The security situation in Iraq has undoubtedly improved remarkably over the past few years.  The Iraq I heard stories about before my deployment is not at all the Iraq I saw.  Most people did not want to kill us, most people were not afraid of the American soldier.  Walking down the street giving people the warm greeting ‘Salaam Alaikum’, (I have no clue how to spell that Arabic phrase properly) which literally means the peace of God be with you, I often received kind smiles and offers to come in and drink some chai with them.  However in many eyes were not merely kind smiles but hungry eyes.  Americans have come to represent money and power to the impoverished people of northeastern Baghdad.  Local shop keepers eye you greedly hoping for another round of free handouts of foreign money.  The  little children, covered in dirt and flith from the playing in the garbage that is everywhere, have learned well from their parents and driving past them in up armored HMMWVs they line up by the dozens, raise their hands in the air and shout, “Mister, Mister, Ball, Ball!”  Unfortunately we have no balls to give the children and a few of the bolder ones, irate that they aren’t getting any free handouts, heave large rocks at our vehicles.  And so it is, the Iraqi people want to use us for our power and money, but when we don’t cave to their greed, or some get nothing they attack our soldiers out of greed and anger.

The Iraqi people have some admirable qualities.  They are usually warm and hospitable, family oriented.   However in addition to greedy they are also lazy as a people.  They literally have trash laying around all over their streets, flowing over parks and soccer fields, everywhere imaginable.  They are quite enterprising when it comes to making a quick buck, but for the most part the protestant work ethic is the unthinkable to the Iraqi man.  They keep their women indoors hidden behind veils, jealous that a stranger might so much as receive a kind smile from their daughters.  As a people the Iraqis are amazingly resilient.  Not very long ago a couple of car bombs went off at a traffic circle in Baghdad and killed over 150 innocent men, women and children.  The Iraqis just took it in stride, it was as big of news in Baghdad as a major traffic jam is back in the states.   However suffering through years of coups, followed by nearly three decades of Saddam Hussein, who from the many anecdotes I heard was a man evil on the order of Adolf Hitler, and now a brutal sectarian violence and insurgency has also made them extremely defeatist.  The people are not concerned if their government is corrupt, after all what is so bad about a little corruption provided you get food on your table and you live to see another day?

Commonly when you try to schedule any sort of business with an Iraqi you hear the word, “Inshallah” which means if Allah wills it.  That is the Iraqi people’s mindset and thus they are primarily reactive rather than proactive.  They reason, “What use is it trying to stop the inevitable?”  Yet as one of the principles of counter insurgency states, “sometimes their good enough is better than your perfectly executed operation” they have primarily taken over the security role in the part of Baghdad where I operated.  They definitely aren’t perfect by our standards but they seem to be just barely good enough.  When the security agreement went into effect that required us to stop actively operating within the city limits violence did not appreciably increase.  Iraq will never be what I would consider a nice place, but for the Iraqi people, after six long years it seems that they have arrived at the point where they are good enough.  Saddam is gone, the sectarian bloodshed has stopped, and now there is no use in our trying to Americanize their security forces or government anymore.  Let them be Iraqi, whatever it is that that means. 

Looking back on the time I spent in Baghdad the enduring mental image that I will take with me of the Iraqi people is one from a few weeks ago.  We were driving through the dirty streets of one of the muhallahs (neighborhoods) we were responsible for just before sunset when the whole world takes on that golden glow.  There was trash, shin deep, piled for six or seven feet along the mud walls that kept each families courtyard private.  There were a few streams of mud flowing across the dirt streets because there was no sewer.  An old man, in a tattered and dirty brown dishdasha (man dress) with a disheveled black checkered headdress was tending a dozen of the filthiest sheep ever seen and waiting for night to fall.  He struck at bags of trash with his staff and strew the trash a little more so his sheep could find the choicest rotting vegetables because there was no pasture for them.  As we passed him he glanced up, his brow furrowed with the wrinkles wrought by years of poverty and strife, and gazed at us with his tired brown eyes while we simply passed on by.  And so is Iraq, a tired disheveled old man doing just enough to survive while we pass on by.

Last night those soft but ever present sounds was a noisy din, a cacophony conspiring to keep me awake.   The calm of the night outside the tents thin canvas walls is perforated by the sharp staccato of machine gun fire at random intervals on some range or test fire pit.  Occasionally convoys of MRAPs or other heavy equipment roar down the road their engines sounding like jets.  Then there is the actual Air Force cargo jets landing and taking off.  A little piece of advice, if you ever have the opportunity to purchase a piece of property for cheap near a military runway pass it up.  These things start off  sounding like a jet and then right before these behemoth jumbo jets take off or land they kick their jets into high gear and it sounds like a space shuttle is blasting off right outside your tent. 

