My New Life

Monday, April 3rd, 2006 Deployment Day 9

FOB Falcon, Southern Baghdad, Iraq

At first I thought I this FOB was actually located "south of Baghdad". Since my arrival, however, I've learned that I'm actually in "Southern Baghdad," proper. I learned all this after visiting our TOC (aka Tactical Operations Center, Hoo-ah!), where I got to see the "Big Board" of sorts. (Anyone who's seen "Dr. Strangelove" should get that reference.) The Big Board, or "Battle Board", is a series of TV screens with all sorts of secret military info, but most importantly for me it included a large map of Baghdad and the surrounding region, and all the little FOBs therein. And it turns out, that FOB Falcon is in the southern part of the city, but in the city nevertheless.

I've been told that the local town in this region of Baghdad is a tenuous place because it has a mixed population of Sunni and Shite muslims. Apparently there are even "dueling mosques" both very close to the front of our FOB, one Sunni, the other Shite. In the evenings when commotion on the FOB itself is slower, I can often hear music blaring from one mosque or the other. I find the music disturbing, and completely because of the context in which I hear it. These two mosques are at odds with each other, and apparently per the general media the recent surge in violence is secretarian and not directed specifically against US personnel. Someone here was telling me that some time ago these two mosques tried to outdo each other with the volume of their music, and the contest actually escalated to the point of gunfire across the town. This is beyond ridiculous, of course, and just serves as another reminder of how far I am removed from the group of people who live no more than 800 meters from where I sleep. And despite the secretarian focus of attacks recently, the area still presents a stark danger to our guys who go "outside the wire" on patrols, because there are IEDs everywhere. Its out of control.

I've adjusted a little to my new surroundings, and I guess today would be my fifth full day on this FOB. Its a smallish place, as far as FOBs go - I suspect the perimeter is about 2 miles max, but I'm not certain. (Contrast this to the huge FOB where Gwen is located, which I think she said is like 20 miles long and has its own shuttle service.) Life here (or as I refer to it - "My New Life") continues to be very surreal. Just when the comforting grip of something that resembles a routine seems near, something happens which jolts my world back into a wartime reality. Not a day has gone by where I haven't heard explosions, usually several per day. Often these indicate IED's in the area have been triggered. Sometimes mortars are suspected, and other times it may be "controlled detonations" of discovered explosives. Once, I believe WE were actually firing artillery from here, though I can't be sure. These explosions can occur anytime - sometimes while walking around the FOB, sometimes when I'm lying in bed, and once while I was shopping in the PX. Every time it happens its just another little nudge to the proverbial ribs which mockingly says, "Hey you, guess what? You're still in Iraq. Pretty sweet, huh?"

The schedule for a provider isn't bad here. There is a 1-hour "sick call" (like a brief clinic) which occurs twice per day except Sunday when it is only in the afternoon. Pete, Jeff, and I run this for our Task Force in a small aid station, which is located next to the much larger TMC (Troop Medical Clinic), which belongs to the 4th Infantry Division, who is our parent division while we are up here in Iraq. There are several other providers working there. Jeff, Pete, and I also share the overnight call schedule with the 4th ID guys - call is not too frequent per provider, occuring somewhere between once every 1-2 weeks. But when Jeff, Pete, or I is "on", then the other two take back-up call. The rest of the time is more or less "down time", although various administrative activities have a way of filling up large chunks of the day out of nowhere. When there are battle casualties, there is of course extra work for providers, both medically and administratively. Luckily most of the hard-core trauma goes into central Baghdad where the hospital and all the surgeons are located.

The providers from 4th ID (the 4th ID has been here about 4 months out of their planned 12) have established a weekly poker game. Pete and Jeff have been involved for the past two weeks (Pete had even won the game his first week, despite not ever having played Hold Em before, prompting taunts and the nickname of "The Hustler" from other providers), and so this weekend I joined in as well. The game is a fairly rigidly structured game of Texas Hold 'em, and since per General Order number 1 there is NO GAMBLING allowed while deployed, we simply play with poker chips. I will say this again, we are not allowed to gamble with money, and so we simply use chips. Hey wait, why are you laughing? I'm not kidding. Yes, again, for the official government record, we only use chips. Only chips.

