Be Like Mike

An added bonus to the USO tour was a visit by the Chairman of The Joint Chiefs – Admiral Mike Mullen. While I was in line someone in the back of the room yelled – standby for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs…he 30 seconds out. Most of us in line had no idea he was even coming. So we were all kind of surprised. I was still waiting to shake the Commish’s hand, so I wasn’t sure I would get to see ADM Mullen. But I spent my time and finished with the celebs then headed to the mass gaggle in the back of the room. There were people crowded all around. He was handing out Coins and hamming it up for camera shots. There was not really an organized line but more a mass of people swarming around him. I wormed my way to the front as he worked the crowd. I finally got a chance to say hello and he was asking people where are you from? What are you deployed for/where to? He commented that we were doing great things at Bucca. Not sure if that was just a canned answer or he actually believed that. I’m sure he’s been briefed on camp B if not visited already. Regardless he was attempting to make small talk and be nice to the troops. One of my buds snapped a photo in the chaos. Getting a coin from the CJCS is a pretty neat thing, so it was a nice bonus to the already cool day with the USO tour.

Current tent score:
MNFRC = 3
Mice = 0

Meet the Commish

Every once in a while you have one of those moments where you say...wow I can't wait to tell the guys about this. That was today. A USO tour came through: The attraction was 2 Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, an actor from the show Heroes (Milo is his real name) - he plays Peter a nurse or something on the show, Jack Lengyel (he was the coach of Marshall right after the incident where the football team died in a crash - they made a movie about it). The real draw at least for me was the NFL side of the tour. Drew Brees (QB New Orleans Saints), Osi Umenyiora (DE NY Giants) and then most important (at least to me) Roger Goodell - NFL Commissioner (third from left, blue shirt and green hat).
For those of you that don't know me that well...I am a huge NFL fan. Things in my life are ordered 1.God 2.Family 3.Country 4.NFL (and sometimes NFL creeps up next to family). I run a Fantasy Football League with mostly the same group of guys for the past 13 years. I'm the Commish of the league so meeting the real Commish was a big deal for me. They were here first thing in the morning so I had to drag out of bed and head over. By the time I got into the theater I was approximately #150 in line. No biggie - I've got nothing but time. They just had one long line and you cycled through all the celebs and had your picture taken with the 3-4 people who were in line next to you. All week I had been prepping my speech for the commish. I had a couple things to talk about, but they were rushing people thru so I had to narrow it down to my most important point.


I finally make it to the stage. Osi is first - he's a real ham and was showing off his super bowl ring. Then the Commish (I felt like a kid in line for Santa Claus). I hold on to his hand to keep his attention and say, "I read what you said about the rookie salary cap a few weeks ago. I agree with you. I think it is important for the game that you do something about it. Keep it up!" He pauses. Kind of smiles and points to the guy next to him (Drew Brees) and says - "Yeah I know - talk to him about it." Then we all have a big laugh. You see the players don't want any caps/or limits on the salaries. They want as much money they can get and I don’t blame them. But the Rookies (especially the top picks) are getting exorbitant amounts of money and they have not even played a single down in the NFL. Goodell says the owners should only pay top bucks for guys who are proven. And I whole-heartedly agree. So I moved on and had my pic taken while I was at the end of the line. It was cool.

The thing that struck me most was how normal the guys looked. They were big people -and I am sure they are in amazing shape, but the players were not much bigger than most of the soldiers. I was glad to shake the Commish's hand and speak my peace. Today was a good day.

Oh yeah - the Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff (top ranking officer in the DoD – THE big cheese) was there as well. But I'll save that story for tomorrow.

Critters

WARNING - ANIMAL LOVERS PLEASE MOVE ALONG - WARNING



After we had been in the tent for a few hours we realized we were not the only inhabitants. We saw a mouse run across the floor a few times. It was no big deal we've seen them most of the time here in the land of the deployed. A few days later we realize these guys are very bold. Phil said one was in his shoe/sock when he reached for it. Then we watched as one crawled up into our lockers...that was enough. Phil bought some traps. We knew it would not take long since they were so brave to move around with us in the tent. After an hour or so we heard the tell-tale snap (oh the pun). This photo captures the scene of the aftermath. None of us were that upset that we had to set the traps, but none of us wanted mice pellets in our stuff.

Other than that it was a very average day. I went to church in the morning and really enjoyed the service. It made me sad that I missed so many Sunday morning services since we mostly worked on Sundays. I spent some of the day escaping the heat of the tent in the Chapel's Rocker Lounge. It's a nice quiet room with comfy chairs where you can sit and enjoy some reading. Since the mid-day heat makes the tent well over 100- it's a nice option.

I spent the evening playing some computer games with the guys. No movie tonight - they are having some American Idol knock-off event here on base. That's not really my thing to watch so computer games sounded like more fun.

Not quite Nathan's

Day two of the 4th of July celebration was today. The base is having events all weekend to try and make it fun. I watched Saving Private Ryan last night. That's just a good movie. The D-Day invasion at the beginning is just amazing. As a soldier I just cannot fathom what it was like for those guys to walk into the blankets of gunfire.

