But you have to remember, this is a real Iraqi building ... meaning nothing is quite straight or flat, there's no ventilation (see that a/c unit on the wall? It just recirculates the same stale air). But after living in a shipping container that leaked dust, this is the Ritz.

Of course, being an artist, I have to have a place to paint. Here's mine. I've got an easel on order right now, which will be a huge improvement. Remember what I just said about the lack of ventilation? Well, that means that the fumes from the Iraqi paint thinner don't go anywhere. They stay right here, even when I leave the door open. I put in a few hours worth of painting the other day and felt like I had hangover the next morning. Ugh! I learned later that our windows really do open, so I'll have 'em wide open next time I paint. (And for you artists out there: I haven't found a local source for a decent solvent, so I gotta use paint thinner from the local economy ... and it's the nastiest stuff on earth. All I know for sure is that it's petroleum based - nothing else could stink like that.) On the brighter side, the paint thinner smell is gone now, leaving just the lingering fragrance of the paint's linseed oil, which to me is wonderful ... but then, I am an artist.

And here's a shot of my desk and our workspace. Looks like a bunch of cubes in a monster industrial building, doesn't it? That's because it is a bunch of cubes in a monster industrial building. It was originally one of Saddam's mints ... maybe the one where he made all that counterfeit American money. It's much roomier than our old digs in the International Zone, for which I'm grateful.

I've written several times about our reorganization and transformation flail. My part is done (at least for the moment) and it has reached critical mass up at the high levels where the decisions have to be made ... and should have been made months ago. I've got an idea of what will happen with me, but it could all change in an instant. For now, we sit and wait. We're scheduled to shift to our new organizational structure next week. It would be nice to know what that structure might be, before we do the switch!

An Anniversary

Today is an anniversary for me. One year ago today, I first stepped off the plane at Baghdad International Airport. I was nervous, excited, worn out from the trip, unsure of what to expect, and ready to go do something. All I knew for certain was that it would be an interesting time here. A year later, and that last part has certainly been true. I've worked for the State Department and now the Corps of Engineers. I've made a gazillion PowerPoint briefs, written information and decision memos, researched data, participated in way too many meetings, made some great friends, organized this and oversaw that, become an expert in the afternoon on things I didn't even know existed that morning, been under guard in the Red Zone and wandered freely in the Green Zone, and have not regretted a single moment of it. (Well, maybe some of the meetings).

Whenever I go home, people ask me, "What's Iraq like?". I don't know how to answer that. It's hot. It sucks. It's great. Wonderful people. Terrorists. A different way of life. Like being in a minimum-security prison. You can make an impact. You can't make a dime's worth of difference. You're valued. You're treated like shit. No time for yourself. Great pay. Not worth it.

Iraq is a maze of contradictions. When people ask me what Iraq's like, they're looking for a sound-bite insight into something that would take a thousand "War and Peace"-size tomes to even begin to understand. Like the blind men and the elephant, this blog has been my attempt to explain my little bitty piece of the puzzle.

Had I stuck with my original plan, I'd be going home for good right about now. But I changed course back in January, left the State Department in March, and came back on a one-year tour in April for the Corps. So I still have about seven months to go.

There has been a monumental change in Iraq in my twelve months here. Last year, we were in charge. We did what we wanted, we owned the streets, and only coordinated with the Iraqis when we needed to. Now the Iraqis are in charge and flexing their muscles. They don't do things nearly the way we would, and they don't want our help (at least, they don't want to be seen as wanting our help). We're pretty much confined to our bases now. Our convoys roll at night, every night, hauling equipment to Kuwait or Jordan as part of the drawdown and bringing back food and fuel and other supplies for the thousands of us still here. Last year, we were still planning on being here for a long time. Now, we're working on drawing down as fast as we can. Officially, all the military will be out by December 2011. Sounds like a long time, but it really isn't. Unofficially, there's an election coming up in January in which the Iraqis will vote yay or nay on the Security Agreement. If they vote "nay", as they most probably will, then we have to be out of here in January, 2011, which cuts our drawdown time in half.

But for now, I'm just trying to get done what I can get done in my remaining seven months. There's a lot to do. It looks like I'm going to be in charge of two really cool programs, and I'm excited about that. Instead of doing PowerPoints for the high mucky-mucks, I'll be doing things that will affect Iraq and Iraqis for potentially years to come.

