The Saga IX
Apr. 11th, 2003 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecunium10 April, 2003
The phone is a miserable pleasure. When it works it lifts the spirits, when it
fails to work it lends a moderate pall to the day, when it craps out in the
middle of a call and one can't get a line again, well it might have been
better to not try.
Which isn't really true. The sound of home is worth the heartaches of the
failures. I have found out how to massage the system and make calls, not by
appointment, not at hideous rates and not when in cellular range. As Maia put
it, I am making "M*A*S*H" calls, and like the calls on, "M*A*S*H" they are
subject to all sort of vagaries.
And it may be more dependable than mail.
Right now we are preparing to get ready to jump. Tomorrow we are supposed to
move out. With luck (a fickle goddess to depend on) we will be in a better
place, though the first few days will be worse. Ah, for the life of a soldier.
13 April, Palm Sunday
Movement, lots of movement. We are more north than we were (and still seem
to be falling behind the lines, as they too move forward), and not as far north as we are told we will end up. We are close enough to action that we can see smoke on the horizon, at times in narrow towers; before the inversion layer flattens it into a long tail across the sky. This afternoon we heard a loud crump. I turned to see a large puff of grey smoke in the near distance. We think it was the Engineers blowing something up, but will never know for sure.
This place is better than the last. There is less dust. Dust may not be as
awful as mud, but it would rate a close second in my book. The view here is
almost as great as the area around Kuwait. But the sky can be seen, all the way to the ground and it seems less oppressively vast. The ground itself is harder, less powdery. The surface is leathery. One person walking on it will not break it, though there are trails where many people have passed.
Even when it has been ground to dust it is a heavy dust, not the talc-like powder of Kuwait, or the last place.
There is some organic material. With some fertilizer (say sheep dung,
which was in heaps, composting near the border when we came in, or camel or &c) and irrigation it could be very productive, right now it is empty, save for a couple of bunkers and a few buildings. Well, I suppose you could say it was occupied by several hundred troops, a lot of tents and our cots.
We are in lines, against berms, under the sky. We have not enough tentage for
everyone to sleep under cover. Being more settled is a tad unsettling. For a
week there was a tight unit; the vehicle. We slept by the truck, busted
our cots in the a.m., set them up in the p.m. and the team was the focus of the day.
Now, we are in shifts. On the up-side, I get to sleep until I wake, (there
is no First Call because we are up until all hours, the only need is to be awake and ready to go for one's shift), we have a wash point (my hair is clean for the first time in a week. It was work, and I did it from a jug, pouring water over my head and adding shampoo until it was foaming,and again, and again, until the foam was white. Wonderful.) and a latrine; near our LSA (where we sleep).
The drive was something else. For one thing, we were going closer to the
front, for another, we were going to be in a smaller convoy.
We broke down. One of our vehicles blew a tire. It took hours to get it fixed.
So we sat at the side of the road. There was nothing to see. Our road ran though an irrigation area, flat, with dark, clayey,soils and small plots of greenery. It was barely a lane wide, and highly used. When traffic came from the opposite direction the visibility went from excellent to non-existent, a white cloud of dust, eye-filling and gullet choking, making me reduce the speed from 35-40 mph to a veritable crawl, with the right side of my vehicle off the road. A blizzard at night is the closest I can come to how it was, but even that fails to bring the sheer blindness I felt. It seemed the drying ponds along the side were being mined for salt, which had been raked into heaps, about three feet in diameter.
But that was behind us, we'd crossed a bench, and were on a dead flat plain;
buff-sand all around. We could see hundreds of square miles of empty
desert. Off in the distance, three, maybe four miles away, was an oasis. A cluster of trees, too far away to be distinguished for type was the only relief to be seen.
Finally the tire was repaired, and we set off again, with the sun low on the
left. Nerves were pretty calm. The two-days of convoy under our belts
served to steady those who had been apprehensive. This did not mean the car at the side of the road was not an object of close scrutiny, white flag on the radio antenna or not. Smiling faces on the occupants or not. Each vehicle that passed was scrutinized for signs of suicidal intent.
As we moved from one road to another a dilapidated motorcycle, on tires worn
almost to the rims, got in front of me. I don't know if the rider knew
that for the mile and-a-half he was in our convoy he had people looking at him with deadly intent. It wasn't hostile, and it wasn't personal, but we all know of motorcycle attacks on people, and a lot of C-4 can be packed into a bike.
I was figuring out the best way to tap him with my Humvee if he did anything
stupid.
