Smittie's Ramblings

Man's Condition, at least in the West

2009-07-04T09:01:09Z

So the final conclusion would seem to be that whereas other civilizations had been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions and providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense. Thus did Western man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania; himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down. And having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer, until at last, having educated himself into imbecility and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over, a weary, battered old brontosaurus, and became extinct.

Malcom Muggeridge, Hoover Institute at Stanford, 1979

I first heard this quote in a podcast by Ravi Zacharias. I like it because I believe it to be an incredibly accurate and concise summary of modern society or at least Western society.

Y'all do remember that the title of my blog is Smittie's Ramblings? Today, the emphasis seems to be on rambling or at the very least, randomness.

Still trying to get back to FOB Hunter

2009-06-20T07:03:56Z

I am still trying to get back to FOB Hunter. Remembering a photo I saw from back near the beginning of the war, I have resorted to sitting out on Route 6 with a cardboard sign that says FOB Hunter or AWOL. We'll see how successful I am. It's got to be at least as effective as the other methods I've been trying over the past two weeks.

SSG LaRocque apparently got lonely down there at FOB Hunter without me. He showed up at my CHU door on Thursday night. Haven't seen him since save to borrow a pair of pants. He's off to this meeting or that. A very important and in demand person here.

So, the wait continues. I really would like to get back down to FOB Hunter for the last few months of this deployment.

Sabers complete transfer of authority

2009-06-17T18:00:00Z

Apparently, I now work for the Sabers.

1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry has returned home to Fort Hood, Texas. I worked with them for seven months. The 1-9 CAV built FOB Hunter. When they arrived on the abandon airfield of Qal At Salih there was nothing there but a few runways, some taxiways, several hangers that they called Haus for reasons I have not yet figured out. It was summer when the 1-9 CAV arrived. There were no air conditioners. For the first month or so there wasn't even any ice.

FOB Hunter is pretty comfortable now. The 1-9 CAV and supporting units built it up pretty nicely. For all that, I won't mind the day when FOB Hunter is in my rear view for the last time.

Back to FOB Hunter??

2009-06-15T02:00:00Z

I am still at COB Adder. With luck I'll be back at FOB Hunter tomorrow for the final push to finish this tour. It's been a good break. I am looking forward to getting back to my team. Reading their reports for the past week it looks like things are nicely busy down there. Looks like they're getting out to do some real CA work. That will be good. Quite possibly we will be given the chance to go out with some significant accomplishments.

Despite all my reservations about the Army -- I still bleed Navy Blue and Gold -- with any luck at all, I will be re-enlisting in the Army on FOB Hunter. I expect that it will be a good event. I had the chance to re-enlist in the Navy out on KAAOT on my last tour over here. I ended up extending my enlistment in the Navy after I returned from that deployment. The extension was a non-event. A purely administrative event the belied the significance of what I was doing. Based on that experience, I decided that I would re-enist on this deployment. Military service is an important part of my life. I have a lot of complaints about the Army. I regret not having managed my Navy career better so that I could have retired from the Navy. That was my fault. The Army is giving me the chance to continue a life that I enjoy. I enjoyed the Navy more but, at the end of the day, I would rather be serving in the Army than to end my military service. I owe a heart felt thanks to my chain of command, First Sergeant Luedtke and Lieutenant Colonel Clark for their patience and affording me this opportunity.

I look forward to continuing The Face of Iraq project, catching up on all the work Team RONIN has done while I've been goofing off for three weeks. I want to thank the team and especially my team sergeant, Staff Sergeant LaRocque for the opportunity to get a break. Now it is time to go back to work. Despite what a lot of the main stream media seems to be saying, Iraq is on its way to standing on its own two feet. I believe that Team RONIN and the rest of Alpha Company, 445 Civil Affairs Battalion has made a contribution to the province of Maysan in getting to the place where they can govern themselves. I believe that Iraq will succeed. I don't know that it will be the success the United States would like to see but it will be their success. It will be a success defined by their culture, background and environment. That is as it should be.

