Kung Foo Fighting

For the last year in a half my Marines have been going through the new Marine Corps Martial Arts Course, it was directed from higher up that all Marines must be a certain belt by so and so date (remember I'm a Squid so it's not required). Back in the rear I was the only Corpsman between 2 squadrons and they had a course running every other week. So every other week I was the medical coverage, couldn't find anybody else to cover it so I could get my belt. The training was painful, harsh but it came in handy. During that time I spent a lot of time taking pictures of and sometimes laughing. The instructors have been telling me "One of these days Doc you're going to go through the class" Eep, time to curtail my laughing. At long last, they're wish came true and my name my name appeared on a list for a tan belt course that was taking place in a couple days. The head instructor had an evil smirk on his face when I showed up that morning. What have I got myself into? It started off easy enough, stretching out and warming up exercises. We learned some of the basic techniques that morning then our first round of body hardening. Pretty much striking blows upon on each other in painful places to deaden the nerves in that area using kicks, forearm blows and punches. Think someone has it in for me. Ouch. Learned shoulder rolls, different kicks, joint manipulation and different blows. Twice a day body hardening, ugh! Somehow I kept ending up partnered with the evil instructor, please just let me die, don't kick me again! After each round of body hardening I wiped away my tears like a man. Sheesh that hurts! No I actually didn't cry but I did yelp a few times, believe me I wasn't the only one! Considering how many classes I've watched and taken pictures of I should have been a lot smoother and gracious in handling my pain, but maybe there was a little payback in there? Watching is a different ball game. Promise to my self, I will try not to laugh at the Marines taking the training. I stopped limping after a couple of days and with the memory of pain fading it's probably going to be a hard promise to keep. Hmm, there's the course for the next belt on the schedule! Time to hide, today anyway.

Advice to the Squadron that's replacing us someday

One of my Gunny's that used to be with us is in our replacement squadron. He's been passing the link to my fotopage so they can see what to expect. So here are some words of advice:

1) Medical folk: bring lots of cold medications, when you first get we experienced a boot camp like crud, instruct your guys on wearing insect repellent, expect there to be spikes of people getting the runs. We're trying to leave you guys the sick call AMAL that we were issued out here. We could use a 20 foot eye chart for physicals though. A more detailed list is heading your way by email soon.

2) Bring power converters with the different attachments, if you have electronic gear try picking up stuff that can take either 110 or 220, specially battery chargers. School your guys to check the voltage before plugging anything in, just because it looks like an American power strip doesn't mean that it's running 110 (lot's of fried expensive stuff in trash cans out here). DVD players and laptops can usually take both 110/220 check just in case. We're probably going to pass along a lot of our gear that we've personally bought to you guys (maybe for a small fee in some cases, don't worry it will be worth it, Marines have go to take care of each other). Don't see much use in carrying around a bunch of 220 electrical gear back home. Besides it wasn't all that expensive.

3) If you start up a fotopage like mine, it will make families back home really happy, just make sure to clear all the pictures that you post with the base Public Affairs Office. It will save you grief later when your page gets shut down and families are upset. They will come by in the first few weeks that you are here and tell you what you can and can't take pictures of. It's pretty much common sense. Buy a THUMB DRIVE before you come out they're cheap, right now they're not letting you plug your personal laptops in at the internet cafe so the only way to upload is a thumb drive or CD, thumb drive is a lot easier to use. Also compress your pictures to 800 pixels wide before you put them on your thumb drive if you're using fotopages. It takes longer to upload if you don't compress them first and let fotopages do it for you, so save everybody time and bandwidth and do it yourself.

4) We have a pretty big BX for being it in Iraq but that's only because it's in an old warehouse. The stock changes daily so don't expect what you saw yesterday or last week to be there today. So if you see something you like when you're in there. Buy it right then because it might be gone an hour later (or don't buy it and save some of your cash) Don't worry about bringing CDR's they have those at the BX, also have a small selection of digital cameras (4-10) at any given time, I would advise buying any kind of electronics gear you want before you leave the states. Mail ordering does work but companies like Amazon won't ship electronic gear out here, probably for liability reasons which I can understand, boxes that show up out here are sometimes pretty jacked up. Something else your loved one might like is for you to bring your own webcam which I haven't seen sold here.