As we went down the road we saw more of the detritus of the war, Russian
vehicles the Engineers had marked and left, empty ammo crates, empty MRE
cases, a twisted pile of what was once a humvee; identifiable only if one could recognize the engine block in the mangled heap of blackened metal. Helicoptersflew along the road, often less than 50 feet off the deck one of them Chinook with a pair of ConExes dangling beneath it.
The sun went down, large and orange, languid and calm.
The road, well it got worse, at places it was gravel, at times I prayed for
gravel. It was wider than the vehicle, barely, perhaps by four feet, and I
had a trailer. The potholes were large, and the roadbed raised a bit. To overreact would be to jackknife the trailer. We got colder; the air here is not as warm at night as it was further south. Since the vehicle's doors had been removed to make it easier to see things (and shoot at them, if needs be) when the wind was crossing through the cab I was cold.
I was happy to see a two-lane road appear.
The town we passed though (or plant, or whatever it was) was empty, save for a
long stand of eucalyptus which lined the road. For a few moments I almost felt
at home again. The familiar scent of gum-trees in my nose, their long, shaggy
branches dangling over the streets.
We got here and slept.
Well, I did not sleep immediately, as I had a two-hour turn on guard. Back and
forth across an eight-foot high berm, walking picket, hoping I was not
silhouetted against the moon. Looking southwest we saw a glow from behind us.
When we turned, Frickle (my counterpart) and I saw a bright orange gout of
flame, thumb-wide and about as high, in the distance.
So we crouched and took turns scanning the area with the Night Vision Device
(NVD). NVDs are amazing. One can see, contrast is not high, but it makes the
invisible seen. To glance at the night sky is to see so many stars that known
constellations are lost. I saw a small meteor, one no one else could know of.
I also saw tracers, invisible to Frickle, but plain to me, rising up;
searching out some plane or helicopter.
In the morning we set up our camps. The MPs have the plan we gave them for the
compound. So we are here, and working. The EPWs (Enemy Prisoners of War) come,
we screen them, interrogate the worthwhile one, and they get sent on to
someplace else.
They seem sad, nothing to do, not allowed to talk to each other, penned behind
concertina. They sit, or squat, in front of the screeners and answer
questions. They talk to us, almost always without reservation. Those who were caught for silly reasons (not all are EPWs) are let go (we've had farmers; rolled up because they had a rifle in their truck. They use it on gophers and dogs).
We have a lot of down time (typical, even for a line unit) and we amuse
ourselves. Sergeant First Class McBride came over today, as I was eating my breakfast (meatloaf and gravy, at about 1330, I being on duty from noon to midnight) and hollered he was tired of this shit (whatever shit it was) and to haul my ass over to a meeting. He treated SPC Barnes to the same. We got over there and the singing started. A pound cake with a match to celebrate Barnes'21st birthday, just as he had promised her, two-weeks ago.
We live our mornings in a slow rhythm. I wake with the first risers, about
0830, and bestir myself. Perhaps 30-45 minutes of shifting in my bag, coming to grips with a new day (there was the morning I had some pleasant dream, woke, and as the image of dirt past my cot sank in thought, "Fuck, I'm still here). Cool air on my face, a babywipe bath, and then foot-powder into new socks. Shuffle to the wash-point and brush my teeth, splash water on my face. A teaspoonful in the palm of my hand; with shampoo for lather, to shave.
The days are spent in the pounding hum of a generator (for the computers) and
the heat of the tent. When I have down time (I have about three hours of work,
every shift, and am on call for information all the time) I can sit in the
sun,or shade; when we have it, and read, or join a bull-session. The evenings are the same, though the ebb and flow of the generator is more noticeable at
night, because the lights fade and recover.
At the end of the shift, I brief the incoming interrogators, and bring the new
OB NCO up to speed. By the time I get back most of the day shift is asleep. I
look at the stars, and the waxing moon and fade away to sleep.
Rinse and repeat.
I wonder at myself. Things here are basic; in some ways they are base. We
discuss the finer points of things we would never have mentioned to anyone
stateside. Our humor usually simple, and often gross as well. There is little
room for subtlety in the lives we lead. I wonder if the crude humor and
the rest of it will remain. I don't think so, but I wonder just what lapses I will have,who will look at me as an alien for something which has become acceptable to me.
I worry about the questions I will get. People will want to know, "what it was
like," and I won't be able to tell them. The things I written are about as
good as it gets, and they are such a far remove. So much is left out. Some for OpSec(the things I can't talk about) and some because they are not explicable.
I guess I will have to join the VFW, and hang out every so often, so my war
stories can become polished, the rough edges of memory smoothed
comfortable where people understand what I mean, without asking for clarification.
