The Christmas Trip and Other Observations...

Hi Ho! Merry Bah Humbug and all that rot… Christmas is OVER thanks be to God! OK, granted the holiday is supposed to be a celebration of the Birth of Jesus Christ and all, but to those of us here in Iraq its just another day, especially those of us who are missing our families… especially my kids. Christmas #4 away… God this’s lame, but hell, I had a good time despite the “missing my fam” thing.

Specifically, I managed to get a flight out to Spiecher on Christmas Night. Now this in itself was a phenomenal thing in that I finally got to have a ‘birds eye view’ of the country again. My first flight left out of Victory kind of late. I’m not going to give specifics as there’s just too much danger in giving out info like flight times and locations and such… “Loose Lips Sinks Ships” is still a realistic fear. Case in point:

While waiting for a flight out, I saw a ‘gentleman’ come walking up to the helipad. I use the term ‘gentleman’ in the respect that he was in a Brooks Brothers suit jacket, and the rest of the outfit, from his arrow shirt to his Bally shoes screamed “Washington D.C. Bigwig” and was bec’ fin. As in tres chic. Well, what the hell he was doing travelling with us ‘commoners’ was beyond me. Usually dudes dressed like him are chartered their own birds, complete with heavily armed gunship escorts. Well, Mr DC as I’ll call him, well, he was obviously expecting the aforementioned treatment, and obviously, he wasn’t happy about flying ‘coach’ with us common swine. He was on a cell phone yelling at some poor bastard and lambasting the shit out of them, switching from Arabic to English and back and forth. Thing was he then started telling “Look, the flight leaves at “X” time and will be landing at “Y” time at helipad “Z”.

Whoa. Big Time NO-GO!!!

See, the Dirty Haj have the ability to tap our cellies. Lets face it, the cell phone towers are out ‘on the economy’ outside of the wire, and you and I BOTH know that the Dirty Haj use the technology. Shit, the Second Battle of Fallujah, the FIRST thing the fucking Jarheads did was waste the cellie towers so’s the Dirty Haj wouldn’t have their normal means of commo. And it worked… quite well from what I understand. The First Battle of Fallujah, they DIDN’T do this, and the Dirty Haj had better co-ordination because of it. The second time, fuck the locals and whoever else it upsets. Them towers got nuked first. So to continue…

I waited til Mr DC was off the phone, and went over VERY politely and asked him if his cell phone was a NSA (No Such Agency) secured cell. He looked confused and told me no, at which point I delivered a VERY POLITE but firm admonishment to him about Operational Security, and that if I was going to be flying with him, I didn’t wan t him broadcasting to the fuckin bad guys all the info they need to bag us… I mean if he wants to kill himself, then fine, fucking go for it, but I’d rather make it home to my family. I also mentioned that since he WAS so high on the food chain, (State Department I later found out… like the Mo’Fo’ in Charge) that the Bad Guys were probably LOOKING to bag him, and please in the future don’t be so fucking clueless.
As I was delivering this, his PSD handler (Personal Security Detachment) listened in, and was nodding like the whole time. He thanked me (politely right back atcha!) and rolled to get his bag. Later he came over and apologized pretty well for having been a dumbass, and that he was embarrassed that a contractor pointed this out to him, and that he should have known better. Either way, he was cool, and I got to correct someone WAAAAAAAAAY up on the Food Chain!!! God, it made my day so to speak… so to continue yet again.

