Iraq — day to day, part 1

Well, I have now been in Iraq for 4 months. I’ve seen beauty and ugliness here. However, the experience has been very rewarding and overall a very positive one. In a few short weeks, I will be home in Germany.
Below are some images from my time here.

If you think this plane looks small, it is. This is a UAV the Army flies here.




As you can imagine, our explosive experts capture a lot of weapons. These can be used against us, so to eliminate that threat, we confiscate and dispose of them. Below are some pictures of that disposal process.


You can see the C-4 (in the green plastic) that is used to detonate the explosion. Also, below are unserviceable US hand grenades. In this case, some parts have corroded and it’s safer to blow them up, then ship them home. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll remember that we did something similar with old bombs on Guam.

Here’s the pit, ready to blow.

Fire in the hole!


It seems that scorpions are attracted to me (or me to them). I have seen a whole bunch of them here… in my office, bedroom, on the road, and now, right next to an active explosive ordinance disposal site.

Disclaimer: I did not take the rest of the pictures on this post (they came from either the base photographer or the public affairs chief).
We have done a lot of concrete work here. The Airmen in the shop responsible for placing all that concrete are affectionately knows as Dirt Boys. Officially, however, they are heavy equipment operators. For larger projects like this one, they enlist the help of other volunteers to finish quickly. In the heat of the desert, concrete dries very fast.
Trivia: a common misconception is that concrete and cement are synonymous. That is only partially true, concrete is cement, but cement is not concrete. Cement is actually a component of concrete that when mixed with sand, water and gravel forms that familiar hard building material.

As you can see, the Dirt Boys took any help, including my unskilled labor.



There are very unique animals here. This majestic cat is known as a Jungle Cat or Felis chaus. Jungle cat is an interesting name, since it is found in Egypt, West Asia, India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, but nowhere near a rain forest (I can attest that there is nothing remotely like a jungle in this area). It is only slightly larger than a domestic cat, but has a relatively short tail. So, it’s name notwithstanding, the entomologists (not to be confused with etymologists) catch these cats from time to time and relocate them to another place on the base. They are certainly not dangerous to humans, but ideally we try to limit their contact with us.

This next group of pictures is from a big event we had to raise large, living tents on base. As you can see, they are rather complicated to assemble. So, we used one or two craftsmen with a group of volunteers to erect the tents.

Rolling the rain fly to get it ready for installation.

Putting the wall sections on.

One, two, three… up!

Then, inside to check all the safety pins are inserted.


It was a long, hot day and a little Flavor Ice tasted good.

So, that concludes this first part. Hopefully, you have a little better idea what day to day life is like on the base.
–Jim