I, to quote veterans of another war, have: though perhaps at a distance, seen
the elephant,
The phone is a miserable pleasure. When it works it lifts the spirits, when it
fails to work it lends a moderate pall to the day, when it craps out in the
middle of a call and one can't get a line again, well it might have been
better to not try.
Which isn't really true. The sound of home is worth the heartaches of the
failures. I have found out how to massage the system and make calls, not by
appointment, not at hideous rates and not when in cellular range. As Maia put
it, I am making "M*A*S*H" calls, and like the calls on, "M*A*S*H" they are
subject to all sort of vagaries.
And it may be more dependable than mail.
Right now we are preparing to get ready to jump. Tomorrow we are supposed to
move out. With luck (a fickle goddess to depend on) we will be in a better
place, though the first few days will be worse. Ah, for the life of a soldier.
13 April, Palm Sunday
Movement, lots of movement. We are more north than we were (and still seem
to be falling behind the lines, as they too move forward), and not as far north as we are told we will end up. We are close enough to action that we can see smoke on the horizon, at times in narrow towers; before the inversion layer flattens it into a long tail across the sky. This afternoon we heard a loud crump. I turned to see a large puff of grey smoke in the near distance. We think it was the Engineers blowing something up, but will never know for sure.
This place is better than the last. There is less dust. Dust may not be as
awful as mud, but it would rate a close second in my book. The view here is
almost as great as the area around Kuwait. But the sky can be seen, all the way to the ground and it seems less oppressively vast. The ground itself is harder, less powdery. The surface is leathery. One person walking on it will not break it, though there are trails where many people have passed.
Even when it has been ground to dust it is a heavy dust, not the talc-like powder of Kuwait, or the last place.
There is some organic material. With some fertilizer (say sheep dung,
which was in heaps, composting near the border when we came in, or camel or &c) and irrigation it could be very productive, right now it is empty, save for a couple of bunkers and a few buildings. Well, I suppose you could say it was occupied by several hundred troops, a lot of tents and our cots.
We are in lines, against berms, under the sky. We have not enough tentage for
everyone to sleep under cover. Being more settled is a tad unsettling. For a
week there was a tight unit; the vehicle. We slept by the truck, busted
our cots in the a.m., set them up in the p.m. and the team was the focus of the day.
Now, we are in shifts. On the up-side, I get to sleep until I wake, (there
is no First Call because we are up until all hours, the only need is to be awake and ready to go for one's shift), we have a wash point (my hair is clean for the first time in a week. It was work, and I did it from a jug, pouring water over my head and adding shampoo until it was foaming,and again, and again, until the foam was white. Wonderful.) and a latrine; near our LSA (where we sleep).
The drive was something else. For one thing, we were going closer to the
front, for another, we were going to be in a smaller convoy.
We broke down. One of our vehicles blew a tire. It took hours to get it fixed.
So we sat at the side of the road. There was nothing to see. Our road ran though an irrigation area, flat, with dark, clayey,soils and small plots of greenery. It was barely a lane wide, and highly used. When traffic came from the opposite direction the visibility went from excellent to non-existent, a white cloud of dust, eye-filling and gullet choking, making me reduce the speed from 35-40 mph to a veritable crawl, with the right side of my vehicle off the road. A blizzard at night is the closest I can come to how it was, but even that fails to bring the sheer blindness I felt. It seemed the drying ponds along the side were being mined for salt, which had been raked into heaps, about three feet in diameter.
But that was behind us, we'd crossed a bench, and were on a dead flat plain;
buff-sand all around. We could see hundreds of square miles of empty
desert. Off in the distance, three, maybe four miles away, was an oasis. A cluster of trees, too far away to be distinguished for type was the only relief to be seen.
Finally the tire was repaired, and we set off again, with the sun low on the
left. Nerves were pretty calm. The two-days of convoy under our belts
served to steady those who had been apprehensive. This did not mean the car at the side of the road was not an object of close scrutiny, white flag on the radio antenna or not. Smiling faces on the occupants or not. Each vehicle that passed was scrutinized for signs of suicidal intent.
As we moved from one road to another a dilapidated motorcycle, on tires worn
almost to the rims, got in front of me. I don't know if the rider knew
that for the mile and-a-half he was in our convoy he had people looking at him with deadly intent. It wasn't hostile, and it wasn't personal, but we all know of motorcycle attacks on people, and a lot of C-4 can be packed into a bike.
I was figuring out the best way to tap him with my Humvee if he did anything
stupid.
