November's Adventures

Here it is December already. At times it seems like it's flying by, but at other times it drags so slowly. I've been trying to keep active by doing different things. Below is a picture of my Tae Kwon Do class. I take it on Thursday and Saturday evenings. It's been fun so far, a little like drinking through a fire hose at times, but I'm hoping to catch up with Luke by the time I get home. He and I are thinking about taking classes together.

Just a silly pix of my son. He's a little camera shy though,

you might be able to tell.

I'm sure glad I'm not using film anymore. I shot a lot of this picture trying to capture a great sunset here at VBC. This one has some pretty good color to it but still lacks the real beauty of sunsets back home. The hill on the right is commo hill. The dirt is supposedly from all the lakes on base that were created by Saddam.





As I'm sure for all of you, Thanksgiving was a big event. It was a nice day for us as well. Although we couldn't close the clinic to celebrate, we made the best of it. We changed our sick call to the morning and just had the afternoon for urgent care.
We hung out at the aid station and talked and watched movies while we ate our meal. The meal was pretty good too. As always, we ate too much and just wanted to nap afterwards.
Below are some pictures of the day, starting with the chow hall.
We all took our food to go, a 45 minute wait in line.
It was worth it though.

Styrofoam Stryker with frosting paint.

Some of the decorations and a look at the chow hall.

The MSG (Master Sargent) and 2 butter frosting swans.

If you look really close you can see finger prints in the swans

where soldiers wanted to see what they were made of.

Psalm 100 in cake frosting.

All the decorations made it feel a little like being on a cruise.

Enjoying our food back at the clinic.

Notice the fine plates and silver.

Will and MSG getting some work done, before enjoying the meal.

There are always reports to complete.

Will can, at least, watch the movie from his conputer.

Getting the projector set up to watch "Year One".

It was worth what I payed to watch it, which was nothing.

Yes, another try at a sunset, like the clouds.

A wonderful ending to a nice,

but far from home, Thanksgiving.

I hope that yours was great

and that you spent time with family and friends

and really enjoyed them!

Next edition: My trip to Quatar

Thanks for checking in, Mike

My misadventures of the last month

Sorry it's been so long since I've written.

Life here hasn't been too exciting, every day kind of blends into the next. Which is good in some instances; no one is getting blown up. Believe me, I'm grateful for that.

It does create some boredom and sometimes causes changes in a person that can't be explained. As you can see below, soldiers will do strange things occasionally to pass time.

War Changes People!

As you can see I have recently joined the Flat Top Mafia. Here I am pictured standing next to the "God Father", let's call him John. His hair, by the way, is always outstanding. No one knows his secret. He is no longer a Captain, but is now a Major. Congrats to him! I think I am the oldest Captain in the army now. My boards are coming up soon, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

It's important to have a good set of friends here. A group of guys that you can relate to, tell your problems to or just blow off some steam about something beyond belief that has happened to you. It's a big army and it's moving in a hundred different ways all at once. Having that small group that you trust and belong to is more important than you would believe.

Below are some random pictures of a few things that have been going on here since my last post. I'll try and explain them as we go along.

Unfortunately, I cannot claim this photo. I was asleep during this. If you notice in the brown t-shirt is Will, the medical section's fleet-footed Lt. He participated in the "Scramble in the Sand" last weekend, where he was in second until this point. What you can't see are his feet, or shoes. That is because he has lost one in the mud. He tried to run on for a while but his foot began to hurt, so he came back to look for it in the mess. I guess he wasn't alone. Our medics helped out and found multiple pairs of shoes buried in the mud. By the way, these were his new shoes he won for coming in 3rd in his last race. He did find them and, as of yesterday, they were still drying out.

Below are a couple of pictures of the only type of flowers I have seen here. Since the weather has been cooling off they've been blooming. These were along side of Z lake. I took them Sunday while doing some Geocaching.

It almost looks like a quiet country lane. It's nice and pretty with the lake in the background to these bushes.

The early morning moon the other day. Not sure if it captured it well, but the color was a nice thing to see. We have actually had some clouds. Had rain a couple of times too. One good storm turned everything to a muddy mess for a couple of days. Got a boot scraper installed outside of my CHU for that reason. The weather has been much more tolerable, yesterday at lunch time it was only 79degrees. It felt wonderful!

Below is a couple of sunset pictures from outside my CHU overlooking Commo Hill. A lot of sand in the air that day. It made for some nice colors. Kind of like the ozone days in Texas.

