Oerdin's Iraq thread.

[Dinner]

opps.

[The Mad Monk]

That was just a string of unspoken "own goals", wasn't it.

[Dinner]

[Sikander]

Originally posted by pchang
How come you're an NCO? Didn't you go to college? All the college boys I know in the military are officers.

Intelligence / psyops / civil affairs people tend to be pretty well educated. My company's enlisted men while I was stationed at the Defense Language Institute were about 35% with college degrees, 40% with some college and included two linguistics professors and two lawyers and a whole bunch with various graduate degrees. The rest were almost all 18 years old and just graduated from high school.

[Theben]

He told us to shove our suggestions up our collective asses and then claimed he would have me court martialed for attempting to "undermine his command authority".

Sounds like one of my managers.

[voidmind1]

One can sometimes think only the military has a propensity to put pinheads in charge. But there's a reason Dilbert is so popular -- it's true. Examples of insane bosses and incompetent employees who get ahead of the smart, decent, reasonable workers are easy to find in any company of moderate size. However, there's some characteristic of the absurdity of some military "office politics," if you will -- and I can't put my finger on it -- that sets it apart. Maybe it's abuse of the fact that it's not just a job people can quit without the only real consequence being loss of income. Maybe it is the rigid structure of hierarchy that is ever present and fully codified.

[Fake Boris]

Question to Oerdin:

I'm thinking about going to Iraq this summer. Any advice? and what's the best way to get into the country, as far as you know?

[The Mad Monk]

Syria, apparently.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Question to Oerdin:

I'm thinking about going to Iraq this summer. Any advice? and what's the best way to get into the country, as far as you know?

It really depends upon what you are going there for since that will dictate where you go and how you get there. It's easy enough to get in from any neighboring country and security is fairly good though you must still be on your guard. One warning though since you are an American; even if you come as a civilian worker or part of a leftist protest group the Islamists and local Ba'athists will try to likely try to kill you. Civilians are more popular with those guys because you have fewer guns and make easier targets.

[Dinner]

Just FYI to Americans, including a Captain, were killed in Tikrit today by and IED. I drive that road all the time so it really puts you on edge to hear about things like this.

[Auntie H]

Well, you sound well amused between the dog, the cleanup work and the blog. Keep your head down and don't get Corky too mad at you, he is still the boss.
The Air Nat'l Guard stuff is new, but flight school is a good move, is that still weekend warrior stuff or what?

Don't forget the Coke is shipped in from Turkey not locally made!

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by voidmind1
Article on IEDs here.

Accurate?

Not very.

...But usually the C-4 is linked by pieces of copper wire to the positive and negative charges on a battery...

No kind of plastic explosive will go bang without a detonator.

Sorry to detract from your excellent thread Oerdin - and yes, 3 US service fatalaties were reported in the Tikrit area despite all the events in Spain.

We don't hear much about Iraqi events - but don't think we don't hear at all.

[Dinner]

There were three more today on top of the two I previously reported. In addition I saw a US truck destroyed and an American service man wounded near Samarra today.

My convoy from my company had to drive down to Balad in order to pick up several SUVs the out going Psyop Company had left there when they had returned to the US. The previous Psyopers had conficated them since they either had government plates or were being driven by Iraqs who couldn't provide either a title or a registration to prove they owned the cars (many government SUVs were looted by ordinary criminals immediately after the war). On the way back to Tikrit we were following a short way behind a covoy from the 14th Support Battalion when one of their trucks was hit by an IED. The truck was entirely destroyed and the driver had a piece of shrapnel in his left thigh. This was approximately 200 meters in front of me and 300 meters away from a Iraqi Civil Defense Corp (ICDC) check point. The ICDC officers claimed none of them had seen anyone dig a three foot deep hole and then bury the bomb.

In any event we formed a perimiter defense and provided security while the ESB soldiers patched up their guy, called medivac, and ordered a tow truck to pick up what was left of their truck. Sadly, it took nearly an hour for the ambulance truck to arrive and his wounds were deemed to not be worthy of air evac so the fellow had to lay in the back of a Humvee enduring considerable pain.

[Dinner]

Cruddy: Most IEDs utilize artillery shells as the explosive device because there are literally thousands upon thousands of bunkers filled with munitions in Iraq and there is no way the Coalition can secure them all. Unfortunately they aren't putting a serious effort into moving them into secure places (doing that is time consuming and expensive not to mention dangerous) but that's the way the powers that be have ordered it.

Auntie: The national guard is alot like the reserves except you are paid by the government of the state in which you live instead of by the federal government. The main reason to join the air guard is that it is one of the easiest ways to serve part time but still get a flight position.

[East Street Trader]

Keep your head down, Oerdin. With your seniors as well as with the locals.

It is natural - and right - to want to do a better job. But staying safe is what we all hope you guys can manage to do first and foremost.