5) The local merchants sell bootlegged DVD's, cigarettes, electrical appliances, bikes, crappy generators, fridges, satellite dishes, TV's, rugs, bland food, sewing services (nametapes, patches, embroidery) cheap tools, sodas, cigars and touristy stuff. If you need anything special ordered you can ask and they will tell you if they can get it for you. Sometimes they also have some unknown brand computer gear, hubs and microphone and headphone sets.

6) There are a bunch of military support sites that send care packages out to members, they kick butt! Check out Keystone Marines, Operation Sandbox, Soldiers Angels and Books for Soldiers (links on the side bar).

7) Phone calls, mail and internet are cheap out here, call home and write!

yes E-blogging works!

Well that was my first try at E-blogging, now just have to figure out how to wrap the text!

A few words on Sandflies

Sand Flies about a quarter size of a mosquito, they move faster, barely visible to the eye unless in full light and they don't usually attack in the daylight. I've seen them in closed quarters fly right through citronella candle smoke like it wasn't even there (don't burn citronella candles in closed quarters, not because of the smell or chance of asphyxiation but because it leaves black grime all over every smooth surface that's really unsightly). They're viscous, they don't take their fill in one place like mosquitoes, they come back again and again trying to find that perfect spot to bite. They love soft tissues of the ankle, undersides of the wrist, back of the hands and fingers but will generally bite you anywhere. Single flies have been known to bite sleepers over a hundred times in a single night (who in the hell did that study? Sadist! I would have squished the little bugger). It's not uncommon for my Marines to show up after walking to the shower once with 6 or more bites on their ankles because they forgot to wear bug repellent. They itch just like mosquito bites but without the big slow mosquito to squish. The thing the medical community is worried about is
Leishmaniasis, a parasite that is vector born by the sand flies, meaning it makes a circle from the sand fly to a host (us) grows into nice little macrophages which the sand fly laps up and takes to the next person. It causes weeping sores that do not heal which sometimes end up looking like little volcanos. A majority of the sand flies likely don't have the parasite but there have been 70 or so cases already reported coming out of the country which is actually a small number compared to how many people
that get bit. The numbers are probably higher but just aren't getting reported. So part of my job is to go around preaching the values of wearing DEET, yes it's smelly but it does keep them from biting. People come to me with bug bites and I ask them why aren't they wearing insect repellent and they say that they didn't have time, after a few nights of not being able to sleep because they itch so bad and can't get comfortable usually helps my message go through. Marines are still stubborn, but I'm getting fewer
patients with bug bites so I guess some of my preaching is working.

moving day

I tried emailing this in but it didn't work, will have more to post soon..

My unit just moved to another location on the flight line so there goes my nice private little medical bunker. Medical, Admin, Ops and the Ready Room are all in a big bunker, too bad I'm only getting a quarter of the space that I was before but then again I'm not living in my work center either, moved back into the general population. For the last 3 weeks the entire unit has been dreading the move, many pissed off people, grouchy, bitching, packing and condensing everything down. Then when it happened, we were done in under 30 hours, Semper Gumby, that's us. Other then the actual move (lot's of lifting and lugging around heavy stuff) and loss of com for a few days it went surprisingly smooth. My new office isn't quite the cool bat cave that I had before but across the hall from me is the internet and phone. The only thing that I had down in the original bat cave was power. Every time we had a dust storm and I forgot to shut the airlocks (all the bunkers have double steel airlock doors) everything would be covered in dust, no dust here. First few days we were hoofing it up to our work center from our new living arrangements (mile and a half walk uphill) but tonight they got the bus back from the shop and so we're cooking with gas again.

Who's behind Doc in the Box

This is part of a letter I wrote responding to an email with some editorial changes. Little about my self and what I think about Milblogs.

First off I think this is the latest voice of this generation and we're still in the infancy of the blog movement. I don't think it will replace the regular sources of news but it does give the average reader a taste of someone's life here on the ground. Blogs are just giving more people voices, if you're doing something interesting or a good writer, people will read your stuff. I'm not even among the better war blogger's out here, I like blogging but I know when I'm beat. My main connection to the world is through my fotopage, I've been in the top twenty for the last 7 months or so, since I got out here I've been number one or in the top five out of 15000 or so fotopages. That's my real love, but I'm a big follower of blogs, I've been hanging around the blogging circles for a while, making comments on web sites and message boards till peer pressure from some fellow bloggers led me to start up a "respectable" blog.

