Bernard Allen Bernsen, 1941-2007

As some of you may know, my father passed away last week. I am briefly back in Texas for the funeral, and to spend time with my mom, my two brothers, and my sister. Sunday was the rosary in Hondo, and yesterday was the funeral in San Antonio. We were blessed to have many old friends attend.

Thank you all who have expressed sympathy, and I appreciate your prayers. I appologize to those who didn't get the news in time. I have been very busy.

Most of you did not know my father, but many of you know what it's like to have someone special in your life. Sunday, I delivered a eulogy to my father, and have been asked to share it. In that spirit, I include it here. This is the version I wrote. I didn't include all of it in my spoken comments, but here it is, unfiltered.

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My Dad

I’d like to talk about someone special.

A guy who enjoyed his life, loved his wife and kids, and never complained about things he couldn’t change. A man at once set in his patterns, but who nonetheless was always experimenting and finding new ways to do things. A man who could sit in a corporate boardroom in a suit and tie on Friday, and trudge through a stockyard in his boots on Saturday – and be perfectly at home in either place.

A man with a great sense of humor and a great sense of life. A man who touched all those who he came across, and who could count them all as friends.
This was my dad.

Bernard Allen Bernsen – known to all his friends as Bernie – grew up on a farm near Violet, Texas in the 1940s and 50s. His parents were unique people in their own rights. Joe Bernsen was a farmer, but was fairly well educated and never took a photo in anything less than a suit and tie. His mother, Christine Hoelscher Bernsen, was a very spirited woman, who liked to play practical jokes. She was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse, a high school women’s basketball and tennis coach, and was the fun-loving, creative complement to her more conservative husband.

Bernie’s brother Ralph was seven years older than him, but they nonetheless were very close, and they spent a lot of time together growing up. It was a different time back then. When Bernie and Ralph wanted to go see a movie, they’d saddle up their horses and ride into town.

One time, Bernie had begged his mother and dad to let him watch a scary movie. They relented and let the boys go watch the 1950s sci-fi classic, “The Thing.” Riding their horses back through the darkness across the Texas coastal plains, Ralph told Bernie, “The Thing is going to get you!” and then rode off, leaving his little brother alone. Five decades later, Bernie would laugh telling the story of how he rode on, terrified of the darkness, seeing a space alien behind every tree.

As a kid, Bernie loved to tinker. Fascinated by electronics, he became an expert on radio and television much like some kids today learn about computers. He built his own small radio transmitter from clothesline and spare parts. When stereo radios came out, he wanted to be the first person in Corpus Christi to have one, so he ordered parts out of a catalog and built one himself.

One day, tired of seeing the picture on the family’s new television sideways as he lay on the couch, Bernie rewired the device so that it would display the picture sideways – to match the way he was sitting. Walking in and finding this, his father – who understood nothing more technologically advanced than a John Deer Tractor – went into a rage, thinking Bernie had broken the expensive machine.

He had an early reel-to-reel tape player, on which he recorded everything from his high school band to the first moon landing, to the first words of his children Ray and Chris.
His one unrealized dream was to go to work in radio and television. In college, he worked for a number of radio stations in San Antonio, as well as KENS TV. But he ultimately settled on a more pragmatic degree – accounting. Years later, he could still recite, in a perfect 1950s announcer voice, the old radio commercials he had read on air, like the one about Sprite – “In the bottle with the bubbles.”

Though he never did make it in radio, his wife and children to this day are imminently grateful that he chose something that actually paid the bills.

Shortly after graduating from St. Mary’s University, Bernie became active in lots of community affairs in his new home of San Antonio. In 1964, he ran for chairman of Precinct 128 of the Republican Party in Bexar County. Perhaps he thought it would be an easy way for a young professional to get noticed. Perhaps he even thought it would be the start of a long career in politics.

If so, his hopes were dashed when he was challenged by an energetic, smart and beautiful young woman named Olivia Ann Hill. O.A. – as everyone knows her – easily won a 14-11 victory. Bernie took his defeat in stride, and even made up a dummy front page of the San Antonio Light, with the headline changed to read “O.A. Hill Wins Runoff.” The phony article stated that “Political experts have not had time to forecast possible results the upset might have on the November presidential elections.”

(Mom and dad shortly after they met. Note the "Goldwater 64" bumper sticker.)


Although the event didn’t change the election in November. Bernie was clearly smitten by the young lady, and by December, the two were married. Thus began a 43-year journey together for Bernie and O.A.

You can’t talk about Bernie’s life without talking about the woman who stood by his side all these years. My mom is a unique woman. Smart, funny, and the best mother a child could ask for. She was also the best woman Bernie could have asked for, and he knew it, although he didn’t always say it in so many words.

In fact, Bernie claimed that he only told her he loved her twice – she claims it was three times. But to his kids, he would often say, “I love your mamma very much – but don’t ever tell her that.”

But there was no doubt he did love her. Once, as a teenager, I was digging through an old box, full of old stuff, and came across dad’s old letters to mom. If he ever had problems saying what he thought in person, at least it was easy to read between the lines.

Bernie loved his kids too, and though he didn’t always say it, he’d show it in other ways. One day, John and I were spending an afternoon with him running errands in downtown San Antonio. We happened to be walking next to an old theater building.

