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Old 05-18-2003, 10:54 AM   #1
Tobiasly
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Join Date: Mar 2002
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back, kinda

Hi all.. I'm still not home yet, but I finally have semi-regular internet access so I figured I'd say hi and maybe try to contribute a lil' around here again.

We arrived in Kuwait in mid-Feb, moved north into Iraq in late March and now have moved to Jordan. Whoops, except the U.S. isn't supposed to have any infantry troops in Jordan. OK, you didn't read that here.

So we're on an airbase now, and since the Air Force gets all kinds of perks wherever they go, we now have dining facilities, electricity, running water, phones, internet, and women.

Anyhoo, I have some pictures up at http://www.tobiasly.com/albums/Opera...uring_Freedom/ that some of you may be interested in.. some of the kindsa things you prolly haven't seen on the news about a grunt's day-to-day life.

These will prolly load pretty slow; if anyone has a faster connection they can lend me for a while, let me know!

Talk at ya again soon!
toby
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Old 05-18-2003, 11:14 AM   #2
Tobiasly
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A little more on my adventures of late.. this is an email I sent to my family a little bit ago, describing life in Iraq for me and my platoon the past month and a half.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Hi again everyone! I'm typing this on my laptop so I can put together a longer email. I figured people would be interested in a little more of what life is like over here. Like I said, we are stationed just outside Talil airfield, which is about 1/3 of the way up the main highway from Kuwait to Iraq.

We are basically helping pull security in the area, but things are actually pretty calm. Now that the war is winding down, we are shifting into more humanitarian missions. There are lots of nomads and displaced citizens living in tents around the area who are pretty short on food and water. It sure is a whole different world over here. It's just quite a culture shock trying to understand these people sometimes, even if it weren't for the language barrier.

These people are so poor that most of them will steal anything that isn't bolted down in hopes of selling it or using it to build a house with. My platoon is stationed at a captured Iraqi military compound, and there were several abandoned vehicles here that were in, let's say, less than optimal condition. We kept having Hajis come up to our gate, which we eventually figured out wanted to take the vehicles. ("Haji" is how we all refer to Arabs in general, sorta like calling an American "Joe". It may be a little less than politically correct, but it lets us easily refer to them in the third person). And boy, were they persistent.

Finally we started just dragging the vehicles outside of the wire and giving them to the next Haji who came by asking for them. At last, we had gotten rid of all vehicles in sight, except for the one we were using as part of our vehicle entrance barrier. That one was a truck that was missing all doors, had broken windows, holes all through the body, no battery, etc. Oh yeah, and we ran it over the "severe tire damage" spikes one day when we were bored to make sure they worked (they did). Sure enough, a few days later, another Haji came by and claimed it was his.

There are quite a few old Iraqi government buildings around that the Hajis then started looting. We tried to keep them out at first, but soon realized we didn't have the time or people to keep them all out. So we just concentrated on keeping them out of the buildings where we knew there was still ammo stockpiled. We had to chase some of them off several times and get more forceful each time. One day, during a particularly nasty duststorm, we saw a bunch of people crawling on top of one of the buildings. When we got there, they were ripping the roof apart with a sledgehammer so they could take the steel I-beams!

Not too long afterward, we saw several Hajis cutting down an electrical power pole to cut it apart and use it to build their house -- power lines attached and all! We tried to explain to them that the power is down now, but that it will be fixed before long and we'll probably need the power lines when it is. I could probably go on for quite a while with more examples.

Today is a pretty exciting day. We just got one of our battalion's generators working that no one was using, and are using it to power the small building where myself and the rest of the platoon leadership are staying. So that means we're able to have power for a few hours in the evening. Earlier today, we drove a little into An Nasariyah, past the hospital where those seven POWs were held at first. Again, most of the citizens were pretty friendly, with the occasional not-so-nice glare from some bystanders.

We are pretty lucky to have these abandoned buildings here because it saves us from having to live in tents. We have been trying to gradually improve our living conditions whenever we can. We found an old rusty drum half-full of kerosene, so we built a little stove out of bricks, sand, and some chicken wire we found so we can heat up water for coffee and shaving. We've built a shower, a swimming pool, and various other amenities along the way. It's amazing what you can do with almost nothing when you have to!

