Counterflow

Part One

Counterflow: So Love May Find Us. This is a long song/short film cut into two parts. Youtube and every other site I've looked at have a 15 minute time limit. The song is almost 20, so here's 10 and 8 in two parts. The footage and photos are mine, the music - Australian band extraordinaire ,"The Church."

Part Two

Sobriety: Life On Life's Terms

A long 20 minutes in this mood. That’s how long the upload was supposed to take according to the Facebook estimate. I’m downtown. I figured I’d get a burger and a diet coke and upload some pictures from my leave to Florida for family to see. The city worker in the street is gonna have a heart attack. He can’t understand why nobody knows where to go. The traffic light is out and the truck in the middle of the intersection blocks the view of his hand signals on at least one side at a time. He starts to look like a dog chasing his tail. Above the truck, in the bucket, the other worker works on fixing the lights. I gotta piss again and I hate the sound of Harleys.

The upload’s been over a half hour now and watching this hard hat’s frustration is killing me. Meanwhile, I’m not in the sun. I’m on the south side and the building on the deck alfresco. It’s blocking the cool breeze that beckoned me from my room over an hour ago. The fries and burger arrive. The only thing fresh about either is that they are freshly thawed. This is a good location to go for lunch downtown according to the local paper, but this is Fayetteville North Carolina, and for different reasons, maybe people here don’t know any better.

Almost 15 bucks. My mood worsens. I fail to take pleasure in the fact that I didn't just order a pitcher of beer. I had only one diet coke and it was .50 extra for the cheese on my already 10 dollar cheeseburger. Thanks to the glowing endorsement in the Record perhaps they get away with this. In Florida the restaurant business in tourist retiree and college areas is so intense Huske Hardware would be out of business in a month. But my fault I guess. I didn’t even look at the menu because of the delicious pictures of cold beer. The waitress asks me “how is everything,” and I say fine. That’s when I started writing this. I had to do something. I still gotta go piss, and I will. She came out with my refill minus the straw. One of the other Huske Hardware waitresses keeps looking out the window at me like I’m either someone important, or someone unwanted. I can’t tell, but I can say this: I’m Specialist Holden Caufield, all grown up, and always a beer or two from making it better. But one's too many and one-hundred's never enough.

I finished the upload. I took a leak. But there’s still something lodged in my teeth that my tongue can’t shake. I walked over to the library, and so I continue to write. Something put me in a horrible mood this morning and I know exactly what it was. For one thing I’m not in Gainesville anymore. While home on leave, mostly sober, and spending time with family, it was something I wanted and needed. Now I’m back at the joke also known as “the center of the military universe.” Seriously, on any given day you can wander around Fort Bragg and hear a high ranking army officer make this reference and say it with a straight face. It may even be true, but it’s just a horrible concept to me, and to think, that’s where I live. While I was on leave there were welfare inspections and walk-thrus in the barracks. A crack down you could say. From within, finally, there’s a growing unease with the increasing number of suicides in the military. In reality it’s the unease of having a much higher ranking soldier pushing his “…just fix it Sergeant!” down through the ranks to the individual. And in the usual “work harder not smarter” motif of the US Army, things like barracks inspections take place and increased hovering over troubled soldiers become clearly visible to the E-4s and below.

Effective? The poncho I hung up and used as a wall, that was my only physical separation from my roommate, a metaphor for my thin comfort of living in the barracks has been removed in my absence during the welfare crackdown. Meanwhile, the work order I submitted to fix the toilet two weeks ago, before I left, to the contracted civilians in charge of “barracks maintenance” has been ignored. I remember when I turned it in the woman behind the desk yelling at someone for not locking the door. It was my lunch break, also theirs, convenience for them, not for soldiers. As I left the contractor told me he would “submit a work order.” Funny thing is I was silly enough to think that that was what I was doing.

The other thing that’s under my skin, making it hard to not go have a drink in this hour: This morning I watched the movie my roommate suggested last night. He was asleep when I got up this morning so I crept around in stealth ninja mode making coffee and toast and slid it in the player but when he was still asleep at 10 this morning, when I finished “Get Him To The Greek” I gave up and gave chase to the my needy unknown on this truly pleasant fall day. The leaves are just starting to turn here in the piedmont but I couldn’t turn my head from the film until it ended, just as I wouldn’t be able turn from the sight of an aggravated city worker lose his cool in a mildly busy city intersection hours later.