“I wonder what’s going on in here?” he asked, and walked inside. Confused, John and I followed, only to find out that we had arrived at the precise moment that a magic show was starting. By a coincidence – or so I thought – dad reached into his pocket and had pulled out three tickets for that very show. We sat down and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

Dad had a strong creative side – something he probably got from his mother. He’d always be doing some interesting project. Some worked well, like the accounting software he wrote in the early days of computers, which ended up selling well – until the technology moved beyond his ability to program. Other projects – like his ill-fated portable chicken house – did not do so well.
He also had a very strong sense of humor, and loved to come up with puns. It was a special talent of his, and he loved to compete with his daughter Chris in creating particularly ludicrous ones.

He had a large number of stock phrases he would always use. He’d say, “I wonder what the poor folks are doing today,” and you were always supposed to respond by describing exactly what we were doing that day, as in, “They’re probably sitting on the back porch cooking barbecue.”
He’d send us to the shop for a tool or a part for a project. When we’d come back empty handed and say we couldn’t find it, he’d say, “Can I give you five licks for every Phillips-head screwdriver I find out there?”

We’d go and search again, just to be sure. Ultimately, John got so tired of this that he started buying dad a screwdriver for Christmas every year, without fail. Each time, dad would pretend not to know what it was.

Mom, on the other hand, would always shake his presents, and guess what they were well before Christmas eve. So one year, dad bought her some jewelry, and suspended the small box within a large box using rubber bands. Mom, of course, was stumped.

Bernie was strong in his faith, although sometimes he seemed to get closer to God just sitting on his porch watching the rain come down than anything else. When the pope came to San Antonio in 1987, Bernie bought a brand new video camera and went to the mass as excited as a kid. He filmed the entire seven-hour spectacle.

Of course, he never did get around to editing the tape. If he had one flaw, it was to push projects off into the future. Never anything important, mind you. When it came to business or crucial family matters, he was always diligent about getting things done. But when it came to many other things, he always said he would do that “Someday.” When he bought his 90-acre piece of heaven in 1976, that’s the name he gave the place.

(Mom and dad at the gate to our farm.)

I think it’s safe to say that every child thinks the world of his father. But no one, I think, has better reason to think this than me, John, Ray and Chris. Sure, he was tough on us as kids, and sometimes asked too much of us. But once we got out in the real world, we were grateful for it. And whenever we needed him, dad was always there for us.

It’s hard saying goodbye, but then again, dad will always be here in each of us. Everyone here has been shaped and changed by this great man, and everyone carries those memories with them. As time goes by, the sadness we feel today may fade, but those memories – those pleasant happy times – will remain strong forever. All we need to do is take the time to remember them. And remember him.

Thanks dad, for being there. We will all miss you.

Sep. 11 -- Arrival in Baghdad

Anniversary and first attack

We flew into Baghdad in the early morning of Sep. 11 – the 6th anniversary of the attack on America. A fitting reminder, as if I needed one, of why I am here, and why I am doing this. I know that a lot of people back home wonder if what we're doing here is the right thing, but I know that it is.

I couldn't put it better than how it was stated by Sgt. Todd, the driver in my truck during convoy training last week.

"Sir, I know we're doing the right thing," Sgt. Todd said. "I knew it when I met a little girl on the streets of Baghdad four years ago."

He explained that the girl is almost the same age as his daughter. As they stopped, the little precocious Iraqi child came up to them and started talking in good English.

"You see," Sgt. Todd said. "Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay would often kidnap young Iraqi women - some as young as 14 - and rape them. Girls like this little girl I met on the street. And then one day, one of the sons found that his brother had already raped a girl he had kidnapped. So they started branding the girls - to mark their territory."

A happy-go-lucky Californian, that conversation was the only one I had with him where he wasn't joking or playing pranks. We had long discussions as we drove through the Kuwaiti desert about geopolitics. Although his understanding of the world was a little naive and limited, he understood what growing up in Iraq under Saddam, Uday and Qusay meant to little girls like the one he met.

"Sir, that's why I'm glad we're here, and damn anybody who thinks that that isn't good enough."

I tend to agree with Sgt. Todd.

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We flew over in a C-130, jammed packed. We sat in canvas seats that lowered down from the bulkhead, crammed in side by side in rows facing each other. It was so tight we had to arrange our knees so that they alternated with those of the person across from you. Jammed in there too were all of our weapons, which we carried on the plane, and some small backpacks with essentials. We all wore are body armor and helmets.

Much has been said about the violent spiral/evasive pattern that aircraft often make as they approach Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). However, when it came, it was not so bad as I expected. Pulling only a few more Gs than I did as a private pilot in a Cessna, the flight was more like a tame roller coaster. The landing itself was perfect.

It was 5:30 a.m. when we arrived, and I didn’t get a ride until nearly 9 a.m. An army specialist with my unit picked me up in a pickup and drove me to my new home, Camp Victory, which is part of the sprawling mass of bases clustered around the airport. Naturally, as I am now in theater, I will have to leave out much of the details of my adventures for security reasons. In fact, there’s not much about my actual job that I can tell you in any event. But I’ll go ahead and give you the basics about the camp where I’m at, since they’re well-known and you can google them yourself.

Camp Victory sits atop a palace complex built by Saddam Hussein. It includes a large man-made lake, around which several palaces are arranged. The place looks very much like a very large theme park. My first thought, upon arrival was, “Wow! I get to live at Sea World!”

Only here, the Sea Lions don’t lob mortars at you every day.

Most of these palaces are now home to American and coalition forces. My new office, in fact, is inside one of the largest of these palaces. Saddam built palaces for just about everything. He built them for himself, and for his friends. He built one for his prostitutes. He built them to memorialize great occasions of his reign, some of which were more fairy-tale than reality. A few hundred yards from the “Victory over Iran Palace” is an incomplete structure he called the “Victory over America Palace.” Yes, that’s right. The 1991 Gulf War, to Saddam, was a victory.

