marty's Blog

April 28

today I convoyed to Bucca for a pre construction meeting with the contractor for my project. Bucca is 60 miles south of where I am now not 10 like I mentioned befor. The trip was un eventfull as we put it meaning we did not get attacked. It’s about an hour and forty minute drive with most of it across country to evoid road side bombs. There is no describing the ride as it is wide open and all over the road. we own the roads here so we travel down the highway on the wrong side against traffic, crossing deviders, you name it. For the most part when the civilians see us comming they pull over and stop to let us by, if they don’t they get a weapon pointed at them and a warning before an exculation of force is used. I also got my third anthrax shot today while at Bucca. Five minutes after getting back to Camp Blackadder we got attacked with inderect fire and then hit again with rockets about an hour after that. we have been taking on average five rockets a day here. Once we move out of the palace at Basrah it is anticapated tha t the attacks will double here because we will be the only base close to Basrah. So it is a good thing I will be moving to Bucca sometime this week. Bucca has not been attacked in over a year. The Project I am working is scheduled to last 130 days so I am guessing I will move back to Camp Blackadder in early Sept. Because of the moving around I am doing I still have no mailing address but once i’m in Bucca I should be there long enough to get mail.

April 26

Things are pretty good here in basrah as far as creature comforts however we did get attacked two more times last night. The second time the air force launched planes and took care of the problem, no more attacks acured after that. Once again I may be moving to Bucca this time which is about 10 miles south of Basrah/camp blackadder. I wish they would give me a final destination to stay for the year so I can at least settle in and actually unpack some bags of gear instead of living out of a ruck sack. I have added some pics of my living quarters here at Basrah.

April 25

I am now in Camp Blackadder, Basrah. It is nice here as far as living quarters, I have a nice big room with my own bathroom, TV, internet, fridge and dressers. The chow hall is small but only for us Corps of Engineer people. The food is awesome and cooks make about anything you want to include eggs to order in the morning. The people seem nice and work looks like it will be quite a challenge. The only problem is they still don’t know if I will stay here as Maysanyh NCOIC or go to Buka and manage the prison construction mission. Either way it sounds like I will be taking a lot of helicopter flights to the construction sites as it is too dangerous to go in on the ground. My first meal here was supper tonight and right in the middle of it we got attacked with rockets. They hit about 500 meters away so no damage other than my food got cold. The office I am in took a round about 20 feet right outside the building last week, shrapnel went through the walls and blew shit around inside but no one was hurt. This base has been hit with forty five rockets in the last 10 days. We all carry radios and there are sirens that warn of incoming. We take cover in bunkers or on the floor if in the buildings as they are all fortified with protection now. So it really isn’t as bad as it sounds, the enemy is a terrible shot. Last week on guy was lucky as hell, he stepped out of his room to make a phone call and a rocket landed right in the middle of his room. God was on his side that day. I have no pictures of this place yet as I just got here.

Carisa the plane ride was a short on only an hour so not to bad.

April 22

Today was a full day of breifings from everyone and their dog. Only good news is I finaly got told were I will be going. of course subject to change. As of now I will be going to Basrah. My first priority will be to oversee the construction as quality control of a 25,000 man prison being built. I was scheduled to leave tomorrow morning by ground convoy with four up armor ford excursions and a security team of australians but do to securtiy issues if we get hit and lose a vehicle they would not beable to protect all four of us so there will leave tomorrow and I will go on thursday.
I finaly got all the pictures uploaded to my web shots page. and the video uploaded to.

April 21

ok I am in camp adder/Ali air base until atleast Monday. It still has not been determined where I will go from here but two possibilities have been discussed, stay here or go to Basrah. One cool thing about here is I can see the third oldest structure in the world, its like a pyramid in front of the city that Abraham was born in. Food is awsome here also so who knows about the diet thing. lol. I have added some pictures also but still have lots to add to my other web site but just can’t find the time and the internet conections are so slow here so it takes forever.

I started a renumber system again, now the day represents the number of days in country.
I have pictures to go with this but will have to add them later.

Well I am currently in Kuwait at a place called Ali Al Saleem air base. I was thrilled to see internet access here however I am only here for two days. We fly out to Iraq tomorrow sometime. We left Indianapolis at 3pm on the 17th; we flew north over Lake Huron and Quebec Canada, Greenland and landed in Shannon Ireland for 1 hour to fuel. Seven hours in the plane at this point. We then flew for 3 hours over Germany, Finland and landed in Budapest Hungary for fuel. We then flew for another four hours to Kuwait City. We had two different units on the plane when we landed in Kuwait and for some reason the KBR security thought we were going to the same base, we were not. So we ended up going for a 2 hour convoy to the base of the other unit so we could drop off there gear, reload our gear on the trucks and head for our staging base. At this point it is 1:30 am and have been up for almost 36 hours with only two hours of sleep on the plane and one hour of sleep on the bus ride to camp Buehring. I don’t know how I fell asleep on the bus; we had security and some crazy bus driver, almost in two accidents lol.

When we landed in Kuwait it was 90 degrees out but didn’t really feel hot, and last night was just perfect temp with a small breeze. I finally got to bed last night a 3:30 am and woke up at 7 this morning but don’t seem tired for some reason. We have nothing to do until 5pm today so internet for me most of the day. Today I should be able to upload a punch of pictures to my website and also update myspace. We are scheduled to fly out of here to our respective places in Iraq tomorrow some time, still unsure were I will be.

They had steak and lobster for supper at Camp Buehring last night, how cool is that?

April 16

This will be the last entry untill i reach my final destonation as all comunications will soon shut down for security. Today was nothing but pack gear and get mentaly ready. yeah like that is possible. i will try to embed a video that one of our guys made with his pictures.