“…The Greek,” a comedy that made me feel horrible, also made me feel like I’m either from another planet or should be. I'm a guy who enjoyed The Hangover which was well made. The Greek is no Hangover. The thin thread of a lesson to be learned coiled around an even thinner thread of humor wound me tighter and tighter as I watched, and as the script flopped back and forth on the theme of pros and cons of drug use, drunkenness, infidelity, talent, art, and integrity in the music industry. It was like watching some kind of godless blasphemy that both a theist or atheist could understand simultaneously. As an example, somehow , the film concludes that a song, “The Clap” (entendre singular – the STD), which is one of the “last real rock star” character’s older hits - is real rock, and a better choice to play live rather the recent flop of a single “African Child,” which was deemed racist within the film. The character played by Russell Brand makes a mockery of anything genuine in music (one of my genuine interests) and of drug and alcohol addiction and recovery. On film he drinks and takes drugs constantly, has random sex with strangers, and offers his advice and desperation to others while trying to save his marriage and keeping his clear, awake, and unslurred white eyed sobriety. Any real addict will call bullshit, and nothing can be funny along with this

This aspect may be the thing that really really got me. I’m in recovery and the whole drinking and drugging part of this film and its extremely shallow portrayal is the worst part, put in a comedic format, while pretending to maintain both sides of the coin, the cool high and the hot crash, at the same time. Since July I’ve been in the ASAP program (Army Substance Abuse Program). As are others very nearby, here in the barracks. For the month of August I was at Twelve Oaks, an institution in Pensacola where I began my recovery, paid for by the army. And honestly, as aggravating as it can be sometimes, being a soldier in the barracks (especially at my age), my chain of command has gone beyond my expectations in terms of my desire to stop drinking. I can only hope the same reception will be afforded to any other soldier who is willing to come forward to admit there is a problem. In fact, Fayetteville isn't so bad either, really. One should always look at the price they're gonna pay before they do, and be willing to speak up if something isn't right.

So now "the poncho wall" is gone, I’m broke because I bought a burger, I’m indoors making blog confessions when I should be outside enjoying the blue sky, and I’m still in the army instead of with family in Florida. It seems I'm in a better mood though, better than I was. I mean it. I got that movie out of my head by getting it off my chest. And I can for a second, snap out of it at least, and be thankful to a higher power that I’m stateside and out of a war zone, well fed, employed, able to go on leave and watch a movie, see and be loved by family, and most of all, be sober, one day at a time. If that last part fails, down goes the rest, and I know it. There but for the grace of God go I.

EFMB Fort Bragg

EFMB is an army abbreviation for Expert Field Medical Badge. It's a competition available to soldiers of all ranks in medical occupations. At this competition, in Ft. Bragg, ranks from Private through Major were in attendance. I did well on the written test and felt pretty confident about testing on "the lanes," but missed the mark on the land navigation test, something I haven't done since basic training, 3.5 years ago, and is done with army, methods, maps, compass and protractor. The Test Lanes are much as it sounds. Soldiers progress along a path, in this case, the North Carolina forests of Bragg, and demonstrate skills and competence in various tasks, medical and military alike. The photos are of the train up and course orientation in fairly casual situations. The actual testing went unphotographed and involved a far more serious scene and stressful scenarios.


I enjoyed the experience, and look forward to my next attempt, perhaps in August. Doing things like this competition, and other forms of non-deployment training and and self development have been unavailable till coming to Fort Bragg. The first three years of my army career were spent in Basic/AIT, then assignment to a line unit - a military police unit that had the development of medics low in its priorities. Then there was 15 months in Iraq. Now I'm working at Womack Army Medical Center and I've had time to sharpen my skill set in clinical and field environments.

Redeployment to America

Redeployment is the army word used when a unit returns from a deployment. It can be confusing because it sounds like deployment-again, which it is, only back to a stateside duty station. This happened for us 4th thru 13th of August, so these picures are a little dated and in reverse order, beginning with our escort to Ft. Carson from the Colorado Springs airport, on back to Kuwait Baghdad, and Camp Echo.

Checking in...to being home, and weapons turn-in.

First early AM view of Colorado from the plane.

Soldiers on our chartered commercial jet home which took us across Europe and Canada.

Over Kuwait, and good bye to the Arab wonderland.

Soldiers will be soldiers, notice the face of the air steward.

Kuwait International Airport

Watertowers in Kuwait.

We couldn't leave for good without one last dust storm. Crunch, crunch, yummy.

