The Wall Shook

This has been quite a week; just when I think I have a routine down something changes. Before I recap on the week I wanted to talk about an event that happened today. Some of us went over to the main vehicle maintenance shop to get some A/C units and other parts. When we arrived in the area we noticed that everyone was walking around with all their body armor and helmets on. We asked the maintenance soldiers about it and they said that earlier in the morning they had gotten some mortar attacks, so the camp was at a heightened state of alert. Mortar attacks are pretty common, them actually hitting anything is pretty rare in fact, and so we kind of shrugged it off. Well not too long after that there was a tremendous explosion. The walls shook and we all hit the deck and rolled under the vehicles. Everyone one of us thought the building had been hit with a mortar. After a few minutes we got up off the ground and headed for the bomb shelter outside till be got the all clear. It turns out we weren’t hit with a mortar. There is an article in Yahoo News with what I believe is a mention of our incident. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20040930/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_11. Not the topic of the main article, but the incident but the “Hour earlier” article at the end of the first paragraph. Now that’s just my opinion, I don’t know if it is or not definitely. But what is said there is consistent with what I’ve heard from others around here. That just underscores that it’s dangerous over here and not to be taken for granted. A few minutes after we went to the bomb shelter I, and several others, ventured out to take a look. We saw not too far away a large plume of smoke. We got up on some boxes and were able to see helicopters swooping around the area, some tanks racing around, locals on their roof tops looking off in the direction of the smoke, and even a ground ambulance racing off somewhere. Later on at dinner I sat next to a guy who knew the soldier that died in that incident. I bring up this incident, both cause it looms large on my mind today and also it adds to the headlines I’ve been reading lately. Some of the headlines I’ve read recently have been very pessimistic. In the articles it’s not just liberal loonies who are spouting off lunacy. But military analysts who say that American leadership is ignoring the evidence for how pervasive and deeply seeded the insurgency is. I read recently in an interview with George Bush that Bill O’Reily made the point that S. Vietnam is not free today because they didn’t fight for it. I sincerely hope that the citizen’s of this country will soon grasp the blessing that is on their doorstep. Their historical opportunity is on the doorstep. I hope that they take a que from history and see that America did for post-war Germany & post-war Japan. American played and integral roll in the post WWII development of these nations, both are doing today. Even if they just keep us around along enough to rebuild, set them on the right path and then ask us to leave like the Philippines did for example. We didn’t stick around and throw our weight around there. We packed up and honored the wishes of the people of the Philippines.

On Sunday night I had some extra duty called, “Mayor Cell Duty.” See our camp has a mayor. And so a group of about 20 of us had duties related to public works item. Staffing the phone center, supporting the sanitation crews and things of that nature. I was one of the lucky ones that got to support the sanitation crews. Basically I rode around with a civilian as he emptied the sanitation containment tanks and took them and dumped the load (pardon the pun). There was quite a language barrier. He knew only three words in English: “Food”, “Good”, and “Not Good”. And through those three words we accomplished incredible feats of cross-lingual communication. I learned that the dining facility served two meals through out the night. A fact I didn’t know previously. An apparently my driver wasn’t allowed to go in and get any food. So you know whom the job fell to. As a soldier the food is there for me so, so I walked in and got a plate and got one to go. The fun lasted until about 3am then we were done. So I went back to the office and waited for another task. My time should have ended at 6am. And I almost made it, however I was selected for road guard duty. So for two additional hours I had to stand at an intersection an keep traffic from heading down a certain route so that runners could make use of the path. After that late Monday morning my day ended as I went to bed.

At the motor pool they’ve found that I have a certain eptness to learning how to do things. So today they set me to the task to retreading humvee tires. And these things don’t use your average Goodyear tire. It’s a design all it’s own. It includes taking the tire apart, and putting it back together with a new tread. It sounds easy but wrestling with those things can be very frustrating. There is an opening for a supply clerk for the mech shop. So I’m going to toss my name in that hat and see if I can land that job. Not that I don’t enjoy what I’m doing now. It’s just that it’d be nice to have my own responsibilities rather than just being an appendage on the mechanic’s crew.

They’ve given me Saturday’s off for now to avoid conflicts with my religion. That is such a relief to me cause it’s hard for me to focus down there at the motorpool on Saturdays. Now I look forward to connecting with other SDA believers and fellowshipping with them.