Update from home

Hello Everyone-

Everyone keeps telling me I need to start a blog, so I have decided to give little updates on life here at home on Rhett's blog. Jacob is growing like crazy. It seems like time goes so fast yet feels like forever until Rhett comes home. Jacob has 2 teeth on the bottom. He wasn't fussy so I was shocked when they broke through. I can only hope the non-fussy will continue. He is rolling over like crazy and wants to crawl. He gets up on his elbows and kick his little legs. I guess I should start thinking about baby proofing the house. We go for his 6 month check up on Monday. It is always fun to send Rhett Jacob's height and weight so he can try to imagine how big he has gotten. I am trying to be better at taking video of Jacob to send to Rhett so I can capture as much as I can on film. I cannot imagine how hard it is to miss all of Jacob's firsts.


Work is going really well. I had to cover the ER last week and while it stresses me out, it was fine. I only had to call my backup physician twice. I am enjoying the clinic and being back in primary care. I miss the free laser hair removal treatments but I really don't have that much hair left anyway. I had surgery on my hand a couple of weeks ago to remove the hardware from my fracture 2 years ago. It is healing quickly and without problems. I still have a weight restriction and cannot put myself in a position where I can fall-- does walking count?!?!? My family and neighbors have been a lifesaver while I had my surgical dressing. How do you give a 6 month old a bath when you can't get your hand wet? Thanks Natalie and Mom!!!!

Rhett is doing really well. He is moving to a new base soon so he is busy packing up all his stuff including his bike. I know he is busy and will post more soon. -Liz

Travels

I'm finally back from my travels to Balad. The flight back from Balad was pretty cool. We rode the little bus to the flight line where our UH-60 (Blackhawk) was parked in its little stall. The crew were still doing their pre-flight checks and we were just waiting there in the dark. Soon we boarded and strapped ourselves in and then the turbine engines start up. The rotors start spinning slowly at first and then gradually speed up. As you sit there the aircraft starts to rock with the spinning rotors until they speed up to a certain point. This experience never gets old, I don't care who you are. Just when you think the rotors couldn't possibly go any faster they seem to shift gears and double their speed. The hour long flight was uneventful for the most part with one exception. As we flew pretty low to the ground some type of street lights came on in the distance, which caused our countermeasure system to fire off two flares. At first I didn't know what was happening it was just a loud pop and then I was blinded by a fire ball slowly descending to either side of us. I literally could not see for a little while. I landed at Taji and was picked up by SGT De Luna and was happy to be back with my team.

HOT

Check out the thermometer, I think we maxed it out.

Bike!!!

My Bike has finally arrived with all its pieces.  I have had a great time watching my old Tour De France DVD's and riding along on my trainer.  Thanks Liz.  She was able to get me it through the USPS this time for substantially less money than FEDEX cost us to Kirkuk last time.  This time I also have a good 9 months to ride it.  Another little piece of info coming in yesterday was that the unit has tentative dates for our two week leave.  It looks like mine will likely be the first two weeks of January 2009.  I'm pretty excited about it even though it is almost 7 months away.  Liz tells me that she will hold off on Jacob's first birthday for a few days and then we should all be together for it, which will be fun.  I requested one of the last slots for leave as it is so hard to go back to Iraq after spending some time with family.  This way, I'll only have two months or so after I get back here until I get to go home for real.  I am planning some travel soon to our unit HQ in Balad and the helicopter situation here is always frustrating.  I woke up this morning thinking that I would be leaving but once I saw the sky I knew I wasn't going anywhere.  I'm told that the helicopter pilots need three miles of visibility to fly and I always wonder how they are able to fly at night but not in the dust.  Anyway, not much I can do about it.  I'm hearing some rumblings that I may need to move my team to Balad to be closer to the unit commander so I can keep up on the other prevention teams as I am in charge of all of them.  I originally thought that I could just fly around wherever I am needed but boy with these dust storms, it's getting harder and harder to plan travel. 

"J" with my boonie hat

I love this picture Liz had taken of Jacob

MRAP

I took these pics of the MRAP we rode in while we were stuck at War Eagle waiting for rout clearance.

