I got up around 9 a.m. today.  After puttering around a bit, I collected up some AAFES pogs and headed over to the Green Beans.  A bazaar was going on in the middle of the “mini mall” area.  The vendors started calling as I walked through the place.  “Mista!  Mista!”  I resisted the catcalls and the urge to blurt out rude Arabic.  Instead, I went into the Green Beans coffee shop.

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“So how are you?” asked the email.  “Haven’t heard from you in a while.”

It’s one of the inevitably simple things that takes you by surprise, much like a grenade.  Very simple.  Heat applied to combustible material .  Too easy.  But the ramifications of pulling the pin, well, that’s not so simple.

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Four more years! Four more years! Wait, wrong slogan. Sorry about that. I mean, four more months! Four more months!

Well, it looks like we have extended period of fun and will be going into extra innings. Our unit is one of the ones that are being extended in theater, so we get to stay another 125 days here in country. Of all the brigades in theater, ours is the only National Guard brigade, and the only full brigade extended. There are some are some Marine battalions that are also extended, but they are only looking at 60 to 90 days of extra time. Not us. We’re in it to win it. In for the long haul.

Actually, if we are here any longer, it will be a permanent change of station for us. I should start looking into housing costs for the local villages. Something nice I could move my family into. It seems like that is the only way I am going to see them again. That or wait for Representative Rangel’s proposed bill to draft men and women up to the age of 42 pass the legislature, have my wife drafted, and maybe see if she can be sent here for a tour. Work with me, folks; we’re going to have to get creative with this.

So, leaving aside any discussion about whether or not the surge will work, I’ll stick to how we came to find out. The same way as the rest of the world: by Yahoo News.
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Today, on Groundhog Day, the commander came out and saw his shadow this morning. This will mean six more months of deployment in Iraq.

After a while, though, we noticed cars in the oncoming lane across the median started pulling over ahead of us. This was unusual. My gunner leaned down slightly to yell over the noise into the cabin. “We got a convoy coming up on us in the opposite lane.” I turned around as best I could in the cramped space with all my gear wedging me in solid. There was nothing I could tell from the rear windows. “KBR or military?” I yelled back.

“I think Iraqi.” Just then, the convoy was starting to pass us. “What?” I asked, of myself as much as anybody.

A pickup and suburban configured to be gun trucks were racing up the opposite lane. In the bed of the pickup, two Iraqi soldiers stood up waving at the traffic ahead of them to pull over. It was a high speed game of chicken, only with machine guns.

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The sun was starting to come up over the horizon, promising another day of heat, the morning already beginning to warm. Sleep cut into my eyes, the hum of promised dreamless sleep hovering on the periphery of my consciousness.

Trucks crushed loose gravel as they rolled out. Team Four was hitting the roads, pulling a convoy back, trying to get out the gate before the window for movement south closed now that the roads were no longer red. Team Six was behind them, waiting to roll. We would follow all of them back, not having to pull a convoy, bringing up the rear. They could proof the lane and if something happened, maybe we could respond.

The sky was a solid blue now, dust filling up the air lethargically. I poured another cup of coffee from the Thermos trying to knock back the edge of drowsiness. Team Six started shuffling to the gate for its departure. We would be rolling soon enough; the heat of the cabin of the truck and the long ride with the monotonous hum of the tires would be enough to bring on the monster of sleep. I needed to be alert.

And then we were suiting up, throwing on armor, rolling for the gate, me bringing up the rear of the patrol, hitting the gate, weapon hot, right hand turn, on into morning. Onto the roads, heading south for home, longing for bed. Passing underneath the Blue Boobies. Over the bridge, onto the Tikrit bypass. The pale colorless sand of the desert visible in the daylight. The hum of the tires and the drone of the engine.

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“A back scratcher? I ask for a DVD and I get a fucking back scratcher? Those guys got a PS 3 and a Ferrari and I can’t even get a lousy movie? What the fuck? I’m going to scratch my fucking nuts with this!” He was waving the bamboo device in the air like an antelope femur so I could see.

I looked up at John and smirked. “Well, it’s the thought that counts.”

“Yeah, well, I think about my nuts being scratched with this.”

“You could get a splinter,” I offered, not really believing that I was having this conversation.

“No, it has this smooth roll-y thing on the other end. It’ll probably feel pretty good.”

“Too much information,” I replied as I got up to get a cup of coffee and go out for a cigarette leaving him muttering to himself. Life in the headquarters office was a lot of things, including dull, but there was always the redeeming quality of the surreal at random intervals.

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I got to meet the Governor of the state that I am deployed with.

At least I am not the only one who thought this guy was a professor at first blush.

Since I was running on about three hours of sleep, I almost told him that the locals mortared my thesis, and that is why John Kerry banished me to Iraq. Then I realized that it was not in fact my economics professor, and decided to just be quiet for the time being until the feeling passed. It was safer that way.

Story time. Flash back to this one time that I remember, one crazy day.

I was assigned to the most forward gate, CP Alpha, which is, quite literally, Past The Wire. Which means I spend a lot of time walking across it with only a pistol and my faith in The Eternal. Carrying a rifle for this part of the job is a waste and a burden. It gets in the way for searching vehicles, and is better in the tower for the overwatch to use for aimed fire. Besides, if something goes down, the range will be so close, that the rifle is too much. And mine is “special” with extra modifications, and that is better in a tower with clear fields of fire and lots of ammo.

Children are the bane and the blessing of this post. They invariably come down here, to mooch off the Amriki, find free food and water, and maybe just have a little more security. No one is stupid enough to do a shooting or robbery in a place where jumpy nineteen year olds tote machine guns with belted ammunition. The possibilities are numerous, violent, and quick no matter what combination could be tried.

So, of course, they come running up. And at this point are well trained. They immediately clean up the test fire pit, knowing that payment in candy and cold clean water is immenent. Once, they stole it and sold it. The proceeds were done with however kids here deal without Seven Elevens, and the goods sold were made into penetrators that killed Amriki in bombs. Used to be. Now, the kids turn over the brass and the supply is gone. And gone to the point where the former beneficiaries make threats, pleas, bargins, trying desperatly to get the easy source of bomb making manna back. Unfortunately, the hearts and minds of the children belong to the source of lollipops, shampoos, and toothbrushes. But rarely money.

At least for the next couple of weeks, until the little juvenile delinquents revert to their old ways.

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