Waiting for a flight and sleeping in 115F heat, in Kuwait, outside a Pizza Hut...in a hut.

Earlier that morning, before the ordeal of passing an army unit through navy customs, like a square peg through a tiny hole, we wait for our buses to take us from Camp Virginia to the airport.

We lived in tents for a few days at Camp Virginia.

Loading a C-17 to leave Baghdad.

Waiting, periods between the bus-tent-bus-plane-bus-tent movements are spent outside in the heat waiting for connections et cetera.

American Soldiers

A couple of friends asked me about my blog this morning. So I "tweeted" that I'm taking a break, on Twitter. Mostly because I'm in-between places right now, in transit, and on my way home. It's nearly a two week process, moving an entire army company from Iraq back to the states through Kuwait, and that's with all good weather. But this morning with a wireless connection and little else to do, I figured I'd post a counter balance to my previous theme.

It may or may not need to be said, but I'm proud of being a soldier and of the people I work with. I was primed to get stuck on the Hero/Soldier theme as I encountered those Facebook groups right after a couple weeks of hearing a lot of silly talk from soldiers on the subject of returning home. Some guys (and girls), particularly the younger set, see the return home as a license to do whatever they want when they get back. As if going crazy is something they deserve, like a spring break from school amplified. Perhaps it's all just, could it be?, me dealing with concerns or even worry for these guys doing something dangerous or regrettable? Am I really growing up finally?

But I've gone on enough about all that. What follows is a selection of photos taken over the last 15 months of my fellow American soldiers from the 110th MP Company, one of the very last units in Iraq (if not the very last) to begin and complete a 15 month deployment.

Gunner Spc. Amato giving a wave.


Sgt. Anderson and PFC Smith, we did a lot of training with ASVs (the vehicle), but barely used them at all in theater.


Spc. Chambers, a meet and greet with locals. Even if the young guys talk big, we're still fortunate that our mission involved this kind of contact, and not the kind of "contact!" we train for in basic.


Spc. Hackler


It was often interesting to watch how receptive, or not, the Iraqi Police were to our assistance or advice, particularly coming from an American female. Sgt. Irlbeck with the local cops.


Pfc. Johnson with the tough guy look, I think he forgot there was a purple bear on his vest.


Spc. Ward while at an IP station. The "shoulder pads" are called DAPs by us, only used by gunners by the end of the deployment.


This is a picture I got from another soldier's Facebook. Judging by the DCUs this was most likely '04-'06.


Ever curious, the local kids who have lived their entire lives with American presence, gather around whenever we would show up.


A muddy field the day after a day of rain, I think it was April, the only time I saw any precipitation in Diwaniya. The black mask is worn by an Iraqi interpreter.

Why Did I Re-Enlist?

I'm 36 years old. I joined the US Army almost 3 years ago. I've been in Iraq for over a year and stop-lossed almost as long. I signed my reenlistment papers today, for four more years. Tomorrow I will raise my right hand and take the oath again.

Most of my fellow soldiers here are much younger than I am. Almost never is this any kind of issue. Only on occasion do I hear a joke or two made about this isolated difference that has so far, never been mean spirited. This is in part because I can out run and out score people half my age on PT tests and have since basic. I usually pass as a man in his mid to late twenties until asked. This has been to my advantage but may be somewhat due to all the years I spent in denial of the fact that time was passing me by as I stretched behaving like I was 21 into my early thirties.

Day after day, one thing that the chronological separation from younger soldiers has made clear to me is that my view of reality has changed drastically over the years. This is something I didn't notice as it happened, yet would still be no surprise but for the unexpected manifestations of this fact. The comments I hear daily about how everything "sucks" is something I understand but don't feel myself. I have no doubt that if I came to Iraq after joining the army with less than 21 years of life experience like most of these kids have, I would be saying the same thing.

Before I joined I had been behind the title of many jobs:

College Student,
Grocery Bagger,
Subway Sandwich Artist,
A Pizza Hut Cook,
Beach Club Assistant Manager,
Author (one self published book),
Cab Driver,
Lawn Care/Maintenance,
Golf Course Maintenance,
Waiter,
Police Officer,
Food and Beverage Manager,
Rock Star Wannabe,
Pool Maintenance,
Lifeguard,
Ocean Rescue Lieutenant,
Delivery Driver,
A Rural Carrier for the Post Office,
Bartender,
Hotel Banquet Server/Room Service,
Air Conditioning and Duct Installation,
and more.

