Blather

Today General Petreus paid us a visit at the Port of Husaibah. The early group left at 0600 to begin patrolling theport with a K-9. The second group left at 0800 to stand guard and watch for unusual events that could threaten him.I was in Tower 1 with a Marine SSGT and a SAW-equipped marine from another company. We had radios and binoculars. I was in the meeting where the radios got handed out, so I took ours. But the first opportunity I had, I gave the radio to the SSGT along with our area of responsibility. The other marine's job was to look outside the port's perimeter and ours was to watch the interior. The conversation was good, but the ballistic vest and 195 rounds of ammo were hurting my back before I got up the tower. Fortunately, I remembered Richie's advice to take ibuprofen before the pain, so the weight was bearable. All in all, I'd rather not have stood for 160 minutes in the hot sun with the really heavy stuff on my shoulders. SSGT Hale told me that the plates were 18 pounds apiece, plus the two side plates were each half as heavy. That makes for 54 pounds of plates, plus the normal ballistic vest's weight. Add 150 rounds of .223 and 45 rounds of 9mm to the weight of the M-4 and M-9 and I think I was carrying a lot of weight on my skinny, old and decrepit back. I found that I could put the lens of my binoculars against the camera's lens and get a decent telephoto. Not sure why, but this seems to work. I have a good shot of a sign saying "Welcome to Syria." And a short video clip of panning from right to left of the Syrian Port of Albu Kamal. At least that's what I think the Syrian border town is called. There are lots of things wrong with the layout of both ports, but this is what the place looks like. The Iraqi Port of Husaibah is too large to get from where I stood, but I got a good shot of the three buildings that we call the Syrian gate. There are two lanes between the three small buildings, one for incoming, the other for outgoing. From the tower, I couldn't see much of what happens in the primary processing and outgoing processing areas. No one asked me, but I think we'd have had better success with standing on the ground instead of in the tower. However, that might have put us in a more vulnerable position. Not my call, so I'll let that drop for now.

I got bumped from the ride back by the K-9, so I stayed at the port all day with the BATS marines. After taking off my heavy vest, I ate two small plastic containers of fruit cocktail, spilling some on myself each time I opened the peel-off lid. You'd think I'd have learned how to open food containers, but this was under some pressure. Tasted very good, though, since I skipped brekkie because I didn't want to overload my stomach while standing in the tower. Then I found some MRE crackers with only 28 grams of carbs, so I ate those, too. Later on, I found an MRE plastic envelope with peanut butter, and that went down my gullet as well.

I came out of the break room and watched the BATS marines a bit. I don't quite understand their processing, but I have the drift- they do fingerprint and retinal scans of travelers. There's a similar group for the Iraqis called PISCES. Then I went to say hello to the Civil customs guy. He welcomed me and got a couple of Iraqi folks who could speak a bit of English. This was a good session, maybe because I didn't bring one of my own interpreters. This was purely a social visit. He showed me how to write his nickname in Arabic- Abu Hamid. Hamid is his son's name, so he is called "Father of Hamid." I told him my son's name is Richie, and he helped me write "Abu Richie" in Arabic. All in all, it was a good visit. I stayed about an hour, then went back to the BATS area. As we were getting ready to leave, I went back to say good-bye, but he was gone. Because it's Ramadan, I think a lot of people spend a lot of the day sleeping, in order to make the fasting easier.

We came back around 1600. I helped unload the gunner's weapons and the ammo. Then I helped carry the big cooler back to the MWR and went to sit on my bed. I fell asleep, very soundly. Someone knocked on our door and said we had a debrief at 1700, in about 30 seconds, so I jumped up and ran in. The Major told us everything went well. Some issues include a Free Trade Zone, security, etc. One surprise was the General's suggestion that we host a dinner here for our counterparts. Not sure how that will play out, but I like the notion of having Abu Hamid and maybe one of his lieutenants visit. The security of the base is always an issue. The Port Director, General Faoud, said when Ramadan is over, he might host something for us, too. Again, security will be a consideration. In my own small way, I'd like to get better acquainted with the civil customs, since that's my background, but I'll go with the flow in any decisions regarding group meals and social events.

After the meeting, I grabbed some food from the chow hall. The guys who were here for lunch raved about the spaghetti and meatballs and the four desserts. Those of us who didn't have lunch also didn't have leftovers for dinner- I had a cheeseburger with no bun and a sausage with some canned beans. But I did manage to get a small piece of chocolate cake that was quite tasty. I washed it down with a liter of water and some no-sugar Tang plus a box of grapefruit juice. After dinner, I went to Spawar, the internet cafe, and did some emails, writing to Richie about his Happytown Express email. We seem to have enough money for now, and about $6K extra, woo hooo! Richie noted that I seem to be existential in my recent emails. Maybe he's right.
With finances in good shape, I strolled back to the POETT in the almost-dark, got a small cigar from my hooch and went out to the smoke pit. The Doc was there, Gunny L from Hawaii was there, and we chatted. They left and Rex the Iraqi terp came along. I told him I liked this time of night, when "hwai nejoom" hapens- that's bad Iraqi for "a lot of stars." He is an older guy, 60 I think. He seems a lot more decrepit than I am, but maybe he just knows when to stop pushing himself. He told me a couple of ways to say good-bye at the port. We chatted a bit about Iraq and its future. I told him I think Iraq could skip the electricity infrastructure thing and go straight to photo-voltaic for every house. Still have the water, sewer and transportation infrastructures to worry about, but electricity could be resolved.

I finished my cigar after Rex left and went into the MWR to see what was happening there. The BATS marines were playing their nightly Texas Hold 'Em game with packets of Nutri-Sweet and someone put on a horror movie, "Cult," about the curse of an amulet that was caused when a medieval Japanese girl got pregnant and her father killed her. Fast forward to today, and some college kids are taking a liberal-arts class from a knock-out English woman and ...I left because I didn't want to see how college kids deal with cults and curses and people stabbing each other with big ceremonial knives. Better to type this than to lower my IQ with that drivel. But that's a subjective opinion, isn't it?

Seems sufficient for now. G'night dear reader.