Oerdin's Iraq thread.

[DAVOUT]

What about incoming mail and newspapers?

[Dinner]

The only newspapers availible are Army Times and Stars & Stripes. Army times is good only for military specific information while Stars & Stripes is a newspaper controlled by the military which only prints news articles which the Generals think will not harm moral. That means S&S is virtually useless when it comes to real information and editorials. In order to get around this I get information on the net and I'm ordering subscriptions to various magazines.

They let just about any mail through though it passes through Kuwait and the Kuwaiti postal service is notorious for stealing things out of packages. Most mail does make it though it takes about 3 weeks.

[Agathon]

What about the sex? Or is everyone beating up on Mrs Palmer and her five daughters?

[SpencerH]

Oerdin, stay healthy.

I'm surprised at the info you seem to be allowed to give out. In my day, you'd have been drawn and quartered by 'the powers that be" for the detail you've provided about your unit and location.

General order #1

It never fails to amaze me how ****ing retarded the brass can be.

[Mercator]

*resists urge to "subscribe" with an OBL DL*

[Defiant]

Take care Oerdin,
I still want to know the outcome of the two remaining coyotes?

[kittenOFchaos]

The poor little coyotes

[Chemical Ollie]

The only newspapers availible are Army Times and Stars & Stripes. Army times is good only for military specific information while Stars & Stripes is a newspaper controlled by the military which only prints news articles which the Generals think will not harm moral.

The idea of blocking mainstream media information from the soldiers is unworthy a country that want to call itself a modern democracy. How would the soldiers even know what politicians to vote for, if the officers block them from reading regular newspapers from home?

I saw on TV that David Letterman visited Bagdhad a while ago. On his top 10 list of "Signs that you have spent to much time in Iraq" was You have heard that Arnold Schwarzenegger is governor of California Duh!

The mobile phone ban you mention was practiced at my last repetition excercise as well, back in 1994. As in your situation today, the Swedish military had very far-fetched motivations for the ban. My major used the overwhelming argument It's not because we are afraid of give away our position, as the radar antenna we are guarding is impossible to miss anyway, but that just isn't a way to communicate! Uuhmm... OK! Clear as spring water.

Technology is running faster then the military guys sometimes, and they think it's hard to keep up. I guess you feel the same with Internet, Oerdin? They are trying to block you from regular news, that you can read on the Web anyway?

By the way, my buddy who spent a total of 3 years on UN peace keeping missions in Lebanon and Bosnia has broken all of the rules you mention in the general order #1. At least 50 % of the things you mention is banned in the Swedish Army too.

[Chemical Ollie]

My buddy did, among other things, the following, which you would perhaps not want to try yourself.

- He told a 20 year old 2nd Leutenant that "As a multiple veteran, I only accept orders that are given in a humble tone!" My buddy was only a private, 26 years at that time. The 2nd Leutenant actually respected his request.

- He put his dick in the ear of his female sergeant to "comfort" her when she was sitting on a stairs, breaking down crying from home sickness. She was not amused.

- He wrote a screen saver for the computer: This monitor has been dick-headed! (Dick-headed means it had been touched by the top of his genitals). A captain held an angry telling-off in front of the whole company for that. But the captain did not know who did it, so he spoke right into the air.

- He broadcasted colourful animal imitations, pornographic gay humour recordings and anything funny he could come over, as reveille each morning. Not a single time did he use the offical army Morning fanfare in 6 months of service.

- He always wore the "India Mission Uniform" from the 60's while his buddies wore the M90.

- His house is full of illegal war trophies. Bayonnettes from a multitude of rifles. We used one of them to cut his 25 years birthday cake, only to explore the lovely taste of weapons grease. He has an unexploded 20 mm HE-round, a pen pistol and several butterfly knifes, all of them illegal in Sweden.

- He took nude paparazzi pics of a female field artist while she was sleeping. He even removed her sleeping boyfriend's arm from her boob to get a better pic. I have seen the pic. The girl has been a backing vocals singer for Roxette at their World tour.

- There was a limit of maximum 1 (or was it 2, can't remember) beers per night. One evening, when he had consumed that and a secretely a little more, he applied black shoeshine on his face, faked an African English accent and walked down to the Ghana Officer's Mess to get another drink. They actually let him in and served him booze, laughing loudly at his pathetic appearance. His officers never found out.

