Sunday was my final day of work at the 17th Fires Brigade.  The three months I spent with this active duty artillery brigade made this deployment worthwhile.  It was nice finally being in a public affairs environment were we had a focus and a purpose.  The 17th FiB has a great commander and group of officers that get the importance of the media and keeping those informed back about what we are doing in Iraq.  The NCO’s I worked with always had two priorities, the welfare of their soldiers and the accomplishment of the mission.  I got some good NCO mentorship over there and remembered why I love being an NCO and why public affairs needs good NCOs.

Everything I’ve learned about how to run a public affairs shop, I learned from my public affairs officer, 1st. Lt. Chris Dunphy.  He has a ton of experience as an enlisted public affairs soldier and did a great job handling his lane while I took care of mine.  We made a good team.

I’ll especially miss Spc. Maurice Galloway, the lone public affairs representative of the 17th Fires Brigade.  I hope we provided him with a little bit of guidance to help him with the rest of his deployment.  He’s a good Soldier with all the potential in the world.  Galloway is one of those natural leaders you meet that if he decides he’s going to accomplish a task, he will.  I look forward to the next time our paths cross.

I no longer regret reenlisting for three years because of these three months with the 17th FiB.  It’s always the good things we remember the best.  I’ll never forget my time with the 17th Fires Brigade.

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This is probably going to be it for my blog until I get home.  The fact that my posts have been sporadic since I got back from leave is no accident.  I found it nearly impossible trying to write a blog about my experiences in Iraq while also trying to maintain some semblance of professionalism.  My biggest regret with this blog is attaching my name to it.  I should have kept it hidden as long as possible and only given out the address to close friends and family.  My chain-of-command never censured me or even asked me about my blog.  I knew that would have changed if I had written about my real experience.  I’ve seen too many sites taken down in the past year because Soldiers wrote about the real deployment experience.  I didn’t want to be one of them.

After leaving my wife for the second time in a year this past May, I struggled with why the hell I was putting together products that I knew had no audience and was viewed as propaganda by those who actually watched it.  It wasn’t until I was sent to the fires brigade and started learning from Lt. Dunphy that I started enjoying public affairs.  It was because he gave our shop a purpose.  Tell the American people what we are doing and show them the missions we are supporting in Basra Province.  Many times our stories were about a civil affairs company from Georgia,  MP’s from New York, or guardsmen from Wisconsin and not about actual soldiers of the 17th FiB.  All of our work pointed back to showing families the work we are doing here and why it’s important…..even if we dime out our boss by publishing a photo of him enjoying a nice tasty float.  That’s just a perk of the job.

Now I’m in Kuwait — the land of perpetual boredom — waiting on a flight back to Fort Dix, NJ. Hopefully by this time next week I’ll have a plane ticket in my hand and wondering how I’ll catch a ride to the Philadelphia airport.

I have about a week left in Iraq.

I want to atribute this to being bored and not wanting to work, but this is what Sassypants does with his free time….

College football kills me on Saturdays. It begins at 1900 and the afternoon game doesn’t end until 0200 the next morning. I usually have a half day off on Sundays, but not always. For two weeks in a row I watched the Saturday night games, which started at 0230 Iraq time. First I watched OU lose to Miami and the next week I watched TCU beat Air Force in a 9-degree wind chill sleet storm.

This week we saw four of our finest leave early so they can attend Warrior Leadership Course in Fort Dix, NJ. As a reservist you have to take a school when you can get it. This is a school you need as a new Sergeant. One of the guys going has been an E5 for about three years and hasn’t been to the school. He got to watch everyone else get promoted this year while he stayed a Sergeant. It ate at him a little, but now he’s leaving Iraq a month early to take care of his career. I think it’ll all work out.

