Oerdin's Iraq thread - Continued

[Arrian]

The Army is now embarassed and has ordered that when ever someone is KIA that all means of outside communication be cut off from the soldiers in Iraq until the families can be notified. This seems so typically Army to me. I mean rather then fix the real problem, namely that it takes the Army forever and a day before they bother to pick up the phone and notify the next of kin, they instead try to gag all soldiers. Yes, the families should be notified through the proper channels but the Army owes these people notification much sooner then the 5-7 days they've been running.

Yet another example of why Robin Williams' line in "Good Morning Vietnam" worked so well:

"If it's being done right, anywhere in the world, it's NOT being done by the U.S. Army."[/from memory, probably not quite right]

Good luck in Tikrit, Oerdin.

-Arrian

[Lonestar]

We have a saying in the Navy.

"The right way, the wrong way, and the Navy way. It's just like the wrong way except it takes longer."

[Dinner]

I'm now back in Tikrit though there are rumblings that we may have to go to Samarra in a couple of weeks. Apparently, they know one of the teams has to go but they haven't decided which one to send yet.

[Dinner]

Where to start where to start. Well, one of my team mates had to get life flighted to an Army field hospital so he could have emergency surgery on his appendix. It seems he had appendicitus but didn't mention the pain to anyone for the better part of a week because he "didn't want to be a complainer". While I applaud the gusto I think its stupid to ignore pain which could indicate a serious medical condition.

In any event his surgery was successful but because our tour of duty is ending in less then three months he probably won't be returning to Iraq. That means the two teams in Tikrit have a total of four people instead of the six people we're supposed to have. Of those four two of them are not trained Psyopers but are soldiers from the 1st ID who we've borrowed and have been training on the job to be Psyopers. One of them was a scout and the other one was a cook and believe it or not the cook is the smarter of the two of them. Both of them scored well on the ASVAB though the cook made the bad choice of going for the job which paid him the biggest cash bonus instead of a job he really liked. Thus he was stuck being a cook.

Both of them are great people and good soldiers but they don't really know our job that well yet. That means we only really have two fully qualified people and two helpers but I'm sure we'll get by.

The other interesting thing is that one of the Civil Affairs guys I live with happens to be a die hard creationist. This wouldn't be so bad except he brings it up all the time and he is prone to making incessent comments claiming radioactive data is "a complete lie" and that the Grand Canyon could never have been carved by the Colorado river and instead simply must be proof of Noah's flood.

As some of you may know I'm a geologist in the civilian world so I have tried to explain how things like erosion and radioactive dating work but he wasn't to interesting in hearing about how science works. Instead he dragged copies of some fundimentalist DVD (which he just happened to have in his foot locker ) which he claimed "PROVED the Earth is only 6k year old and that Noah's flood really occured". Just to be a good sport I sat down with him and watched the first one but it really was rubbish with all sorts of logical inconsistencies and it desplayed an appaling lack of knowledge with even basic scientic theory.

He used lots of little true facts to reacxh totally wrong conclusions. The speaker claimed that comets could only survive 10k years but provided no supporting evidence (the reality is the life span of comets are highly variable depending upon their size, how close to the sun they are, and how long it takes to complete it's orbit.) then claimed this is proof the universe is young. He also claimed that because the Sahara desert began forming 6k years ago (his figure but on the internet I found a figure which claimed 10k) that it's proof Noah's flood occured 6k year's ago. As if his 6k date is even valid but even if it was then the drying out of north Africa would corrispond with the ending of the last ice age which doesn't require any biblical floods to explain. The speaker also totally screwed up the mechanics of carbon dating and he didn't even bother to deal with other more accurate dating methods such as K/Ar dating so why should I take this garbage seriously?

I hate to say it but fools who continue to spew this nonsensical garbage taint all religious people with their stupidity. This kind of nonsense makes me look at fundimentalists and shack my head with sadness. I know that fundimentalists don't represent the views of main stream people of faith and that many main stream religious people wish the fundimentalists would just keep their wackiness to themselves but I still can't help but feeling they should be disagreeing with the fundimentalists a little more loudly.

[oerdin's sis]

Isn't that really part of the conflict all over the world?? People who take things WAY too literally??? No seeing the other point of veiw is just plain close-minded, and dumb if you ask me... not that I want to see the point f view of a rapist or murderer, mind you....

[lord of the mark]

"PROVED the Earth is only 6k year old and that Noah's flood really occured"


Must be particularly interesting having these discussions while living in the flood plain of the Tigris river, whose behavior (along with the Euphrates) is widely seen as the source of both Mesopotamian and Jewish (and by extension Christian) flood stories.

also for creation - in Mesopotamia land DID arise out of "the waters" as the rivers dropped sediment at the coast.

OTOH it should help to get along with some of your Iraqi "clients" (is the Flood mentioned in the Koran?), though I dont suppose the flood is uppermost on their minds these days.

[Last Conformist]

That's bizarre, isn't it? Two American soldier's in Iraq arguing about the Deluge ...

[Dinner]

You have to do something with your time.

[Dinner]

The last couple of days we've been going out with CA and helping them organize several reconstruction projects here in Tikrit. It's not really our job but CA is really short handed so we're trying to help them out. Currently we're living in a large two story palace which everyone calls the whore house. Apparently, when Saddam was in power he kept several young ladies there so they could "entertain" his friends and visitors; now we share a large two bedroom apartment with three people from CA. The apartment is actually quite nice since it has a large balcony and unlike 90% of the infantry guys on post we have our own private bathroom complete with shower. The water pressure sucks but it does work.

[CorpusScorpius]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Apparently, when Saddam was in power he kept several young ladies there so they could "entertain" his friends and visitors; now we share a large two bedroom apartment with three people from CA.

Well atleast you can brag I use to live in a Whore House

[Barinthus]

I used to live next to an illegal brothel completed with whores and a pimp... along with fatherless kids running around.

Does that count?

I'll never forget how the pimp approached two of my female housemates about becoming his 'hos. It was hilarious. Some one suggested perhaps it's because we used to get high and watch hentai on full blast late at nights.

[Dinner]

Bump.

[Pekka]

my favourite part was the fact that he just happened to have that DVD with him WHY would he bring that with him?! I mean I'm assuming there are people who would buy these, and then there are people who believe them without questions asked. BUt then there are people who go to war and bring that DVD with them?

[Dinner]

Pekka: True.

Everyone else: Well, it appears I won't be going to Samarra after all. Instead my team chief is going to go run the new radio station in Samarra and I'm going to take over as head of the team in Tikrit. That will mean more paper work for me but I don't mind. I like being in charge.

Things have been rather slow lately because the Commanding General of the 1st ID has started to directly take part in the town council and is releasing information directly to the local press. When we first arrived in Iraq we were kept busy organizing town coucils, establishing contacts with local leaders, doing town assessments, and arranging contracts with the local media. Now the intial phase is complete and everything is pretty much running fine without us. There is still work to be done distributing leaflets & newspapers but we've already gotten the regular infantry to do most of that for us. It appears that we've worked ourselves out of a job.

I'm not to worried about it though since we'll still be needed on most raids and cordon & search missions plus if the current system ever gets mucked up it will be up to us to fix it so our job is fairly secure. In the mean time I have more time to play Civ3 and catch up on my reading.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Oerdin

I'm not to worried about it though since we'll still be needed on most raids and cordon & search missions plus if the current system ever gets mucked up it will be up to us to fix it so our job is fairly secure.

Do you really want job security IN IRAQ? The plan is to go home eventually, right?