Well, I could make this list very long. But this is it for now. The important message is that my buddy got almost full marks (10-10-9) despite his dissident attitude. I think the reason was that he was 110% serious on all his soldiering duties, regardless if they included harmless radio communication (which was his main duty), tending wounded refugees or picking up RPG casualties in a bucket. US Army might have a different attitude.

[debeest]

I find it discouraging that you're not allowed any news sources, but encouraging that you can send out the information you've posted here.

What is psyops? Propaganda? Morale? Telekinesis?

[Pekka]

Chemical Ollie,

I remember when we had a big scandal in papers because Linda Lampenius (Brava) performed to our peacekeepers in Kosovo, and her dancers did a strip show to the guys after drinks and sauna. Then all the wifes were outraged writing to papers as if it's all they do, party and molest dancers. Nothing wrong seeing little skin when you're having a job that doesn't have too much refreshments. In general, I think they brake the beer rule about every night though, and always few guys have to be shipped back home because their drunken nights went too far. How about that shooting, I remember you telling me something about finnish peacekeeper killing some arab guy? Is this true, I haven't found anything on it?

[Chemical Ollie]

Pekka, if the story about the hangovered Finnish soldier shooting a muslim priest down from a minareth in Lebanon is true, I think the Finnish army would prefer to keep it a secret. My buddy who was in Lebanon at the time says it's true, and that's evidence enough for me. The Finn was back in Helsinki even before he sobered up, and was probably getting hell in a court martial.

And I think Linda should drop the u from her last name.

[Pekka]

Ah, that's just stupid. I wonder why he shot the priest. Hangover kind of seems to be a light excuse to kill someone. I hope he got maximum penalty.

drop u? I don't get it? Lampenis? Aaaaah ok hahaha

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Pekka
Hangover kind of seems to be a light excuse to kill someone. I hope he got maximum penalty.

I was in Cyprus last Eastern, and my hotel was 100 meters from the orthodox monastery. After that, I can fully understand what the guy was thinking, even if I fully disagree with his actions.

Just imagine yourself, trying to get some sleep, 5 in the morning, when some moron goes: AAAAAAALLLLLLAAAAHHHHH AAAAKKKBAAAAAHHH and you have a loaded assault rifle by your bed. Not that I would have fired my rifle, but this guy was probably not the top notch of the Finnish Army.

Sorry for the threadjack, Oerdin...

[Dinner]

10 February 2004

Now would be a good time to detail the people who work with me. Over all there are 62 people in my company but 36 of them are on Tactical Psyop Teams which are stationed on Forward Operating Bases spread out over the entire northern half of Iraq. The remaining 26 soldiers make up the Head Quarters and Product Development Detachments (PDD) of the company and they are all stationed right here with me at Camp Iron Horse in Tikrit, Iraq. Of the remaining 26 I work with 12 others in the PDD
where we attempt to design leaflets, radio broadcasts, posters, hand bills and other media types to inform the populace of Coalition policies, relief efforts, and what not. The idea is we can show the Iraqis that we are here to help them as well as to modify their behavior in ways that will benefit the Coalition.
Anyway, I’m going to introduce you to a few of the characters I work with so you can get a better understanding of what things are like. I’ve given everyone nicknames just to avoid any future legal troubles but the people themselves are all very real.

SSG Corky- Corky is the official NCOIC of the PDD and loves to make sure everyone else knows it. This wouldn’t be so bad except that Corky is a notorious micromanager who is wound up tighter then a wind up clock; to top it off Corky is a short man with an inferiority complex. On a typical day it is common to see Corky stomping around the house with his shoulders scrunched up against his neck while he complains about the method someone used to design a poster or some other product. Back home Corky works on an assembly line for a company that makes lottery machines. It’s funny how you can always tell which officers and NCOs have no authority in real life because they are the ones most hung up about authority during a deployment. They micromanage everything and have no concept of simply setting goals and then letting co-workers achieve them.

Deep down I think Corky is an ok guy but if anyone ever needed a drink or two to relax Corky is one of them.

SGT Lotus Blossom- She is the defacto head of the subsection I work in even though I technically out rank her. You see she’s a 96B (Intel Analyst) where as I’m a 37F (Psychological Operations Specialist) and since the Target Audience Analysis group mostly deals in Intel reports she seemed like the obvious choice to head it. Besides I am hoping to be sent back out on a tactical team where most of my experience is and where I would really rather be. All in all, SGT Lotus Blossom is a great person who has a very easygoing personality.