After being picked up, I was driven to my temporary quarters, which I’ll inhabit for the next couple of weeks until a permanent space becomes available. Right now, I’m in a tent. Eventually, I get to move up to a trailer. Who’d have thought Arkansas was so close to Iraq?

I’d been up for over 24 hours, so after checking in at work, I had the day off to relax. I went back to my tent, unpacked my gear, and lay down to take a nap.

Boom!

I perked up my ears.

Whoooshhh!

A sound, very clearly of some large object flying through the sky, from my left to my right, as I sat in my tent.

BOOM!

I sat up. At about that moment, the loudspeakers outside cried, “Incoming!” I had no fear. I had heard the object clearly, and it had passed completely over me – perhaps a little bit far off. A few minutes later, the all-clear sounded. I went back to sleep.

From my training, I knew that insurgents shot off mortars and other objects at our large base every few days, and that they were poorly aimed, and almost never hit anything substantial. Later that day, I talked to an Army Captain. The object I had heard was indeed a rocket of some sort, and it had landed near the center of the base. The first sound was the launching, then I heard it's trajectory, and then finally, it's impact.

There were injuries, but it didn’t sound substantial. I can’t print where it hit, as such information would allow the insurgents to recalibrate for the next time. But suffice it to say that it missed anything significant. It was a bit of a wake-up call, but it didn’t really bother me all that much. I had heard it, and it missed. As the Army Captain said, “You’re just as likely to get hit crossing the street.”

That’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but the truth is, much of the violence here is random, and unless you’re outside the wire, it’s only a matter of pure chance when someone is hit. And just about anywhere is as likely to be hit, so there’s no use trying to hide. Of course, if a number of mortars ever came over, in a concentrated volley, there are concrete bunkers to hide in. But for the most part, you might as well just go about your business.

That’s life at Camp Victory.

Training in the Desert

I’m on my own now, as all the Navy folks I trained with back in the states are still there doing more training on their own. My orders, however, move me forward a bit sooner. Here in Kuwait, I ran across a couple of acquaintances and made a few new friends, but for training purposes, I’m on my own – or more accurately, I’m thrown in on my own with other groups for training purposes.

Late last week, I arrived at a desolate outpost in the Northern Kuwaiti desert for training. I was fortunate enoughto meet several soldiers from the 82nd Airborne who I had met on the flight over from the U.S. As I walked up, one of them recognized me right away.
“You’re that guitar player,” he said.

In the Atlanta airport, I had sat in for a song or two with a Zydeco band from Louisiana, which was doing an impromptu concert as they waited for their flight to California. After 20 years of playing blues and rock, I had hoped to do well, but Zydeco is a whole other animal. Either way, I had impressed PFC Burton, the young kid who now recognized me, and now re-introduced me to all the 82nd soldiers.

The majority of the unit involved in this training – about 60 in all – were from the California National Guard. Added to that were the five guys from the 82nd and me. Whenever they forgot my name, they all just called me “Navy.”

The base we were at was very small and had few facilities. No showers, no dining hall, only tents and port-a-johns. For two days, we slept in sleeping bags on the hard floors of the tents or outdoors on benches.

We ate MREs – the pre-packaged military meals – for breakfast lunch and dinner. Or, more accurately, we ate them on the fly or whenever we had down time, as there were no official meal breaks. We didn't have to heat them, as it was well past 100 most of the day, and our bags were stored outdside.

We were told not to eat inside the tents because "crumbs attract mice and mice attract things that eat mice." In this case, adders and vipers – of several highly poisonous varieties. I never saw any of these, but one night, as I was heading across the sand to the port-a-john half asleep, a freshly-molted snake skin rolled across my path in the light breeze.

We spent much of the hot part of the day inside, suffering from death by powerpoint.

The next day, we rose at 3:45 a.m. and strapped on our body armor – "full battle rattle" as it is often referred to. Then we walked out to the range and lined up in ranks. It was still dark out as we stood there in the sand beneath a crescent moon and a few stars. But as we moved out to the range, it grew lighter. By 5 a.m., it was daylight.

We trained on and executed several tactical firing drills. We fired in close quarters, literally lined up at arm's length and firing at targets. Firing at a target while another soldier is firing just to your right and your left is a new way of shooting for me. I would hear the bang (loud despite my earplugs) and feel the concussion of the shot.

Occasionally, hot brass – the shell casing from your neighbor's rifle – would hit you. If you weren't careful about tightening up your collar, it could slip in and get between your body armor neck plate and your neck. This happened to one of my neighbors, Sgt. Hernandez, and it burned enough to peel the skin off. As a soldier feels this intense pain, he's trained to be careful in how he reacts. On more than one occasion in the past, a soldier has reacted too panicky, and still holdiding his weapon, grabbed at his neck, violently swinging his muzzle. Every now and then, the soldier inadvertently shoots, and occasionally, another soldier can be struck with the bullet.

We fired at targets in front, did exercises where we had to turn and engage targets at our rear (swinging the muzzle low to avoid "flagging" our neighbors), and fired at lateral targets as we moved. We had drills where we walked and fired, and drills where we ran and fired. All in formation.

