Overlooking the P.C. aspect of it –they’re grunts ferkrisake, it’s pretty funny. While out on a patrol with Marines near Ramadi I learned that in the grunt’s eyes one can identify a female in the Iraqi countryside in two ways:

“Witches” are the older, more crotchety women that wear traditional garb, but don’t bother with a veil.

“Ninjas” are the younger women that keep their faces covered with a veil that only reveals their eyes.

Here’s a QTVR from the vehicle commander’s seat inside a Stryker MGS. Click and drag inside the page that opens up to look around. I’m using a flash based viewer, instead of Quicktime, so everybody should be able to open it even if you are on an office computer.

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…

The message from the press conference was that Iraq is fine. The surge worked and now it’s just down to democratic growing pains. I guess that’s what she calls car bombs and mortars.

Matt has dubbed the Iraqis that frequent the CPIC embed room, “the eaters”. They are here, no doubt to work some, but by-and-large many just they bullshit with each other, talk on their mobile phones very loudly, surf the internet and eat everything in sight. I used to think that mobile ring tones in the states were annoying. Not any more.

Leaving the bathroom before going to bed I heard the incoming alarm followed by 2-3 explosions that sounded like they were a few blocks away.

I watched the remake of 3:10 to Yuma on my laptop. Not a bad western, but the end was pretty improbable with the bad guy having a huge change of heart. Wouldn’t it be great if people could realized they were “evil”, giving them the ability to have an epiphany like Russell Crowe’s character? Problem is that nobody really is evil, or at least “evil” people don’t see themselves as evil. They just make choices and to them all those choices and deeds are justified based on the circumstances that brought them to that point. Evil is just a term people use to pigeonhole people with diametrically opposed ideologies so they can deal with them.

Deep thoughts, I know, but wow am I bored.

On the uspide, it’s Gunner’s birthday today. I wish him lots of love and laughs and I can’t wait to get home to play with him. He and his sister got light sabers right before I left. I imagine the house is taking a beating.

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.

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.