COP Apache

It's Monday, June 09 and I arrived back at Camp Taji this morning at 0130 following an interesting and somewhat frustrating trip to COP (Combat Outpost) Apache. What I have been doing to this point is to trade off with the prevention team here on the base. I take two of my soldiers out to meet the units and soldiers on and around the base while the other team comes to the clinic to work. Due the "troop surge" part of the new strategy is to push out from the larger bases into more neighborhood based small out posts called COPs and JSS's (joint security stations). The Cops and JSSs are very small, some having only one platoon or so at them. Last Thursday, I took my two teammates, SGT DeLuna and SPC Antonich to COP Apache, home of Crazy Horse and Apache Troop of the 3/7 CAV. Tankers and Cavalry scouts by trade, these guys took over the neighborhood from the 1^st ID (my combat patch) about 15 months ago and have done incredible work since. Falling in on an area where the previous unit lost almost 30 of their men at a time when the war still seems almost lost, the Cav troopers as they are called worked very well with the local population and to this date, have not lost a soldier of their own. We boarded a U-H 60 Blackhawk for the short trip over to Apache at around 1300 on Thursday and were treated to a first hand look at the Baghdad outskirts from 100 feet or so from the ground. There were lots and lots of palm trees and way more vegetation than people think of when they think of Iraq. In addition to the green plants, the sand colored buildings were a little different to what I'm used to. Baghdad is pretty big and it was interesting to me to see bridges over the Tigris, businesses, homes with swimming pools (most did not have water), and large buildings. Once we landed at the COP, we exited the helicopter, which promptly took off and we soon found ourselves in what appeared to be the middle of the city with a much different look and feel than the big army FOBs I'm used to. The CAV troopers had a couple of HUMVEEs there to pick us up and drove us to the main area of the COP and we later found out that the heli-pad was not even on the COP. So there my two teammates and I were in the middle of a Baghdad suburb not on an army base, which was way cool. Once we arrived at the COP, we soon found out that it was much smaller than we expected and had virtually none of the "comforts" of the army bases that I have stayed at in the past. Instead of KBR contracted food service, these guys had actual Army cooks that were able to serve two meals per day, with lunch on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday s. The Cav troops were doing pretty well all things considered but it might have had something to do with them being almost done with their deployment and are heading back to Ft Stewart Georgia very soon. We had planned to stay approximately 24 hours and return to Taji the next day again by Blackhawk. We saw several soldiers and met with the Chaplain and medical people and found us a place to stay for the night. They ended up putting the three of us in some type of overflow room that had several very run-down bunk beds. With SPC Antonich being female, we had to take special measures to make sure that she was never alone during our trip. In spite of then extra work for SGT DeLuna and me escorting her to the bathroom, she proved to be a valuable asset for us. Imagine 200 male soldiers spending 15 months on a very small COP and then we show up with a 22-yea-old girl wanting to talk about stress. We had no shortage of people wanting to talk. Well, Friday rolls around, we pack up our assault packs and we go down to the heli-pad to wait for our bird, which we soon found out was grounded due to a weather hold. Central Iraq has had a lot of killer dust storms this spring and when they get bad, the helicopters do not fly. So there we were, stuck out on the COP with only enough clothes for two days now looking at spending a third. Our third day came and went and we were still at COP Apache being told that no flights were coming. On the fourth day, it looked like our only option was going to catch a ride on the CLP (pronounced "clip" but stands for Combat Logistical Patrol a long military name for convoy) leaving sometime after dark. Usually, ground convoys require a special risk assessment submitted to my unit leadership long in advance but I just made the call as I needed to get my team back and this our only viable option. We loaded up our stuff and walked off the COP down a long road to what we were told was motor pool 6, where the Bradleys were parked. I remember it being humid and still hot at 2130 and my body armor felt especially heavy, laden with my 210 rounds for my M-16, my advanced first aid kit complete with my tourniquet, special blood clotting agent, Israeli bandage, and my nerve agent antidote and valium auto-injectors. I also carry water, a flashlight, a couple of knives, a strap cutter, gloves, eye protection, and my very dirty fire-resistant ACUs as I spent four days in my uniform that was supposed to last two days. Once at the motor pool we found out that my team would be riding in an MRAP, the Army's new answer to all the IED deaths over the last 5 years. It's a very large vehicle that carries four passengers and is crewed by a driver, TC, and gunner. Inside was illuminated with red for night vision purposes and there were a lot of electronic counter-measure devices. We rolled out of the COP and drove the streets of the city for about 2 hours with a stop at a place called FOB War Eagle and one other right on the road that we later found out was because the lead vehicle spotted an IED and we had to wait for EOD (explosive ordinance disposal) to blow it up. We rode the rest of the way to Taji and were dropped off at our little home away from home this morning at 0130. All in all, it was a very interesting experience for us. We ended up seeing quite a few of the soldiers on the COP struggling with mental health and combat and operational stress problems, we rode on our first convoy in the combat zone for this tour and I think we worked well as a team. I came back to find that I have all the pieces of my bike except my actual bike meaning I have the trainer, wheels, tools, pump, clothing, etc and I am excited to get the rest. Thanks Liz! I found out this morning that I may have to take my team to Ramadi to open up CSC services there. More to come on this in the future.