Also this week, we received 34th “Red Bull” Infantry Division coins from the commanding general. His chief-of-staff gave our commander a gift of a red bull k-bar for how we were treated at the beginning of the red bull reign. They had no idea what to do with us and really messed with our housing. It was a mess, and it was nice to hear that they were sorry. All of it was a nice gesture. Then the next evening most of the MPAD received their awards from the deputy commanding general. Sassypants received a well-deserved bronze star. He’s the NCO that makes stuff happen. He’s a great leader and a hard worker. No one earned that medal more than him. The Sorority Soldier earned a Meritorious Service Medal and the other two broadcasters got Army Commendation Medals. I can’t say I disagree with any of those awards. My award is lost in the sauce of division. It would have been nice to get it with everyone else, but the administrators have other ideas.

We are winding down. Our conex is packed with all of our equipment. It’s now under customs seal. We’re just waiting on our replacements.

It’s time to come home.

Now for a little musical interlude, in honor of our conex…..

About a week and a half ago, I set up a group interview with four soldiers to talk to Scott Fontaine of the Tacoma News Tribune.  Tacoma is near Fort Lewis, WA where the 17th Fires Brigade is stationed when they aren’t deployed.

It’s a pretty good article that nicely sums up where we are in Southern Iraq.

Even though Scott is an LSU fan, he’s a good writer.

Also, the photo he used on the blog page has to be one of Galloway’s most used photos.  It was even the “Mother Jones Were Still at War: Photo of the Day.”

Header photo, U.S. Army Photo by Spc. Maurice Galloway

Today was easily one of my worst days with the 17th Fires Brigade. I had to write a counseling statement with the magic bullet. The magic bullet can easily be explained best as “if you do this again, I’m giving you some non-judicial punishment.” That means possibly taking rank, money and time. These statements are never fun to write. It’s probably been 10 years since I’ve had to write a counseling statement like this.

I went into this counseling expecting a fight, yelling and some position of parade rest. As we went through the session, I didn’t see my soldier get mad. In fact, he was absorbing everything I said. After I explained how our plan of action would be a good training opportunity, he thought about adding his own thoughts to the form. Instead, he agreed and signed his name. The expierence was also unfortunate becuase he had just written a good article and was in a great mood. When I told him it was too bad I had to end the day like this, he ended up thanking me for being a good NCO and shook my hand.

I was shocked.

I think I took it in stride, but I was very pleased with that fantastic attitude. He then told me that he’s using me as an example of a professional NCO, and that he’s always watching my behavior. We’re taking a potentially bad situation and turning it into a good learning moment. The Army or any other workplace doesn’t always have mature moments like this.

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October is here.  I’m ready to go.  However, there’s no slowing down because the 17th FiB is just getting started.  I’m way behind with my broadcast products.  I have over 120 holiday shoutouts to cut up and send to dvids.

I’m getting my mind right for not being home for Thanksgiving.  I’m worried we’ll spend it in New Jersey, but there’s nothing we can do about that.  It would be an incredible stroke of luck to not miss a Thanksgiving or Christmas while deployed.  I don’t think we’ll be that lucky.

I catch myself visualizing my last day at Ft. Dix, getting on the plane in Philadelphia, and meeting Leslie in the baggage claim of D/FW.  She’s always crying, but I’m not because I’m tough and too cool for that.

If there’s one thing I could change about this deployment, I would have run to a brigade much sooner in the year.  I stuck around the division to edit the newscast and it was a bad decision.  I regressed professionally and grew to hate my job and the arrogance around me.  I’ve got a bridge doused in kerosene.  I can’t wait to light the match in November.

Last Thursday, I got up at 1:30 in the morning to travel to the Port of Umm Qasr to do a story on the US Navy Riverines. Keep in mind this assignment was four days ago, and all I’ve done is cut up b-roll. I do get to make a baseball stat analogy where I could have possibly been the first army soldier in Southern Iraq near the port of Umm Qasr in the month of September before 7:00 in the morning to be on a navy boat. Apparently Monty and Raley were the first to witness an Army band play on a US Navy Destroyer in the Persian Gulf while wearing crocks.