SSG Peace Maker- I would really rather have SGT Peace Maker as the detachment NCOIC. Back in the real world he is a manager at a large insurance company so he’s used to managing large numbers of workers without roughing peoples’ feathers plus he has much better interpersonal skills then Corky. Unfortunately, Corky outranks him and Corky has latched on to the NCOIC position as his one chance in his life to be in charge. SSG Peace Maker strikes me as a very intelligent man who tends to do more thinking then talking. The upside to this is whenever he does talk he usually has something intelligent to say so people listen to him.

PFC Pedophile- Pedophile is a very disturbed individual. He is the only 37 year old PFC I have ever meet and he can’t seem to go more then a year without getting an article 15 which takes away more rank from him. Back home he works for the new Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) that the Bush Administration set up after 9/11. Knowing that ****** screw-ups like Pedophile are in charge of our safety when we fly on civilian planes is almost enough for me to swear off air travel all together.
I once asked him what he liked most about working for TSA and Pedophile responded, I’m not joking about this, that he loved how he could sniff women’s underwear when he goes through their luggage. Yuck! The other thing which sticks out in my memory is one day back at Fort Bragg a bunch of us were sitting around talking about girls. I mentioned that my girlfriend back home was 25 and that since I’m 27 it was the ideal age for me. One of the younger fellows said he thought 21 was the perfect age and another that 18 was ideal for him. Pedophile laughed and said all of those were to old and that 13 was the perfect age to “break them in”. There was dead silence after he said that.

PFC Four Eyes- I think Four Eyes is a good guy. He is as good-natured as a guy can be and he’s actually pretty intelligent to boot. His weak spot is that he must wear these huge glasses or else he’s blind as a bat plus back home he’s a college student who works at a loud disco Tec. That means he’s also nearly deaf as a result of working around all those noisy speakers. At 6’7 he’s also a tall and ungainly fellow who sometimes reminds me of a puppy the way he has a tendency to trip of things as he walks. Still, he’s a great guy who really knows how to do his job.

SSG Von- SSG Von is a German immigrant in his early 60’s who’s great love of beer and food has left him with a very large belly. He is a nice enough guy but he’s very absent-minded. Originally the officers didn’t want SSG Von to come to Iraq but when no one else could be found to replace him (there is a lesson to be learned about how thinly stretched our armed forces are) he was put back on the battle roaster and sent to Iraq. Now days we mostly put him behind a desk and let him slowly type away at whatever admin stuff we need doing. He doesn’t seem to mind though occasionally he gets it in his head that he should be in charge but luckily he soon grows tired and returns to his little desk in the corner.

Major Yosemite Sam- Yosemite Sam is the official OIC of the PDD although he spends most of his time in the TAAC (Head Quarter building) so we almost never see him. Normally, Y.S. has little if any idea as to what’s going on in the PDD but being an officer we expect that from him. When Y.S. does show up it’s usually just to pick up a piece of data or to ask us to make a report one of his superiors asked for; then he’ll do his best Yosemite Sam imitation and tell us to “go get them there varmints”. The major is an interesting fellow.


Those six are about half of the people I work closely with on a daily basis though they are the ones I’m most likely to write about in the future. I’ll write about the other half of my co-workers if they’re involved in an interesting story or if things slow down and I need material but I think the six above will be my most prolific sources of blogging inspiration.

16 February 2004

Well I finally got off base today. I suppose it wasn’t the first time since I did take part in the convoy which took us from Balad to Tikrit a week ago though that was at night and I didn’t get to stop and get a feel for the place. Today the out going unit took a few of use into Tikrit to show us around a bit. They introduced us to the Chief of police, showed us the other American military base in town, where the university is, where the bazaar is, etc… They also took us to an Iraqi restaurant which specialized in BBQ chicken. We sent three people inside to get the chicken while the rest of us guarded the vehicles and pulled security on the front of the restaurant. Tikrit is Saddam’s hometown and most of the people some how made there living as part of the former regime. As such all of the Coalition Forces make sure they are on their guard while in this town.

Once we got back home we ate the chicken and found that it was pretty good. The Iraqis cook the whole chicken on a wooden stick and then serve it with shredded lettuce, couscous, chopped onions & tomatoes, and lightly pickled “salad” (mostly made up of picked squash, cucumbers, and zucchini). We washed it down with locally made Coca-Cola which comes in 300ml cans (instead of the normal American size which is 550ml) which had pull tab tops instead of the pop tops which are used in the wealthy western countries. All in all it was not back for $2.