Birthdays, things and stuff

Yesterday was an unremarkable birthday, fortunately my cousin Julia vindicated me by having an exciting wedding. Congratulations! Hope you all have a GREAT honeymoon!

Everyone has been asking what we do all day that keeps us so busy, and I really can't give details about that. I can say that we drive around all the time! And you can't even imagine the amount of time we spend on vehicle maintenance. I guess when you drive like it's a demolition derby, you can expect to spend all of your free time working on the vehicle. Our policy is to drive like we have a death wish, then maybe they'll leave us to our own devices.....

As for the "uproar" about the British attacking the Iraqi Police, I can't say I blame them. There are some great Iraqi Police out there, but there are plenty of crooked ones as well. The police are aware of nearly half of the roadside bombs that get placed in Baghdad. The insurgents just pay them off. So I would not be the least bit surprised if the British found the police opposing them. On the other hand if you read the account of the British, you will quickly see that they were up to something suspicious. I'm sure that after a solid investigation, both parties will be found to be at fault. Enough of that.

Linds emailed me an AP article about more prisoner abuse. It should be noted that CNN chose NOT to post the article. Apparently it is at least somewhat suspect of being fake. It claims that soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division abused prisoners near Fallujah on a regular basis with their chain of commands approval. But it also refers to them as "elite" and says that smoking a prisoner means beating him until he passes out. The 82nd Airborne is not an elite unit, just an Airborne Division (we call them the 82nd "Airplane"). And anyone who has spend more than 15 minutes in the Army can tell you that smoking someone has NOTHING to do with physical beating, it's just being forced to exercise until it hurts. I'm sure that there is some small element of truth to the claims, there usually is in these matters, but it's time to quit adding to the truth to make news more sensational. The truth is news enough.

Most importantly I would like to say that the claim that the abuse in Abu Graib was carried out by "military police and military intelligence personnel" is a complete lie. It was ONLY the military police. Everyone wants to blame the interrogators because they're an easy scapegoat, therefore I will repeat myself...

Quit adding to the truth to make news more sensational.
The truth is news enough!!

Short nights and crazy days

First I'd like to apologize for not finding time to post something sooner. We've been SO busy lately that I've been getting 5 hours of sleep or less. We're not out the entire time, but we work like 16 hours, then it takes time to wind down, let the adrenaline die down, shower and then finally sleep. But I'm going to try to make updates a priority, it's only fair to all of you.

Bad news first. Lindsey was hospitalized yesterday, she had extreme abdominal pain, and it turns out it was from a cyst. I didn't even know about it until about an hour ago. I feel so powerless and like a deadbeat husband. I'm out running around Baghdad and my wife can't even get hold of me to let me know that she's sick. She's getting better now, and they're going to try to figure out what caused it.

Now for the good news! I'm starting to get packages! The APO address does in fact work, and thank you everyone for sending stuff! I've been getting books and food and rags (very important, I need them to clean weapons and stuff!). So thank you to everyone who's taken the time to send me stuff. I promise to share with the other guys.

Well, it's late, and I've got to get some sleep. Later,
 
Trey

Taxi service

Just a quick story since I don't feel like writing too much. This one is a GREAT one though...
So we were down in the Green Zone running some errands for an officer of ours, and were stopped outside a very important anonymous building waiting for the officer to come back out, and we noticed a Lt. Colonel walk by. We saluted, "Good afternoon, Sir," whatever.... etc... He sort of lingered in the area for a while and took a sip of some water from his water bottle and then finally came over to us and asked us, "Are you here to pick me up from my briefing?" We told him that we're not here for him, and so he walked away. A few minutes later he came back and asked us if we're from Camp Victory, so we told him that we're from Justice. He wandered back off again.

Some Marine came by and talked to us for a few minutes, and then the Colonel came back again asking where we're headed to next. We told him that we're headed back to Camp Justice. He asked if we needed to go to any meetings at Victory. We told him no, that we're done for the day after this mission. He left, then came back and asked if there were any other people from our Divison at Victory, we told him that, yes there were. He left again. Finally right as we were about to leave, he came up and directly asked us if he could get a ride to Camp Victory. We were just shocked. A random Colonel was hitch-hiking a ride to Victory from the Green Zone. It's unheard of. We had no CLUE who this guy was, but what the heck, we're on the same team, so we went ahead and dropped him off. It was hysterical. And it turns out that he was a really nice guy. Strange things happen here.
 