Thanks for the break.
Time to quit goofing off and get back out there.

Love is...

2009-06-09T12:44:19Z

Growing up, my parents use to read the Love is... comics and when there something particularly relevant to their life, one or the other of them would cut it out and put it on the family Facebook of the day, the refrigerator door with a magnet. I got to thinking about that and wondered what had become of the Love is... comic. So, of course, I googled it. Imagine my surprise to discover that Love is... still is. Who'da thunk it, Love still is.

Love is... can be found on the GoComics.com site. Of course, I had to go see if it was the same comic I knew as a kid. When the page loaded, I was really quite surprised by the topic of that day's strip.

Love is...
...a prayer for your soldier boy.

My wife loved it.

Back at Adder

2009-06-08T14:10:32Z

My four day pass ended with a 0300 briefing for the flight back to COB Adder. I didn't find out about that until 2100. I still needed to do laundry, pack, turn in linen. I decided that trying to sleep would only make things worse. I got everything done and was ready for my departure flight by 2300. I took everything over to the briefing room. Fortunately there was internet available. So, I stayed up all night playing on Facebook and reading the news. Time went fairly quickly.

After the brief they loaded us up on a bus to take us to the airport. Our flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 0900. So, why did we need to get up at 0300?? No idea. I went and found some breakfast and then found a soft piece of concrete and catnapped until they woke me up to get on the flight. There were nine of us on a C-130 which made for a fairly comfortable flight. I manage to sleep for parts of the two hour flight to the first stop. We spent about an hour on the ground and then departed for Adder. By 1330 I was back in my CHU in Adder, tired as hell. I thought about going to bed but decided that would make it hard to sleep through the night. So, I went to watch a comedy show at the MWR. It was OK. Kind of fun. The comedians needed better writers. However, anyone that is willing to come over here and try to make life a little better for those of us deployed here is alright by me.

That was yesterday. Got up this morning, did more laundry, uniforms, socks and underwear that I did not get washed before I left on pass. It's in the drier right now. In fact, I need to go check on it. I'll be right back.

OK, I'm back. Actually, I got distracted and did a bunch of stuff. So, I've finished all the laundry. I'll pack a couple of boxes to send home so that I can reduce the amount of stuff I have to pack when we leave this place. My goal is to be down to one bag and an assault pack when I leave COB Adder for good. That would be cool.

Some time this week I'll fly back to FOB Hunter and go back to work in earnest. I'd like to say I'm looking forward to it but I not. I have approximately 78 days left on this tour. Unlike my last tour, I cannot wait for this one to be over so that I can return to civilian life. And on that cheery note, I'm out.

Four Day Pass: Day 3

2009-06-06T07:30:00Z

Continuing the shopping theme, I went on the Souqs tour. The tour first stops at the Gold Souqs and then at the Old Souqs. The first is the jewelry district. Primarily gold bracelets, necklaces, ear rings and the like. Neither my wife nor I wear jewelry so this first stop was of little interest.

At the second stop, the old souqs, there was a much broader range of merchants. Lots of spice and herb shops, clothing, an entire section devoted to birds. Apparently pet birds. Finches, cockateels, parakeets and what not. There were even a few large parrots. For all of this, I was a little disappointed. It was not as interesting as I thought it would be.

To begin with, it wasn't old. The buildings that made up the old souqs were really quite new. There were a lot of Qatari there but it was obviously a tourist destination as well.

There were a number of restaurants in the old souqs. All of them looked very nice. We chose to eat at an Indian restaurant called Royal Tandoori. It was a very nice place, well decorated inside. The waitress helped me get the right order. I really like the chicken that comes in a thick sauce that is usually brown in color. I always think it's Tandoori chicken and then I'm disappointed when it arrives. The waitress mentioned that it would be dry without something else. I changed to the right dish but I still don't know what it is called. We had rice with peanuts and raisins, I don't know what that's called either, and plain and garlic naan. The food was very good, the service was great and the two of us had more than we could eat for $40. Pretty good deal.

