Oerdin's Iraq thread.

[Theben]

Serves 'em right.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
Sounds like you guys moved out just in time.

From what you see of the locals, does it seem that they are settling down a bit - getting buildings repaired and going to work and so on? Or are things pretty chaotic?

Actually, we don't move out until this weekend so it was our stuff that got covered in muck. Luckily, I keep my stuff on a spare shelf so it wasn't effects. Some of the others weren't so lucky.

Most of the people seem pretty calm but they would prefer to be running their own country. We've been seeing an aweful lot of military aged males from Saudi Arabia & Syria who have been arrested in recent raids so I suspect many of the terror attacks you read about in the newspapers are the acts of foreign terror organizations. Yesterday we went to a village outside of Tikrit to pretest a few handbills before we distribute them and the people were very friendly. The children ran up saying "Hello" and "Give me candy" while the adults invited us in for tea.

There are several towns where a family could be killed for daring to invite in the "crusaders" but they seem to be the minority.

[pchang]

So, your Arabic must be pretty good, eh?

Feen al hamaam? and all that

[Dinner]

Sadly my Arabic currently consistes of Hello, good bye, thanks, yes, no, come here, go away, and "stop or I'll shoot".

[pchang]

no arabic

If you don't know the language (or culture) then how can you possibly make effective propaganda handbills and such?


BTW - Feen al hamaam is the Egyptian dialect for "Where is the bathroom?" - seeing as how you were having sewage problems and all (thought it would be funny inside arabic humor...)

[pchang]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Sadly my Arabic currently consistes of Hello, good bye, thanks, yes, no, come here, go away, and "stop or I'll shoot".

Never did learn "stop or I'll shoot". Must be what happens when you pick up arabic during peace time.

[Chemical Ollie]

You should listen to Ollie's advice! I will allways be older and smarter than you . Didn't I tell you to walk over to the ruins of the Palace main building to take a dump? Now you are paying the consequenses of neglecting me, by wading in smelly water up to your ancles. The whole platoon should set up a dry toilet in Saddam's former work room. Water toilets are only good if the sewer system works.

End of joking, does the movement to the edge of the base mean they are putting you on perimeter defence sentry duty?

[Sirotnikov]

pchang - I think that ought to be - Fee Ein Al Hamaam (In where (is) the bathroom).

Oerdin - I'm very interested in the issue of ordinary Iraqis and how they treat you. You are stationed in Tikrit, right? Theoretically it should be a Saddam stronghold, no?

Also, what percentage of the terrorists were foreign? Do you know of any groups they belong to?

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Oerdin - I'm very interested in the issue of ordinary Iraqis and how they treat you. You are stationed in Tikrit, right? Theoretically it should be a Saddam stronghold, no?

Also, what percentage of the terrorists were foreign? Do you know of any groups they belong to?

Israeli intelligence gathering at work

[Dinner]

Re: no arabic

Originally posted by pchang
If you don't know the language (or culture) then how can you possibly make effective propaganda handbills and such?

We've all had numerous classes on Arabic culture plus I've read nearly a dozen books on Middle eastern history, Arabic and Kurdish history, Islamic history, IRaqi history, Arav culture, etc...

We have both US citizens and locals who work as translators for us and they go every where we go so communication isn't a problem. Also every product we put out goes through an extensive pre-testing process to insure its message is clear, that its culturally sensative, and that it won't offend the target audience.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
End of joking, does the movement to the edge of the base mean they are putting you on perimeter defence sentry duty?

We're currently trying to work that out. Hopefully, we will be exempted and won't have to pull guard duty but you never know. Psyop is a small but highly valuable asset so that means most commandering Generals will want you spending all of your available time doing your job and not menial tasks like watching gates.

He has lots of infantry men who can do that job.

[Dinner]

Well we've made all of the showers and toilets off limits and we've pumped out the septic tank but water keeps coming up through the floors (abet at a much slower flow rate). It's most definitely sewer water so the place stinks like hell.

I spent most of yesterday moving things over to our new palace located on the banks of the Tigris river. The house has three bedrooms (much smaller rooms then the four bedrooms we currently have), four bathroom (same size), a living room (half the size of our current one), a kitchen (mysteriously twice the size of our current kitchen), and a very odd four story tall tower. The tower has a fire place at the top and enough room to turn it into a spare bedroom. I suspect the officers are going to move into the tower and that we'll set up a emergency machine gun nest there as well.

The yard is much larger then our current house's plus it's terraced to keep back the periodic floods of the Tigris. We're setting up a concertina wire (razor wire) fence to keep our dogs (we've picked up another one) in the yard plus the eight foot high terraces should keep the coyotes out so we might be able to turn the chickens loose in the yard. I imagine free range chickens will be happier and taste better when the time comes.


Since there is only three rooms in the new house we're setting up two large tents in the yard to house the extra people plus I want to set up a third tent on the roof as my own personal living space. The stairs up to the tower have a door which provides roof access and the flat roof tops make an near ideal spot to set up a tent. I think I can run several power cords out to the tent and we have a spare heater/air conditioning unit so it should be fairly pleasant.

Now, all I have to do is get the C.O. to agree to it

[Donegeal]

I am due to ETS on March 4th. Unfortuantely, I just heard a rumor from a Major that my unit may get put on a stop-loss.

The possibility of a second blog is still open.

[Dinner]

Stop lose has now been pushed down to a unit level instead of keeping it on a branch level. Also all Army Reserve units which are on mobolization warning orders are automatically placed upon stop loss to prevent soldiers weasaling out of a deployment.

What's your MOS? Army Times just published a list of MOSes which are likely to be stop losed.

[Donegeal]

63S/92A

I'm in a Guard unit connected to the 32nd Red Arrow Division. My actual unit is the 132nd FSB. I am going to turn in all my TA50 on Monday.

The Major I talked to said that the stop-loss was going to be announced at drill this weekend. That would be March 5th, the day after my ETS. However, the way the Major was talking, the stop-loss is already in place, its just not being announced until drill weekend.