The guys on the boat were great. The driver stopped quick once and I hit my knees. The gunners thought that was funny. I found it’s hard to keep ones balance while looking through a camera viewfinder on a 30-foot assault craft. One cool thing about these river boats is the amount of ammo on board. They have something like 4 M-240B machine guns and a .50-cal. You don’t mess with these guys on the river.

Here are some of the photos I got.

It seems so long ago when the Sorority Soldier and I were bitching about waiting on our promotion orders. Many in the unit went before a promotion board in December, and didn’t get orders until the middle of March. It was absurd. I recently submitted my second promotion packet inside of a year. The board was held on September 8th. I was the only one to receive maximum points from the board and my promotion orders to staff sergeant were cut two days later.

I am now a staff sergeant in the United States Army.

It’s pretty ridiculous when I think about it. There’s no way a soldier should come into the year as an E-4 and then leave the year as an E-6. It’s possible since the minimum standard is 8-months time in service, which I just hit on September 1st. I couldn’t have done this if my leadership and my NCO’s above me believed I wasn’t a good NCO.

Now the 343rd MPAD has 5 broadcasters with 5 staff sergeants. That kinda defeats the purpose of the military rank structure, but who am I to question the wisdom of my leadership when it gets me more rank?

I also spent September 11th in Iraq. I can’t say that this day didn’t have any more meaning for me than it does any other day when I think about it. I want to say there will be some serious introspection as a country when we are out of Iraq. I know most people made up their minds about our invasion some time ago. I know I’ve changed my mind since I reenlisted and since I’ve been deployed to Iraq. Not in a way where I’d say we never should have invaded or in a way where I say we should treat this country as another colonial possession. I am glad I deployed because I know my country needed me. Whether this whole excursion was right or wrong, once it was all in motion, I couldn’t stand by and just let us fail here. Have I contributed to the success, probably not. Have I contributed to the failure, probably not. At the very least, I hope I kept another soldier from having to deploy for a third time in six years. That’s ultimately what allows me to sleep at night. I remember when I came back from leave with the wife in Germany I thought, “I came back here to help the 34th Infantry Division build a video scrap book. I left my wife for this?” That was a tough two months until I got the job with the 17th Fires Brigade.

I remember how I felt on September 11, 2001. I will always remember.

Tuesday morning, I woke up at 0300 so I could travel down to Al-Faw in far southern Iraq to escort a humanitarian mission.

The Americans I rode with were the 4th DBE BiTT. That means they are a Border Transition Team that supports the Iraqi Ministry of Interior Department of Border Enforcement — 4th District. Now you know why the military abbreviates it.

The city of Al-Faw rests between the Persian Gulf and the Shatt al-Arab Waterway. For the last two years, the salinity levels in the water have steadily risen. It’s gotten so bad, it seems they would get better water strait out of the gulf. The Government of Iraq doesn’t seem to have the infrastructure to support a pipeline or even consistently trucking water down to the people of Al-Faw. I read of cities in North Texas every year that have their wells dry up and people end up having to move away because the city isn’t big enough to tap into another area’s water supply. This situation is not unique to Iraq. My personal opinion, this is a big deal for the GoI for two reasons: 1. Their people all over Basra Province are suffering and they are compelled to help; 2. Al-Faw has huge strategic value for Iraq because it is Iraq’s 19-miles of coast-line. This was a piece of land constantly fought over during the Iran-Iraq war. If the Iraqi people leave this land, they are worried the Iranians will take it over.