Trey

Bombings and more

Today was a nasty day in Baghdad. CNN has the full official story, but it should be noted that more happened today that they have even found time to report. I believe the count is up to 6 car bombs, 2 suicide bombers, one roadside bomb, and countless firefights. The majority of the deaths, as usual have been of innocent Shiite civilians. It begs the question, when will they start to turn in the insurgents?

The site of the largest loss of life, at the Kadhimiyah "gathering of laborers", was more accurately right on the front steps of the Kadhimiyah shrine. This is the same shrine that received mortar fire just a few weeks ago at the Death of the Seventh Imam celebration, and was the destination of the crowds of people who were killed in the tragic accident on the bridge. The shrine is right outside the gates of our camp, probably no more than 800 yards from the front gate. So another deadly tragedy has struck the neighborhood of Kadhimiyah.

I visited the hospital this morning, just a few kilometers from the shrine. Bodies of the dead were stacked up in the back of a flatbed truck, at least 40 of them. People who were just out minding their own business, but were chosen by some fanatic to die.

Update on Sept. 15 2005 @ 7:15 am
Yes, the Iraqi people know who the insurgents are and could easily turn them in to us, but are fearful of reprisals against themselves and their families. The cycle of fear has paralyzed this society.

Enough for now,
Trey

Hitchens vs. Galloway

Get ready for the fight of a lifetime! Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway are scheduled for the debate of a lifetime tomorrow at 7:00 PM. I don't know if it will be televised nationwide, but if it is, WATCH IT! In his most recent article in Slate magazine, Christopher Hitchens gives some background on the anti-war "tour" that Galloway is undertaking, and slices Galloway to ribbons. Be forewarned that the language can be a bit rough, but the debate is excellent and the topic is of the utmost importance to the future of the Middle East and the United States, if not the world. I won't be able to watch it, but I'm sure that the transcript will be posted somewhere, and I'll make sure to provide a link to it once I find it on Hitchens website. That's all for tonight, do NOT miss the show tomorrow!
 
Trey

Who is the enemy?

In the past few days several incidents have made me think a bit harder about what we're doing here, why we do it, and what makes us different from the enemy we fight. The anti-War crowd cries all the time about how we are the enemy and compares our war here to the attacks on our sovereign nation on September 11th. They accuse the solders here of killing indiscriminately and say the US is responsible for atrocities to the Iraqi people every day. That we are no better than our enemy.

Recently, while we were all sitting around in some of our precious free time, a call came in over our radios saying that they needed two people from our section for some helicopter mission. Not knowing what was going on and wanting to get a ride in a blackhawk, everyone volunteered. Two people were chosen, and I drove them from our housing area over to the small LZ (Landing Zone). When we arrived at the LZ they informed us that it was a prisoner that we were transporting. He was severely wounded in a firefight the night before, and he was being Medevaced to a state of the art hospital to save his life. The man was brought out in extreme pain, with casts on both legs, placed on the helicopter and flown away. He arrived at the hospital and is currently undergoing treatment. He is expected to live.

Now this was a man who was wounded while firing at American and Iraqi soldiers with the intent to kill us. Looking at the man on the stretcher, I knew that if he were not so severely wounded and under guard, he would without a doubt attempt to take my life that very instant. This man hated me and was my sworn enemy, yet I was willing to escort him to a hospital where they would perform surgeries to save his very life. And my government who he despised had payed to transport him by helicopter and for his comprehensive medical bills.

The question raised is this: If I were injured in the exact same way and left in a back alley of Baghdad, how would I be treated? And THAT is why we are entirely unlike our enemy. I will no longer tolerate the argument that we are just as cruel as the insurgents who place roadside bombs on the streets of this city.

More later,
Trey

APO problems FOREVER!!!

AUUUGGGHHH. I've reached the last little limit of my patience with the Army. The APO address that they just confirmed as correct is WRONG. So don't send anything for a couple of days, they're supposed to give us our FOURTH and supposedly final APO address in 3 days. Please please please call a recruiting station, get the number for Fort Drum, and complain to them 2 to 3 times per day. Make up wild stories, cry on the phone, throw a FIT. We aren't supposed to even leave the US soil until we have an APO address, and I've been out of the country for over a month now.

Angry words,
Trey

The end of APO problems?

Well, our "games with the postal service" may be finally coming to an end. Jaira (my adopted Oregon mother) decided to end the frustration once and for all by calling Fort Drum, where they confirmed that the address that I just posted is in fact CORRECT! BUT the zip code has not yet been registered at all post offices quite yet. Someone out there is completely stupid, and I hope that they go a month without mail sometime.

