Nicholas Bush

Well for those of you that have been following my posts I have some bad news. It does not look like I will be able to bring Abbie home. We have had problems getting other soldiers to step up to helping out with her. Alot of the soldiers here feel that she is an un-necessary responsibliity. Most of them have been pointing the finger saying that (I) being the one that is going to take her home, should have 100% of the responsibilty of taking care of her. I understand what they are saying, if I was not taking her home I would not have as big of (however I still would have some) interest in taking care of her. However many of the other soldiers refuse to do as much as get her cold water during the day if I am not present. I have expressed concern about her health being stuck in a cage all day in the blistering heat. I have asked that we find a way to at least build a pin for her to run in. Find better shade for her. And mostly I have asked for help that while I am gone or on a mission, or pulling additional duty somewhere, or sleeping in after working an all-nighter, that someone help with taking care of her. Sadly there has not been enough help.

If any of the soldiers from my unit see this I just want to say: Thank you to SGT Pollock, SGT Agee, SSG Singhurst, SPC Richard, SPC Pancoast, MAJ Warren, LTC Roche, and anyone else that I forgot to mention for the help that you have been able to give. However after a talk with our Battalion Command Sergeant Major I was told that we will have to get rid of her this week. This is due to the un-healthy lifestyle that she is being forced to live in, and the qualty of care that she is receiving.

We are not sure exactly what will happen to her. I suppose this week we will try to get one of the local nationals to get off off post and try to find her a home with the locals. However from my experience the Iraqi's absolutely hate dogs. If we try to put her out somewhere she will jsut keep returning. She is a very intelligent dog and she knows where the food is. Sadly the probable answer to what will happen is that she will be put down like many of the local dogs becuase of the outstanding number of strays that we have and the rapid spread of rabies in the stray K9's. It is already policy here in Iraq that stray dogs on post will be put down. It is also policy that units may not keep dogs as pets. We were able to cleverly title her as a force protection dog within the unit and with our Battallion commanders signature however she would not be that lucky in any other unit here on post.

Im sorry Abbie, I wish there was more that I can do however I am not in the position to make or really even influence these decisions. I hope sopmething works out between now and then but I will miss you.

To everyone out there sorry for the gloom post but this is a personal blog and I promised to keep everyone in the loop. I will see you all in the next one.

So what do we do for fun here in Iraq. First I will say that there are two groups of people here in Iraq, with a few in the gray area between. There are those that are working the office setting like myself and those that are constantly on missions. My last tour over here was with the second group where now I am with the first.

Those that are on missions. Most days consist of five to seven hours of sleep. You wake up, shower and shave, and get ready for the day. The only way you are going to get breakfast is if you plan to sacrafice that last our of sleep to get it. You go to your motor pool or similiar setting and prepare for that days mission. Once you get weapons cleaned, vehicles checked, and mission essential supplies such as water it is time to line up and get ready for the movement. After talking with many of the soldiers here at my camp, they state that the average mission will take about 12-15 hours. Once back in, it is just enough time to grab chow, re-stock, and maybe take an hour or two in your room to watch a movie on your laptop before going to sleep. Those that want to talk to their families or catch up on the internet will go to bed late that night. Then the next day, rinse and repeat. For the lucky ones they will set aside one day a week to do basic mainenance on their vehicles and weapons and take the rest of that day off. Again - thats if you are lucky.

For the other group, the office worker, it can vary. Most end up working 10-16 hours everyday with limited time off. However most office workers are able to check their email, e-pay their bills on-line or blog (on active rain) while in the office. Some of us get lucky to go to the gym daily, with great luck your boss will allow time during lunch to go so that you still get your evening to yourself. Even better than that was what our division has allowed, it is called mountain time. Every Sunday we get the day off, we have to check in at 6:00 PM to make sure that there is no pressing issues, then continue with the day off.

As far as entertainment on post. If you are able to get the time most camps have some sort of gym set up. Even though we are on a small base we have two small gyms and they are building a large one. Other than that we dont really have much here. The larger camps however have movie theaters, computer lounges, phone centers, swimming pools, and large chapels. The largest of the camps will even have ampitheaters, where occasionally major performers in all genres will come and perform. My last tour I had a chance to see Toby Kieth live.