so many soldiers so little time

We have been pretty busy lately. It seems like we have had an influx of soldiers coming in for a variety of reasons. I have quite a few sexual assault victims (yes, female U.S. soldiers being assaulted by male U.S. soldiers) and it is un-imaginably difficult for them as these are the people they were supposed to be able to trust. In addition, we have seen quite a few members of the mortuary affairs unit as well as the members of the unit clear teams, who's job it is to clean up the body parts from the vehicles of their unit members who are killed by IEDs. Most of these soldiers have no special training they are just identified for this job as an "additional duty" and attend a short training session. I can't imagine being the one who has to collect the personal effects of my own friends as well as clean up inside the vehicles after these events take place. Still not much in the way of attacks on our base aside from some gun battles that we hear nightly as well as the occasional out-going artillery shells from my fellow 13-B's set up on our base. I plan to take my team out to one of the small FOBs some time in the near future to check on the soldiers out there and will no doubt report on my activities after-the-fact. Liz tells me that she almost has my bike ready to send out here, which I am so excited for as the cardio equipment here is not as good as in other places. I miss everyone from home and appreciate the email that I receive. I am still unable to view the comments on the blog on a regular basis but I can at least post to it via email.

Spring time in Iraq

I took this photo yesterday right in the middle of our little CSC compound.  I can't wait for June, July and August. Today, the dust storms are back.  It looks like something out of a sci fi movie outside.  You literally can only see about 50 feet.  I guess no helicopter flights today, which makes it a good day to attack us.  It's amazing how much deterrence is provided by a few AH-64 Apaches flying around.  

me on the Blackhawk to Taji

a quote I ran across

To Live As A Warrior
So live your life that the fear of death
can never enter your heart
Trouble no one about their religion;
respect others in their view,
and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life,
beautify all things in your life.
Seek to make your life long
and its purpose in the service of your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day
when you go over the great divide
Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning give thanks
for the food and for the joy of living.
if you see no reason for giving thanks,
the fault lies only in yourself.
Abuse no one and nothing, for abuse turns
the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.
Live right so when it comes your time to die,
you will not be like those whose hearts are filled with
the fear of death, who weep and pray for a little more
time to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.
--Tecumseh, Shawnee warrior and statesman

A tough job

I met with a soldier today who is a 30-year-old staff sergeant crew chief on a medivac blackhawk. His initial complaint is that he and his wife are having trouble. Specifically, he tells me that his wife has always wanted breast enhancement surgery and that one of her co-workers offered to pay for this for her as some type of no interest loan. One can imagine how this soldier feels about the situation and what's worse, is that his wife doesn't seem to think that there would be anything wrong with her accepting the money. He tells me that he has come to realize that there is only one reason men go to "help" wives of deployed soldiers. He goes on to tell me a little about his job here in Iraq. This is his third deployment as a crew chief, which is kind of like a flying mechanic/medic. He tells me of many instances where his "bird" will be called out to pick up wounded American soldiers and how after performing first aid on these guys in the air, he finds out from the CSH (combat support hospital) that they did not survive. He also tells me a lot of horrible events involving Iraqi civilians that his helicopter has picked up. He denies most of the PTSD symptoms but I of course offered to document them for him should he have trouble in the future. I came to find out that this guy's section was stationed with me in Mosul in 2004 and he knows a few of his friends that I personally helped back then. I remember one guy from back in 2004 who had just found out that his wife was cheating on him and was understandably devastated by the news. After working with him for a few weeks he was doing much better and I remember going down to the flight line in Mosul and hanging out with his squad to see what their job was like. Fast forwarding to the present, the staff sergeant tells me that the guy from 2004 is here on this base and he invited me to their BBQ that they have every Friday night. I' think I'll go.