Things are pretty much set into a routine for us now. It was a little hectic for me at first trying to coordinate everything and make sure that my troops were able to observe all the areas in our zone where people might be able to sneak up. The commander had to give me extra soldiers to make sure I had enough people to do the job. I'm currently in charge of five rifle squads, a heavy weapons squad, and two humvee crews (a platoon regularly has just three rifle squads and a heavy weapon squad).

At least I should get some extra "fruit salad" on my uniform when we're all done. My company commander and the battalion commander have recommended me for a Bronze Star, which is for going well above and beyond the call of duty during wartime. It's a pretty prestigious award, especially for someone in the Guard who's only been in for a few years. We should also be getting our Combat Infantry Badge, which is also pretty prestigious.

There are some pretty fun moments too. My platoon has a spare humvee that we use to respond to emergencies and run errands, and I've gotten to drive quite a bit (usually the officer just has someone drive for him, but I like driving so I do it myself most of the time). I had never really driven one before we got here. My first time driving was at night, going about 40 MPH down a bumpy, windy desert trail with night vision goggles (we don't use headlights) during a particularly nasty duststorm. I tell ya, that's something everyone should do once in their life!

There is so much abandoned ammunition and explosives all around this area, that they're having a hard time moving or destroying it all before the wrong people get a chance to pick it up. When they do find a cache somewhere, they usually blow it up right there. There are special teams whose sole purpose is to blow up explosives, because they have to know how much demo to use, how big the explosion will be, how big an area they need to evacuate, etc. Every now and then, there will be a huge fireball that shoots into the air nearby, followed by a thunderous boom and shock wave. We've had windows blown out from some that were especially close.

This entire country seems to be crawling with stray dogs. Being a dog lover, I hate to see all these poor, starving animals. I have no idea where they find enough food for there to be so many of them. They also fight each other and bark all night long. We had to thin out the population a little in our area because it got so bad. I've adopted one half-grown pup named Boots. Many of the guys hate her because she barks more than pretty much all of the others. She got stung by a scorpion the other day, and they were all hoping she'd die (they know that if they shoot her I'll make them regret it!) She pulled through though, after resting for most of the day.

Well, I guess that's about it for my rambling description of life in the desert. We will supposedly be getting word pretty soon on when we'll be coming home. It will probably still be a couple months, but at least we should have a definite date set. Everyone here sure is ready for all this to be over with. I'll be sure to let everyone know as soon as I can. Hope to see everyone again before too long!
~-~-~-~-~-~-~
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Old 05-18-2003, 11:19 AM   #3
Undertoad
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Awesome Tobe! We've been thinking about you man. The pics are just great. I love the front porch! It's hilarious, like "American Redneck Gothic" with the hound, the flag, the walkway, the outdoor furniture and the rifle across the lap. The homemade stove is also classic.

If you need me to host anything here just say so. My bandwidth is yours for this kind of thing.
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Old 05-18-2003, 11:24 AM   #4
Tobiasly
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That's exactly the look I was going for on the porch! I thought the idea of the whole redneck thing in the middle of Iraq was pretty funny.

Thanks for the bandwidth offer.. I'll take you up on it when I get the chance to get the pics zipped up or something. I'll PM you tomorrow or so.

toby
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Old 05-18-2003, 11:31 AM   #5
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     It's good to hear from you. Any chance you can bring Boots with you when you come home?
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Old 05-18-2003, 01:54 PM   #6
wolf
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They probably can't bring animals back because of reasons of quarantine. That's a shame, though, because Boots will probably have to face a Shariya court for having consorted with infidels. (you haven't been feeding her pork products, have you?)
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Old 05-19-2003, 12:46 AM   #7
Tobiasly
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I wouldn't want to bring back Boots with me. Interestingly enough, I believe that dogs and cats can be brought back if you go through the proper channels, which includes buying them about a $1000 plane ticket.

But Boots was already too old to get the wild dog out of her. She would let me pet her, but it was more like she was humoring me than actually wanting human companionship -- you know, like most cats. She barked all night at anything that moved, and the rest of the guys would have shot her in a heartbeat if I didn't forbid it. The new Lt. said he'd take care of her, but I'm wondering if he didn't already "take care of her".