There's always one person, it seems, who just doesn't get it. Whether in the military or civilian world, there's always one who just seems to stumble, fumble and fail. One who doesn't hear the important instrution, doesn't have competence with his tools, and who becomes a victim of dozens of gremlins of fate. Of course, someone who is perpetually victimized by fate can usually find the source of his troubles in his own actions – lack of attention to detail, improper preparation, and poor focus.

Of course, on this day, that person happened to be standing right next to me. At the last minute, a group of Army officers, new to our training group, arrived to shoot. one of them was placed on the line at my left.

On the first exercise, his rifle jammed. The whole group was halted for safety. He cleared his weapon and chambered a new round.

Click.

Again, nothing. Finally, afer the instructor helped him with his jam, he fired his two shots, and we moved on.

This happened again and again. Always the same guy. Always, he nervously laughed it off, or blamed the sand in his weapon – as if the rest of us had some magical sand-proof force field. We all stood patiently waiting, feeling the full weight of our body armor, and watching the sun – and with it, the temperature – climb.

And of course, when his weapon malfunctioned, he turned it to check the chamber. Proper protocol is to keep the muzzle pointed down range. But on several occasions, I heard the instructors shouting at him. He was pointing forward, in relation to his body – which meant directly at my back.

I have no intention or desire to be shot in this war, but at least if the enemy shoots you, you get a medal to go along with the hole in your side. If someone on your own team shoots you, all you get is the hole.

Fortunately, the range officers stayed on this guy like glue for the rest of the exercise and no other safety violations occurred.

"Don't worry," one of the Army sergeants told me. "He probably won't ever leave the headquarters."

That may be true, but the Army being the Army, he'll probably get a Bronze Star for his service while all these other guys who kick in doors and ride in gun trucks for a year will get nothing.

Make no doubt about it. We officers are necessary, and leadership is a trait distinctly different from (but not exclusive of) personal courage. That being said, when the rubber meets the road and the "shit starts flying" it is the enlisted folks, the average soldiers, upon whom all depends. And among these, it is the senior enlisted men who make the most difference.

You learn who they are right away. They aren't gung-ho, but neither are they afraid. When they speak, they speak from experience. They've been there. They've done that. They know.

One of these people is Staff Sgt. Thrasher, from Arlington, Texas – a tough, grizzled veteran who has done a couple of tours in Iraq and is headed back for more.

(SGT Thrasher, right)

As the fresh guys coming out of training expound on their new-found theoies on how to defeat IEDs and arrange convoys, he corrects them.

"Y'all that's not how it's going to work over there," he says. "You try that shit and you'll wind up dead."

And then, without condescention, but with deliberate words, he tells them how it really happens. In theater, not in theory.

The remaining time out there, we did more convoy training. This is basically a refresher class for most of us, but this time it's in a much more realistic environment, with all the hazards, including the brutal desert heat, which saps you and leaves you tired – at the same time that you need to be alert and ready.

Unlike Fort McCoy, whre I got to see all the action from the lead Humvee, I was in the middle of the column here, serving as the truck commander in a Five-Ton truck. High up and big, the five-ton is a totally different animal than the Humvee.

(In the picture to the right, my truck is Number 5 - the first large truck in the formation).

I won't go into the operational exercises we did, but you can imagine them. Driving through the desert, facing a variety of scenarios, and getting the convoy through with the least possible damage.

* * *

It was an exhausting two days in the desert, despite the fairly mild temperature – 105 degrees. Returing back to Camp Virginia, I was hoping for some down time to relax, but it was not to be.

As it turns out, I would get only a day, for today, I leave for Baghdad.

Soldiers in the Northern Kuwaiti Desert

You want camels? I got yer camels!

My friend John W. from San Antonio requested camel pictures. As always, I am happy to oblige:

Camels (or would those be Dromedaries?) in Northern Kuwait

Camels crossing our convoy

Camel tracks, seen from the passenger side door

of a Five-Ton truck (Our tracks beside).

Me with camels

Camp Virginia

The Sun God must hate Kuwait.

I’m sure the people here are nice, but somewhere, back in the distant, shrouded mysts of time, someone here must have done something affronting to RA. Because our star is perpetually punishing this little country.

The average mid-day temperature in Northern Kuwait and Southern Iraq is around 120-140 degrees Fahrenheit. It is reputed to be among the hottest places on the earth, and I can vouch for that reputation. In the entire five days I’ve been here, I have yet to see a single cloud in the sky. Nor do I expect they get many.

Dawn at Camp Virginia

Dawn is actually fairly nice. It comes around 5 a.m. and is probably in the high 80s.
But before long, the temperature creep begins.
6 a.m. 85
9 a.m. 90
11 a.m. 100
Noon 110

After that, it becomes a lot like the speedometer in Spaceball One – ridiculous speed followed by ludicrous speed, etc.

The heat flows all around you. As you walk, you feel it burning your hands on both sides. It’s kind of like being surrounded by a handful of sadistic, invisible cosmetologists, each armed with hair dryers, set on max, pointed at every part of your body.
With no humidity, you never actually feel yourself sweating, but you are. It just evaporates that fast.

This is Camp Virginia, Kuwait. For many, like me, it’s the last stop before going into Iraq. For others, it’s the last stop out of Iraq. Some of the veterans say they’d much rather stay in Iraq than come here.

The area around the camp is desolate, a wasteland. Sand stretching for miles in every direction, with an occasional rock. It’s like the area around Jabba the Hut’s palace, only it’s flat. And it has port-a-johns.

And believe me, there’s nothing worse than the smell of an unclean port-a-john when the mercury hits the roof.