As we went down the road we saw more of the detritus of the war, Russian
vehicles the Engineers had marked and left, empty ammo crates, empty MRE
cases, a twisted pile of what was once a humvee; identifiable only if one could recognize the engine block in the mangled heap of blackened metal. Helicoptersflew along the road, often less than 50 feet off the deck one of them Chinook with a pair of ConExes dangling beneath it.
The sun went down, large and orange, languid and calm.
The road, well it got worse, at places it was gravel, at times I prayed for
gravel. It was wider than the vehicle, barely, perhaps by four feet, and I
had a trailer. The potholes were large, and the roadbed raised a bit. To overreact would be to jackknife the trailer. We got colder; the air here is not as warm at night as it was further south. Since the vehicle's doors had been removed to make it easier to see things (and shoot at them, if needs be) when the wind was crossing through the cab I was cold.
I was happy to see a two-lane road appear.
The town we passed though (or plant, or whatever it was) was empty, save for a
long stand of eucalyptus which lined the road. For a few moments I almost felt
at home again. The familiar scent of gum-trees in my nose, their long, shaggy
branches dangling over the streets.
We got here and slept.
Well, I did not sleep immediately, as I had a two-hour turn on guard. Back and
forth across an eight-foot high berm, walking picket, hoping I was not
silhouetted against the moon. Looking southwest we saw a glow from behind us.
When we turned, Frickle (my counterpart) and I saw a bright orange gout of
flame, thumb-wide and about as high, in the distance.
So we crouched and took turns scanning the area with the Night Vision Device
(NVD). NVDs are amazing. One can see, contrast is not high, but it makes the
invisible seen. To glance at the night sky is to see so many stars that known
constellations are lost. I saw a small meteor, one no one else could know of.
I also saw tracers, invisible to Frickle, but plain to me, rising up;
searching out some plane or helicopter.
In the morning we set up our camps. The MPs have the plan we gave them for the
compound. So we are here, and working. The EPWs (Enemy Prisoners of War) come,
we screen them, interrogate the worthwhile one, and they get sent on to
someplace else.
They seem sad, nothing to do, not allowed to talk to each other, penned behind
concertina. They sit, or squat, in front of the screeners and answer
questions. They talk to us, almost always without reservation. Those who were caught for silly reasons (not all are EPWs) are let go (we've had farmers; rolled up because they had a rifle in their truck. They use it on gophers and dogs).
We have a lot of down time (typical, even for a line unit) and we amuse
ourselves. Sergeant First Class McBride came over today, as I was eating my breakfast (meatloaf and gravy, at about 1330, I being on duty from noon to midnight) and hollered he was tired of this shit (whatever shit it was) and to haul my ass over to a meeting. He treated SPC Barnes to the same. We got over there and the singing started. A pound cake with a match to celebrate Barnes'21st birthday, just as he had promised her, two-weeks ago.
We live our mornings in a slow rhythm. I wake with the first risers, about
0830, and bestir myself. Perhaps 30-45 minutes of shifting in my bag, coming to grips with a new day (there was the morning I had some pleasant dream, woke, and as the image of dirt past my cot sank in thought, "Fuck, I'm still here). Cool air on my face, a babywipe bath, and then foot-powder into new socks. Shuffle to the wash-point and brush my teeth, splash water on my face. A teaspoonful in the palm of my hand; with shampoo for lather, to shave.
The days are spent in the pounding hum of a generator (for the computers) and
the heat of the tent. When I have down time (I have about three hours of work,
every shift, and am on call for information all the time) I can sit in the
sun,or shade; when we have it, and read, or join a bull-session. The evenings are the same, though the ebb and flow of the generator is more noticeable at
night, because the lights fade and recover.
At the end of the shift, I brief the incoming interrogators, and bring the new
OB NCO up to speed. By the time I get back most of the day shift is asleep. I
look at the stars, and the waxing moon and fade away to sleep.
Rinse and repeat.
I wonder at myself. Things here are basic; in some ways they are base. We
discuss the finer points of things we would never have mentioned to anyone
stateside. Our humor usually simple, and often gross as well. There is little
room for subtlety in the lives we lead. I wonder if the crude humor and
the rest of it will remain. I don't think so, but I wonder just what lapses I will have,who will look at me as an alien for something which has become acceptable to me.
I worry about the questions I will get. People will want to know, "what it was
like," and I won't be able to tell them. The things I written are about as
good as it gets, and they are such a far remove. So much is left out. Some for OpSec(the things I can't talk about) and some because they are not explicable.
I guess I will have to join the VFW, and hang out every so often, so my war
stories can become polished, the rough edges of memory smoothed
comfortable where people understand what I mean, without asking for clarification.
I, to quote veterans of another war, have: though perhaps at a distance, seen
the elephant,