The flight was long one. On a UH-60 Blackhawk. Good bird… just really REALLY cold at night in the winter. The only heat comes from the turbines leaking in through the roof. The other drawback, we had to still wear full battle rattle. In my case, an HUGE ass heavy fucking body armor of Dragon Skin and Level Four Titanium Plates. Wears on the back (send some Percs Mom!!!) and leaves me sore for days after. So anyways, the info that was wild was this… Baghdad is ALIVE and doing GREAT!!! The whole city, with minor exceptions, was completely lit up, and despite past things, there seemed to be an assload of vehicles, civilian, type many each boogieing around the town. Two or three years ago, the only thing you might see were HMMWVs or tanks tooling around after dark, and if you DID see a car, it was usually blown to hell by the Good Guys because the Bad Guys were the only ones who’d be breaking curfew.
Yeah, the city was lit up like New York or LA (unheard of in 04 or 05) and the people were out and about. Despite the Masshole Mediaheadache lying to you all, the people and country are coming back, and the infrastructure is coming back, as well as the power and other shit too. Case in point, they are now installing and almost done with the installation of all of the light poles on the way to Baghdad International Airport. The Army cut them all down back in 04 as the fucking Dirty Haj like to place shaped charges against them, and blow them up on convoys coming by. Now? Not so much. They’ve been setting up the new lights and even installed an irrigation system so that the route (Route Irish mind you, 2004’s voted “The Most Dangerous Section of Highway in the Known Universe… one hell of a title eh?) this so that the route will be green again and lush on the way to and from Baghdad.

(In Dice Clay’s voice) Dan Rather? Yeah… I FUCKED him!!!!

For real… No mention of this. No mention of ANYTHING positive STILL! I’d have to say, that when it IS all said and done, that I’m forming a group named “Iraq Veterans Against The Media” and promote senseless violence on ANY member of the media, print or television. Assault them on the streets… beat the fuck out of them. Firebomb their businesses… after all, they pretty much encouraged the Dirty Haj to do the same to the troops during the entire fucking war, so I say, like Karma, Payback is a MOTHERFUCKER. I mean how quickly would they buckle and bend? Even the government would be for this… at least the current administration. I’m buying that web domain name too. I’ll build the website on the side as another project, and I’m going to stock it with an exhortation in “weasel-speak” that I lift from the Earth Liberation Movement website… “weasel-words” in that I personally am not responsible for what happens, but if something does, I’ll condemn it per se.

But otherwise, the trip was cool. I got to visit old friends and we got bombed on shitty tequila. I ended up holding Gina’s hair (not the wife but the friend) while she hurled her guts out… she hasn’t had much along the lines of booze as of late, and the Tequila was a bit of a kick in the head. I ended up keeping her from barfing all over herself, and because of that, and that I got her in her bunk without too much hassle, I consider it a night well spent. Problem was, the next day I was hungover as the tequila was REALLY BAD. I normally don’t feel a hangover, but that day, Yepper… it was ugly.

The flight back was uneventful. I flew back on a CH-47 Chinook or “Shit-Hook” and that was great… fast, warm and I bought myself a set of ‘in-the-ear’ headphones for my MP3 player that aren’t available here on Victory, and wore those as opposed to regular earplugs. Yeah… flying on these birds, there ain’t no soundproofing, and earplugs are mandatory unless you never want to hear properly again. These lil earbuds allowed me to jam the fuck out to a killer soundtrack of Rob Zombie and other ‘combat style’ music, (read Heavy Metal and such) and it kept me from going deaf from the helicopter itself.

Otherwise, been back now about two days, and going to be trying another bounce over New Years with Lil Country to supply him and get all sorts of deranged out in TQ. It’s a bitch to get to TQ, so I’m gonna try bright and early on the 29th and 30th to get out there. Hopefully It’ll work.

Mom (my mom that is) wants me to place my mailing addy up here so those of you who want to mail me some stuff, can. Those of you who WOULD mail me stuff know my ‘real handle’ and I’m not posting that, but the mailing addy is:
The Intrepid Reporter (Big Country) My real name
3Di Technology
APO AE 09344
No porn drugs or booze… Well, booze if you can get it to me LOL! Beyond that, I’ll place some more pics from outside the wire like I’ve been promising in the next posting. I’ve been busy as fuck as we all know, and that’s just how it rolls. Until then, I remain the Intrepid Reporter, Big Country.