Tents at Camp Virginia

This base is about 85 percent American, but there are still plenty of folks from around the world. The British are here, of course. Their baggy desert cammo shirts make them look rather sloppy. Their land rovers look beat up too, and of all the flags flying at the main part of the base, theirs is the only one that is old, faded and tattered, as opposed to crisp and new. It’s too little on which to form a true judgment, but the first impression is not inspiring.

There is a large contingent of South Koreans, who almost never wear their uniforms, but are in PT gear (T-shirts and shorts) most of the time. They walk around in groups of no less than six at a time, and some of them drape their arms around their buddies in a way that is probably normal in their culture but looks a little gay to many of the Americans.

Other than the British, none of the other countries have women among their soldiers. Among the U.S. troops, probably one in six are women. British, perhaps the same. Women have their own showers, bathrooms and tents. They do everything the guys do with one exception – female soldiers are expressly prohibited from going anywhere alone. They must be with another soldier, either male or female. This is a general rule throughout the theatre, not just at this base.
There are a couple of El Salvadorans here, but you hardly see them often. At the Air Base where I spent one night, I saw a Georgian – as in the country from the former Soviet Union. His uniform was like mine, only it had the cool Georgian flag on the sleeve and he had an AK-47, not an M-16, on his back.

And then, last but not least, there are the Tongans.

The Island of Tonga is a relatively little place in the South Pacific - about one-sixth the size of Austin - but their presence here is relatively large. They easily outnumber the Brits at this base. Probably outnumber the Koreans as well. One suspects they must have every single member of their military here at Camp Virginia. Tongans are everywhere: Tongans in the chow hall, Tongans in the Gym, Tongans in the Internet Café.

Occasionally, they wear their uniforms, which are the identical desert cammo pattern that I wear, except they say “Tonga Royal Marines” or “Tonga Navy” on them. Otherwise, they’re usually dressed in their PT gear, which unlike the Koreans’ is uniform and matching – brown shirts that say “Tonga Defence Forces” (they use the British spelling).

Tongan Flag

Since my brother actually once had a rock band named “Tonga” I thought I’d try to trade one of these guys for one of his shirts, but I haven’t found one yet who wears a shirt below an XL. Every one of them, it seems, is built like a linebacker. Like Samoans, Tongans are a historically warlike people who eat well and grow big. The average Tongan probably weighs 1.2 times the Average American here, and probably counts for two of the average Koreans.

Somewhere, you get the feeling that the terrorists are in fear of their lives. Little did they know that when they messed with America, they also messed with Tonga. Had they had any idea, they may not have done so. I definitely will re-appraise what I think of some of these nations out there, when I realize who is standing by America - even though their resources may be modest - and who isn't standing by America - even though their resources may be large.

The other day, I was standing outside the chow hall, waiting for it to open. I was with a group of Marines, but I was somewhat apart.
A Korean walks up. I can see it. He’s zeroing in on me, smiling from 50 meters.
I think for a moment that I can duck back into the herd of Marines and be safe. But I don’t move fast enough, and in a moment, it’s too late. My fate is certain.

I am to become an English-language test dummy.

“Harro!”
“Howdy!”
“It very hot today.”
No crap, dude. This is Kuwait.
“Yeah,” I say. “Very hot.”
The guy, in typical Asian fashion, cannot have a conversation without being one foot from me. I’ve been through this routine before, and I know that if you back up, they just keep moving towards you until you run out of space, and you’re cornered.
Surrendering to my fate, I decide to engage in conversation. Turns out, his English isn’t bad at all. He’s a South Korean Corporal who is actually coming off his deployment on his way home, but his unit was stationed in Irbil, in the Kurdish northern part of Iraq, which has relatively mild weather, and in some places, gets snow.
“Ah, Kurdistan,” I say. “Pretty peaceful up there, right?”
“Yes,” he says, almost with a touch of disappointment. “All the time I was there (six months), only one bomb go off.”

As I’m talking to this guy, I realize how ironic it is that Korean troops are here in the Middle East guarding security in Iraq, while their own homeland has a vast, militarized border – which is guarded by their army, as well as U.S. troops. I mention something to this effect.
“Yes, but now we have ‘Sunshine policy,’” he said. “So we give to North everything – food, electricity…and they build atomic bombs. I am in military, so I cannot say things political, but this does not make sense.”

Some of the countries represented at Camp Virginia. In the background, an Apache attack helicopter.

Of course, not everybody here is in the military, not even all the Americans. There are a variety of contractors on the job. And a lot of them are locals. The folks cooking the food in the chow hall are often locals, and I'm sure it surprises them just how much Americans can eat - and the odd food that we consume. I'm sure that none of these guys has ever had a burrito, but they know how to reheat frozen ones very well.

If America has done nothing else to promote freedom, justice and truth around the world, at least we’ve taught the Kuwaitis how to make grits. This, in my estimation, is just as worthy as spreading democracy, and far more useful for me on a personal level.

The actual server folks in the chow hall all seem to be Pakistanis or Bangladeshis. They average about 5’4” and look like they could be beaten up by the average American sixth-grader. The outdoor folks are more often Arabs. They take out the trash, vacuum out the port-a-johns.

The other day, I had an eye opening experience. I was sitting in my tent, minding my own business when there’s a knock on the door and a guy comes inside. It’s been blowing dust like crazy, and the guy has his head and face covered. In short, he looks like the average stereotypical terrorist. For a second, my heart skipped a beat.

In fact, he was the A/C repairman.

