Rob's Journal » work

OMFG We Are Still At CPIC

rob — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:57:29 +0000

What can I say? We did the whole haul-our-crap-over-to-LZ-Washington last night to get a space a flight up to Speicher. No more had we grounded our gear and walked into the trailer/office to be told there wasn’t one space-a seat/flight/prayer to be had this evening.

On our way walking back to to our bags we walked by a group of private military contractors. One of them asked Matt were we were going. Matt stopped to talk to the guy and became apparent that the guy had mistaken us for PMCs since he asked us who our”principle” was. I guess we have the contractor look down with our facial hair, softshell jackets, cargo pants and hiking boots.

That was last night. After we got back from the LZ. We called our powerful friends back in Washington to see if we could shake something loose. Tonight, we supossedly have reserved seats on a flight. Coincidence? Hmmmm…

Welcome to CPIC

rob — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:03:37 +0000

Click and drag on the image above and feel like you are right her in the Combined Press Information Center here in Baghdad. It’s about 11 at night here in the common room. It’s quiet because all the Iraqi media that normally hang out here in the day have gone home.

The room is used by transient journalists coming in and out of Baghdad at all hours. Back in May, Erik and I stayed in this room with about 15 other journalists. There were cots everywhere. This time, there’s only a few of us, and we all have a bed, which is quite luxurious by embed standards.

We can’t get to the chow hall, so they bring us lunch and dinner. The computers are on the internet and the lights work most of the time. Seems the outlets are on the military generators while the room lights are powered by the Baghdad power grid. This means you surf the web in the dark, most evenings.

Waiting in the IZ.

rob — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:51:00 +0000

We are still in Baghdad, probably leaving on the 15th for Camp Speicher, a little ways north of here. We had breakfast at the Al Rashid, acrss the street in the Green Zone. $20 for a plate of cold food. Yum. Christian is out in Ramadi, he wrote to tell me his laptop died and he’s got to buy a new one at the PX. It just made me think that it won’t be long before there is a freaking Apple Store here. I remember all the crap i brought with me for the first trip when there wasn’t a darn thing available to buy here. If it went down and you needed it, you were screwed. And we had to walk uphill to the chow hall, both ways, in a snowstorm…

Bad news/good news on the cell phone front. Both of the Iraqna SIM cards we brought were dead. It also seems that Iraqna is changing their system and it’s hard as hell to get recharge cards. However, we
did manage to get an Iraqna SIM card from a helpful guy at CPIC and some recharge cards across the street at the Al Rasheed so we have at least one local cell number. I pulled my Nextel SIM card from my US phone and put it in an unlocked Nokia and found that it worked! Until we can luck into another Iraqna SIM, I guess I’ll use my Nextel.

Sleep has been an issue. Since we had been up for the oh-dark-thirty flight from Kuwait to BIAP, then for the similarly timed Rhino ride into the IZ, I’ve been sleeping from 4pm to 11pm. Not fun. I’m going
to have to go pharmaceutical to get back in line.

Bagram Hospital

rob — Tue, 08 May 2007 15:41:48 +0000

We spent a few hours at the Bagram hospital tonight. It was a tough night. There were kids there that the medics were talking care of. One was a five-year-old that was shot in the gut accidentaly by an Afghani soldier. We talked to his nurse and his dad, who was there taking care of him. Another kid had fallen out the back of a pickup and was unconcious, another was blown up in a suicide bomb attack…

With that behind us, we are flying out tonight for Ramstein, then home.

Gone from Ghazni

rob — Mon, 07 May 2007 16:10:31 +0000

We left a sad group of JTACs behind in Ghazni this morning. The only thing I could do was shoot a photo of Waters and Sangha using mIRC chat to illustrate the story… I felt like we sold them short, since we never got to see them in ‘action’. The JTACs are some of the most ‘hooah’ guys in the Air Force and we didn’t get to go out in to the field with them. We’ll have to try doing the JTAC story again down the road.

What’s a Step Below Fishwrapping?

rob — Sun, 06 May 2007 21:54:53 +0000

So, we’ve just washed our hands in the chowhall atrium at Ghazni and we can’t find any paper towels to dry our hands. Then we notice the soldiers grabbing Stars and Stripes and drying their hands with a page a person. Erik noted that the printing was top notch because the ink didn’t transfer to his hands… At least it wasn’t Army Times.

He’s fine, Meg…

rob — Sat, 05 May 2007 15:36:55 +0000

I was in the 2 Fury TOC the other night for a BUB (or BOA as they are now called) and who do I spy across the room? Capt. Jason Davis from the Widowmakers. He’s now a company commander in the 82nd and doing great. We had ate a couple of [bad] meals together at the Ghazni DFAC and caught up a bit. Just to further illustrate how life has us intersecting in all sorts of ways, turns out he had Lt. Josh Shaver as a student at the infantry officers course a while back.

I tried to get out with him or one of his platoons, but transportation was iffy and we had already blown quite a few days waiting for the battalion to get into something. So, we waited a day to see if we could get down to his FOB, when that fell apart we lamented and parted ways…

Still in Ghazni

rob — Sat, 05 May 2007 13:02:01 +0000

We are still here in Ghazni. The TACPs haven’t really done anything aside from the mission that just ended. We couldn’t get here in time to go out, so the pictures didn’t come together. Erik got a mission wrap up story and I sent in a couple of photos of the soldeiers and airmen returning to the FOB.

The battalion has been great to work with and has offered us pretty much open access. But, we arrived just in time for their post mission refit period. Nutz.

We did, however make it out to the FOB Bazaar with the airmen to buy some trinkets and smokes. We ran into a local celebrity. A bracelet on his table caught Rich’s eye and a little haggling ensued…

Gazni,Gahznee,Gaznee

rob — Tue, 01 May 2007 12:24:55 +0000

Doesn’t matter how you spell it. We are here. South-eastern Afghanistan. Embedded with the 504th PIR of the 82nd ABN, we are going to try to follow their attached JTACs. That is, the AF guys that call in air support for the army.

They go out in 2 man teams for days on end and watch the infantry’s butt (nod, Mom). Problem is, that we are getting here right between missions. So, we are settling in to see what the battalion has coming down the pike.

The upside- looks like we have access to the TOC. At one point, this wasn’t a big deal. But, now that true embedding has lost it’s luster with some of the mid-level leadership, getting access to sensative areas and info is a lot more of a square dance.

Grounded

rob — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 14:30:44 +0000

Did I saw we’d be gone in a day? Oops. We’ll it’s been a couple and the fine folks here in Bagram have been trying to get us out. Apparently Salerno is a bit harder to get to than anybody thought.

We met with the JTAC’s higher yesterday and got a great brief about their mission. There seems to be something going on down there that the JTACs are part of, so it’s a race to get there before whatever is going on down there is over with.