I started out with a fotopage by way of Salam Pax the Iraqi blogger. He had a link from his blog to a fotopage that he started up, at that time I was using an MSN group to post pictures, and fotopages offered me unlimited posting, blog like features like commenting and a great sense of community. Lot's of like minded people there that leave comments on your site (except for political troll that has been leaving comments over there). I've always been a shutterbug and it grew to a point that my guys always wanted copies of my pictures, it was easier posting them online then giving out individual pictures or emailing them, 380 Marines, too much work for one person to handle without it being a fulltime job. So here I am the unit's unofficial photographer. Back in the rear, I publish a photo CD every 6 months or so of my unit's adventures (or when I get enough good pictures to fill up a CD) which I sell to the members my unit, proceeds go towards new equipment (cameras, blank CD's, CD stompers, printers, etc, low overhead). I made a slideshow video with music a month after coming out here titled Kuwait Take One and everyone started offering money to me for copies to send home to their families. That's become one of my side projects out here. Just finished "Iraq Take " with a little bit of fanfare. The fotopage lets the family back home know that their loved ones are doing alright. It's grown a bit out of my control in some ways, if don't post pictures frequently and my CO and SgtMaj get on my case (in a joking manner, I think) and I get hate mail or sad comments from family members. So the fotopage is here to stay.

As for the blog, you've probably noticed I've tried to stay away from the personal viewpoints on politics. I'm a supporter of the war, but I don't really lean to the right. I don't always agree with reasoning that they used to justify coming in here, there were many good concrete reasons like Saddam using chemical weapons on his own people, mass graves, etc. Saddam was a pretty bad dude and I have a firm belief that the world is a much better place without him. Of course there is no clear cut black and white answer to exactly we came out here, maybe it was the war on terror but only historians further down the road are going to be able to give the world the true story. People can dance on streets yelling for answers and protesting but I don't think it's going to make it come any quicker.

Terrorists need to be stopped, now do I believe that we can do it? I look at it this way, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, these guys are some pretty evil bastards in my book.

A little bit of personal history on myself, I came in originally in 91, missing the entire first gulf war while at school. Was stationed at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station with an F/A 18 squadron then at Naval Weapons Station China Lake. Got out of the Navy in 99 to pursue a different career field, was out for 3 years in school and worked in a field totally away from medicine. I'm one of those that came back in because of 9/11. Figured my skills could better used here. So I'm doing my little bit, saving lives when I can, making sure my guys stay healthy and keeping the families in touch with their loved ones. A side note it gives the rest of the world a snapshot of my mundane life (most days). As for the legal aspects of my internet life, I've been running all of the pictures that go on my fotopage through the base public affairs office for clearance (they've been cleared) and as for my blog I really don't say anything that would violate OPSEC, keeping a fairly low profile by not rocking the boat. Yes I have links to people that are Anti-American but that's deliberate choice on my part. Sometimes it's good to hear what the other side is saying. I think the best way to brain wash someone is to only give them one point of view. If you want that, go listen to Rush. I don't tell of troop movements or anything that plans into the future. Definitely don't talk about people that have died, that's a big no no. There is no real message behind my blog or fotopage except for saying we're regular people out here too. It has increased the size of my voice, I've had more attention in the last year then I've had most of my life. If something does happen to me while I'm out here at least I'll have left some kind of mark on the world. Plus this is a great spring board to see what people think about my writing and pictures. Who knows, I could find a future doing something of this sort.

Also doing some editing on my blog list

I've added a few new milbloggers to my blog list that are out here in Iraq, all 3 of them are first reads for me, Leviraq tells a chilling story about what happened to his translator e-rocky-confidential is becomeing quite a good read and J from Iraq Calling seems to be a preventive med tech in the army, kinda close to my work. Give them a warm welcome. I also moved some people down to the back from Iraq section and even though I don't agree with much of what River has to say, she does an alright job doing it and it's helpful to get both sides of the story so she's staying in spite of the browbeating I've taken by unknown people. I don't want to get caught leaning any direction one way or another and unless I know who you are, don't expect me to have my blog jump though ideological hoops for your beliefs no matter how logical they are and you're probably right but it's not going to change what I'm saying.