April 15

Today is an easy one as we have the day off other than a meeting at 1pm for an hour and then the company party tonight at 5pm. So we have been sleeping in and taking it easy. Tonight we will start the final packing for the move to Kuwait. I have some pics to post now so you can check then out if you want. Oh and the sun is finaly out with no rain but the wind is blowing so still cold here, go figure.

April 14

ok, we just got out of the field and of course it’s raining and has for three of the five days in the field. Go figure. Lets see I think day 8 is where I left off.
Day 15 was a 5 oclock wake up and started the day off with our second anthrax shot. We then had a written test for combat lifesaver certification and had to run through two full blown senarios. by 3pm we were combat lifesaver qualified. We then proceded over to vehicle rollover training as many soldiers are killed when their humvee rolls over, expecially the gunner sticking up out the roof of the vehicle. After the evening meal we had weigh in of our selves and gear as we are only allowed 4oo lbs per soldier on the plane to Kuwait. Squad meeting was at 6pm and then preped for the next days training. The sun actually came out today and was 45 degrees.
Day 16 was a 5 am wake up and after chow we loaded gear and moved to the FOB for five days off training in the field. by 8 AM we were already on our first mission of defending the base. this was a live fire exercise in which I was incharge of as well as for the rest of the day untill leadership change time. the live fire went well, no one was shot and the OC’s (observer controlers) the ones who evalutate us gave us a go in all areas except the medical casualty. all went well in that area as far as reports, litter team retreaving the victom and so on untill my combat life saver was to nervous to make a good IV stick in the wounded soldiers arm. He missed the vein on the first arm and then on the second try of the other arm he acidently pulled the cathider out of the vein while given saline solution. the wounded soldier had one big bubble in his arm for awhile. its way easier to perform first aid in a class room than it is when you only have seconds to treat the casualty before he dies and live rounds are being fired around you. By 6pm we began prep for the next days mission of ground assault convoy and then attended a briefing on suicide in the combat zone. This first day in the field went fast.
Day 17, wake up was at 5am and it had already rained all night long and is 40 degrees. We started the morning with prep and rehersals for the ground assault convoy training. Loaded humvee’s and got the commo up and running with both primary and secondary commo radios. We headed out of the wire to the convoy lanes training with several senarios of different vehicles in the convoy getting hit with IED’s and small arms fire as well as the key leadership in the convoy being wounded or killed. This took us to evening chow and of course late into the night we planed and preped for the next days mission. It rained hard this whole day as well as hailed on us for 15 minutes and then continued to rain. two tornado warnings were given and they touched down about twenty miles to the north east of our position so no problen there for us. forcast is for rain the rest of the time in the field also.
Day 18 was a 5am wake up and following morning chow we started with convoy lanes training again only the intensity was now going to be steped up. We went through two convoy lanes today each being about 10 miles long. Our first mission was to recon a route looking for IED’s and to stop at a villiage to talk to the local shiek to gain intell on insurgents. We encountered numerous attacks and then finaly made it to the village where there were about 30 real iraqi’s surounding our vehicles as we stoped in town. it was actually real weird to be surrounded by them while the convoy commander and the interpriter and security talked to the shiek. they even tried getting into our humvee’s. the 9 mm pistal detered that. Someone in the convoy spotted a bomb on one of the iraqi’s and we gave the signal to load the commander and hauled ass out of town we didn’t loose any vehicles but had two wounded in the proccess. Yep another IV stick, thank god I was the driver and not the combat live saver giving the needle or whorse the casualty getting stuck with a needle. By 8 pm we were done for the day and it’s still raining.
Day 19 we woke up at 5:30 and was tested on convoy opperations today with one mission to go to Balad and pick up 9 mm pistals and deliver them to the police chief in Baghdad. We learned our lesson yesterday and this time when entering Baghdad with all the iraqi’s we created a box formation with the vehicles on the edge of town so nobody could get to us inside the area created by the vehicles, and with keen scanning of the area we spotted and IED right away so sounded the alarm loaded and blew through and out of town in under 60 seconds. This total pissed off the evaluaters as we out smarted them. they had all kinds of attacked set up for us that just didnt work. This ended by mid afternoon and we then spent a couple hours cleaning weapons and then met with the 1st army sergeant major and then prepared and preped for tomorrows mission. It has quit raining now and at 7pm we took a unit picture to be sent home to the family support group.
Day 20 was a 5am wake up with chow to follow. It was an easy day as we only had clean up of the field area execpt for the ten saw ( squad automatic weapon, machine gun) gunners as they had to go to a live fire exercise of fireing from a moving humvee. the rest of us packed and cleaned and then moved into the contonment area. Finaly a warm shower and fresh clothes. We have the rest of today to complete some online training and personal things. Three days and we will be on the plane to Kuwait.

April 08

to day we had the morning off because it is easter, we had first formation at 11:45. it was great to sleep in untill 8AM as we needed the rest. we ate an MRE (meal ready to eat) thats the militarys meal in a bag for noon meal but the cooks made duck for supper. i had the pork though as i don’t realy like duck. we started or second day of combat lifesaver course today and it was intravenous infusion day. not my best day as i am scared of needles. my partner had to stick me twice as he missed the vein the first time, i was turning all shades of pale. I on the other hand actually got it on the first try and made it through with everything all the way to the saline bag. so bottom line i lived through the day better than expected, expecialy when my fellow soldiers were taking bets i would pass out. training ended at 8 PM tonight. we also trained on litters tonight and had a big review for the final writen exam tomorrow. we allso have a bunch of senerio practical exercises tomorrow. it’s still cold as hell here. come on 8 days without seeing the sun.