Anyway, the game uses standard Hold 'em rules with escalating big and little blinds every 15-30 minutes. Everyone "buys in" (remember, only chips, for the record) for the same amount. I haven't personally played poker in about 7 years or so, but I remembered enough to not play like a total idiot. Despite this, I was the second one out of the game. It was fun, though, to pretend we had a social life for at least a little while. One of the most fascinating concepts of the entire night was that of Near-Beer (Tm). There is, of course, no alcohol allowed in theatre, but the PXs and DFAC are chock full of imitation beer. On most days, when nothing in the world sounds better than a sweet, cold, edge-softening beer to take you away from this harsh reality, the mere sight of this imitation crap is a slap in the face. On poker night, however, it becomes a source of amusement.

I had never drank near-beer before, and when I asked Pete about it, he kind of shrugged. He summed it up as, "Its like this. Its not terrible, but the taste is off, and every time you have a sip, and realize the taste is off, its just another not-so-subtle reminder that you're in some shitty place you don't really want to be in. Its no substitute." By about my second near-beer, I found he was exactly right. Regardless, the game was fun. Some people were smoking cigars. Some people were bitching about stuff. There was a little stereo with an iPOD playing - one of the older PA's had plugged his particular iPOD in for the evening - and I found myself taken aback when runs of sixties music and classic rock came on. There I was, sitting around a dirty table outside near a helipad, unclean, on an army post, playing poker in a camoflauge uniform, with guns lying around, cigar smoke in the air, and Vietnam-era music like The Zombies ("what's your name, who's your daddy...") and Jefferson Airplane coming on. It was like having a Vietnam flashback through the portal of another, newer war, even though I was never at the first one. Then I realized that deployed people have been doing this shit for years. Doing anything to try and get a mental break from the grind of being deployed. No, this is not southeast Asia. Not even close. (It's south WEST Asia, actually.) But there are similarities.

Poker was fun for a break until the unfortunate occurred. It started when we saw two pilots running for the choppers. Somebody yelled, "Grab the cards!" as the rotors started up. The wind picked up and people were slapping hands down on cards, papers, and anything else light to prevent the artificial wind from blowing things everywhere.

"That's not good," someone remarked as the Blackhawk took off. But we resumed playing. After about 20 minutes, the chopper came back. There had apparently been an IED in the area. A routine patrol had stumbled upon it, and the thing detonated, and two soldiers were killed. Two of OUR soldiers. A third was injured, but not badly. And so what started as a fun poker night of diversion turned into a long and depressing reality check about what we are actually doing up here, which is continuing to be at war. One of the deceased soldiers was very popular amongst our medics, and his death has made the last few days very somber indeed. I had met the guy before myself, only briefly, and back in Germany. It was very much a shock.

The two deceased soldiers had been taken elsewhere. The third, injured soldier was brought here and evaluated by Jeff. He had some hearing loss and a headache, and was shell-shocked and shaken up, but was otherwise doing relatively OK. He had been probably 30 meters from the blast. The next day we spoke to our Task Force Chaplain, who said he had been up late talking with other soldiers about the casualties. He intimated that several soldiers are asking the question, "What are we even doing here? Did they (the deceased) die for nothing?" Nobody has a good answer for that question, of course. Since the chaplain told me that, i've been trying to formulate my own response to such a question should it ever be presented to me. Obviously, I would never let my politics get in the way of answering something like that, but it remains a difficult, if not impossible question to answer in any situation. And certainly in this one it takes the cake.

At this point, it remains unclear how long we will be here for. We heard we were leaving soon, then that we are staying longer. No one is quite sure, and the flow of information around here through official channels and down to us is poor at best. Normally, our best info about our potential goings or stayings comes from a day-old "Stars and Stripes" newspaper. And that fact....is sad. All we can do is shake our heads about it.

By the next post I should have an address. Hope all is well in "civilization" to anyone who is reading this.