Today in Taji

Well, working in the clinic here is not unlike my job back in Ephraim with a few obvious exceptions. First, everyone comes in with a loaded automatic weapon. Second, everyone wears the same clothes. Third, we all have a lot in common. Finally, the issues people deal with out here are different. I haven't noticed much change in what I'm seeing here relative to my first tour. I think I have seen 5 patients now mostly for home front stuff and some that are just tired of being here and want to go home. The first guy I saw is right at the end of his tour and just recently lost his father for which he went home on emergency leave and is now back in country and feels like a different person. He presents with initial insomnia and a depressive-type symptoms, which I feel are normal given his situation. One change this time around is that the old way of deferring diagnosis has changed and the Army now wants me to use them; so his is pretty simple, "Bereavement." I've seen him twice, got him some help with his sleep by way of one of the psychiatrists I work with and he seems a lot better. This situation hits a little too close to home for me but I don't have anyone I can refer him to. I saw a 27-year-old active duty female yesterday who has been here for 10 months and has five more months to go. She tells me that she became pregnant before her deployment and that her boyfriend at the time convinced her to terminate the pregnency, which she did, only to find out that he was cheating on her all a long. Her situation is complicated by the fact that she has always wanted children and feels like she missed her opportunity. She also has some trouble out here with one of her co-workers and the fact that she works nights and only gets two days off per month. I got a call yesterday from my Commander telling me that one of the Division Surgeons is requesting a combat stress team for an up-coming infantry mission where mass casualties are expected. Of course I won't say anything about the details other than I asked my young teammates if they wanted to go and they both told me yes. It's hard for me to ask these two to risk their lives like this knowing that they are both single parents of small children. I am amazed at their courage and commitment. More on this to come.

Taji

I seem to be able to email to the blog but have not had success actually logging on to it.  Basically, I cannot read comments or even see how it looks but I can post to it.  The downside, is that I do not remember what I may or may not have said so I apologize if I repeat myself.  Email seems to not be a problem for me as our office has multiple computers all hooked up to the Army-controlled internet.  Taji seems like a pretty cool place to be deployed to.  We're about 15 miles north of Baghdad and we are operating an out-patient mental health clinic serving about 25000 soldiers.  Living conditions are good for Iraq standars.  The gyms leave something to be desired so Liz is working on sending me out a bike to ride.  I can be reached at either my gmail account or my army email

Balad to Taji

I hope this video clip makes its way on to the blog.  I have not been able to go on the website but seem to still be able to email to it.

More and more of the same here in Udari Kuwait. It's getting hotter and hotter and the wind is starting to blow more, which means sand storms. We are very close to flying north. I will be traveling on the first chalk from Ali Al Saleem to Balaad as my flight from Balaad to Taji is already scheduled. My next post on the blog will almost certainly be from Iraq. I'm confident I'll have better internet and phone access in Iraq so I'm looking forward to that. I'm also looking forward to getting on with the job. Interestingly, I met some of the guys headed to Camp Buca to relieve Kip but they told me that they have been quarantined because someone was exposed to the chicken pox, which apparently is not common in this part of the world.

More of Kuwait.

