Unexpected Celebrity Gets Cold Feet

Friday. We started off the day running around/driving around taking more pictures and tying up some loose ends and getting additional data before we left. We had some interesting experiences today. For lunch we met some of the folks from the U.S. MiTT (military transition team) and headed on over to eat with the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi COL (see pic at left). Once again we sat at his table and were served with about 7 different dishes: tomato soup with some kind of white bean, a chicken noodle soup derivative, white rice with rotisserie chicken, two kinds of fried doughnut-like things filled with ground meat, big white flatbread and cola. The green onion salad and tomatoes were in the middle of the table. I didn't take any this time...I had too many meetings ahead of me to risk dragon breath.

After lunch we were invited to take a tour of their existing facilities. The tour was quite an experience for me. The Iraqi Army functions out of buildings amongst the rest of the base population. Aside from being interesting to meet the COL and tour the facilities (motor pool, med clinic, jail, admin, DFAC), it was interesting to see how the IA responded to us as visitors. I think I actually got to see what it feels like to be a celebrity. Seriously.

As occurs many times in my travels, I, of course, was the only woman on the tour. My team and the MiTT were escorted by the COL and a couple of other IA folks. As we walked from facility to facility I asked the IA COL how many children he had and where his family lived (9 children). We went to the medical clinic that is being organized by 1 U.S. Army MiTT guy. He has done a fantastic job training the IA medics on proper procedures to run the clinic and keep track of inventory. We walked in and met the 2 IA medical sargeants. The MAJ from the MiTT took a picture and that opened the floodgates. After that one innocent picture to simply capture the interaction between the IA, the MiTT and between us, one of the MiTT guys asked if he could take a picture of me with the IA folks because "they love to have pictures taken." I was flattered and grinned at the camera. You can see this in the picture on the left. Notice the young translator, the IA COL, then the U.S. MAJ looking on and smiling. What this doesn't show is that my 4 team members were looking on along with 2 other US MiTT folks and about 6 IA folks in the doorway...what an audience. Geesh. Well, then the IA folks who had congregated in the doorway to see who the visitors were asked if they could have a picture with me. The MiTT guys said, "see, they love pictures!" So I grinned again with two other IA guys, then my team members started snapping shots, then an IA had a disposable camera in his pocket and he wanted his own picture. We finally got out of there with just under a dozen photos snapped. We walked outside and headed over to the jail, that was quick and okay because there was no one in there. Then we walked over to the motor pool and we noticed that there were people poking their heads out of the buildings and were standing in the doorway as our entourage was moving through. Apparently word had gotten out that the COL was taking visitors on a tour. At the motor pool there were about 6 folks who were pointing out their one room garage and their operations. I got asked for more pictures there and kind of went through a period of shyness at all the attention. I'm not camera shy, but I'm not used to so many photos. So, we continued on our tour, stopped for more pics and ended up at the Brigade HQ building where the IA COL works. We took a bunch of photos here with all of our cameras and the COL even picked up my camera and started snapping pics. (Those pics are crooked and some folks are out of the frame, but it was kind of humorous to see him working the camera.) At this point I hammed it up for the last couple of pics. My goodness, what an experience to feel like a celebrity, even if it was just for an afternoon. Crazy, and I'm not sure how i like it. I asked the MiTT MAJ about how they felt about Western women since their role is generally different than the role of typical Iraqi woman. I asked also because I didn't know how strange or possibly uncomfortable it was for them to have me introduce myself, shake hands, and ask them questions. The MAJ said so far he had heard (from the IA folks he had spoken to) that they are pretty fascinated by the role that Western women play and, in a way, he thought they would prefer women to be more independent. That was good to hear, however, I don't know how true that is. The picture on the left looks like a good start to my career with the Department of State or in politics.

After the tour, we had another highlight when Tom and I got to meet one of the military working dogs named Gabe. As you can see in the picture, he's a very photogenic yellow lab. We met up with the rest of our team and went exploring in some abandoned bunkers to see about the feasibility of re-using them.







After the bunker exploration, went and had some coffee before we split up and did our own thing (packing, napping, checking email). We reconvened at the passenger terminal at about 10:30 pm for our Blackhawk flight. When we got there, the terminal said the flight was early and we had to hurry up and load up our bags and get on the shuttle. We still had to drop off the vehicle we borrowed about a block away. Being the team leader, I volunteered to drive the car back, run inside and drop the key in the engineer building and sprint through the pitch black back to the terminal. I was so lucky I didn't twist my ankle and I'll explain why. The terrain at Q-West is either dirt or dirt covered in gravel. The soil is very impermeable so when it rains it just puddles up. When non-tactical vehicles, HMMWV's and the sort run through the soil it just creates deep grooves. Then when the rain evaporates, the soil turns so hard it almost seems like concrete. So, basically what I'm saying is that running through this terrain of deep-grooved, hard soil, could have been a pretty bad hazard. I sprinted into the terminal, threw on my flak jacket and kevlar and we all got on the shuttle to drive all of about 300 yards to the helo pad. Once there, we grabbed our stuff and waited for the Blackhawks to land. When you're waiting for the helos, you have to have all of your luggage and gear on and in your hands. Usually they'll offload the choppers and as soon as the last passenger gets off and they give the all clear you have to hustle onto the bird. It's pretty fast, you just throw your stuff in and shove it wherever you can and buckle in. This time I got a back seat so I had a pretty good window view, which actually wasn't so advantageous because it was at night time. It would have been cool to have seen some of the landscape during the day.

We arrived around midnight and found out that there was not another flight to Speicher until the next evening. We would be spending the night and the next day in an open-bay barrack (read: a big festival tent filled with cots). When we were at Speicher the week prior we were spoiled with a wet CHU, but now we had to rough it. We passed out and I was soooo cold even sleeping in my clothes. In the middle of the night I dug a pair of sweatpants and put them over my pants, put on a sweatshirt, gloves and a 2nd pair of socks. Oh my goodness, I was shivering so much that I didn't get much sleep.