This was a mission where Americans were designed to stay out of the way. We coordinated getting the donated food, but it was up to the Iraqi Security Forces to distribute the food. We followed their trucks with their food down to Al-Faw. We watched them coordinate 300 meals for 400 families. That proved a little bit of excitement. At one point there were some females pushing their way and crowding one of the Iraqi Generals. I never thought his life was in danger, but I know our security guys were nervous about our colonel attending the event. Side note on why I love security whether they are infantry or artillery. In this war, combat arms is combat arms. I made a comment about how this was the first time I’ve really noticed the separation of where men and women sit. One of the guys said, “I like it that way, makes it easier.” I gave him a curious look and he explained, “I know where my potential threats will come from.” From his point-of-view, it made total sense.

I was impressed with how the Iraqi’s handled the overflow. They got the names of all the families who got food. They are planning a second trip soon, and this way they can assure families who didn’t get help will get assistance. The meals consisted of some common sense items. My favorite was the water filter system, but I’m not sure if it will really help with salt.

It was a good day where I actually saw Iraqi’s helping Iraqi’s. It was a relief because on the way home, I didn’t have to think of a way I had to spin it.

Now that I’m the NCOIC of the 17th Fires Brigade public affairs office, I get to attend another transfer of authority ceremony.  I do like ceremonies, but once you’ve seen one of these you’ve seen them all.  They aren’t challenging from a photography or video standpoint.  You know which shots you need.  The story shoots itself.

It was my job to escort the local media onto the COB.  I was lucky enough to be the one in charge when the local media decided they’d had enough of us and walked off the COB.  Really, I was working on getting them onto the base and as I get back to the bus their ringleader announces he’s tired of being treated this way and wants to go home.  I can’t think of when I’ve been more embarrassed in my life, but this has to be a top 5.  Maybe my sister, wife and mom can conspire to come up with an Adam top 5 most embarrassing moments.  I can’t go into detail over what happened because some very capable officers are trying to mend fences. (All of this happened on August 27th.  In typical Army Public Affairs fashion, not only have I released it two weeks late, but I’ve tried to put a happy spin on the days events.  I may need more than 6 hours of public affairs training that broadcasters get at DINFOS?)

One cool thing about working at the 17th Fires is having a relationship with combat camera.  They are the people we get mistaken for most often.  They roll around with just about anyone trying to take pictures and get some video.  They don’t use tripods, mostly because they roll out with a lot of patrols.  They must think camera shake is artsy or something.

Even though it’s now September sixth our section still doesn’t have a phone of our own.  It makes me laugh at this point.  It’s just hard to be “public affairs” if we only have secret e-mail.  We’re working on it.  If anything it’s my fault for not crying loud enough.  I like to blame the previous 17th FiB NCOIC who setup his section and soldier for failure, but I won’t….in public.

In the meantime, I’m watching college football.  The early games come on at 1900.  The OU game that’s on at 7pm central time, comes on at 0200 on Sunday morning.  The late West Coast games start at 0530.  I’m not sure how I’m going to work college football.  I do find myself watching the afternoon game while it’s almost one in the morning.  My commander went to Georgia, and I hate Oklahoma State, so we have a vested interest in the Georgia v. Okie State game.

The best part about this being September, I can see redeployment on the horizon.  We know our replacement’s mobilization date, and are tracking all the way to their arrival in Kuwait late next month.  I wish it were then now.

The photos below are by our fine journalist, Spc. Maurice A. Galloway

Here are some photos of our ComCam friends.

I had an opportunity to travel in to Basra proper this past week. I attended a meeting of a lot of Iraqi Security Force officials and American forces representatives.  It’s an important meeting because it’s lead by Iraqis and it’s for Iraqis. (Do I get points for incorporating a command message into my personal blog?)  It did seem like real issues were talked about.  I can’t tell you for sure because the meeting is conducted in arabic and they had 15 of those translator ear thingy you see them using at the UN.  I was somewhere around number 16 on the priority list.

Since I’m the NCOIC of our public affairs shop, I’m responsible for more than just video product.  My soldier had been out on missions three days in a row, and he needed time to write. We were told we would be supporting this mission for various reasons. It was not a video mission, it was a print mission. That means to accomplish the mission, I rolled out with Galloway’s Nikon D200. I have a little experience with the Nikon D1X from my TCU yearbook days in 2004. The camera hasn’t changed that much and I felt pretty comfortable with it.

