Now browsing the "Iraq" category
Rider’s reflection
31 Mar 2005 | No Comments | Continue reading »
Tonight I ride again. It is only me and my shiny, German machinery with sloppy suspension, loose handlebars, strange valve stems, and reflective decals drawn for speed. Across the sand parking area and next to the wooden, Turkish toilets with overflowing barrels positioned below each sawed out hole. The wind is thankfully westward. The flies [...]
Identity theft
17 Mar 2005 | One Comment | Continue reading »
Marines are prideful to the point of arrogance. Our uniforms are impeccable, our weapons pristine, our marksmanship deadly, and our courage unmatched. It is why we are hated, revered, and envied by airmen, sailors, and soldiers alike. The Corps is a brotherhood. I don’t look across a battalion formation and see legal clerks, supply supervisors, [...]
New(est) address(es)
5 Mar 2005 | No Comments | Continue reading »
I’m here, at last, in Habbaniyah (pronounced dirka-dirka-chi) and enjoying things such as they are. Despite the in-the-rear-with-the-gear feel that being in an army base camp provides, there’s even more bad guys in the surrounding area then Fallujah. Who would have thought the ones who didn’t die would have fled west? With luck our Iraqis [...]
Life or something like it
7 Feb 2005 | No Comments | Continue reading »
Hours have rolled into days. Days have transformed into weeks. And weeks have disappeared into months. My time is lost in the garbage laden streets of Fallujah, where suspicious gazes and children shouting for chocolate await me with every patrol. They follow me around corners, over crumbled walls, and down narrow alleyways home. The eyes [...]
Pucker factor
21 Jan 2005 | 3 Comments | Continue reading »
1000, 19 December 2004, was the moment I had been waiting for since I volunteered for this mission: to take an Iraqi unit into combat operations as an embedded advisor. I’m assigned to 2nd Brigade, 9th Battalion, 3rd Company of the Iraqi Intervention Force. I’m joined by one other member of our original ten man [...]
Rocket’s red glare
15 Dec 2004 | No Comments | Continue reading »
At 1500, Arabic Standard Time, The Iraqi Intervention Force’s 2nd Brigade, 9th Battalion arrives in Camp Manhattan. Ten Advisory Support Team members will be eagerly awaiting, literally chomping at the bit to get some hard core training under way. But what can four days accomplish? It had better be volumes, because 19 December is the [...]
Bombs away
6 Dec 2004 | No Comments | Continue reading »
Camp Striker, Bahgdad. Somewhere beyond the perimeter defenses, surrounded by the low hum of generators and fog swirling round my feet, someone is trying to kill me. The first mortar round hit while I was watching Spy Game, starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt, approximately two-thirds of the way through it. The Lebanese militia was [...]
Halloween: Revisited
16 Nov 2004 | No Comments | Continue reading »
Fear is a powerful motivator. It has made me run screaming from my basement in the middle of the day, with claws surely grasping mere inches from my shirt collar. It has pulled my bicycle tire at over 50mph down the rocky bluffs of Okinawa, Japan even though my tires were losing their sticky grasp [...]
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Born in the year of the Dragon, the author grudgingly accepts the fact he has too many interests and not enough time. A cyclist as long as he can remember, an avid yet inconsistent writer since age eleven, and a U.S. Marine since age twenty-one, the author also adds computers, snowboarding, and motorcycles to his list of interests. Incidentally, he is aware of his inability to make a living from any but the Corps. The author accepts this as fact and remains optimistic. Feel free to drop him a line.