Tomorrow, day 4, is my last day. At 2100 I will need to check to see if and when my flight back is scheduled for. It's been a nice break. I can't really say that I am anxious to go back to work but I am ready to leave here. A part from the tours there's not a lot to do. I like having blazing fast Internet and I can keep myself occupied but the days go quicker down on FOB Hunter. I'm looking forward to getting some more photographs for my The Face of Iraq project. As we draw nearer to the end of this tour I look forward to being done and going back to civilian life. I'm ready to be a civilian again.

Four Day Pass: Day 2

2009-06-05T07:30:00Z

Today I went to the Landmark Shopping Mall in Doha, Qatar. Yes, I like shopping. So, take away my man-card. I also like watching society happen. We started at McDonalds for dinner. No, it wasn't the most interesting restaurant in the mall. I've never been much for culinary adventure. After eating FOB Hunter chow hall food for so many months, McDonalds is great.

Landmark Shopping Mall looks very much the malls back in the states. Villagio Mall was clearly much more upscale, rather over the top in fact. Landmark was busier that Villagio was, more maybe the same number of people in a smaller space. I'm not sure.

There were a lot of young people in Landmark. Early teens to middle twenty somethings appeared to be the largest demographic at Landmark. The crowd at Villagio was older. Most of the Qatari kids were wearing traditional garb. There were a number of women wearing head coverings with western clothes. Some left the black covering open so that their pants were visible. The majority of the boys were wearing the traditional white tunic.

I think Apple needs to make a stronger effort to localize to the Arab market. Apple products are clearly very popular here. I saw at least two iPhones in use despite the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, there are no cell phone providers here that support iPhone. Obviously, they are using JailBroke iPhones.

In Villagio, both Virgin Superstore and Carrefour carried Apple products. In the Landmark Mall there was an iStore kiosk selling Apple products, clearly attempting to emulate the Apple Store look. The Landmark also had Carrefour and Virgin stores carrying Apple products. Virgin had the most complete selection of Apple products. There is definitely a premium charged. The MacBook power supply I bought at Virgin Superstore in Villagio was $122. Apple Store in the States sells it for $79.

My wife is a Hello Kitty fan. Apparently, so are many Qatari women. There was a Hello Kitty kiosk in both malls that I've visited. More interesting was a store called Oysho. It appears to be a lingerie shop but all the underwear has some sort of cartoon theme. I saw Hello Kitty thong underwear. I was very tempted to buy a pair for my wife but I decided that joke might come back to haunt me. They also had various garments with Daffy duck and some other characters. There was just something odd about Victoria Secret type garments with cartoon and anime characters. Strange.

The Landmark Mall was less interesting than Villagio. We were pretty much done seeing the whole place in about 90 minutes. We had another two hours or so until it would be time to head back. We went to the Starbucks got coffees and sat outside watching Qatar go by. It was interesting. I like watching people anyway but I especial like to watch people in a culture other than my own. Two hours is a long time. I went and found a Cinnabonn Shop. A small Cinnabonn - which is still about twice the size of the ones mom used to make - and another coffee.

It was fun just to get out into society and see how they do life. Tomorrow I'm going on the Souqs tour. Yet another shopping trip, this time to the traditional market place. I'll be there for dinner. I'll let you know how it goes.

Villaggio Mall

2009-06-03T22:04:05Z

Today, I went to Villagio Mall in Doha, Qatar. It was pretty interesting. The place is modeled after some casino of the same name. No idea what or where that is.

We entered the mall at the expensive end. Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Bvlgari, Dolce Gabbana, and a number of others I'd never heard of. As I sat outside the Louis Vuitton shop waiting for others I watched the shoppers. The shop personnel had glasses of juice and what looked like champagne and wine. Full glasses not the little taster cups. I looked at a jewelry set that was $70,000. There was a necklace that was $60,000 and a men's jacket that was $4,000. I decided Machiko wouldn't look good in the jewelry set so I didn't buy it. I was very tempted though.