The majority of us though, we find solitude getting a chance to surf the web, or watch movies on our laptops or small TV's. You will find a few that have had game systems shipped over here such as my best friend that is here with me, yesterday he got his X-Box and Rock Band care package shipped from his wife. Right now him and a few others are in his room beating the drums and playing guitar to some of Rock and Rolls greatest hits. Others get T.V's and DVD players such as the guys in the tent next to mine and I can hear the surround sound from the movies as I am lying in bed. As for myself, I prefer to either sit in my bed and watch the hundreds of burnt copies of movies from my external hard drive. Play the occasional game on my PC such as Age of Empires or NFL2009. Or sit in the office and try to figure out what my next blog on AR will be about.

Thats all for today, by the way be watching for my post about a soldier in trouble. I need some military support for a friend of mine, who's mother is getting foreclosed on. He is very young and just joined the army. I really dont want to see him go back to the states without a home. I will post more on his situation once I get all the details from him.

As always thats for the support that you all give, have a good night.

Nick

Well here is a blog by popular demand. This one should be short and sweet.

I have had several people ask me about the heat in Iraq, the first thing I want to say is that it is ******* HOT!!!! Here's the sad part, its only June 4th. When I got here in March it was around 85 during the day time and down in the 40's and 50's at night. Now as we get closer and closer to the peak months it is already darn near un-bearable. Last week we had a high of 122. I hear that the peak temperature for where I am at will get to be between 135 and 140. Its kinda funny, the other day I had called my wife in Tennessee and she slipped with a little comment "Man its hot here today". So of course I pop right back asking just how hot it was and she states "85". Man I wish the temperature would get that low at night.

I was lucky during my last deployment, I was initially in Mosul. The northern most major city in Iraq. I think during the summer it got up to about 110, and during the winter it had actually snowed. In fact the Iraqi's that I was training up there were all originally from Baghdad and when it snowed, they had went crazy. Many of them had never seen snow in their whole life. Talk about an experience. It was nice land, rolling hills, lots of vegitation. Now this time, hot - hot - and more hot. Nothing but baren flat land.

Now as far as beating the heat, its simple . . .dont go in it. Well obviously that one is hard to do but talk about learning how to drink lots of water. I go through approx 100-130 oz of water on slow days. On days I have to spend time outside I probably drink 150-200. Not to mention that we have to alternate this with gaterade to ensure proper electrolyte balances.

Spend any time with the army and you will learn that the army has one cure all answer for any problems. Drink water. you have a headache - drink water . . .you foot hurts - drink water . .ect ect ect. I think what they are actually preparing you for your whole career is for when you will end up in the desert. So that anytime you have a problem you always remember - DRINK WATER.

Oh and to answer a few questions I have seen, yes we have A/C in the tents and in the offices. It is not great as you could imagine how hard it would be to combat this level of heat but it works.

Today I am going to talk about the living and working conditions for my unit here in Iraq. Before I start this blog I first need to say not to assume that this is the way that everyone lives or works, every unit is different . . and I mean that literally, every unit lives differently, has different "anemities", different schedules, different jobs, so this is just for one simple unit in Iraq.

The Camps, or FOB's -- We started our tour working in a huge building in Camp Victory . .one of the biggest, nicest bases in Iraq. Many would say it is a resort compared to the others. In fact I know several units that send people to Victory for rewards, for a few days off. Camp Victory is attached to Camp Liberty, Stryker, and BIAP (Baghdad International Airport). The three are connected so you do not "leave the wire" to travel to the next. Many people have normal vehicles to travel in, mostly you see Ford Explorers and Chevy Trailblazers. There are several swimming pools, several movie theaters, several dining facilities (so far the best dining facilities in Iraq (my opinion)), several small "PX's" (post exchanges), similar to a convenience store, and one very large PX, similar to a super wal-mart. They also have several huge gym's, and other various places for morale.

Later we moved and are now at a different much smaller FOB. This one is about 2 miles wide by 1 mile long (est.). We only have 2 dining facilities, much smaller less selection. We have 1 PX located in the back of a tractor trailer and 1 that is about the size of a small gas station. The selection of stuff is very limited and usually out of stock due to the massive amount of troops vs. the very small shipments that they receive. As of right now most of the stuff that i need to buy I just order on line or have my wife send me. We have no chapels here on camp yet, one is coming soon, right now we use the dining facilities between meals. We also have 2 very small gyms, one with and one without AC, (which is one amenity that you cannot live without over here). That about covers it for the bases.