It’s a good thing too, because without ammo, the best I could have done to a terrorist was club him with my M-16. But the point this illustrates is that you can’t be too quick to judge on appearances. To the average Kuwaiti, he’s just dressed appropriately for a sandstorm. To the average American, he looks like a terrorist. I suppose that when I’m back home and dress like the typical redneck, how I myself am judged differs dramatically based on whether the person seeing me is or isn’t an African-American. Me simply being who I am can sometimes be intimidating.


Perception, of course, becomes its own reality, and we have to deal with that, both good and bad, in how we treat others and are treated by them. Especially when it comes to this war, perception can go a long way. That’s why we, as American servicemen, go to extra lengths not to step on local customs, to minimize the use of force to the least necessary to get the job done, and generally portray a good portrait of America.

That’s it for today from the desert. Hope things are well with you. See you at the next update.

James

Arrival in Kuwait

Howdy folks!

Arrived in Kuwait yesterday after a really long couple of flights, including one that was cancelled and resulted in a completely wasted day in the Atlanta Airport. AT&T screwed up and cancelled my phone a day earlier, so I didn’t even get to call people during that time.

I had four huge duffle bags, my backpack and my weapons case, so I was pretty loaded up. Here is a photo of some (though not all) of my gear:

Flew through Shannon, Ireland and had a couple of hours on the ground there. Enough time to read the previews of the football games and brush my teeth. Then we were off to Kuwait. The flight took us through all of Iraq – from North to South – but you couldn’t see much at 35,000 feet.

When we arrived at the Kuwait airport, it was about 95 degrees – and it was already 7 p.m.

The heat here is incredible – right now it’s up to 120 or so outside. It’s like when you’re walking down the street and a bus passes you and the engine blows an oven-like blast right in your face – only it is like this all day long. My tent is airconditioned, but the AC has to run constantly and only barely keeps up. As of now, I’m the only person in the tent, but I understand that will change soon.

I do finally get a break from the training routine. The training class that I need to go to doesn’t start until next week, though there is a slight chance they can squeeze me in on this week’s class at the last minute. I almost want to get the earlier class so I can get the hell out of this inferno and get to the relative cooler temperatures of Iraq.

Every now and then, we do get a wind, but it doesn’t cool things down, just blows sand everywhere. I’ve been coughing like Bill the Cat all day.

Drove up last night to an Air Force base in the North. They put me in “transient housing” – hope that wasn’t a personal statement about my hygiene. The tent was pitch black, and my flashlight was at the bottom of one of my bags. I only got a couple of hours of sleep. I got up at 3 to go get something at the 24 Hour Subway on base, and then, my hunger quenched, went to a building that had television and watched some college football games, which were live. Once I saw the A&M score on the ticker, I went back to bed for about an hour – since I had to be up at 6 a.m.

This morning, I was driven by a Navy liaison to Camp Virginia, which is very close to the Iraqi border. As we drove, we passed the “Highway of Death” from the 1991 Gulf War, where hundreds of Iraqi troops, riding in stolen cars, busses and ambulances, were caught in the open by U.S. aircraft and obliterated. Here’s a picture I took:

And here’s one of me at the base here, doing my impression of a cookie in an oven:

That’s my M-16 rifle, of course, and also I’ve got my M-9 pistol strapped to my leg.

Hope things are going well with y’all. Will write more soon. In the meantime, I’m going to take advantage of the downtime and get some reading done.

The Battle of FOB Raider

Our last major training event at Fort McCoy was a Base Defense exercise. This involved the manning – and defending – of a mythical Forward Operating Base, or FOB.

Our Navy unit, as I said before, is fairly small, so in order to do this event, we had to team up with an Air Force unit which was also going through training at the same time. We started out on Day 1 doing actual FOB work at FOB Freedom – learning to guard the gates, do vehicle inspections and personnel inspections.

Day Two, however, would be more complex. We would move out to FOB Raider – a live-fire range where we would be tested as never before.

Because it was a live-fire range, this FOB was one-dimensional, with all the towers on one side aligned on the range, to ensure that all the live ammunition went in one – safe – direction. On the back side, there was a gate with a guard tower. Iraqi actors would come through this gate on foot or in cars throughout the exercise.

On the range in front of the towers was another movie-set like city of wooden building fronts. Also arrayed there were cutouts of Iraqi civilians, mosques, chickens and goats. Among these were a series of the now familiar pop-up targets. But before one could shoot, one had to be careful.

The whole purpose of the exercise – beyond defending the base – was to identify targets clearly before you shot.

No country in the history of warfare has done more than America to reduce the amount of suffering among innocent civilians. But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to distinguish between friend and foe on the urban battlefield. So quick recognition of insurgents, civilians, Iraqi police, etc. is vital to winning the war and restoring the peace in Iraq.

So although it would be a game, in a sense, our orders at FOB Raider were very serious – do not shoot the wrong targets. Anyone who did would be subject to an investigation. If the shooting was intentional, there would be real-world consequences.

There are a dozen tasks to be done at a FOB. Tower guards, gate guards, entry control point, vehicle inspections, personnel inspections, casualty-collection point/litter bearers, Quick Reaction Force (QRF), radio control and more.

All of these posts had to be filled, and more importantly, they had to be rotated. The exercise would not end until a certain percentage of the unit members had participated in the live fire from the towers or the QRF.

The job of organizing and running the whole FOB operations was centered on the Tactical Operations Center (TOC). There would be an overall commander in charge and an assistant commander who would do the actual work of assigning people to various positions. In our unit commanders’ briefing the day before the exercise, we were told that 45 percent of the work for the entire exercise would be done by the latter person.

