My Tour Guide Tab
As previously mentioned I have finally earned the coveted CMATT Tour Guide Tab. Those of you not in the military there are various specialty tabs that Soldiers are awarded for attending speciality training such as Special Forces (Green Berets), Ranger, Airborne, Sapper, etc. Our group here in Taji decided that we needed our own special tab which recognizes the qualities and attributes that one requires in order to be able to pull off the perfect tour of our facilities for visiting dignitaries. Speaking loud enough for all those to hear, being able to walk backwards with out stepping into one of the many holes and ditches, spewing out square footage, completion dates, cost of facility repair, number of personnel to be trained, etc. Training may not be as rigorous as the true tabs that Soldiers wear, but hey if your gonna brief generals and senior Colonels we need to have our ducks and numbers in order! Here I am showing off my tab to some of my peers. We for obvious reasons wear this tab under our pocket cover and only pull it out when giving a tour of our respective areas. Other such fictitious tabs are the Power Point tab which is only authorized for those J staffers whose main contribution to the war effort are their meticulously prepared Power Point presentations which Generals are briefed on each day. They are truly Power Point Warriors because without Power Point Presentations the American Army would come to a stand still. It is amazing that D Day was pulled off by General Eisenhower and the rest of our allies without the use of Power Point Slides especially those with the moving figures and objects!!
Things I miss from home/USA:
1. Carmens Spanish cooking-right now I would kill for a nice plate of arroz con pollo or un guiso de carne con patatas y guisantes or filetes
2. Ascension jumping into our bed late an night right after I turned off the light to kiss me good night not once or twice but at least 4 times, then yelling from her room Dad do you love me and not stopping until I say yes!
3. Sitting in our patio at night shooting the breeze with Carmen while sipping a nice glass of wine
4. Watching Javi play soccer with his club team or high school team
5. Sitting on my recliner in the living room reading the Wall Street Journal in the evening
6. Having to only get up and walk about 10 feet to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night instead of taking the 40 meter walk here in Taji
7. Our after dinner discussions at the kitchen table with the family where the discussion can go anywhere from work, politics, school and other topics in general
8. Working outside on Sundays on the lawn, sprinklers, hedges listening to the A's or Raiders play on the radio or talking to Carmen as she trims here rose bushes or gawks at her tomato plants which produce killer sized tomatoes. I have to keep reminding her that this is America the land of the Super Sized
9. Taking Lady our dog on a walk or mini-run to the park near our house
10. Spending 5 minutes peering into my wine cellar trying to figure out which wine I should open up for dinner that night
11. Taking a coffee break at Suns cafeteria with my co-workers
12. Sleeping on my select comfort mattress knowing that I will not have to worry about bed springs or a sore back the next morning
13. High speed internet
14. Going to the grocery store and spending 20 minutes walking down the wine aisle drooling at wines I would like to buy except that my cellar is full of wine
15. Swinging by my parents house knowing that I will be offered some snack or a liquid beverage of my choice and can spend 30 minutes shooting the breeze with them
16. Running down the tree lined Happy Valley Ave on my morning runs listening to my IPOD and enjoying the scenery
17. Saturday morning runs with the gang out in Los Gatos running around the Lexington Reservoir or going on one of Mimi's many loops
18. TIVO-enough said
19. Children running around the neighborhood
20. Betis games on TV
21. Going running with Carmen and getting a chance to be together for a change
22. Jamon Serrano with queso manchego and bread from Costco and those tostadas con aceite served on Saturday or Sunday mornings in our kitchen
23. Driving across the Dumbarton bridge as the sun goes down to the west
24. Doing the dishes with Carmen
25. My BBQ
26. Pulling up to the house after work and seeing that Carmen is already home
27. Javi doing the same stupid antics and things that I did when I was a kid and listening to Carmen say that he had to take after me because her family doesn't do those things
28. Driving Ascension on Sundays back to school on I-280
29. Listening to Michael "The General" Savage on my drive home
30. Walking by Carmen in the kitchen and purposely bumping into her or accidently sliding my hand along her back side knowing that she hates it and I just love it, right Carmen?
31. Pickup trucks with NRA stickers
32. Sushi on Friday nights
33. Dad's churros on the weekends
34. Dogging out my brother in law Pepe on the phone when his Real Madrid loses a game
35. The smell of garlic in the mornings when I go outside and grab the newspaper during the summer
36. Low fat cheese cream for bagels
37. Frys electronic store
38. The Wine Club
39. KRTY San Joses "Hot Country" although I try to stream as much as possible, because of # 11 below I usually am screwed
40. Carmen giving me a pellisco de amor which is a true oxymoron if I ever saw one
These are things that I don't miss from home or will miss from Iraq when I leave this place
1. Smell of smoke in the air in the mornings
2. My neighbors across the street who think it's perfectly normal in the US to play tacky ranchera music at 125 db and have our house shake off it's foundation
3. Those cars sporting the Vote for Kerry bumperstickers and not having a support our troops sticker on their car
4. Hybrid cars using the HOV lane driving 55 mph in order to get 65 MPG from their cars
5. Listening to Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi on the radio or TV
6. 0800 hrs concalls with the UK
7. Meetings that don't start on time because the Iraqi culture doesn't allow for timeliness
8. Dust everywhere and I mean everywhere
9. Lady whining at 0400 hrs because she has to go outside and drink water or urinate
10. My hootch shaking at 0200 hrs when the Artillery Battery is shooting off some serious rounds at the bad guys
11. Slow internet service
12. The same meals served in a 7 day cycle
13. No printed newspaper to read that isn't at least 4 days old
14. Having to pass through TSA security at the airports
15. Having to pay $50 to fill up my Ford Escape back home when here gas is free (well sort of)
16. Homosexual and gay diversity rainbows on vehicles telling us how great of a lifestyle homosexuality is and what all of us normal folks are missing out on, like AIDS, STD's and just plain bizarro behavior!
17. Having to walk outside of the building to speak on the telephone because the T-Walls block out all signal strength, it is not uncommon to see 3-4 of us walking around in circles in front of our building speaking on our cell phones, from afar we must look like a bunch of penguins waddling in circles
18. Cops with Radar guns, although the MP's here just got radars and are out on the loose, except unlike cops back home they don't have Krispy Kreme bellies
19. Waiting 2 minutes and 50 seconds for the traffic light to change on Mitty and Lawrence Expy, since we have no traffic lights here on Taji
20. Save the Whales, Amnesty International, Save Tibet and Peace is Patriotic bumper stickers
21. CNN and the main stream media
22. Having to stand in line at the post office to mail a letter or buy stamp
23. Morons who don't know how to drive
24. Being limited to either ACU's or PT uniform as my choice of clothing here in Iraq
25. The mud that sticks to your boots and will not dry off here in Taji, had NASA used this stuff for the ceramic tiles on the Space Shuttle, the one that burned up during reentry would have been spared
26. Iraqi Soldiers driving the wrong way on the road without any worry or concern at all while you are honking and giving them the finger for being stupid and driving like some of the people back home do
27. Triple flushing toilets here because the water pressure is non-existent and nothing seems to go down
28. Listening to the Iraqi's say in shalla "God Willing" for their plan to get something done, while I remind them that in shalla will not fill out a request form and submit it to MOD to procure equipment
That's it for now, I am going to drop off my clothes at the laundry and do some reading before Spanish soccer starts later this evening.
The Colonel
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