Back to today...there was a BBQ-Burger cookout type dinner in the recreation building. We all went over becuase it something different to do. The event (dinner) was to start at 1730. Well 15 minutes past time they still had not started (all good cookouts take some time to get going is what I say). They finally did some intros and some bad jokes, then the emcee asks who likes hot dogs? we all kind of cheer, then she asks "no who really likes hot dogs - stand up." I standup hoping it will help me to get food faster. She asks a third and fourth time...who like dogs - stand up. Then my Spidey Sense goes off - something is not right here - I sense a chance to get caught in public buffonery is about to happen. I sit down. Then she calls ok all of you standing come up here. (yeah good choice to sit down). Well 3 of our group had followed my lead to stand-up but were not so quick to sit down. They all went up and were "volunteered" for a hot-dog eating contest. They eventually get 10 people up to the table and say whoever eats the most in 2 minutes is the winnder. Well my buddy Brandon is a contestant. As he's up there I can see in his eyes he will take this seriously. And when they finally get all set-up, Brandon has his game face on. When the starting gun goes off - Brandon grabs 4 dogs and shoves them down all at once. The rest of the reluctant group is in awe. Brandon chews and chews. Some of the others are gingerly eating one at a time. Brandon now has dog number 5 down. The local photographer has taken notice and is waiting for Brandon to get his next handful of dogs and tries to get a great action shot. Brandon wolfs down another 3 before time runs out and is clearly the winner. Afterwards he says to me - I just can't back down from a challenge. It's always fun with Brandon around. He won a pair of computer speakers (incidentally they are exactly like the ones he had a Bucca and sold to someone else). I told him to trade them in for something else at the PX. It was a little less competition than they have in NY every year at Nathan's Dog eating contest, but Brandon can lay claim to Hot Dog Champion of Kuwait.

Bingo!

One of our guys AF job at his regular base is part of the Services unit. That's AF code for morale type stuff (you know O-club, social events, lodging, and things like that). He's been on us about bingo night for quite some time. That we should go, they have money to give away as prizes and not many people go - so we should clean up if we were actually to participate. So the gang all loaded up and went out last night for Bingo.

It turns out it was a bit of a party for some of the local leadership leaving so they had free pizza and subs. Wahoo. The big prize was $300. None of us won a game. We bought some near-beer and enjoyed our pizza though.

We all had a good time but I'm sure we would have enjoyed it more if we had won something. We said a toast to our brothers and sisters back at Camp B.

Today was anothe relaxing one. We have quite a few days of nothing. Our transpo out of Camp B worked out in our favor and only took a fraction of the time it did for the previous group so we have some days to kill here before our scheduled rotator. Once again it just proves the AF and Army have a very different way of scheduling things. Chuck completed some medical out processing thing we have to do. He was our guinea pig - we sent him over first to scope it out. It seemed harmless so we'll all go over soon. Just some standard questions I guess...we all joke about what we could say about our hearings with the detainees. It's probably best to keep quiet about all that - some of those people are like TSA - they never can take a joke.

A few shots from the last day there

Now that I am in a place that has a little better internet connection I'll try to add a few photos and share with you some of the good things about Camp B. I've whinned about the heat. Here's a pic I took the last day we were there. This thermometer was outside Brandon's POD. as you can see it was pegged past 120 most of the time. I'm sure it isn't the most accurate gauge, but you get the idea.

Also here's a pic of what I like to call Lake Bucca. I think they busted a water tank or some sort of storage container a few months back. One day there was suddenly this giant pond of water. It is slowly evaporating now. It looks like someone fashioned a boat from a chair and some barrells, but I never saw anyone out on the lake (I'm sure it wa done after dark to avoid trouble). Brandon and Phil posed for me as well (my camera skills were off that day and it did not occur to me that they would be so far away from the pic that you couldn't see them - sorry). I think I posted in the past about this exotic sunny vacation type location. Lake Bucca is just one of the many amenities for people to enjoy there. Boating was not on the original list, but I'm sure someone will add it.

The land of silverware and real plates

We made it to Kuwait. We’d been on standby for a few days with the usual hassles of transpo in and out of Camp B (weather and limited air assets). My trip was uneventful. All our bags made it as well. There was lots of sitting around and waiting (as always)…mostly in the sun or at least outside under a canopy to give a little shade. The Blackhawk ride out was clearly the bumpiest of the helo rides so far, but still no big deal. It was a nice feeling to be leaving Iraq.

Once we got back to Kuwait things went very smoothly. Brandon commented that he noticed a significant difference in how we were treated. Everything worked out as if people were expecting us and there were no hassles. That was a big change from what we had experienced on the way in to our final destination. Of course we all chalked it up to being back at an AF base. They just seem to care about people more. Dinner was a treat, not because the food was good, but because we had real flatware – not plastic. The plates were something we noticed as well; I was tired of flimsy plastic plates. I could go on and on about the small things like streets and sidewalks that we commented and smiled about, but I’ll stop here.