What a gorgeous day today, upper 70’s with plenty of sun made it real nice outside. It’s about 1815 hours and the sun just dipped below the horizon, I am sitting outside with a t-shirt and shorts, my A’s cap and smoking a nice Gurka cigar writing this blog. I slept in this morning but forgot to turn off the phone and sure enough got the dreaded 0830 call which woke me up for good although I had been laying in bed trying to figure out when to get up! I was able to enjoy a nice coffee while talking to Carmen on the phone sitting outside with the sun keeping me nice a warm. Looks like she’s ready for me to get my ass home as soon as possible and I agree. I was kidding with her that this weekend was one of my favorites back home, it’s when the Russian River Wineries have their barrel tasting and it’s a great chance to taste some young Pinot Noirs. She laughed and said that next year we’ll be able to go!!
I have been taking my Celebrex anti-inflammatory medicine, stretching and working out on the elliptical trainer and I feel a lot better with my ITB. Today I did 10 miles on the elliptical and feel good, and will probably sleep like a rock tonite!
Although I was off today I had to go in today to resolve some issues we are having with the new contract and how to activate some of the task orders that the contractor needs turned on so that they can bring in some workers but not execute the entire CLIN. Then it was over to the RSU to work on some final details on some visits that we will have coming up. We have a bunch of new folks on the ground and had to ensure they knew the routes and all the logistics was coordinated, which is something us loggies enjoy doing. Then it was over to the depot to check up on some construction, there was holiday this past week and most of the sites were shut down since the workers were off and there was a curfew. I usually joke with my interpreters that I gotta change religions because over here there is a holiday at least twice a month and one with a 3-5 day pilgrimage every two months. Makes you wonder sometimes how anything ever gets done over here if you get my drift.
The big thing over here is that the Iraqi Army is finally getting serious on cleaning their side of the base up. The place usually reminds me of Sevilla FC’s soccer stadium which is nicknamed by us Beticos as the pigstye! The are plastic water bottles, trash and garbage strewn all over the place. It is not uncommon to see Soldiers in the back of trucks throwing their soda cans and wrappers out the back as if it’s nothing. The RSU commander has started cracking down on the garbage problem and has driven around notifying commanders to start picking up the stuff and keep it clean. Hallelujah is all that I said, as I am blue in the face from telling the BG here at the depot that here we are spending a shit load of money to fix the place up the least they could do is maintain the place clean. So today as I drove down the one road along the north depot you could see that they have been picking up the trash not everyday but often enough that it looks okay but still doesn’t meet the boy scout standard I grew up on that you leave a camp site cleaner than it was when you arrived. We recently split the depot up in two so there is staff that now is in charge of each site, I told the officer in charge of the south depot to hop into my truck and took him along the outside of the perimeter of the depot and showed him all the trash that has been there for weeks and that he needed to get it cleaned up starting today and that not having enough Soldiers wasn’t a valid excuse. I will check up tomorrow to see if he blew me off or actually did start to clean up the mess. Yesterday the guys at the Track depot while cleaning along the roadway adjacent to the depot drove their truck into the wall and knocked down an 8 foot portion of the wall. The wall is at least 6 feet off the road so how one goes about hitting the wall is unknown to me. Now comes the fun part, having them repair the wall, as I kindly reminded them that the US taxpayers will not be paying for the repairs!
Today the guys at the guys working at the supply depot were all smiles, as they finally met their replacements who are here at Taji going to the Phoenix Academy which is an 8 day course which provides instruction on the Iraqi language, Force Protection, how to be an advisor etc. They picked them up and brought them over to the supply depot and then to Tomahawk Village to show them their soon to be homes for the next year. I was talking to CPT Nap and he said it’s no longer a dream, and they will be going home soon now that their replacements are here and will begin their left seat right seat training in about a week.
That’s about it for now, looks like we’ll be in the 70’s and low 80’s for the next 10 days which will definitely make life a little nicer here in Taji.
The Colonel
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