In fact, I was a drug dealer for one night - on the night after a hooker and her pimp left a bag of smaller cocaine bags in the back of my cab. I simply saw it as an opportunity at the time, and made a couple hundred bucks.

Many of these jobs "sucked" some more than others. Being a medic in the army has been, so far, one of the easiest jobs I've ever had. Basic training was horrible, but it was my two month period of sobering up, in more ways than one, that was difficult.

I imagine some of these army privates are in for a rude awakening when they get out and get a job in the private sector. Starting a job that operates on and for a poor economy, one where you don't get "smoked" but can get fired or laid off. One where your boss expects you to come to the table with some knowledge or skills and won't take you by the hand and teach you EVERYTHING like the army does. A boss or owner who has to show or make a profit like the army doesn't (not to say profiteers don't exist but they are sourced in the private sector). A career where meals, health care, and even paychecks are not free and guaranteed (for the most part) like in the US Army.

Iraq is often no fun. It's hot, the recreation is limited, family is far away, and hedonism is minimized. Sometimes it is fun. There is an camaraderie that is non-existent in the civilian world. Cops, firefighters, or even team sports members have something fairly similar, but they don't live with each other day in and out on the constant level that soldiers have to. This was perhaps the hardest part of all for me as I adjusted to the military. I am a big fan of personal time and space, and I have never had a "battle buddy," as I have both chosen and been forced to walk alone during most periods of my pre-army life.

But the hardships of Iraq, war, and combat are part of my point too. The current situation has to be a cake walk compared to what life was like for soldiers a few years ago. Even now, as the June 30 deadline approaches, soldiers throughout Iraq are being relocated to non-urban installations and being stacked upon each other in tents with little left to do that will occupy their time and energy. Our unit's 4 to 6 hour missions continue as we return to our FOB with 2 man air-conditioned Internet ready rooms and one of the nicest dining facilities in theater. And to think of the lives of hardship lived by the Iraqi locals who toil day in and day out in the rural areas harvesting and herding in the harsh desert conditions with little in the way of options or change to look forward to.

I'm being retrospective and counting my blessings here. Tomorrow is a new day, and something awful could still happen. But I'm thankful things aren't worse and hope things stay that way, for all of us, till we get back to the states. Also, I am not trying to diminish the sacrifices and service of fellow soldiers. I'm just offering my perspective.

Iraq: US Out of Cities By June 30

Words: ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
Photos: Versa Vice

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's government Monday ruled out allowing U.S. combat troops to remain in Iraqi cities after the June 30 deadline for their withdrawal, despite concern that Iraqi forces cannot cope with the security challenge following a resurgence of bombings in recent weeks. Asking U.S. forces to stay in the cities, including volatile Mosul in the north, would be embarrassing for Iraq's prime minister, who has staked his political future on claims that the country has turned the corner in the war against Sunni and Shiite extremists. The departure of heavily armed combat troops from bases inside the cities is important psychologically to many Iraqis, who are eager to regain control of their country after six years of war and U.S. military occupation.

U.S. officials played down the Iraqi decision, with Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman saying it's up to the Iraqi government to request an extension of the U.S. presence in the cities and "we intend to fully abide by" terms of the security agreement.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters Monday that violence had not risen to a level that would force a change in the withdrawal schedule.

Last month, however, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, said he was worried that Iraqi forces won't be ready to assume full responsibility for Mosul by the end of June. Privately, some U.S. officers fear the Iraqis may lose control of Mosul within a few months after American forces pull out of Iraq's third largest city, where al-Qaida and other Sunni militants remain active.

The U.S.-Iraq security agreement that took effect this year calls for American combat troops to leave urban areas by the end of June, with all U.S. forces out of the country by the end of 2011. But a series of high-profile bombings has raised questions whether Iraqi forces can assume more security responsibilities, especially in Mosul. Nationwide, at least 451 people were killed in political violence last month, compared with 335 in March, 288 in February and 242 in January, according to an Associated Press tally. Even in Baghdad, where violence is down sharply from levels of two years ago, attacks are continuing.

On Monday, two car bombs exploded almost simultaneously near the Oil Ministry and a police academy, killing at least three people and wounding eight. Although those casualties were relatively low, the attack was significant because it occurred in a sensitive, well-guarded area in the heart of the Iraqi capital. The security agreement allows Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to request an extension of the deadlines if he feels Iraqi forces need help. But the prime minister's spokesman said the withdrawal deadlines, including the June 30 date, were "non-extendable."

