Two strange things happened to me tonight.... 1) As I was walking back to my trailer after a (cold) shower, I heard something strange. Waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of a cloudy, moonless night, I saw something move. It was like a small, long shadow. Eventually I saw it was a fox -- bushy tail, long nose, and staring at me. I froze, and it froze. I moved, and it moved. Having the fox standing there in front of me was a little surreal. I had only seen them in zoos and along highways, scampering into the woods. I walked towards it, but it walked away.
2) I was riding my bike to the MWR to use this computer, holding my little light on the handlebars to keep it from going all over the place... riding in the dark is serious business. Anyway, I suddenly noticed, a little too late, that they were doing construction in the road and had strung one of those plastic "police lines" across -- just as it smacked me in the chest and wrapped around me. I am still amazed I didn't fall off my bike.

Ok -- on Tuesday, I got my first Blackhawk ride (my first helo ride). We went to Tikrit. It was AWESOME! I was sitting in the middle facing backwards, but I was still able to take lots of pictures and see the Iraqi people waving at us excitedly as we flew over them at about 100ft in the air. It looks a lot like Illinois -- flat farmland, with lots of corn. I had no idea Iraq was full of corn... Anyway, the people live in houses that look oddly similar to those found on Christmas cards -- I guess the architecture hasn't changed in thousands of years. We flew over manshions too...there really wasn't anything in between. In Tikrit, I spent the day with the 1st Infantry Division and talked to my cohorts there. The topography there was interesting -- hilly, and the Tigris runs through it, carving a canyon. I saw people washing their cars in the Tigris. Isn't that something? Blown away by it all, and extremely exhausted, I still managed to soak as much of it in... it was the first (and probably only) time I was able to get off this base and DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. I'm sorry I'm squashing this all into just one paragraph, but I have to get going now. :)

In the Army, commanders will usually say, "As you were" when letting their soldiers know to go back to what they were doing...
A man was reading from the Bible in church yesterday. He was either nervous or having trouble with his eyes, but several times he fumbled over the verses. Each time, he said, "As you were." I nearly laughed. Leave it to an Army Major to say, "as you were" while reading from the Bible.

I'll try to write more often.

Oh, I finished the first season of Alias yesterday. It is one of the best diversions I've discovered here. Most of the others on my watch floor are obsessed with it.

I'll write more later... I just wrote an incredibly detail, long entry and the internet connection went out and I lost everything. I am very frustrated, so I'm going to leave now.

Apparently we were lucky today. Just before I woke up, the building next to my work-place got hit with a rocket. It hit the building, then bounced off. Fortunately, it was a dud. EOD (Explosive Ordinance Diposal) came and disposed of it, but everyone was locked in the building until it was taken care of. It was about 50 yards from where I work. As you can imagine, when I got to work, the place was a-buzz about the rocket. If the wind had blown a little harder, it would have hit us.

....no need to worry though. :)

I'm just a little concerned about Ramadan. It's going to get worse. I have a feeling we'll be in "battle rattle" again for the most of the time I've got left here (I leave in January).

Well....I'm off to breakfast. At our chow hall, the food is pretty much the same every day. I eat the hard-boiled eggs because I've gotten sick the last few times I ate the omelettes -- you can't go wrong with hard-boiled eggs, I've decided. I was actually surprised at our selections -- fresh fruit every day, yogurt, all the bacon and sausages you could want (which looks disgusting so I don't eat it).... of course, some times we're out. Yesterday, it was salt. Today, it could be the yogurt. It's not that big of a deal -- there are soldiers out in the field that have to ear MREs. Oh, I found out that during April, when the supply routes got cut off, at Abu Ghraib they had to eat MREs for a few weeks -- the prisoners were ensured 2/day, but the soldiers only got 1/day. We had to make sure the prisoners were treated well, because that would be "unforgivable." It astonishes me sometimes how badly people want to make Americans over here look. I assure you, the soldiers (from the lowest ranking to the biggest General) want the people over here to be happy, have security and stability, and finally realize what democracy means. Unfortunately, there are too many "bad guys" who are taking advantage of the situation, and they find it easy to sway the POIs (Pissed Off Iraqis) in their favor. Most of the Iraqis just want a job, a home, food, and safety for their families. They don't want to be out on the roads setting up IEDs, but if their wives are shoving them out the door to "quit being a disgrace and get some money," they'll do it. What would you do, in their situation?

Ok, now I'm really off to breakfast. :-)

I got to work tonight to find out I would be the only one in my "cell" until morning. I was just delighted. Let me explain.... we usually put out a product of pretty good analysis every morning at 0400. It's so well-loved that when our Lt Colonels shut off our product in the interest of other things, the General himself walked down here, looked at us, and said, "The Daily is back up." I'm under the impression the General Officers need our Daily for one of two things: 1, they read it like a morning paper, with coffee in hand, first thing, or 2, they bring it to the bathroom. Either way, we were happy to be producing again. (The two days the Daily was turned off, we felt we had nothing to do, and were completely demoralized.) On Sundays, we do a "weekly" product that is essentially a wrap-up of our past week or some longer entries that weren't submitted earlier.

When I got in here tonight, ready to crank it out, I discovered NO ONE had given me their submissions for the day. That meant I had to do it all alone. (Note: A 1Lt doesn't have to do it all alone when there are Sergeants around who didn't do their job.) I managed to convince in the nicest way possible two Sergeants, and their submissions did help. I had other problems, like my own stupidity -- I shut the piece I was working on down, and erased it, having to start over. (Isn't it great that my greatest frustration in Baghdad tonight was dealing with Microsoft?)

Now it's 0315.... and I find myself done with my work. There's plenty to read, but I am not in the mood for it. I will have to find some way to occupy myself until 0800.

At my work place, there are two unclassified internet machines.... so there's usually a wait to check email, read up on sports (not me), or do research (there's a lot of info out there just in the newspapers). I, of course, back up the line by writing in my blog. :) It's totally worth it. I have to vent somehow.

Most of the senior officers here are either idiots or lazy (there are, admittedly, a few that are great), and I've discovered one of the main problems with this place is its top-heavy nature. There are too many Generals and Colonels about. I'm not even phased by Colonels or Lt Colonels (Navy Captains or Commanders) anymore. "Oh, you're a Major? Whatever, you're just a Major" ... and being a 1Lt is like being, I don't know... a fly on the wall. The benefit there is you can disappear when you want to.