I have never heard of a Spyker C8 before but the mall had one on display. Pretty nice car. Apparently very rare and expensive. This particular one is a Spyker C8 Laviolette.

My primary mission today was to find a new power supply for my MacBook since the one I have is beginning to show definite signs of wear. I do not want to be without my computer. The first store I stopped in, CarreFore, carried Apple computers but did not sell power supplies. Then I found a Virgin Store. Mission accomplished albeit rather pricey.

I found McDonalds and had a Big Mac Meal deal for lunch. That made me quite happy actually. Kind of funny but that was the first thing we'd go looking for when we pulled into port when I was on West-Pac with the Navy back in '84. I think we found a McDonalds in every port but Mombasa. The nice thing about McDonalds, it tastes the same everywhere. Even in Doha, Qatar. I blew it though. I should have taken a picture of McDonalds. Not sure what I was thinking, or not thinking.

I then went back the Starbucks I had seen in my travels of the mall and had a short, double latte. I also purchased one of Starbucks bucket sized coffee cups that has the name of the city or country on it. I have a small collection started. I have one from Kuwait and now from Qatar. Starbucks needs to hurry up and get a shop opened in Afghanistan so I can buy one there.

I finished my exciting adventure off with an ice cream cone from Hagen Daaz. Waffle cone dipped in chocolate and then in crushed almonds filled Cookies and Cream ice cream. Tomorrow, I'm going Landmark Mall. Four stories of shopping bliss!!

Four Day Pass: Day 1

2009-06-03T00:58:49Z

I ate way too much at Chili's restaurant last night. It was good though. I also signed up for a trip to the mall today. I'm looking forward to that. On my last deployment we would often go to the mall at Kuwait Int'l Airport. I liked to sit at the Starbucks there and watch Kuwait society go by. It's interesting to watch people interact, to find the differences in societal norms between the culture I'm visiting and the cultures I'm familiar with.

And there will be shopping. I think my wife is afraid I'll spend too much money. I'm not sure her fears are unfounded. There's a MacDonalds, a Coldstone, and a Starbucks. The food is taken care of. It sounds like I have a reasonable chance of finding a power supply for my Mac. And, as long as I'm careful and follow all the rules -- no pictures of women or the Qatar flag, I can take pictures.

I spend a lot of time listening to music on deployment. More than in my civilian life. On my last tour, I listened to a lot of Jazz Fusion and discovered The Crusaders. Stayed up late last night talking to friends in the US on instant messaging which was fun. For a while now I've been thinking that I don't have much Traditional Country in my music library. Last night I decided to explore some of the old school country artists and buy a few albums. Today, I went to Green Bean, got my coffee and a donut and sat down to use their Internet. For whatever reason, Green Bean seems to have the fastest internet here. I bought Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Buck Owens and a new Dwight Yoakum album. I also decided that, much as I love country music, I'm not a Hank Williams fan. Don't like Hank Jr. either. I like some of their songs but not enough to buy an album. Not a Pasty Cline fan either.

I'll tell you all my adventures at the mall tomorrow.

Listened to: I Don't Care (Just As Long As You Love Me)

from the album "Dwight Sings Buck" by Dwight Yoakam

Four Day Pass: Day Zero

2009-06-02T10:08:31Z

Army personnel are allowed to take 14 days R&R leave while on deployment. They can go home or anywhere in the world. The Army will fly them to any destination they chose. I chose, however, to not take R&R leave because I did not want to go home only to have to go through the leaving process again. For my family and I the parting is very painful. Moreover, I wanted to have the 14 days leave as separation leave thereby lengthening the time I can stay at home before I have to go back to work. My Commander agreed only on the condition that I would take a four day pass. I am finally on that four day pass

They fly us to the country of Qatar for pass. Qatar is a small country south of Kuwait. The base is small but, compared to FOB Hunter where I live it is very clean and quite nice.