Thats just the noises outside the tent, inside the tent there is a guy sleeping five or six cots down from me who sounds like he has the swine flu, every couple minutes he coughs or wheezes reminding me that I could get sick before making it home.  The tent I am staying in has twenty soldiers sleeping in it, everyone on a different sleep schedule so there is always someone rustling about.  I drew the unlucky straw and the guy sleeping on the cot next to mine in the tent I am sleeping in snored.  I say snored but that is actually an understatement, he sounded like someone with a misfiring chain saw trying to cut down an entire forest.  A few times I became concerned that he might actually drown in his own nostrils, but I never got that lucky.  His snoring was so loud that it actually drowned out the roar of the jets landing and taking off.

Needless to say sleep did not come to me easily last night.  Finally after an hour I fished around in the bottom of my rucksack until I found my ear plugs, even with them in I could still hear the ragged snoring of the man next to me.  Eventually the night took mercy on my and I drifted off into the land of winking, blinking and nod…

I hadn’t eaten a salad in over four months, early in the deployment we’d get fresh fruit and vegetables on a regular basis, but suddenly the flow of fresh greens shut off entirely.  Our cooks, who were all pencil thin because they would barely touch their own cooking, were replaced with a new crew of cooks headed up by a pleasantly plump NCO and within three days I had a fresh romaine lettuce salad, delicious.  They made burgers, much as the previous cooks did but they sauted onions and peppers to top the burger with.  Tonight they made delicious deep fried turkey wings and the best prime rib I’ve had all deployment including at the big chow halls on major FOBs.  Things are looking up for the soldiers manning this little outpost on  the outskirts of Baghdad.  Why?  All because the skinny cooks were replaced by a fat one.

A few weeks ago my platoon got tasked with a patrol that we needed to conduct at night.  It wasn’t anything spectacularly long, but part of the way into it one of the guys riding in my truck started complaining about needing to piss.  We weren’t about to stop so after a little scrounging around we found an empty water bottle for him to use, not an easy task in the dark being jostled around some bumpy roads, and he let nature take its course. 

As we got to a Joint Security Station we needed to stop at he decided he was thirsty and took a big gulp out of his water bottle, he stopped puzzled for a moment and then proceeded to blast all the water out of his mouth and immediately started hacking and gagging and asking me for a fresh water bottle.  In the dark he mistook his piss bottle for water bottle, took a gulp puzzled at the slightly salty flavor wondering if he had put a Gatorade packet into his water bottle and then realized his mistake in horror.   Everyone in the platoon proceeded to rag on him for the next few days not allowing him to live down his mistake anonymously.  Definitely one of the funniest events of the entire deployment.

Thanks for your continuing prayers for saftey and spiritual well being of the soldiers who are serving over here with me.  Your prayers are both appreciated and needed.

Once I got to the Joint Tactical Operations Center and sat down ready to sip my coffee the delicious and strong brew was immediately overwhelmed by the nauseating stench of the few Iraqis in the room with me.  *Note: they do not all smell this bad but some certainly do, so don’t start accusing me of racism until you’ve been over here nose to pit with some of the worst offenders*  It was a typical smell for them.  The powerful aroma of , ‘never heard of deodorant and live in one of the world’s hottest climates’ B.O., cheap cigarettes chain smoked indoors and a couple of burnt headache inducing incense sticks mingled together and assaulted my nostrils.  It utterly overwhelmed the good of my coffee.  I lost all desire to drink it I was too disgusted.  All I could do is hold my pounding head and think of the millions to be made by some Procter and Gamble or Unilever when they make deodorant main stream in Iraq.  What a glorious day that will be.

As luck would have it my platoon started running short on essential supplies like soap, deodorant, cigarettes and dip so we got sent to a nearby FOB for a couple days of refit.  It is amazing the effect that a couple days of relaxation will have on you.  I slept in a nice cool well air conditioned room for at least 9 hours a night.  I ate meals that included salads, fruits and even once I splurged and savored a bowl of Baskin Robbins Cookies and Cream ice cream.  I worked out in a clean gym that was air conditioned (the gym on my little JSS averages 120 during the days) and had plenty of cardio equipment.  I sipped Cafe Lattes from Green Beans while I read pages out of Orthodoxy.  After two days of living the, relatively speaking, good life on a real FOB I felt thoroughly refreshed and was ready to get back to work.

I guess God had something in mind when he instituted one day of rest every week.  I think after this deployment I will be a bigger fan than ever before of the weekend, and not just because Saturday is the day the Gators play football.

My next MRE recipe will do just that, Cherry Cheese Cake made completely from an MRE, astonishingly simple and brilliant in its creative combination of ingredients.  If you’ve ever tried these ingredients your intial reaction may be one of appalled shock, it won’t be until you actually try this sterling example of haute cuisine, ranger style, that your mind and taste buds will begin to open.

