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It's been a busy week. I'm waiting to catch a flight out of Baghdad and head to Kuwait, then continue the trip back to Fort Riley. Pretty good trip, though. I got a very good perspective for the environment we will be operating in. Overall, things look pretty good; violence is down, and the Iraqi Army is taking charge of security in all of the places I visited. Despite our best efforts, this thing may actually work...
I spent some time on Camp Liberty and Camp Victory... Quite big, and I wish I would have invested in Iraqi cement companies about 4 years ago, as there is a lot of cement here. Ther eis also a lot of people with a lot of "good ideas." I am happy to say we have successfully exported excess and bureaucracy to Iraq.
I also spent a lot of time down in a lovely town south of Baghdad. Ok, it's really not that lovely.
Well, all right, I'll admit it-- it's a dump.
But for now it's a fairly peaceful dump, which is good, because it will be our home in the coming months. I will live on an American patrol base inside an Iraqi Army compound- a compound within a compound, if you will. With a lot of cement. On this compound will be my team plus the division team, a total of about 20 guys, plus a bunch of interpreters and maybe some coalition augmentees to help with the day to day stuff. The good thing about it is that it is away from the super FOB of Camps Liberty and Victory, so we can do our own thing. The other good thing is that the Iraqi unit we are advising will be on the same compound, so that way we don't have to commute.
One of the things my unit will be involved in is detainee operations. When I heard this, I was uneasy, given the past examples of Abu Gharaib. I toured an Iraqi Army Brigade Interment Facility and I have to say it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. They did not know wew were coming. It was a bit overcrowded, but the unit was aware of the problem and was taking steps to either try the detainees for alleged crimes or by moving them to facilities that weren't overcrowded. They knew who was there and how long they had been there. The place was actually pretty clean (except for the smell of a bunch of detainees who are living in chain link cages in a warehouse), but it was well lit, and very orderly. The detainees are regularly, had all the water they could drink, slept on mats, had clean clothes, and weren't beat to a pulp, as they would have been under Saddam. There were no hooks on the ceiling, either, which the prisoners seemed pretty happy about. The guards appear to get it now-- you actually have to treat humans like....humans. But, then again, when we left, all hell could have broken loose.
Got a much happier, less oppressive (and less odorous) tour of al Faw Palace last night from Steve Chong, my CGSC battle buddy. al Faw is one of eight presidential palaces built by Saddam. I think this one was built in 1991. We used the main entrance; the other one had an unfortunate run-in with a JDAM in 2003. The whole place is surrounded by a series of lakes and ponds Saddam used to swim and fish in. (I wouldn't recommend that, though...) The base camps here were built on land that Saddam used as a hunting preserve. The palace is grand, ornate and impressive, and like many things here, it looks good from afar, but not so good up close. And now it houses the Corps HQ that runs the show. Pretty neat, though.
As always, I ran into lots of folks from assignments past, among them the former SSG Murray (a former 2-12 CAV tanker, now retired working as a contractor), Rob Kaderavek (former 2-12 CAV, now the S3 for 6-8 CAV), Chris Evans (former UT Cadet, now an MP Platoon Leader), some other folks from CGSC now working in CJSOTF in al Faw, and a couple of guys I knew or worked with when I was in 1-7 CAV. It really is a small Army.
My team has arrived at Fort Riley and they are inprocessing. Everybody who was supposed to show up is there, and they are ready to begin the Riley circus. More on this later; I'll also get some pics on this thing. Time to go bake on a C-130...
Hope you are well. Take care.
Ron
I spent some time on Camp Liberty and Camp Victory... Quite big, and I wish I would have invested in Iraqi cement companies about 4 years ago, as there is a lot of cement here. Ther eis also a lot of people with a lot of "good ideas." I am happy to say we have successfully exported excess and bureaucracy to Iraq.
I also spent a lot of time down in a lovely town south of Baghdad. Ok, it's really not that lovely.
Well, all right, I'll admit it-- it's a dump.
But for now it's a fairly peaceful dump, which is good, because it will be our home in the coming months. I will live on an American patrol base inside an Iraqi Army compound- a compound within a compound, if you will. With a lot of cement. On this compound will be my team plus the division team, a total of about 20 guys, plus a bunch of interpreters and maybe some coalition augmentees to help with the day to day stuff. The good thing about it is that it is away from the super FOB of Camps Liberty and Victory, so we can do our own thing. The other good thing is that the Iraqi unit we are advising will be on the same compound, so that way we don't have to commute.
One of the things my unit will be involved in is detainee operations. When I heard this, I was uneasy, given the past examples of Abu Gharaib. I toured an Iraqi Army Brigade Interment Facility and I have to say it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. They did not know wew were coming. It was a bit overcrowded, but the unit was aware of the problem and was taking steps to either try the detainees for alleged crimes or by moving them to facilities that weren't overcrowded. They knew who was there and how long they had been there. The place was actually pretty clean (except for the smell of a bunch of detainees who are living in chain link cages in a warehouse), but it was well lit, and very orderly. The detainees are regularly, had all the water they could drink, slept on mats, had clean clothes, and weren't beat to a pulp, as they would have been under Saddam. There were no hooks on the ceiling, either, which the prisoners seemed pretty happy about. The guards appear to get it now-- you actually have to treat humans like....humans. But, then again, when we left, all hell could have broken loose.
Got a much happier, less oppressive (and less odorous) tour of al Faw Palace last night from Steve Chong, my CGSC battle buddy. al Faw is one of eight presidential palaces built by Saddam. I think this one was built in 1991. We used the main entrance; the other one had an unfortunate run-in with a JDAM in 2003. The whole place is surrounded by a series of lakes and ponds Saddam used to swim and fish in. (I wouldn't recommend that, though...) The base camps here were built on land that Saddam used as a hunting preserve. The palace is grand, ornate and impressive, and like many things here, it looks good from afar, but not so good up close. And now it houses the Corps HQ that runs the show. Pretty neat, though.
As always, I ran into lots of folks from assignments past, among them the former SSG Murray (a former 2-12 CAV tanker, now retired working as a contractor), Rob Kaderavek (former 2-12 CAV, now the S3 for 6-8 CAV), Chris Evans (former UT Cadet, now an MP Platoon Leader), some other folks from CGSC now working in CJSOTF in al Faw, and a couple of guys I knew or worked with when I was in 1-7 CAV. It really is a small Army.
My team has arrived at Fort Riley and they are inprocessing. Everybody who was supposed to show up is there, and they are ready to begin the Riley circus. More on this later; I'll also get some pics on this thing. Time to go bake on a C-130...
Hope you are well. Take care.
Ron
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