Lindsey is actually on a first name basis with the people in her local post office. They even know MY name. She's been there every day for over a week. Thank you US ARMY and thank you US Postal Service.

This morning we had the distinct pleasure of escorting a garbage truck to the dump. There is no dignity in escorting garbage trucks, and even less if we earn purple hearts while doing so. What would the citation say? "...was shot while heroically defending a heap of garbage..."? What insurgent would even attack an Iraqi trash truck driven by and Iraqi driver? This place is nuts.

I know what else you can send in packages, if anyone is interested. Individually wrapped candy and small cheap flashlights, the ones that you pinch to turn them on that cost like 50 cents or so. The kids here LOVE flashlights, and will take any candy we give them! They always ask for chocolate, but in this weather, there's no way it would be anything but a bar of mush!

I posted a picture of myself in the turret of my HMMWV on my other website. It's over there because I need a specific piece of software to post pictures here, and I can't install it on these computers. I'll try to get a few more pictures up in the next few days. Meanwhile, a digital camera is on it's way so soon there will be plenty of photos.

More later
Trey

The Army is so organized!

Well, here we go again, the APO address has changed AGAIN. So here we go, hopefully for the last time.

PFC John Merrell
1-71 Cav HHT (PSD) 1/10 MTN
APO AE 09376

Someone will be decapitated if they change it ONE MORE TIME. It's been a day, and I'm out of things to discuss for the moment. My friend Dixon is going to download some pictures from his digital camera pretty soon, so I'll try to get a few of them posted here for you to enjoy!

Later,
Trey

The end of Warblogging

Last night was a sad night for free speech and responsible behavior. The Warblogging website has been taken down indefinitely due to an unfortunate series of events. Although I did not agree with the opinions of the editor, I enjoyed his forum since it allowed people of all opinions to express themselves responsibly and to continue the social debate about the condition of our nation.

Unfortunately someone with a political agenda and a grudge against the current administration crossed way over the line by posting pictures of the dead bodies of people killed in Katrina. The editor of the site removed the pictures out of respect for the families of those who were killed, and then the person who had posted the pictures went nuts. He accused the owner of the forum of hypocrisy and began revealing personal information about him and generally defaming him. As a result Warblogging.com has been rolled back to the old version, and may never return. So I'll have to find another forum where I can fight the hypocrites and frauds.

It's sad that the partisan outburst of one individual can ruin an outlet of free speech for everyone.

Trey
PS. I'm sure that my posting of Christopher Hitchens article didn't help calm anyone down, but everyone should be required to read it!

Less war, more debate

In the spirit of true escapism, I've started posting at Warblogging to balance out their comments, and to keep my mind busy arguing and not worrying about what is out of my control. My username is CavScout, if you visit their site, please don't be offended by the language or opinions of those who express themselves there. It's a public debate forum, and some people are less appropriate than others.

Also, my sister Stephanie has started her own blog at Xanga and I posted a comment (it's underneath her excellent posting) on her site that I should have saved for those stupid people at Warblogging. Auuggghhh... They frustrate me, but I'm so glad to have found an argument!

Enough for one night,
Trey

One messed up day

Wow, yesterday was pure insanity. It all started at 6:00 AM when I was woken up two hours early for the mission that we'd been told about that night before. We were going to pick up critically injured people from the bridge accident at an Iraqi hospital down the street, and take them to the Airport so that they could be flown to Spain for medical treatment. Sounds like a good wholesome mission, but for some reason we left earlier than we had originally planned on.

We got to the hospital and waited there from 8:10 until sometime around 10:00 when they finally told us that they weren't going to be ready to move the patients until sometime around 5:30 or so. So we came back, ate lunch and got ready to go again. Wouldn't you know that we had to wait another 2 hours at the hospital in the afternoon. Once they finally had everyone loaded up, we drove out with our 33 vehicle convoy and it took nearly 3 hours to make a 30 minute drive to the airport, thanks in part to poor navigation skills of someone that I will thankfully never have to deal with again.

At the airport, right before we pulled up to the terminal, one of the 13 ambulances broke down. A HMMWV towed it back up to us, and we waited for 2 hours while they offloaded everyone just to discover that the Spanish officials wouldn't take certain people. Either their injuries were to serious, not serious enough, or were clearly unrelated to the bridge incident. I don't know exactly how many people were turned down, but it was enough to piss off the Iraqis.