But the main thing, for me, has been the people. There are all kinds here. Young American soldiers. Old grannies and grandpops (me included). Ugandan, Peruvian, Iraqi, British, and Gurkha guards. Sikhs, Kenyans, Malaysians, and Australians. The other night, I wound up sitting with a guy from the shop where they repair MRAPs and HummVees. Had a great time talking with him for an hour. This morning, I discovered an Army buddy had been promoted to Major. At our compound in the International Zone, we had a small Band of Buddies, made up of Army, Navy, Air Force, and civilians (me). Now we're all scattered to various other commands, or home, except for the Navy Commander and me, and in a few weeks, it'll just be me. Not to worry: there will be new group of friends formed in short order.

But one thing about being in Iraq is that sometimes your friends don't come back. I lost two good friends on Memorial Day in Fallujah. Terry Barnich and Maged Hussein were two of the smartest, nicest guys I've ever met. I'm not just saying that - these guys were brilliant in their fields, dedicated to the mission, and absolute gentlemen.

Terry is now buried near Chicago and a friend sent me this picture yesterday. Terry and Maged, we still miss you guys.

So. Twelve months down and seven to go. Has it been worth it?

Yes.

Good Reading

For those twelve people in the States who still care about how things are going in Iraq, I offer up a few good articles.

The New York Times consistently has the best coverage of Iraq. That's probably because they're the only major US-based news organization that still has permanent staff in-country. Yesterday, they had a very good article about how Iraqis see Americans. It's well-written and discusses some of the subtleties of the relationship that have profound implications for the long term.

Last week, they had another article about how Iraqis of all groups are co-existing, and even having fun together. There is a large lake out west, in Anbar Province. Now the lake is a destination for day trips for thousands of people from Baghdad and the surrounding area. People are doing what people do at lakes or beaches anywhere: swimming, playing, dancing to music, flirting, having fun.

For a couple of years, the Times has carried a blog written by their Baghdad-based staff, almost all of whom are Iraqis. That blog has now morphed into one called "At War" and covers Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. It seems to have lost some of its personal flavor and become a collection of somewhat impersonal op-ed pieces, but there are still some good postings that provide an insight beyond the headlines.

Most news reports about Iraq seem to focus on death, destruction, and political problems. News outlets always seem to prefer bad news stories. Sells more papers, I guess. But there's another side to the story. Most of us who came here of our own volition did so to try to make a difference in the country. Here's a press release from the Corps of Engineers about a project that was just finished. Yes, it's a press release, so it's not an "unbiased" bit of reporting. That doesn't change the fact that this is a success story, about a large project we (and you - it was your tax dollars that paid for it) have completed. It'll make a difference in the lives of a lot of young kids.

Musings on a Friday Night

I like Fridays. Friday morning is my weekend. You guys at home get two whole days off every week; we get either Friday morning or afternoon off. It's a 65-hour workweek out here. So on Friday mornings, I sleep in late ... this morning was a whole 20 minutes extra. Then I got dressed and strolled over to the DFAC to have a nice, leisurely breakfast. Ran into a couple of friends and we sat there nursing some really bad coffee and yukking it up for an hour. Then back to the barracks, where I did some laundry and worked on a watercolor for a while. This was my first time playing with paints in a month or more, so let's just say I'm a little rusty. Okay, a LOT rusty. Still, it was good to push some paints around again.

The other day, I got hold of the vehicle keys and decided that I wanted something other than DFAC fare for dinner. So I drove down to the BX and treated myself to a Taco Bell dinner. Never been a big fan of Taco Bell, and this stuff was nothing to post in a blog about, but hey, it wasn't DFAC, and that was good enough for me! Went into the BX to pick up a couple of things, and walked out with a couple of new CD's ... one of Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood at Madison Square Garden (it's playing now) and the Woodstock soundtrack. Then later, when I was talking with my wife, it turns out she had just watched the director's cut of the Woodstock movie the night before! Scary, huh?

Things at work are settling down a little bit. Some decisions are being made but the politicking is still ongoing. I've got a pretty good idea of what my little group will be doing and it looks fine with me. Some other decisions, well, would've been a lot better had they gone a different way ...

Living on a military base can be a very different sensory experience. Several times today, I had Blackhawk helicopters flying in pairs directly over my head. Just now, as I was typing this, the guards at the gate were firing their 50-caliber. No, there's no attack, they do that periodically during their watches ... I suppose just to ensure that the thing still works. So I'll be walking between buildings and THUDTHUDTHUDTHUDTHUD from just beyond the wall at the end of the compound. It gets my attention, but gives me a good, secure feeling as well.