Here I am on day three of Kuwait I think. The days out here have the tendency of running together. Today we went to one of those Kuwaiti ranges and fired our weapons and it was pretty much the eye opening experience that I had the last time in Kuwait. It is really unlike the Garrison Army to issue each soldier a 30 round magazine and then have you ride a bus for an hour through the desert with the live rounds as well as your weapon. Everything is so controlled in the States and out here it is completely different. Yesterday we had some additional classes on IED's, electronic countermeasures, and fratricide. The fratricide class was taught by a British Royal Engineer Sergeant and it was very interesting. Tomorrow I am meeting with the prevention team OIC's and we plan to begin meeting as teams on our downtime to ready ourselves the best we can for our mission. I have very limited internet access here, which makes reading email difficult and answering them almost impossible. Once your name comes up on the wait list, you get 20 minutes on the computer and the connection is very slow. I'm certain things will improve in Iraq. No word on when we will be traveling north yet, at least none that I will say. It's starting to get hot and windy here and it reminds me more and more of the summer of 2004.

Update

Hello Everyone- Liz here

Just got off the phone with Rhett. His internet service is really bad and slow, he anticipates better service once he gets to Iraq, so I get to post an update. It was 5am his time and he was up and going for the day. It was already in the 100's and light outside. Rhett is doing well, he is still trying to adjust to the time change, recover from the 22 hour flight, and acclimatize to to the weather. His time in Kuwait is only a few more days, probably only 5-6 days from now. The FOB clinic where he thinks he will be stationed sees approximately 2000 soldiers every 3 months. So he is gearing up to be busy.

His spirits are higher than his last post. He misses us and I was able to tell him all about Jacob's 4 month check up. We can't believe how quickly time goes and how fast Jacob is growing. He is in the 75th percentile for height and 30th percentile for weight. He is now turning over, laughing, and smiling all the time. He wants to sit up but doesn't quite have the strength. He is the cutest, sweetest baby!!!

I want to say thanks to all those who have helped make this easier on me. Family and friends are great. You don't know how much a quick phone call means or someone stopping by to help in the yard. I can't list everyone but want to say a special thanks to Molly, Alan N*, my moms-Sheron and Sandi, and Brian and Natalie.

Kuwait

Day one of Kuwait.

Well here I am again at Camp Buering in Udari Kuwait. For those who don't remember, we are way out in the desert near the Iraqi border. Our long flight ended up making two stops. First, we stopped in Bangor Maine and then it was on to Leipzig Germany. Leipzig was pretty cool although we didn't get to leave the airport. I guess the host country's can be a little nervous to let 200 armed U.S. solders loose on their streets. The flight from Leipzig to Kuwait City was long as well. Once we landed in Kuwait, I was surprised to see that it was only 85 degrees. Last time, it was something like 130. After we deplaned, we rode busses to Udari, which takes about two more hours. Once we arrived here we began some of our briefings and went to bed. Since I had been up for about 48 hours, sleep came easy. I was able to call Liz once and I am pleased to report that AT&T continues to make huge profits on soldiers deployed to Iraq. The international calling cards they sell are only good for one fifth of the number of minutes advertized and they charge you something like a 15 minute surcharge for each call regardless if someone picks up. Today I was able to get the lay of the land so to speak. We had some counter-insurgency training for about four hours and then were off the remainder of the day. The temperature reached the triple digits and it is starting to feel like the old Kuwait I know and love. Last night I was pretty depressed thinking about my situation and being bombarded with all the memory triggers I had forgotten. Today I felt better. Not too much has changed at this place in the four years since I was last here. There are a few more services, which are nice. They now have a Starbucks, KFC, Taco Bell, Burger King, and Nathan's hotdog stand none of which were here in 2004. I was shocked to see that AFN was broadcasting my favorite news program (Countdown with Keith Oberman on MSNBC at 6:00 and 10:00 Mnt time) on the TV while we were eating lunch. It looks like Faux News may be losing some of it's strangle hold on providing one-sided information to troops serving in combat. I was able to work out at the gym tonight, which is my main stress reliever and it looks like I am scheduled for more IED training tomorrow. Not much is on the schedule for us; it looks like most of our time is supposed to be spent acclimating. The tell us we should be here for 10 to 12 days.

Bangor Maine

Hi All. I'm here in Bangor Maine and I just finished eating my lobster roll, which reminded me of a hotdog bun with lobster meat in it instead of a hotdog. I figured "when in Maine". We have stopped for two hours and then it's on to Leipzig Germany. Kind of sketchy internet so I can't say much. Thats all for now.