At this point it was like 9:00 PM and we'd been going non stop for 15 hours, so we tell the Iraqi vehicles to go ahead and go back to the hospital, we'll call it a night. They radio back that that's what they'll do, goodbye and thank you. But then a half hour later when we try to leave we find them pulled over on the side of the road waiting for us to escort them back. And then they starting fighting with each other over what little water they had. We aren't supposed to share our water, or they'll drink all of it and we'll all get dehydrated, so we just had to stand by and watch the mess. And that's when our second truck decided to break down.

So there we were with 13 ambulances and a bunch of Iraqi civilians and vehicles, with a broken ambulance and HMMWV. They're all pissed off and need water, and we can't leave because we don't have enough vehicles for security or to even transport all of our people back to the camp.

That's when a cool Iraqi officer decided to step up and save the day. He's my favorite guy ever. He offered to escort the ambulances back without our help, which would free us up to take care of our downed vehicle. So the Iraqis left and we waited until 2 AM until the recovery vehicle arrived. At 3 AM we found ourselves at our motor pool and we had to perform maintenance checks on ALL of our vehicles, and finally at 4 AM we made it back to Camp Justice.

And that's just half of the stuff that went wrong. But the good news is that we all stayed rather positive and got the job done in a professional manner. The Major who was with us was impressed with how alert and attentive to detail we were in spite of our setbacks, and at the motor pool, we got back my HMMWV that broke down several days ago. So I guess that all's well that ends well. And we learned how to deal with the worst of all possible situations.

Enough for now, I'll try to post some pictures soon.
Trey

APO troubles and breakdowns

We'll start with the APO business. The "new" and "improved" APO address we've been given won't accept packages until September 6th, but it is in fact the correct address, in spite of what the US Postal Service may have told some of you. At first I was frustrated with the Postal Service, but then I remembered how efficient and professional the Army is. Meaning that I'm sure that the Army dropped the ball on this one. Oh well, I just don't care.

If any of you want to know what to send, send me a book. I don't need candy, or civilian clothes. Don't need gum, chocolate will melt, in these temperatures a brick can melt! If any of you have a compact stack of clean rags, I know it sounds ridiculous, but we can use them. Now don't everyone send PILES and PILES of rags, but if you throw one or two torn up clean T-shirts, my weapon and vehicle will thank you.

Now about my vehicle.... My truck is sick today. Its fuel injectors have overheated (due to the climate, not poor maintenance) and have consequently messed up the fuel pump. Today it wouldn't go any faster than 50 MPH and so the mechanics are looking at it. I don't even want to think about driving any other truck.

Quite a few explosions around Baghdad today. Didn't see any, but we could hear them all day. Stupid insurgents don't realize that we're not going to leave as long as they keep this up, and we'll just chase them down with more determination (because we want to go home!) and more numbers. It's sort of funny, because if they fire at a truck, we call in a Bradley, and if they fire at that, we bring in tanks, and if they're crazy enough to shoot at the tanks, what the heck, we send in attack helicopters. These people (not the Iraqis but the mostly foreign insurgents) are just not that bright.

More later,
Trey

The death toll rises

This morning was a very quiet morning in central Baghdad. Everyone is mourning the death of well over 900 people in a stampede over a bridge. In Louisiana, there was a similar loss of life, and a HUGE destruction of property by hurrican Katrina. But CNN "International" had 6 articles about hurricane Katrina and it's swath of destruction, and only mentioned the tragedy here at the bottom of it's headlines. Perhaps they should call themselves "CNN Pseudo-International (with an American worldview and focus)".

The article about Baghdad did briefly mention several important pieces of information, that I felt should have been clarified. First, the bridge is usually closed because it presents and constant security risk to our camp. It had been used numerous times by snipers and insurgents with rockets and RPG's. Due to the security risks in reopening the bridge, there were barricades to prevent car bombers from driving over the bridge, and checkpoints at both ends of the bridge. The article did not go so far as to suggest that there should not have been checkpoints and concrete barricades, but cast subtle doubt on their necessity. They are in fact vital to the security of Camp Justice, and this entire Shiite neighborhood.

The other side of the river is the part of town we call Sadr City and is very hostile to both US forces and Shiite muslims. It was unwise to open the bridge, since it drew thousands of Shiite muslims into a Sunni neighborhood, causing tension and fear in both groups of people.

Scouts out,
Trey