The work areas (unit specific) -- Some would say that I got lucky this tour (in fact almost everyone but me) says I got lucky, im in an office. Here's what I can say about the work area's. We started in a really nive big headquarters building. We had office space simular to what you would see in a movie . .cubicle after cubicle. Not really much to say about it. Not as clean as you may picture as sand storms and dust collect so quickly that it is almost impossible to keep everything clean. This includes computers, they need to be dis-assembled about every two months to ensure the vents are not clogged. other than that it is the typical office with cubicles.

When we moved it started the same way, we were in a large building full of cubicles again. Since then as our unit was deemed not important enough (I suppose), we moved into what we call "our little trailer park". We found some make shift trailers, and luckily we have a Carpenter on staff. We found little pieces of scrap wood all over the camp and have used it to re-make our floors, desks, shelves, anything else that is needed. Talk about finding a way to make anything work. It actually looks pretty nice. Kinda funny since it is the same wood, the wood matches the flooring (with the exception of my trailer, we found real flooring for it). Here is a pic of me in the office.

The living areas -- This was the most drastic change for us. We started living in "CHU's". Central Housing Units. They are nice . . . two person rooms with just enough room for two single beds, two wall lockers, and a shelf with a tv on it. I'd say about half the size of your typical hotel room (well a hotel room on my budget). However when we moved half us got to move into CHU's here, the other half (myself included) live in tents. Tents . . . in the middle of the desert . . . well it could be worse. The tents were originally from the British and had what was called "coffins" for your bed. They were small bunkers in the floor with concrete blocks surrounding it . .I guess it was safe but not very comfortable. Anyway there are about eight people per tent so its not real bad but no privacy anymore . . .not like I expected any when I joined the military anyway. But it is livable. Still cant wait to get back to real houses and real stores and most importantly . . .my family.

Hopefully this gives a bit of insight to the living conditions . . .any questions feel free to ask. I tell you what I can. Anyway, thats all I have for today . . see you in the next one.

Well, after I wrote that post last night I thought of another good one . . to be honest I am surprised I did not think of it earlier. It is about my new friend, Abbie. Abbie is a eight-nine month old part lab, part . . .something dog that we are trying to rescue. First off I need to say that we are not allowed to have pets here, or mascots as the army calls them, so for purposes of saving her life I will be referring to her as our "force protection dog". Anyway here is her story.

The base that we are at right now used to be ran by the British army. Well if you are watching on the news you probably know by now that the British are pulling out of Iraq. The British came to us about a month ago and asked us if we wanted a puppy. They stated that they found her when she was a newborn pup, "she was just a little fur ball when they found her". They have raised her, fed her, kinda trained her since then. However now with them going home, and the British having such strict regulations on foreign animals they asked if we could take her. If we could not take her she would probably be killed, as the stray dog population in Iraq is out of control and causes lots of problems.

Well, luckily we are a Civil Affairs unit. We have on staff a Lieutenant Colonel that is a Veterinarian. She is the one that is heading up the project to save the dog. Now as I mentioned before we are not allowed to have pets or mascots. So the first thing that we did was get her officially assigned the title, "Force Protection K9." Next she had to find a place for her to go home to . . .I volunteered. I have been looking for a good dog for home anyway, plus I am on the rescue squad back home and would love to have a dog that I can train in search and rescue. There are also several others that have volunteered in-case something falls through and I cannot take her. There are a few more steps that has to be taken, she has to get all of her shots, and she needs to be spaded.

The last and the biggest step is physically getting her to the states. We found an organization called "Baghdad pups". You can check them out on the web at www.baghdadpups.com. It is a great organization that is being used for cases just like this. If you are a dog lover I suggest you check it out as it is a very moving website. The hardest part is getting her excepted for the program but i dont think that we will have a problem.

Anyway I have been doing my best to take care of Abbie while here, this is a warzone and I do still have a job to do, but I do what I can, along with several other soldiers in the unit. When she was with the Brits she ran free, never put on a leash or caged up so her life has changed a bit now. We have to restrict alot to keep her out of trouble. Right now she has to stay in a cage pretty much 24/7. I take her out several times a day, give her lots of water, feed her, and try to entertain her some. But it is very restricted with our schedules. Below is a picture of me and her. I will let you all know what turns out, at the moment I am still unsure of the outcome.

Well, thats all that I have for today . . .I'll see you in the next post.