War in Iraq, a Soldier's View

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19-Apr-03 8:35 PM

I just got off the phone with my family and it was a “good” call. The difference between a good call and a bad call is that after a bad call I feel like I wasn’t able to say everything I wanted or I was interrupted so much that I didn’t get to enjoy the time hearing the voices of my family. But a good call is one that when I’m done calling I’m happy and the rest of the day is better no matter what was said on the phone. Even if it’s kind of bad news it could still be a good call, like when I found out that my dog had her eye removed it didn’t bring me down, I was sad that my poor puppy was still having troubles and getting older, but it was so good to hear the voices of people that I spend all my time thinking about that it didn’t matter.

Tonight we just talked about how good it was that the war is winding down and that the chances are getting better every day that we’ll go home. I told them that I was frustrated that we had to come out here even though we were supposed to go to Doha and that our next move will probably be backwards and that it was still up in the air when we’d be moving.

It turned out that they got my message that I’d missed calling them when I moved and they were really waiting to hear from me. So much so that they had decided not to go to the gym this morning and wait by the phone for a call; I guess it’s really good that I decided to call today instead of waiting till tomorrow or the next day. Plus they we’re happy to hear that I had phone and internet access out here. They told me that I could call anytime, even if there was no new news or that I just wanted to talk to somebody. Plus I need to get on the internet and get my AKO account to stop forwarding so I can start e-mailing again. I had to give them my AKO address because the Army has been blocking access to hotmail, which is a major pain in the ass, I wonder if they’re blocking us from telling what’s going on or if their trying to censor what news we get in here.

I asked them when the best time to call would be and they said it was still any time during the night, they didn’t mind getting woken up in the middle of the night if it meant they got a call from me. They said that they go to the gym at 5:00am and to work right after that, and after work they’re usually running around the valley on errands. It’s funny that thought made me homesick; I miss the freedom of being able to drive anywhere to get some thing I need. Here anything you need is hard to come by, rations, parts, help; back home if you need anything you just hop in the car and pick it up, here we need to barter to get anything we need, luckily maintenance is something everybody needs and if you have something we need you can get your equipment fixed a lot faster than everybody else. Sgt Garcia is especially good at bartering for things we need. When somebody comes around asking for anything he’ll ask them what they can do for us. If they’re nice and offer whatever services they have he’ll be happy to do whatever they need; if they’re jerks and start demanding that we give up our supplies he’ll tell them that we can’t help them (even if we can). I only wish Slocum had the same attitude; we’d probably be getting screwed a lot less and have a lot more amenities that we have now, or at least had them sooner.

There’s a duty roster up now for things to do around here, we were going to be on guard duty at nights but only because Slocum heard more than what an MP was telling him. Apparently an MP had been telling him what our sector of fire was if the enemy attacked; Slocum somehow took this as a message that we needed to have a night watch guard. I guess somebody straightened him out and we’re not in the immediate danger he perceived. Now the daily duty just includes the regular duties of taking out the trash and burning the shit-bucket every day. I noticed that the NCOs weren’t on the list again which has always been something that bugged me. Any other unit that gets battalion duties says that their NCOs are included on the roster and even the officers do duty sometimes. And EVERYBODY is on the roster for the companies personal duties, it’s like when we had night guard at Adder and the NCOs had one night a week to do it and they pulled themselves off the roster because, “they had important things to do during the day and couldn’t be tired from guard duty.” Funny that the important duties they had to perform was sitting out with us and shooting the shit like the rest of us always did. I think the real reason that they don’t do duty is that they’re lazier than they claim we are.

I hope that this deployment ends soon and I don’t have to deal with this bull crap any more. I’ve had my share of being under the orders of a moron whose only reason for being in charge of me is due to the fact that he’s been in the Army longer then me. Considering it took me 4 years to reach the rank that our current “commander” has been stuck at for the last 10 of his 18 years proves that he’s not qualified to be in the position he’s in. I’m not saying that the job should be mine, I wouldn’t want it anyway, but surely there was somebody, anybody more qualified to lead soldiers into combat.

Till I have a chance to get out from the situation I’m stuck in right now I’ll just keep hoping that I’ll get the order to go home soon.