Mission Imposible

 Mission Impossible

31DEC2007

Tonight is my three year mark in the Armed Service. Joining the service was never something I intended on doing although all the late nights playing guns as a child was probably a strong indicator. Today I can say that even though I am deployed to Iraq I would not have traded a single day nor made a different decision.

Wearing a uniform sporting an American flag like so many have in the years before me makes me proud, gives my personal courage, and makes me stronger. The service has inspired me and continues to provide opportunity to achieve and excel both physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I have been put in places and situations that only in my wildest dreams imagined such as a patrol through the Chattahoochee swamp in Florida for Hurricane Katrina or relaxing on a white sandy beach in Hawaii.

How would I describe what I do? Work is like trying to spin plates on wooden dowels, you can’t just focus on spinning just one or they will all come crashing down. Instead the idea is to keep each plate spinning just enough as that none of them are dropped and broken. Another good analogy for describing work in the Armed Service is “Hard work is rewarded by more hard work.”

Work becomes more overwhelming daily and as more light is shed on what the situation on the ground is the more you see how many plates are going to be required to spin to accomplish the mission.

It has been easy to destroy a country but rebuilding and enabling becomes Mission Impossible. The Camp is a mess and requires many modifications to rebuild just basic infrastructure witch currently is non existent. No streets or side walks, no electricity for street lights, no running water. No bathrooms besides the plastic Port to Johns witch I have so fondly come to love as a means to catch up on the latest Chuck Norris joke

My supply cage has dust and dirt on it collected for countless year’s witch I don’t think will ever be clean. Rats are seen daily going threw trash and hanging out in the living quarters. I plan on spending two months alone on just organization and clean up projects for my two small warehouses. I will burn in large burning balers the majority of crap the lays everywhere.

While reconstruction on the Camp begins there is also the actual mission to support. Another Camp, just outside the wire, and amongst the local populace needs to be defended and supplied in order too protect American Soldiers and second ensure mission success allowing Service members to come home. This smaller camp in run solely by my company and includes guard towers, fortifications and a large Iraqi Army presence.

So reconstruction on these two projects begins immediately literally beginning all projects from the ground level. All these major projects you would think would be done by professional contractors and engineers but instead young grunt Infantrymen are responsible for accomplishing these tasks.

It should be mentioned that while you are building your defenses, working on community projects, and rebuilding this nation your enemy is packing cars with explosives with the intent to drive through your walls and in a split second destroy everything witch has taken so long to accomplish.

As if the task of base defense, economic building, and reconstruction was not enough we are also tasked to continue 24 hour patrols searching for the bad guy and his cache of weapons. There is also the job of training the Iraqi Army to secure its own country not to mention secure your small camp witch you sleep at night in.

 

Big Truck Driver

30DEC2007

It has not been all doom and gloom. Today I found myself a vehicle, it’s a 5 ton truck witch is like a large dump truck. My new daily driver has been abandoned for a few months but miraculously still started. First assessment of the vehicle discovered faults such as no side or rear windows, no brakes, no lights and a badly cracked front window. The gas peddle sticks to the floor making stopping at intersections very exciting. There are no interior lights, no gages, and the horn fails to work.

Now to the average joe this may seem like a junker but for someone who has walked this post as much as I this piece of badly rusted piece of steal has become my best friend. Once I got her started witch note, required touching the black wire to the red wire she was immediately rushed to the nearest mechanic bay.

While I was checking fluids and washing the windows a young man noticed me and asked I needed assistance. I informed him of the poor condition of my truck and he insisted I pull it into his shop. Today was our lucky day, this guy and his crew was 5 ton specialist.

Within a few hours many of the faults were fixed and the truck was showing new signs of life. Ten men or more total strangers to me but Service Members the same worked through lunch to get the truck road worthy again. All I had in return was a hand shake and a thank you. My new daily driver is not some 10 million dollar Stryker but instead an ugly rusted dump truck with a straight pipe and no suspension.