The following pictures from from my trip to the IZ (international zone) or the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad. The first one is just looking out the front window of the the up armor. This stretch of highway reminded me of a Texas highway for some reason. Something down in San Antonio. Sometimes I think there are more American cars on the road here than back in the states.

This is my ride of choice. A up armor HUMVEE. I bet I could get out of any traffic jam in the states with this thing. I rides pretty nice too. On base these are sometimes more comfortable to drive than the NTV's we have (non tactical vehicles). The NTV's don't take the bumps as nicely. Something about the up armor having an extra few thousand pounds of armor makes them ride more smoothly.

Didn't see too much at the IZ, I was there to give immunizations to some of our guys stationed there. The building in the next picture is still used but won't be much after we leave. On one side you can see the wall bulging out. The dome on top shows the damage from one of our guided missiles. There are some other hits on it too, but for now it's home to someone.

I am not sure what this is suppose to be. They call it the "flying man". We couldn't get out on the highway and read the inscription. You know traffic, and it's in Arabic.
I think these are the instuctions for guards. This was found at the top of an old guard tower. I also found a Geocache there. A good view of the southern part of the base.

Well it is a short tour this month. I will try to be more attentive to the blog and write more often. Sorry it's been so long. Sometimes you just get in a rut.

Thank you again for looking in on my little world. Please take care of yourselves. Chris and the kids just got over the flu, hit them hard but they are recovering nicely.

Keep them in your prayers!

Thanks, Mike

Geocashing in Iraq

If you don't know what Geocaching is, let me tell you a little bit about it. Basically, geocaching is treasure hunting with a GPS! I'm not sure how long it's been around, but there are over 900,000 sites listed on the geocaching website. When you sign onto the website, you can look for hidden caches in an area by typing in something as simple as your zip code, and maybe a distance you are willing to travel. Then you can read about all the different caches in that area, locate one that sounds interesting, get the coordinates and set out to find it's treasure. The GPS will get you close and then the hunting begins. Some are big. My first one here was in an ammo can. As the pictures will show, some can be very small, as well. The small ones are called microcaches. At home, with the kids, most of the caches are big enough to hide little trinkets. The kids can pick one out to keep, but the geocaching rule is that you must replace it with a treasure of your own. That way there is always something for the next person to discover. It's a fun way to spend some time outside and a little bit challenging too. There are over 130 caches where I'm currently stationed.

Before we go any farther with this I would just like to thank the person that made this all possible. Without him, I wouldn't be over here enjoying this sport on the only morning I have off.

I didn't realize that he was this tall.

There's another picture like this, still intact, on base somewhere else, but I haven't found it yet. The silly hat is to protect my big noggin, while I ride my wife's new bike around the base.

Below is Danny (Sgt. Danny Hayward) and me with one of the caches we found. As you can see, it isn't very large and can be easily hidden. Notice the lake. It's the same one that the giant fish from the video lives in. Danny has a far off look because we are both trying to get pictures at the same time.

This was the first one we found together. We knew roughly where it was without the GPS, but some of the clues led us in circles. When we finally found it, we said "duh". It's like texting, geocaching has a language all its own.
Below: the cache is the little tiny black thing in my gloved hand. It's about the size of 2 hearing aid batteries and has a magnet on the back for holding it in place. It unscrews to reveal a small roll of paper that you sign, to prove you were there. Amazingly enough we got it back inside.
It's a fun way to hang out with friends. I don't think I'll find all 130+, but I'll continue to knock them out as the opportunities arise.

It's becoming more enjoyable lately because of the lower temps. It was only about 97 that day, with a slight breeze.

I know that it snowed in Bend on my wonderful wife's birthday. What a change from here! Wish I could have been there to enjoy it with her and the kids. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Thanks for looking in!
mike

Bike Tour Of Victory

Just a couple of things before I begin.

First, I've had people wishing to see more of me in the pictures. Well, here is your token Mike picture from last Friday. We call them Stetson Fridays. It's a Cavalry thing. It does give me a chance to wear the hat though. I'll get spurs at some point.

Second, at the very end of the blog is a video. It is of me feeding a 5-6 foot fish. They call it a Cracken, but I've dubbed it Winston after a friend. He eats entire rolled donuts and muffins in a single bite and makes a sucking sound when he pulls them in. Above that, he is hand fed! The video is of me feeding him.

