Bust a Move

After we finished downloading the vehicle that had the equipment purchased for the first three facilities that will be operational soon, we headed back to the office and started joking about nothing every comes easy here in Iraq, and how it seems that something so relatively easy is just the opposite. SSG Gamboa suddenly told us that he knew the reason why this equipment delivery was so difficult and caused us so many problems:

As he said so eloquently:

"Just another example of why nothing is ever easy in this F#@%ING country............ When you have an Egyptian driver working for a Kuwaiti trucking company contracted by American Ex-Pats, delivering equipment to Iraq, having their vehicle searched by Ugandan security guards, getting refueled by Indian/Pakistani nationals at the fuel point, all the while using Iraqi interpreters to communicate with American Soldiers"!!!!

Friday we went down to the warehouses to finish unpacking the boxes which had numerous smaller items inside. After we did that the Iraqi's arrived as requested so they could inventory the items and prepare to sign for the equipment and fill out the required Iraqi property forms which I will have to scan and send to our J-4 shop so that we can get it added to their property book. It actually took less time that I thought as we had it all laid out and the Lt who speaks decent English was calling off the items numbers and I got a chance to practice my arabic and they were laughing big time at my horrible pronunciation but we had a good time getting the job done. On my way back I swung by their office to go over a couple of docs and they had issues with their brand spanking new Kyocera Copier. Supposedly the first sheet feed correctly but the rest were either getting jammed or nothing was happening. I asked them if they read the operators manual and I should have known better, since us guys don't waste our time with such trivial instructions. Being a 12 year veteran at Sun and 26+ years in the Army if there is something that I can do right it's unjamming a copier. Without the manual, they couldn't find it even though they had only signed for the copier an hour earlier, I went to work and 5 minutes laters it was copying like a charm. I did my best rendition of the moon walk that I usually do when I fix something or save the day and they were pissing in their pants laughing by the time I got done with busting the move!

That afternoon I headed down to the South Depot to work with the guys who manage the suck trucks (septic waste and porta-johns) to lay out the perimeter for a fence that we will be installing to allow them to continue to dump the waste in the sewage pump station and not have access into the depot. Needless to say that the hour plus I spent there was rather smelly and I have a new appreciation for the guys who drive around these suck trucks all day long sucking out the waste. Back at the office I had the Major finishing up on the PR&C's for the last few items that we needed to purchase, so we could get it in front of the finance committee and have them approve it, plus she will be heading out in a couple of days for her 15 day R&R, and anything not finished will be mine to complete.

Saturday was one of those days that you feel you haven't accomplished anything. Between answering emails about info that the folks want from the IZ, working with the Iraqi's on their manning roster and getting a heads up late that afternoon that some important people were heading to the Depot on Sunday, which caused a whirlwind of activity as I had to quick throw together some handouts to discuss issues at the Depot. I got back to the hootch just before midnight and by then everyone was in their rooms probably sleeping so I grabbed a can of non-alcoholic beer, a nice cigar and sat outside star gazing and enjoying the tranquility of the night between the choppers either landing or taking off at the helipad.

I decided to hit the sack around 0130 knowing that Sunday was going to be a very busy day!

The Colonel