All of my Basra time has been spent at the airport facility outside of the city. The Iraqi Basra Operations Command is right on the river in the city. It’s a converted hotel named the Shatt al-Arab. You can see other photos of it from when the British occupied the building. To say the building is falling apart and rat-infested would be too easy. I can see how it was a nice place 30 years ago, but I think that was the last time any sort of maintenance was performed. The hotel is right on the river and isn’t all that scenic. What i’m getting at is I don’t think the Shatt al-Arab is ready for tourists, not that anyone is implying that it’s ready for that.

You can also read some other stories about Basra that include the Shatt al-Arab Hotel.

• UK Ministry of Defence
• UK Guardian: Venice of the East
• Flickr.com

I’ve been busy. The Sorority Soldier started leave over two weeks ago. For awhile we had just three broadcasters to support an entire division. Then, last Monday, I was sent across the street to support the new brigade arriving in Basra, the 17th Fires Brigade. It’s interesting because before the 17th FiB actually takes over, our higher headquarters announced the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division was not being replaced in kind with another Brigade Combat Team. This is due to the “responsible drawdown” of forces in Iraq as directed by the President of the United States. Oh, by the way, the Iraqi Cabinet approved a bill that calls for a popular referendum on the bilateral security agreement a day or two later. IN MY PERSONAL OPINION, if the Iraqis have a referendum on the security agreement and they vote against it, then American forces leaving could accelerate by a year. I don’t see that as a bad thing (Col. Timothy Reese agrees, but Gen. Raymond Odierno disagrees).

I digress.

Now I’m the Non-Comissioned Officer in Charge of the 17th Fires Brigade Public Affairs shop.  The 17th FiB brought only one soldier for public affairs, and he’s a specialist (E-4) who is new to public affairs.  He’s an eager soldier who is ready to learn, ready to write, and wants to be a good soldier.  I finally am able to mentor a soldier, and I got one that’s too easy.  Part of me wishes I’d be here for the rest of his deployment, but that’s the 1% of me that is still enamored with Iraq and thinks I’m making a difference in the lives of soldiers.  The other 99% of me knows that I can’t wait to get home to my wife and my life in Fort Worth less than 90 days from now.

The whole status of how I feel about this deployment has a real chance to make a 180 degree turn because of this assignment.  Another MPAD soldier, 1LT Dunphy is my Officer in Charge.  We are responsible for getting their completely neglected public affairs office off the ground.  We are getting their soldier writing.  He never actually wrote anything in between his time at DINFOS and when he came to Iraq.  He was completely failed by his last NCO who allowed that to happen.  Read his first real article he’s written since he was at DINFOS seven months ago at theredbulls.org.  I get the joy of briefing officers, scheduling, completing missions, hagling for supplies, mentoring and training.  Everything I was missing working up at the division.  I’m loving this job and will be in it until I leave in November.  Dunphy and I are responsible for telling the story of a brigade where we don’t know anybody.  It is the ultimate reservist public affairs mission.  The outgoing crew at the 2nd BCT, 4th ID have set us up for success and I hope I learned a little something from them.

I’m going to miss working with the MPAD folks at division, but I’m still in the same housing, same base, and I’m still spending time in the broadcast trailer.  They have great internet, who are we kidding here!

Now, I’m in control of my success and failure.  I can’t blame my leadership or my peers if something happens I don’t like.  I’m now free to make it happen, and I’m excited about it.

My buddy CW2 Chris Bracken, who I knew in Hawaii when he was SPC Chris Bracken, “the angriest man in the army,” is now an Apache helicopter pilot.  He sent me some supplies for my time in the desert.  The greatest gift is this remote helicopter he gave me so I can annoy the snot out of the guys in my section.

