I'm headed to Afghanistan from April '11 -> April '12

I have become the Chief, Operational law for an Army Division and my new position will be very different from what I did in Iraq, so hopefully I'll get motivated and update this blog accordingly.

Welcome!

If this is your first time here, I suggest you click on the oldest posts on the right reading from June to November.

Getting there was Only Half the Fun...

I was stuck at Warhorse for an extra 4-5 days due to the rain storms that came in opening the rainy season. Most of my time at warhorse was spent in the heat: 115-125 degrees. A few times we had some dust and sand storms but during the last week we had constant rain which turned all the 'topsoil' (sand) into inches of mud and backed-up pools of water. Our helicopters couldn't fly in the lightning and our non-tactical vehicles were practically useless getting around on the FOB. The last week sucked but taking these pictures was pretty fun driving around in the Humvee.

Again, we had transient housing while waiting for our flight from Balad to Kuwait. This is CPTs Vodka and Bashore.

The inside of a C-17, our transport plane from Balad, Iraq to Kuwait. I sat in a middle row with all my gear on my lap. They really spare all expenses in making the plane comfortable and appeasing to the eye!

Despite the fact that I am carrying 89 pounds (we weigh ourselves and our gear at the terminal so they know how much weight we are flying with) on me in the cramped flight, the cheese answers the question of whether I'm happy to finally have made the last flight back to Germany.

Off to Okinawa, Japan in two months!

Random Pictures from FOB Warhorse

Here are a few shots from around the base. First, the memorial where each new unit adds on their KIAs (killed in Action) from the time the unit was stationed at Warhorse. I was friends with the second to last name on the 2SCR Memorial: SSg Vrooman , who put most of my equipment and gear together and arrived in Iraq with me. He was killed when he entered a boobie-trapped home which was filled with explosives. We lost about 30 Soldiers during the 15 month deployment., 6 of which were at the same home that was also exploded in January.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/01/09/iraq.soldier.deaths/index.html

During the first week of the new unit's arrival which came from Alaska and is the unit with Palin's kid to replace us, the insurgents did what they normally do when there are multiple units on small bases: mortar and missle attacks. They know the odds are better to hit someone with indirect fire when there are double the people on the post. Two Soldiers were killed during one of several attacks we had during the last 10 days of the deployment. They had been there less than a week.

These pictures were taken from the rooftop of the main building, the same place from where a few of us watched the flare tribute on the 4th of July.

One of the two gyms we had here:

CPT Bryan Noel working a local National at the 'Hodji' shops. Here you can buy tons of bootlegs of all sorts of stuff, but mostly of pirated movies of various qualities...

My Crib in Iraq Part II

When a new unit comes in to replace the old one, the nice thing to do is for the old unit to leave their CHUs to make room for the newbies. The old unit is then housed in temporary tents similar to the transient tents we stayed in coming from Kuwait we we got here. Below is a picture of my new tent (right) before it was covered in 'foam' which keeps in the air better (left).

My Courts-Martial in Balad, Iraq

During the first week of October, I tried two Courts-Martial, or Court-Martials, whichever you prefer. I actually like Courts-Martials as the plural form of Military criminal trials, but that appearently is not an option. One was the equivalent of a Federal felony child abuse case, and one was a Federal misdemeanor trial. In the Military, there are no "misdemeanors or felony" trials, the types of Court-Martials are split up however very similarly with General Court Martials used when the sentence could be over a year and Special Court-Martials used for up to 12 months confinement. (There is also a third type called a Summary Court Martial that uses an Officer instead of a Judge and is far less formal with the maximum confinement set at one month.)

For the General Court Martial dealing with a step-father who had been sexually abusing his son for three years, I was the lead prosecutor. For the second trial, which was a Special Court Martial, I served as the second chair. This case dealt with a staff sergeant who physically abused some of the Soldiers for whom he was put in charge. Below is pictured my co-counsel, CPT Bashore. Due to the difficult time restraints in doing trials downrange, we actually started the second trial the same day that we finished the first one. You can see I look quite haggard.

Pretty nice set-up for a court room in Iraq, but they were held in Balad, Iraq where I flew in and out of from Kuwait (see previous posts). Warhorse isn't big enough to have its own courtroom. Balad is quite big and has two heliport terminals and an airport. Warhorse can only handle helicopters but is only a 15-20 minute helicopter ride to Balad. We flew Blackhawks into Balad the first time, and returned via Styker convoy which took an hour and a half and was a lot less comfortable.

Less than 60 days left...

(sand storm)

I don't get to update this very often (though, admittedly I haven't had much to update recently)- but if this is your first time here, start at the bottom and work yourself up...By the way, I just figured out if you click on the pictures they get real big... this may (not) be a good thing..

I just found out that I am going to Okinawa, Japan as my next destination (details later) but I'll be reporting by 1 January 'o9 NOT next summer which means 6 less months in Iraq. Okinawa is a tropical island not on the Japanese mainland. It seems my days working on the cruiseship will come back in handy!

Updates-
things are churning along here. Scheduling court martials (criminal trials in the military) in a deployed zone is very difficult due to the need of flying a judge down to Iraq (usually from Germany) and getting all the witnesses together in one place. Flights are cancelled due to the weather all of the time, important missions obviously cause problems a well. Speaking of crazy weather- we had a small sand storm yesterday and I posted some pics below...

Two of my big cases have been put on the docket during my last month in Iraq. While everyone else will have their replacements here and taking it easy preparing to go home, I'm scheduled for two consecutive court martials in three consecutive days.

One of these trials is the equivalent of a major felony trial, and I've already secured a guilty plea for over 20 years. When the judge goes through the proceedings, he will also make a sentence finding, and the Soldier will serve whichever is LESS between our deal and his finding.

The other trial involves over 20 witnesses from a small base (pics below) outside the mainbase where I live. It gave me another chance to go out into 'real' Iraq and stay at a JCOP, which is a local base made up of abandoned houses or buildings. It usually holds up to 40-60 Soldiers though not at the same time as there are always misions going on (FOB Warhorse holds about 4000). You will see how cramped it is in the pictures. Makes my CHU look like a palace.

Here's a picture taken only 7-10 minutes after coming outside to see the sandstorm.

Crazy colors of the sand storm.

Tonight I will try to take a picture of this area at the same time to see the difference in weather

The following pics are all taken from the much smaller base 30 minutes from where I live. From these small bases companies and platoons do their patrols and missions.

This is my friend Nick Anderson, we went to OBC together back in 'o5.

Squads of 5-7 share the same room for bunking

Here's a Stryker, what this Regiment is known for.

Ghetto-pong