And they were right, as I would find out.

Because we were a mixed Navy/Air Force unit, we had to come to an agreement with our sister service on how best to manage the situation. There were 18 Navy and 34 Air Force, so the numbers didn’t give us much clout. The highest ranking Navy officer (myself) was an 0-2 (LTJG) and the Air Force had Two Lt. Colonels, (0-5) a couple of Majors (0-4) and a Captain or two (0-3). So I was clearly outranked, as well as outmanned. It was clear that the overall commander would be an Air Force officer, and the best I could hope for – and what I got – was the assistant’s job.

There, in charge of the board in which I could move people around like a puppeteer, I could at least ensure that my Navy folks were getting the training – and also the rest – that they needed. An Air Force officer was then appointed as my assistant – with the idea that he could take over once I went out to a tower to get some shooting time of my own.

As the exercise began, the base came under sniper fire, and our guys in the towers shot back at insurgents, waiting patiently through dozens of pop-ups of civilians until an insurgent popped up. When they did, our gunners would shoot them down.

The guidelines we had meant rotating each of the seven towers once every two hours. This is a complex task, as only the Sergent of the Guard (SOG) could do this – escorting the replacements to the towers, and swapping them out – all the while ensuring that no live rounds were left in the weapons once the shooters came down from the towers. This was crucial for safety within the FOB.
My plan was to rotate the tower guards first with the Entry Control Point (ECP) people, and then move on to other low-priority jobs.

But nothing ever works that smoothly.

After the first rotation was up, the sporadic fire on our base had been increased. There were now mortars running down. Suddenly, we got a call over the radio:
“Mortars have hit Tower One. We have one casualty, over.”

From there on, it developed into one of the most intense periods of my life. For five straight hours, I was at the center of a massive beehive of activity, trying to bring order out of a firestorm of chaos.

I quickly sent a man from the ECP to Tower One. The injured person was brought to the Casualty Collection Point. On my magnetic white board, I maneuvered two magnetic strips with names on them across the board to reflect the change. So far, so good.

Now it was time to rotate the towers. I started with Tower Seven and began to work back to Tower One.

But before I could act, a mortar hit the ECP, and my ECP commander was out. I quickly appointed a new commander and cancelled my planned move to Tower Seven, since that would leave the ECP down four men – two for Tower Seven, the one I had moved to Tower 1, and the one killed by the mortar. I decided to take them from one of our two litter bearer teams at the CCP instead.

And so it went, on and on. The smooth transition plan by which I would relieve one tower every 15 minutes fell apart completely as the action picked up. As the casualties were “evacuated” by helicopter or pronounced dead, they would regenerate 15 minutes later. But it was never enough, and I was always short-handed. I had originally planned to split time with an Air Force 1st Lt. when I needed a break, but after the first casualties, I had to assign him to a tower and I never got him back. Later on in the day, I brought in a chief from our Navy team to learn my job, but before 15 minutes was out, I needed to replace someone and he was the only one available.

In a real battle, you could close off the main gate, but not here. The instructors ruled that out entirely. So everything proceeded surreally as it would in quiet times, as mortar fire came through. We got word over the radio that the “mayor” of the local Iraqi village was here to meet with us. The Air Force Lt. Col. turned his duties over to me and went outside to hear what he had to say.

“Tower Five has been hit!”

I had just sent a crew to replace Tower Four. It was getting very close to the two-hour mandatory rotation time, and I still had three towers to replace: Four, Two and one man in One (the second being the man who came in an hour into the battle).

One man and one woman (both Air Force people) in Tower Five were now dead, and the tower was completely empty, exposing the base significantly. I had to act quickly.

“Fox 5 to Fox 3” I called over my walkie-talkie to the SOG, who was taking the crew to Tower 4.

“Fox 3 over.”

“Redirect crew en route to Tower Four to Tower Five, over.”

“Fox 3, roger.”

But then that screwed up my relief of Tower Four. Being the central tower, it was the only one that communicated directly with our main radio operators, and served as a relay point for all communication going to all towers. One requirement was that one of the people in the tower be skilled with a radio. I had sent an Air Force guy with those qualifications over to relieve it, but now he was in Tower Five instead.

I turned to the radio operator. (My walkie talkie connected me with only the two SOGs and my runner).

“Get a hold of the ECP. Tell them to release so-and-so and have him report to Tower Four.”
I then took a look at my casualty list. Each name had a time marked on the white board beside it. I checked my watch.

“Fox 5 to Fox 2,” I said into the walkie talkie, calling my runner.

“Fox 2 over.”

“Where are you, Fox 2.”

“Returning from delivering ammunition. Near Tower Six.”

“Get over to the CCP. They have two dead people about to ripen. As soon as they’re back alive, get one of them over to Tower 4 pronto.”

It continued like this all day long. Standing in the TOC, I at least had the benefit of air conditioning, though I still had to wear my body armor. My helmet I could do without, until I heard a mortar round coming near, in which case, everyone in our building grabbed our helmets and took cover on the floor. After ten seconds, we got up and resumed our work.

The situation was growing increasingly more difficult, but between myself, the SOGs and the runner, I had figured out a fairly efficient system, and the action seemed to mellow a little around noon. I opened up my MRE and took a few bites of my Chicken Cavatelli. I never got to finish it, but I did eat all the snacks, including the Vanilla Pound Cake, which was very good.

