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No. 44679
Tick tock. Lunch was spaghetti with meatballs, boiled trout, and hush puppies.
Whenever we enter or exit our COB, the poor grading of the road makes the chance of a rollover much more likely than rolling over outside the wire. It was a breath of fresh air to drive into Cedar II and see fresh mud, gravel, and asphalt being packed and smoothed out by bulldozers and steamrollers.
For the record, I love Engineers.
I don't know about you, rlp, but my satt-com is a piece of shit and I would send smoke signals as a last resort before using it.
During the 0300-1300 mission, one of the IPs said that there was no hope for the future of Iraq. Very difficult to discern whether his demeanor was grim or sarcastic.
Past week, we've been going to the neighboring FOB to run the classes that were originally blown off, and very quickly it became apparent why. The pool of IPs consisted of all the senior enlisted and junior officers of the entire main district we ran day missions in. Most of them had been policing longer than some of us were alive, let alone worked as MPs. A couple had a break in service due to personal problems with the former regime. A couple did not. I guarantee you at least one of them had ties to the JAM militia.
The first day was mostly a lot of deliberating on their part, since initially they weren't permitted to have their vehicles or sidearms on post. A couple from the border stations had travelled very far to get to us, and stated that it would be very difficult to make it to class in a consecutive-day format--they were expecting something closer to once a week. The LT made a concession that if any of them were to miss a day or two (mind you, there were only meant to be less than six days' worth of classes), he would not retaliate by sending negative feedback to their commander (some high-up guy by the name of Jabbar). That was the first mistake.
The second mistake was the curriculum set up by the LT and 1st squad leader. What they planned was perfect for, say, patrolmen and corporals that actually worked the streets. Having a newly-pinned PFC teach vehicle and personnel search to a bunch of staff-sergeants and sergeants-major threatened to become a role reversal with the IPs instructing our joes. However, the guy was someone who had been a broken ankle away from graduating from an Ohio police acadamy, had the eagerness and confidence of youth on his side, and found some standing ground with a couple of the junior officers, who weren't as familiar with this sort of thing.
Either the LT and squad leader changed tack or were very lucky to have planned it in advance, because after that, the rest of the week consisted mostly of three CPAT contractors and the LT, and by that I mean the CPATs and the terps. Less hands-on, more small-unit leadership tactics, and middle-management strategies as befitting to the rank of the students. The LT sat at a corner of the table cleaning his pistol while pointing his laser at the IPs when he thought they weren't looking. The squad leader dozed off a couple times at the laptop and projector and got irate when my roommate offered to take over for him. The CPATs were unimpressed. At some point the platoon sergeant kept the squad leader back on our post and supervised the classes himself.
Some more issues were made, often leading to concessions on the LT's part. The halal MREs were kinda lame, so they wanted 'restaurants.' They meant the DFAC. We would never be able to get a memorandum for that--Cedar II's DFAC is segregated by servicemembers, the SOC Ugandans, and haji LOGPACK drivers--but somehow we got them in. That seemed reasonable enough, since they were all professional to the point where the enlisteds and officers ate at opposite ends of the hall.
However, wanting to have their most senior guys pack into the ASV because riding in our MRAP or the back of their IP pickup truck is 'too dusty.' Well. No offense, but I've only been here for a few months and have no problems dealing with it. You guys LIVE here.
Our terps saved the day, every day. 'Tony' is a Russian-tinted local with an interest in Asian languages and culture. Another one grills me a lot about what my personal politics are, I don't remember his working name. The last isn't very fluent in English, doesn't converse with the others very much, is the tallest and shows his teeth a lot, so I like to call him T-Rex. They were able to pad and soften words without distorting the point of the message; nuances of courtesty and what is acceptable in their culture is something I haven't fully grasped yet. Reading nonverbal communication became extremely important.
Tomorrow's the last day. A final exam for the IPs. I don't know if it is written or oral, but I do know that if anyone flunks it, they get sent to IP jail.
As Three-Cigars put it best: it is very hard to teach older and more experienced people around here. I told him that was universal, but I believe he was trying to be modest.
No rest for the wicked, though. I hear there's another NAI presence patrol coming up. It just keeps getting better.
Been running into a few reservists and Guardsmen from OSUT, since regulars are the minority here. No forced surprise or conversations catching up on old times; a wave or nod was considered mutually adequate. In one instance, a salute was rendered--one of the recruits who had started off as an E-4 because of his degree was ambitious enough to have the cycle's company commander put together his WO packet before he was even off to jump school as per his enlistment contract.
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