To make this recipe you’ll need the following ingredients:  1 package Wheat Snack Bread, 1 packet Cheese Spread, 1 Fruit Punch drink mix, optional any MRE fruit.  First toast your wheat snack bread in your MRE heater without opening the wheat snack bread packaging. While your bread is warming soften your cheese spread in the MRE heater, make sure you do not liquefy it a gentle warming is all that is needed.  After your bread is thoroughly warmed spread a thin layer of cheese over the top of it evenly.  Make sure you keep the cheese layer thin so that you capitalize on its creamy texture yet keep it from overpowering the other subtle flavors in the dish.  Then generously sprinkle fruit punch beverage powder over the cheese, this imparts your a sweet and delightfully tart cherry, ok maybe not cherry but the color is red, fruity flavor to the dish.  Completely optional: If you have managed to haggle a fruit side from your buddies, I recommend the spiced apples, garnish generously with a few chunks of fruit that has been stored in a foil wrapper for years.   Sometimes I prefer this recipe without the MRE fruit, just enjoying the fruit beverage powder.

Experts only tip:  if you are truly ambitious and are a little lucky substitute the MRE fruit for a handful wild raspberries or blackberries that you sneaked while your RI was yelling at the patrol leader instead of watching you during the last security halt.  I always recommend saving a few of the sugar packets that come in MREs to go with the instant coffee, this is a perfect time to use them.  Combine the wild berries, several sugar packets and a splash of water in your canteen cup, or in a spare beverage bag, allow them to steep for at least an hour in the mixture absorbing the sugar and forming a delightful syrupy berry topping.  Heat the wild berry topping as hot as possible if at all possible, it helps thicken the syrup.  If you can pull this step off I guarantee your buddy will be truly impressed.

At this point I can hear you thinking, “that sounds gross, cheese whiz and fruit punch powder.  I would have to be starving to try that.”  Kindly withhold judgement until you either try it, or are in fact starving.  It actually is surprisingly good even if it is your first day in the woods. 

You and your buddy can always wash down your culinary masterpiece with a swig of iodine treated swamp water, but if you are going all out entertaining in your foxhole I’d recommend making a little MRE Starbucks to sip with your Cherry Cheese Cake.  It requires excellent MRE heater management to pull off heating water in addition to the wheat snack bread and possibly the main meal if you didn’t have to trade that away for ingredients.  The heaters burn out quickly and nothing is more disappointing than putting on a beverage bag of water for coffee and fizzling out at luke warm.  If you didn’t get a cappucino beverage powder with your MRE fear not, just mix a couple of instant coffee packets with a cocoa beverage powder in your beverage bag.  Voila, MRE Mocha Latte to pair with your cherry cheese cake.  Next time you are eating MREs and want to impress your buddies break this recipe out, you’ll be an instant star in your patrol base and they will probably even share a few of their peanut butter M&Ms for a taste of your masterpiece.

This development, though excellent from a soldiers stand point (trust me, sitting on your outpost and doing nothing beats trudging through dirty streets in 60 pounds of gear on a 120 degree afternoon) is beginning to pose some interesting problems.  My soldiers who use tobacco are beginning to run out, and its not like they can run to Walmart to pick up another can of Copenhagen.  For some soldiers finding another pack of cigarettes is becoming their chief occupation, fortunately Iraqis smoke like fiends so cigarettes are relatively easy to come by but dip is another story.  Soldiers are very adaptive however and in one of the most disgusting but creative solutions to a problem, one of my soldiers who has run out of dip, has begun saving his already dipped tobacco, drying it out a little and redipping it…thank God I don’t dip or smoke cigarettes. 

How do you avoid cabin fever when holed up in a little building with no windows, very limited space to move around outside and the little space you do have is shared with your buddies and the Iraqis?  So far the answer has involved hitting the gym hard on a daily basis.  I think at least 75% of the men on my outpost are embarking on a personal quest to see how swoll, ripped, jacked or generally big they can get over the next few months.   Unfortunately most cardio equipment is limited (our couple of treadmills and elliptical machines are broken) and you can’t pump iron every day, so you have to get creative.  I’ve been using the one jump rope we have on this place to get some intense cardio and running sprints up the steps to the top floors of this building as a sort of a hill work out.  You can only work out so much in one day, particularly when your gym is approximately 110 degrees.  Other time is filled with watching movies or TV shows, reading books, throwing darts and surfing the internet.  Even the occasional crossword puzzle fills my time.  Its only been a week, but the relative relaxation post Iraqi National Sovereignty Day has been great so far, but sooner or later I fear the walls may start closing in on me.