And yes, she ate pork like there was no tomorrow. When I first got there she would wolf down anything from an MRE in about 5 seconds. She was a lot fatter and pickier by the time we left. So if nothing else, I know that I made one poor animal happier for a month and a half.
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Old 05-19-2003, 05:17 AM   #8
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Hey, this might sound kinda silly but... what kind of system are you using over there? UNIX or Windows?

Are you using a COE box? If so, are you using WEBBr or NSWEB?

It maybe sounds morbid, but I was checking the casualty list every day for you and being damn glad you weren't on it. Glad you're alright.
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Old 05-19-2003, 10:42 AM   #9
Tobiasly
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Hi Dave, good to hear from you again. Sorry to say that I have no clue what sort of system they're using here. The Army has all their own acronyms, which they try to change on a regular basis to prevent anyone from ever actually understanding what they all mean. All I know is that there is an ethernet hub here that I plug my laptop into and it works.

While we were at Camp Doha, they were very restrictive as to the sorts of activities we could do. They blocked all outgoing ports except for http, and that went through a proxy that got increasingly restrictive as the war got closer. By the time the war started, just about everything but the army email site was blocked.

Now, it appears there are no restrictions here. Web access still goes through a proxy, and there are a few blocked sites, but since everything else is open I can just port-forward over SSH through my server at home if there's something I really need.

My IP appears to the outside world as 144.106.210.23 (they appear to be using NAT), so if you want to do some poking around feel free and let me know what you find.

Oh yeah, I'm glad I wasn't on the casualty list too.

toby
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Old 05-19-2003, 10:48 AM   #10
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If you're using a laptop, you're using Windows, right? It's army-provided? If it's COE and you're using some of my software, you'd see menu items under the start menu for WEBBr or NSWEB, depending on the version. That's really all I was curious about.
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Old 05-19-2003, 10:56 AM   #11
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It's great to know you're okay! Thanks for the commentary and stories.

Is the truck you were writing of the one seen in the background here?
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Old 05-19-2003, 10:57 AM   #12
dave
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Also, Tob, I'll host it for you. I can't ssh out from work so I can't create you a user, but what I can do is put it in a subdirectory on my user account, i.e. http://msdelta.net/~dave/tobiasly/ or http://d.gaveup.org/tobiasly (slow dns server on that last one though).
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Old 05-19-2003, 11:24 AM   #13
warch
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Hey! Great to hear from you! The nightvision pic turned out so well- Very cool. Was this while you were tooling around in your Humvee?
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Old 05-19-2003, 12:13 PM   #14
elSicomoro
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So, he disappears for almost 5 months, and pretends he was over in the Middle East. Then, he takes photos from someone else and portrays them as his own...outlandish!

(Glad to hear you are doing well, Tob. Get out of there and get home.)
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Old 05-19-2003, 12:16 PM   #15
Tobiasly
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Dave: didn't realize what you were asking. I'm using my own laptop, not the army's. There really is no standard army laptop. The internet connections are called, I think, NIPRNET and SIPRNET. The latter is more secure than the former I think.

I'd prolly rather just put the pictures somewhere fast so I can keep the same URL for the webpage, so it doesn't matter to me what the account looks like. Or maybe I'll put up a second copy for public use, so people don't go nosing around in the rest of my pictures

That Guy: Yep, that's the truck. She's a beaut, huh?

Do I know you under a different handle?

Warch: Good to hear from you too. Yeah, I was impressed with how well the night vision shot turned out too. Those are the newer PVS-14 model, not the older PVS-7. The newer ones only go over one eye, so you still have a "naked" eye. I like it much better because you have better depth perception (the 7's, although they had two eyepieces, still only had one actual scope, so they just put the same image up to both eyes.)

Anyhoo, I've often been impressed with how incredible the picture is. It's not like you're looking at a TV screen at all -- you can only start to see individual pixels if there is virtually no ambient light and they really need to strain.

If I get the chance, I'll try to take a picture of someone aiming their PAQ-4 at something. That's the infrared aiming laser -- kinda like the "red dot" kind that you see in the movies, only since they're infrared you need night vision to see the dot.

And no, we weren't in my humvee yet; we had just arrived and set up a couple overwatch positions for the night.
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