It was at this lull that I assessed my board. The goal was to get 100 percent (80 percent was acceptable) of our people out as shooters. I had marked with green ink all of those who had done so. The rotation was working, however there was one place we weren’t getting shooters from: right here in the TOC. I decided to see if we could get any time for these people, especially the Air Force Lt. Col.

“Sir, would you like to go to a tower?”

“Yes, if it’s possible.”

“Who would you like to replace you?” Thinking of all the Air Force officers above my pay grade, I made a few suggestions.

“I don’t care,” he said. “You’re doing all the work here anyway.”

It was perhaps an overstatement, but it was a good compliment, so I took it. In the end, I swapped out one of our two radio operators and my runner. Time, and a deteriorating situation made any more impossible.

We had all started the day with plenty of ammunition, but around this time, it became a concern. I got a call that a tower was “amber” (yellow) on ammo. Not having any stores available at that instant, I did the only thing I could. I took the ammo from myself and everybody in the TOC and handed it to the runner. He took it out to the tower.

“Get a call into the BDOC and request more ammo,” I said, referring to the overall FOB command (essentially the instructors), as we had been told to do.

It took some time, but finally the ammo came. From now on, in all the spare seconds I had away from my board, I, along with anybody else who was able, was speed-loading M-16 magazines with ammo.

1300 Hours. Time for the second rotation. Actually, with some towers hit, and others rotated in a staggered cycle, I was always rotating. But more and more casualties made it more and more difficult. I was even having to pull people from the QRF.

The Quick Reaction Force (QRF) actually drove out onto the range in Humvees in simulated action against small targets in the town. To do this safely, three towers shut down when the QRF left, and the other four towers shifted their fire. The QRF folks were all getting their own shooting time, and needed to be an organized team. For this reason, we gave the entire QRF to the Air Force. But necessity forced me to pull from this team.

One big concern was a lack of Combat Life Savers in our medical tent. As they were doing real live IV sticks in the tent, one or two was not enough. We needed four, five, or even six. I began to cycle our CLS personnel (marked on their tags with a red cross) into the CCP. I sent one Air Force 1st Lt. there to help out and she basically took over the show and ran it. Very effectively from all the reports. Suddenly, the CCP was able to operate faster, and that gave me the ability to pull one or two more people from their teams.

Ammo was running down again. At 1311, I put in a call for more ammo. Fifteen minutes passed and the best I had got is that they would try to get us some. Then another 15. I called back. Another 15.

The ammunition supply was now getting critical, and I called for conservation. I then stripped all the ammo from the TOC and from the soldiers on the CCP. The ECP I stripped also, since their job of searching visitors and vehicles did not require the use of live rounds (which would have been impossible to do safely).

“Tower One black on ammo.”

That was not a good sign.

“Fox 2 this is Fox Five. I need Ammo taken to Tower One.”

The ammo arrived. But scarcely had the catastrophe been averted than another tower popped up. And another. It was like ammunition “whack-a-mole.”

The door to the trailer opened. One of my two SOGs came in. “SOG” I was discovering, was appropriate, since it accurately described the soaked state of their uniforms. They were literally running across the base in full body armor. One of them was in his 20s. The other in his 50s. The latter one had come through the door and I told him to sit down a while.

“Tower Seven has 10 magazines.”

“What? Have they been hoarding them?”

“They have so many because every time the QRF goes out of the gate, they have to stop firing.”
It was obvious, but I had missed it. I called to the other SOG and to my runner. Towers Five, Six and Seven would all logically have more ammo than the others. I told them to collect all but three mags and spread them out among the other towers.

That alone bought us another 15 minutes, but there was still no word on the ammo. I began to get a sinking feeling, and remembered the beginning scene in “Star Trek II” where the crew of the Enterprise faced a training scenario that was a true no-win situation. The BDOC was starving us of ammo, which means the training day was coming to an end.

But I didn’t want to end on a losing note, so I called for my guys to conserve ammo and pick their targets carefully. As time went on, they nonetheless started calling in:

“Tower One, black on ammo.”

“Tower Four, black on ammo.”

“Tower Three, black on ammo.”

I turned to one of the Army instructors, who had a mischievous grin on his face. “Can I tell them to fix bayonets?” I asked. He laughed.

By 1420 it was over. Word came over the radio from the BDOC, and the shooting stopped.
I stepped out of the trailer and into the bright sunlight and heat. Slowly the troops were making it back up the hill to the room where we would break the exercise down in an After Action Report.

It had been the most intense five hours of my life, and I was emotionally drained. I had been on my feet constantly, moving constantly, but never left a space bigger than six feet by fifteen.

I had acquitted myself well – all the Army instructors said as much. And our Navy and Air Force Teams, who had been rivals for a month, had somehow coalesced into something effective. Sitting down with them, I looked at their nametags and – at least for the Air Force guys – put faces with the names that I had been moving around the board all day like mere numbers.

The Battle Commander’s position is one of the hardest in the military, but it seemed very simple to me. There were no right or wrong decisions, there was only decision and indecision. You had to make the call, and deal with it, however it worked out. There was no time to second-guess and no time to evaluate. Action did not guarantee success. Inaction, however, guaranteed failure.

It was the end of my training at Fort McCoy. Two days later, I flew out of Wisconsin. Tomorrow, I take another flight, this time to Kuwait. I may never use some of the training that I got at Fort McCoy, but I’ll never forget it. In the back of my mind, however, I know that if the worst ever happens, I’ve had the best preparation I could possibly get short of real battlefield experience.
Here’s hoping that’s all the experience I have.