"These dates cannot be extended and this is consistent with the transfer and handover of responsibility to Iraqi security forces," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.

Kurdish officials would prefer to keep U.S. troops in Mosul after the deadline. "I have doubts about security and stability in Mosul," Kurdish politician Saadi Ahmed Pera said. "Therefore, U.S forces should stay in Mosul until all the pending problems among political groups in the city are solved." However, many other key Iraqi politicians, including the newly elected leadership in Mosul, oppose keeping U.S. combat troops in urban areas after the June deadline. Al-Maliki, a Shiite, needs the support of the Sunni leadership in Mosul as he prepares for national elections by the end of the year.

The new governor of the Mosul area told the AP on Monday that the departure of U.S. troops from the city will actually reduce violence, since much of it is directed at the Americans. "A U.S. withdrawal will reduce the number of targets," Gov. Atheel al-Nujaifi said. "We believe it's important for U.S. troops to stay in camps outside the cities to provide help only if needed." The requirement to leave the cities applies only to combat troops and not to trainers, advisers and others in noncombat roles. The agreement does not preclude combat soldiers from patrolling in Baghdad, Mosul and other cities from bases outside the city limits.

But prominent Shiite lawmaker Abbas al-Bayati said extending the June 30 deadline would "send the wrong signal to the Iraqi people" that the Americans might remain in the country indefinitely. "Thus both sides must stand together to fulfill the withdrawal timetable," he said. U.S. combat troops largely pulled out of many cities in 2005 and 2006 but returned a year later as part of the U.S. troop surge that was designed to protect civilians from Shiite and Sunni extremists living in their neighborhoods.

This time, U.S. and Iraqi officials are gambling that Iraqi security forces are better trained and equipped to prevent the return of extremists than they were years ago. Extending the deadline would also call into question al-Maliki's claim that his government has set the country on the road to stability -- despite the occasional spike in violence.

On Monday, al-Maliki told an audience in Paris that he would not allow Iraq to be used as a "base for any terrorist organization" and that the country was ready for foreign investment. Nevertheless, U.S. officials believe security in Iraq remains fragile because the various religious and ethnic groups have still not agreed on power-sharing arrangements necessary for long-term stability.
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Associated Press Writers Mazin Yahya in Baghdad and Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Jenny Barchfield in Paris contributed to this report.

The Last Day of My First April in Iraq

This is my first April, and probably my last April in Iraq. Nobody knows what will happen in the years to come. It doesn't seem likely that we'll be back any time soon after we go, but uncertainty is king. Soon our unit, on one of the last 15 month deployments still in country, will begin the overlap as we pass the one year mark.

I like the composition of this one. 1/4th of my daily snapshots are actually kept and not deleted. Most are blurred, out of focus or out out of the frame. It almost becomes a game. When I miss a good one I curse my camera, but to think of the pre-digital challenge, and not knowing what you have till you take your film into a dark room. There's really a huge advantage with technology, and with a bit of patience it doesn't take a professional to get amazing pictures.

This woman was in the bottom left corner of the frame of the original. I barely got her as I zoomed in and zoomed by in our convoy. I cropped the shot and now I post her image on my blog. To think, of the 99.9 percent chance that she'll never know this single moment of her life was captured, and escaped from Iraq.

A larger check point and a vehicle search.

Shepherds

Desert silhouette.

Nomadic Bedouins. Reminds me of the song "Less Cities, More Moving People," by The Fixx in the mid 80's.

One of several blue and white painted outposts along the route. Always just a shed manned by a traditionally dressed man, wearing a traffic vest and armed with an AK-47. It's hard to picture what the exact assignment is for these men, and what the plan would be if they needed assistance. They are the most unofficial aspect of armed government workers, and switching sides is almost common place, so as one could imagine we keep an eye on them as we pass.

A check point soldier. We go through several check points large and small on our way out and back. In this photo the small earthy structure looks almost as if it rose up out of the ground by itself, destined to be a guard post.

You hear all kinds of half cocked rumors about life for women in Iraq. A lot of what I've heard seems to be true. When it's said that they are never without a male escort it's only partly true. In rural areas women are seen on their own a lot, out of necessity it would seem. In middle size cities like Diwaniya there are usually pairs of women. In Baghdad women are seen alone at all ages all the time, and in different states of dress.

A 7-eleven in Central South East Iraq.