Here are a few more pics. Zoe (pictured here with) works next door in another department. She's been here almost two years but I think she'll be gone in about six moths. Talking to her, you can tell that she's tired of being here.

The Twalls are everywhere. There also called blast walls and their purpose is to 'mitigate mortar damage' Much of the damage from a mortar round comes from the flying debris. Of course if you get hit smack on by a mortar round a blast wall won't do any good. A concern over here are the larger 240mm mortar rounds that are probably being imported from Iraq. The smaller 160mm and 180mm rounds are typically older Soviet rounds, which are so old only explode on impact half the time. The 240mm rounds go farther, pack twice as much BOOM and (since are new) always go BoOM. It's a concern.

Yesterday was my birthday. It was pretty uneventful until I got a card and was genuinely surprised. Anyway, here's the card posted for posterity.

Here are some more random pics around camp. My internet connection has changed so it takes about 10 minutes to upload just one pic. Eh, at least I can upload them.

I've been lazy but I wanted to post some random pics around camp. They're pretty self explanatory

Last Friday was the start of Ramadam or as I like to call it, Ram-a-dam-a-ding-dong. It's a time where muslims are pissed off during the day because they can't eat or drink but they get to hoop and holler it up at night. And since there are a significant number of Bosnians working for the Army, it's not just arabs that can't eat or drink during the day. Bosnian are eastern europeans who are white and are muslim (Sunni not Shite). Serbs are eastern europeans who are white and are generally eastern Orthodox Christian (kinda sorta Catholic, but not). Bosnians tend to be muslim like most arabs tend to be muslim. It's a national identity thing (one is muslim because one is Bosnian). Anyway, pissed off people tend to share their general unhappiness so we're expecting more attacks this month. But on a positive note, last Friday was the first day that we went to 'HEAT CATEGORY 4'. What this means is that it is gradually getting cooler (but it was still 120 yesterday). So now instead of 'ridiculously hot' it's just simply 'dang hot'. Eh, such is life in a war zone.

Today is Sunday and usually Sunday is pretty boring. I do boring stuff that needs to be done and that takes time but it is nonetheless boring. However today the camp got attacked and it was certainly more than just a few mortars set off when a chunk of ice melted allowing an unattend mortar to drop and fire. The 'ice method' allows 'Aack-med' to set up his rounds during the night and as the ice melts the next morning, the mortar drops to the bottom and fires and Aach-med is long gone, far away from the point of fire. Anyway, today's attack involved helos firing rockets and lots of 50 cal gunfire. You can tell 50 cal gunfire since it has a 'deeper' sound than your regular M-16 or AK-47 gunfire. The attack was about a mile away just over the wire and since our area received no incoming we weren't called to bunkers. So.... what did I do? I went out and watched the 'show' of course from the top of a bunker. From the pic you can make out the helo (barely). This was a surreal experience watching and listening to the swish, ka-boom, and rat-a-tat-tat. Sorta reminded me of scenes I've seen on the TV from Lebannon, except this one isn't on TV.

Once a year, just like school kids, the Commander makes us all get together for the annual group pic. After two postponments (for various reasons) everyone finally walked outside and posed for a group pic on one of the permanent bunkers. But everyone isn't really 'everyone'. Military has to show up but only about half (if that many) of the civilians showed up. Then there are those that work night and of course they didn't show up. One thing about being over here is that there does seem to be a pecking order. Regular Army tend to look down on Reserve who look down on DAX (Department of the Army Civilians). DAX are civilians whose employer is the US Army and don't wear a uniform while in the states. But when DAX deploy overseas, they then do wear a uniform. Needless to say it seems odd to see a guy with a pony tail and beard in a uniform. And of course DAX look down upon private contractors (of which I am one). One group I rarely deal with is Army Special Forces. Those guys (SF is MEN ONLY) look down on Everyone! But more about SF in another posting. So it's just like high school again with everyone in his/her 'clique'.

Ok, I've been VERY poor in posting an update for sometime now. Long story short, I did some traveling and then got lazy and then the Army restricted access to many blog sites. Not that I was either reading or updating a blog while at work but I was doing so on off hours. Also internet in my hooch can be sometimes sporadic but it certainly is slower than at work.
So that's my mea culpa. One of the things that I do is a here is alot of customer visits (aka customer suckup visits). From MBA school I know it's just as important to be liked as it is to be competent. Here's pic of me before I head out for that day's visits.
Lastly, about a month back when I left for Anaconda for my trip to Kuwait the Army decided to conduct a 'Health and Welfare' inspection of hooches (containerized living spaces). They do this under the auspices of 'safetly' but there's a general concenus that they're looking for something following a hot tip. Normally such an inspection with be illegal in the states but... as a contractor, you're a hybrid civilian/military being and as such, subject the rules (but maybe not the privlidges) of being in the military. Anyway, at 0500, the Army started wakinging people up and telling them they had 3 minutes to get dressed and go stand in a field until the inspection was over. Now after you open the door and are given your 3 minutes, you were also watched, so this was a very detailed 'safety' inspection. Anyway, out of about 150 people, 17 were busted for booze, drugs and 'other'. Also, not everyone was in his/her room alone. Some had 'guests' over. Realize also that hooches are not that big and come with only a full sized mattress. This maybe Iraq and most Iraqis are muslim but there seems to be plenty of booze and drugs out there and truckers whow routinely travel on and off base are happy to oblige. Also the 'other' was for 'unauthorized personal items' that 2 women had. I talked to one of them and she said that "all the women" have them and that "the items" were never told to her that they were unauthorized. She was very distraught and had to tell her parents that she was coming home and for what reason and no one was happey. Well, about 3 weeks later, all the booze and drugs violators were gone but the women fought their case and this time prevailed. They were not fired but they never did get their 'personal item' back. So have you figured out what the 'personal item' was yet?

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