One of the things I enjoy doing for exercise and recreation is to ride my bike around the complex. When I got here I noticed an advertisement for a really good bike on the base's Craig's list. I bought it and every Saturday/Sunday morning I go for a ride. The following pictures are from 3 or 4 weeks of riding around the VBC (Victory Base Complex). I don't know what each building is, but it at least gives you a look at the place. It also gives you an idea of all the things Saddam built for his pleasure at the sake of some of his people.

What better starting place than an Iraqi sunrise! The pictures don't show much, but I am trying to be a bit artsy with my point and shoot camera and show some beauty in the area.

This is one of the 2 communication hills on base. The rumor is that the dirt/sand that makes these hills was dug from the many lakes on base. All the lakes are man made for Saddam and his party. Another rumor is that he turned off Baghdad's water supply for 10 days to fill all the lakes. Before the US invasion the lakes were all filtered and people swam in them. You can see the entire base and some of Baghdad from the top of these hills, hence, no pictures allowed from there.

This looks better than the other pic I took a few minutes later. You can see more of the foreground and it looks like a moon scape to me.

One of 2 mosques that I have seen on base. As far as I can tell they have been left alone since we got here, although they are in great condition and must have someone keeping them up.
This is the other one, much smaller scale but just as nicely kept up. I love the shapes and colors

Can anyone tell me what this says?

Random building. It looks like something you would see from Egypt, but parts look like a federal buildings from the US. Very grand. I have to say he had an eye for buildings.

The Bath party house below - where Shock and Awe began. Built over the water on stilts because, according to what I have heard, they believe that sins don't count in water. Doesn't sound like an all seeing god to me. Interestingly, the building is very impressive from a far and some of the details look well done, but I have noticed that it is all just window dressing. Look under the outside and you will notice building techniques from 200 years ago. Layered bricks and mortar.
To the right side is the blast damage from one of our initial bombs, total collapse.

The front door. Notice the open area in the middle. A pool is suppose to be in there.

This one has an interesting name; Victory over Iran and Victory over US. It is two palaces built into one. As you can see, it was never completed. I wonder why?!


If you notice on the right side of the building there appears to be another crane. It collapsed last winter. Texas said it made some noise when it fell. I guess 5 years of nothing takes it toll.
Bravo troop has been here and dubbed it "the Flintstone" village. Saddam built this for his grand kids. It looks like something you would find at Disneyland. It has been pretty marked up and some parts are collapsing, but it looks like it would be a pretty fun playground for children.

The Perfume Palace over to your right is Saddam's brothel. This is from quite a distance. It's actually a very large building.

Just a set of nice digs for those in charge.

The outside of the JVB hotel that we toured a couple of weeks ago

This is a view of the back of the hotel. From there we hit golf balls off the deck into the lake. We can also go out on Friday nights to feed the fish stale bread and watch the feeding frenzy.

Another random building, suppose to be Saddam's mother-in-law place.

This little building is where Saddam's cooks lived and worshiped. They were Christians. He didn't trust his own people to prepare his food, so he had a small group of Christians that served him, he trusted them. Go figure!

This is also where Chaplin Yates performs his services. Now that it's getting cooler, I can hardly wait to have a service with the sliding doors open to allow the cool breeze and sound of the water to fill the chapel.

There it is to the far right surrounded by 3 sides of one of the man made lakes.

The Juicer as seen out front of the JVB hotel. Don't know what goes on in there but the roof does look like an old juicer.

More random buildings from around Victory.

I know people that have lake front property, but this is amazing. I'm always amazed that they are this low to the water. They don't have to worry about flooding since it's a man made lake. When the water was cleaner, I bet it would have been great to walk out back and dive in!

Juicer again.

Trying to be artsy again, not sure if it works. What do you think? This use to be one of the ways into the Alfad palace. It had a little accident with a US bomb. We've since build a walking bridge over the old one.

Alfad Palace. Hope I got the spelling right.

True Value Hardware store. Notice the sign on the left edge. Been in there, of course. Not very impressive compared to the ones back home, but nice to see one anyways. I have also seen a Dewalt store. I would really like to get in there! I found it by mistake when I first got here and was learning my way around. I got lost and now I'm not really sure where I saw it, since I was just trying to make sure that I didn't drive off base or into a restricted area.

Random thing. I run into actvities almost every morning I ride. This was a Camp Victory 10K. This guy was out playing the pipes to entertain the runners. He also gives classes on Thursday nights. I could be interested, but have to make the time - oh, and get a bagpipe!

And this is where I'll stop, at 2 men in a boat. Three men in a boat means "slow". And now you know as much Arabic as I do.

Take care and thanks again for looking in and commenting. I miss you all!