Raley and I broke it out today and are trying to figure out the intricacies of the hover.  I didn’t expect it to be this fun.

Our big event this week was a pentagon press conference. It didn’t go so well at the end because the General’s microphone came uncliped and fell down his shirt. It was a total rookie move and we’ll at least have another shot next month.

I’m now in full swing, editing the newscast without the Sorority Soldier. She’s in Kuwait, bored. Wish her a happy birthday that I thought was on the 11th, but it ends up being on the 9th. That apparently makes me a good friend. Her words, not mine.

I’ve fallen way behind on my blogging.  I’ve been operating under the premise that I should keep my negative thoughts to myself.  I try my best to not air my grievances on the blog.  I don’t always succeed and I start bitching.  This could be one of those posts.

I’ve been able to set up UHF radio’s, DirecTV dishes, many different DVIDS dishes in many places.  Now comes my Waterloo, HughesNet 1.8 meter dishes.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to get technical.  We’ve been working on this commercial internet HughesNet dish for a month now.  Everytime we go out to try and point the dish at the stupid satellite, we see nothing.  I am so frustrated at this damn thing, I don’t care who figures it out.  I’m even willing to humble myself to ask people I can’t stand for help.  Hate is a strong word, but it describes how I feel about this dish.

OK, I’m done.  Just as a tease, in the next week I’ll blog about the three MP’s who were killed in a rocket attack two weeks ago, my trip to a maternity hospital and all the books I’ve been reading.  All of it is untimely.

Update: Be sure to check out the stupid DVIDS receive dish adventure on top of the T-wall at sororitysoldier.com. I guarantee this particular dish will never be used.

Update 2: HughesNet sent some Iraqi techs to peak the dishes. What’s taken our unit a month, they accomplished in less than half a day. They found the satellites for both dishes in less than an hour. I am mad that they were able to do what I couldn’t, but I love them for getting it to work. Below is a photo of Barnhardt and I after our Iraqi friends peaked the dishes.

The MND-S Public Affairs shop had a BBQ on July 4th.  It was a real nice time.  We smoked cigars, drank Coors NonAlcoholic Beer, and put some precooked burgers on the grill.  We all hung out together for about three hours and didn’t talk that much shop.  It was a nice break from the everyday grind of our Iraqi camping trip/war/statebuilding.

The highlight of my night was when Smith was trying to act gay and sit on Raley’s leg.  Then Raley up and bit him on the boob.  Who thought I had to come to Iraq to see that?  I just happened to be in the right place at the right time with my camera.  Also read the Sorority Soldier’s blog entry.

I also received my birthday box from Leslie. She sent me everything from magazines, to a book on exposing the lies of Che Guevera and the useful idiots who idolize him, to cocoa rice krispy treats and her famous sugar cookies with icing, to Joe T. Garcia’s salsa and tortillas. Since we are separated, her love language is gift giving. I don’t even have to speculate where she gets it from in her family. She gets the gift giving knack from her mother along with her affinity for expensive hotels.

Here are more photos from the Sorority Soldier and I from flickr.

I anchored week 6 of the Red Bull Report. It’s the most complicated two-minute newscast I’ve ever seen in my life. The Sorority Soldier is the lead editor on the project and does a pretty good job of getting it together every week. The 34th ID brought a graphics guy to make it look fancy, and I think it was their concept for the simultanious video screens.  I don’t think it’s being shown anywhere, yet. By yet I mean I think the Pentagon Channel will be running it eventually in the few homes where it is available. If you search for it on your cable guide, look around CSPAN-3, the NASA channel and BYU-TV.  I don’t have a way to embed the video here, so please watch it at theredbulls.org in streaming HIGH DEFINITION!!!

P.S.–Sassy pants said it was easy to get the right exposure because he could use the bright sun reflecting off of my fivehead.  He anchored week 5.  Feel free to tell me I was better than him.