It took almost a week to actually get a flight down here. We arrived after midnight and had about 2 and half hours of process to go through before we were finally allowed to go to bed. Most of the guys just stayed up. I went to sleep on the bare mattress using the mattress cover and blanket to keep me warm in the 62 degree room. It was awesome.

This morning I went shopping for civilian clothes. A pair of Levis that my wife will have to hem when I get home and two plain polo shirts. I thought to bring civilian shoes. Had breakfast at somewhat normal restaurant. Still no decent coffee but I think I should be able to fix that at some point while I'm here.

There are a variety of tours that we can sign up for. I'll find out more about that this afternoon. I think it would be great to go wonder a mall and see what Qatari society looks like. I'd like to find a new power power supply for my Mac. The one I have has some breaks developing in the connector to the computer and needs to be replaced. I'd also like to find a Starbucks here in Qatar so that I can get a Starbucks Qatar cup to go with my Kuwait and Hawaii cups.

And, there's free, fast Internet pretty much all over the place. Everywhere except in our room which is a bit of a bummer but, that will at least motivate me to get up and out of bed each morning. Probably a good thing.

Memorial Day

2009-05-25T21:12:41Z

Freedom is not free. The price is non-negotiable. Each generation pays for the freedom of the next generation in blood. Memorial Day is a day to celebrate that purchase while honoring those who paid for it.

US Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Michael J. Pernaselli 27, of Monroe, N.Y
KIA 24 April 2004, Northern Arabian Gulf, Operation Iraqi Freedom

US Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher E. Watts 28, of Knoxville, Tenn
KIA 24 April 2004, Northern Arabian Gulf, Operation Iraqi Freedom

US Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Nathan B. Bruckenthal 24, of Smithtown, N.Y.
KIA 24 April 2004, Northern Arabian Gulf, Operation Iraqi Freedom

I will not forget.

5 U.S. Soldiers Killed In Iraq By Comrade

2009-05-18T12:51:25Z

A friend of mine on Facebook asked how I felt about this story.

"5 U.S. Soldiers Killed In Iraq By Comrade"
The United States military said Monday that five American soldiers had been shot at one of the main American bases in Baghdad. At least one news agency said the killer was an American soldier who had opened fire on fellow troops. Marine Lt. Tom Garnett, a military spokesman, said “the shooter is a U.S. soldier and he is in custody."
+83 people dugg this story

That the bad guys get us makes me sad but it is an eventuality that we recognize as an occupational hazard. It comes with the job. If you want to live forever, soldier is probably not what you want to be when you grow up.

In the grant scheme of things, the number of casualties in this war is pretty low. Vietnam cost as many personnel in one month, even some weeks, than have been lost in this whole war.

No one mourns the loss of a soldier more than his fellow soldiers. Ask anyone who wears a black bracelet of a fallen comrade. In many cases, long after everyone else has accepted the loss, the fellow soldier will still have nightmares caused by the wondering what else he might have done to save his buddy. He will still break down and weep for his friend.

Soldiers trust no one except each other. So who do you trust when you discover that you can't trust your fellow soldier?

Smittie's New Address

2009-05-12T19:58:55Z

If you send me anything, using this address from now on is imperative.

SSG Mark Smith (0451)
A/445 CA BN -- Team RONIN
FOB Hunter
APO AE 09331
Iraq

If this pertains to you, thank you very much for your support.

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T18:17:09Z

My wonderful wife of 21 years 18 years and 8 months ago gave me a beautiful daughter who has been My Little Girl ever since.

4 years, 3 months, 17 days later this lovely woman delivered a baby boy who by his very existence reminds me daily that he, his sister and their mother are far more important than chasing that Dollar.

I think you're the greatest mother in the world. I think there is at least two more people who think so as well. I am very proud of you as the mother of my children. Thank you for being a wonderful mother to my children.