Cards from Kids

The second set of cards, courtesy of Ms. Matzuk's 5th grade class in Doylestown, PA

One of the favorite and fortunately repeating episodes of life here in Iraq is the multitude of cards and letters we get from school kids. The first round came from a fifth grade class in Doylestown, PA taught by Melissa, the sister of one of my colleagues back home at the civilian job (ohhh, civilian job . . . how I miss you). The set of letters, one from each child, came and I rallied the office and friends in the building to respond to each. I told Melissa that one of the kids, Sam, would even be getting a letter back from a Colonel in the Australian Army, to which Sam was reportedly very excited about, until he became worried and inquired "Will the letter be in English?"


Nate from Ms. Parker's 2nd grade class at Los Alamitos Elementary, looks like he might be a future Navy guy himself with this fine rendering of a Navy supply ship above.

And then there were the cards from Ms. Parker's 2nd grade class at Los Alamitos Elementary - each one exquisitely had crafted in crayon with festive holiday scenes (like Santa on a tank).

But Jack's card . . . well, who ever thought of replacing Santa's sleigh with a tank pulled by reindeer (except Jack)? I'm hoping that the red crayon color in front of Rudolph indicates the glow from his nose and not a casualty . . .

Here is an assotment of more cards from more kids that were put downstairs for the staff in the building to enjoy.

You are being watched!

Like most companies or organizations, the Army blocks any websites it believes are detrimental to good morale and welfare or would result in abuse of the computer system. If you try to access one, you get the beloved "Your activity is being monitored and logged for review and possible disciplinary action" message or something like that. I hope that really is the case, because whenever my buddy Josh leaves his computer unattended, I type in as many restricted sites as I can think of.

The system might be a little overactive. The satirical "Onion" newspaper is banned due to "adult/mature content" and I was given the "monitored and logged" warning when I tried to read an article about one of the last American WWI vets passing away - clearly an insidious threat to coalition forces in Iraq. Oh, but don't worry, I still get emails on my work account begging me to help Mogatu in Namibia who has $20M his late father earned but just needs my banking information to transfer it to me. I sent that right away.

A Baghdad Christmas

At my desk with my "Tree in a Box."


Merry Christmas from Camp Victory. We did what everyone else around here does on Christmas . . . we worked. We did take some time though to do a Secret Santa gift exchange followed by a jolly and rather contentious white elephant gift exchange wherein, after seeing the quality of the first few gifts, I just chose the same one I contributed. After seeing the rest of the gifts, my initial instinct was confirmed. Good call on my part.

Our little tree on Christmas Eve . . . I was so excited for Santa to come I almost couldn't sleep. Well actually, I was on watch that night so in fact I really couldn't sleep. We have someone on watch each night in the building to make sure if the phone rings someone picks it up and doesn't allow the telemarketer to change our long distance service unless it is a REALLY good deal. Seriously, I don't know anyone who has actually had the phone ring . . .

The tree was a care package to a fellow who has since returned home (or "redeployed" as we might say in the military) but using Contingency Expeditionary Wartime Care Package Guidelines (CEWCPG) developed when this package arrived by, well, our boss the Colonel, we declared the tree unfit to return to the states and set it up so we could keep an eye on it. Luckily for me, the nieces had sent along two tree ornaments which were among the first to be hung.



Contary to the conventional wisdom of many, it is not hot all year round in Iraq. Christmas morning was a chilly 40 degrees. A 90 degree difference to the temperature here in July and August.

The stockings were hung on the cubicle with care, in the hopes that no rockets would fall near.

Annie Lesher is a lovely woman no one in the office has ever met. She works as a civilian for Defense Logistics Agency back in the states and has taken it upon herself to ensure that everyone assigned to DLA in Iraq (about 60 of us throughout the country) gets at least one care package a month. She is the one who made the stockings for us all. She is immensely generous, especially given that she has never spoken to, much less met, any of us.

My Tree in a Box sat above my desk along with other important stuff, like the burn box and the college bowl game schedule.

Winter Wonderland: The IZ

The pool at the embassy compound early one morning before the rush.

I’ve been back and forth between the International Zone (IZ) formerly called the Green Zone, a couple of times this month and the longer I am in Iraq, the more surreal the IZ feels, in a very civilized way. As always, lets compare and contrast:

Camp Victory bulletin board posting - “Safety Warning: Small Arms Fire coming over the wire [perimeter] in location xxxx”
IZ bulletin board posting – “SCRABBLE TOURNAMENT! This weekend!

Camp Victory bulletin board posting – “Ensure your weapon is on safe and you do not have a magazine loaded”
IZ bulletin board posting – “The pool is closed today” (this one I think might have actually elicited some form of organized protest, but everything returned to normal by the time “Salsa Dance Night” rolled around that evening).

Camp Victory bulletin board posting – “For sale: tactical overvest, slightly used”
IZ bulletin board posting – “For sale: Lava Lamp, like new”

The embassy is located in the palace that use to serve as Sadam's primary residence and office.


A common street inside the IZ. Many regular Iraqis live inside the IZ.

A reflection of the Rhino commander shows through the ballistic glass as the convoy makes its way to the IZ.

The road to the IZ, with one of our guntruck escorts ahead of us.

Armed Forces Network (AFN)

AFN is the official network of the military and runs eight channels. As one would expect, there is a news channel (mostly FOX News), a sports channel (mostly ESPN and games), two movie channels, a family channel, etc. But that is all secondary to the commercials on AFN. Imagine one big set of goofy public service announcements. If you were an anthropologist and you knew nothing else about the military than what you saw on these commericals, it would be a reasonable conclusion that everyone in the military was a complete moron.

We have one with an emotionless military surgeon talking about pandemic flu. His inspriration obviously came from Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller. Then there is the "how to mail a package at the post office" commercial. And the Air Force seems to constantly run commercials about how cool it is to be the Air Force, showing Air Force members in camoflauge running around the forrest with high tech guns (knock, knock Air Force - uh, who's there - REALITY!! Get back to your desks and put the paintball guns back in the closet).

But my favorite is a commercial about not letting kids play in a construction zone. It shows heavy construction and earth moving equipment and in the middle of it all, five little kids playing. So you know that this happened someplace and now the military not only has a commercial about it but I expect to soon be notified that all members must take a one hour online course about child safety in construction zones.

I’m Dreaming of a Brown Christmas . . . Well, not really, but why set my self up to be disappointed?

Looks like the Camp Liberty PX has a great sale going on everyone’s favorite family board game “Hit the Deck!” Something tells me that sales might have slumped on this item. Why buy the game and PRETEND when we get to do it for real so often?


The holidays are here in lovely Victory Base Complex. The crowds at the PX, the loads of cookies and treats on the conference table and special coupon deals. The check out lines are always long. The PX closest to me is open 24/7 so even if I need to find out at at 0300 that they don’t have anything except size small boxer shorts in stock, I can.

The gift that keeps on giving: the IRAQ TRAVEL MUG!! Fits perfectly into Humvee cup holders! (er, well, I guess it WOULD fit perfectly if the Humvee had cup holders . . . ).

Among the holiday mysteries (well, year-long mysteries) that I have yet to crack is why anyone here, in the land of huge quantities of free food at all the DFACs would instead choose to pay to buy food from Taco Bell, Burger King, etc. but each day there are lines of soldiers at these places.

USC Alumni Club of Baghdad Holiday Greetings

Thanks to USC's Marshall Alumni Association, led by fellow Navy Reservist Robin Doty, for the alumni sign. As you can see, it is currently on the office door . . .

Well it shouldn't surprise anyone that I rallied the Trojans at Victory Base Complex. I worked with USC and the Rose Bowl committee to make sure this got to the right people. For those of you going to the Rose Bowl, hopefully you see this on the big screen. For those of you not going to the Rose Bowl, here it is on the small screen.

Fighton and Beat the Illini!

Secret Video Teleconferencing [CLASSIFIED]

I work in what is considered a “secure container building.” That means that we can handle classified information throughout the building. We even have a secure video teleconference room that is pretty high tech by most standards. Each morning we can tune in the live video feed from the Joint Operations Center of the Battlefield Update Assessment or “BUA” (Hooah BUA) which is the daily briefing for General Patreaus. The room is used countless times each day.

But the biggest draw? The standing room only crowd in the conference room? The one that includes near beer and pretzels? You guessed it – the 108th Annual Army Navy Game. Not deterred by the late night start nor the almost certain fate of the Army team, the room was teeming with members from all the services. With a handful of grads from both schools in the room, the trash talk was persistent but diligently followed by a “ . . . . sir” when required. As usual, I made friends and influenced people by just talking about USC the entire time.

And now for the December installment of Meet a Member of the Coalition!

The Baltic country of ESTONIA contributes a 30 man platoon to the coalition forces. A whopping 27 more troops than neighboring Latvia. Latvia you slacker – the Estonians toast to their country and scoff at yours! Take that neighbor. So let’s hear it for Estonia, whose official tourism motto is “Estonia! Positively Transforming.” I don’t know what that means.

Things I’ll miss about Iraq when I come back home:

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