We've come a long way

I've become a horrible blogger, I haven't been writing daily about many of my experiences. Like today, the squadron knows that I spend a bit of the time on the internet posting pictures, so they kicked my name up for the internet duty at the Segovia phone center. I was overseas in the nineties doing the unit deployment thing with a Marine F/A 18 squadron, 94 and 95 did 6 month tours that included Iwakuni Japan, Okinawa, Darwin Australia, Thailand and South Korea. Back in the day it was expensive to call home. A dollar plus a minute, we had one guy in my old unit that had a 14 thousand dollar phone bill, no kidding! In most big cities, you can get a person knocked off for that much or buy a new small car. It was a bit of craziness. Now I'm out here in the middle of the nowhere, desert for miles and miles around, closer to danger and further away. Now it's only 4 cents a minute to call home, that's better then my long distance in the rear. Online time is free, high speed, some computers have web cams and we're the people running the system, it's not too bad of a deal. Units take turns on who's running the cafe and everyone is happy. I have plenty of bandwidth post pictures or video conference if I feel the need and I can use my own computer. I'm in awe at how well it's working out, there are minor glitches but most people are just happy having the system up. We've came a long way in the last few years.

Done with Iraq take One

There are some things that you miss a lot when you're out here from back home, having your own shower that you don't have to wear shower shoes into, baths, choosing what you are going to have for dinner, regular clothes, flushing toilets, ice cream (some chow halls have it, not ours), regular TV but I would still have to say that I have it better then anonymous guy. He's probably going house to house, day to day wondering if some Iraqi that looks like everybody else on the street, you know the ones that smile and wave as you drive by, and when you turn around they shoot a RPG up your wazoo. He could be one of those forward highly mobile people that can't get mail from home because everything that they need is on their back. Guess I'd be pretty tense too if that was me, or maybe not. At least he has time to get on the internet. Just wish he would stop bothering me. I'll have to check out some of my milblog buddies out there and see if he's mad at them too. Anyhow it's a done subject for me.

Lost one of our tents last night in a sand storm, full of people but no one was hurt, I don't take pictures but there were a lot taken. I'll see if I can get some. Sorry I haven't been on lately, just finished up the Iraq Take One slideshow, it took up a couple of days of free time but it looks good. They should start coming on to the family members in a few weeks.

finally a good meal

Today J (my battle buddy) and I had the best meal since we've came out here. We were down in the bat cave (my home the bunker) and I finally opened up the package of Kasilof Fish Company Smoked Salmon that my dad sent my way and the box of hickory farms goodies. Everybody else on base is in the MRE eating mode, so I felt the smallest feeling of guilt while partaking of this feast. We spread Hickory Farms Sweet-hot Mustard on MRE crackers, put garlic cheese on it then topped it with smoked salmon. For beverage we had hot tea (I've purchased a electric tea kettle) with honey that I got from the local vendor. Mmmmm, it's funny how much pleasure you can get from an act this small. I have been sharing 95 percent of the goodies I've been receiving in care packages, I do get my fair share but I did hold back the salmon and some of the cheese and don't regret it a bit. Thanks dad and the person that sent me the hickory farms! And thank you Jennifer and Allen from Monroe MI for the care package.

Dear Anonymous Guy

Don't you think I know what Baghdad Burning and Salam Pax's blogs say? Salam has been posting since before the war and he was very pro American. Check out his archives, what I'm trying to give is a round viewpoint of whats going on around here. Do you see anywhere on this blog that tells where we are? Or on the fotopage. Read a bit more before judging.

the other jungle

Back home in the US, man reigns supreme of the jungles of his own creation. While here in Iraq it seems to be an eternal fight against nature, the desert seeps in no matter where you're at. My base is an oasis with a wasteland stretching in all directions, you fly towards Syria and you might see a palm tree outside of a house and it's just a dot on the landscape. There are little depressions in the sand where the dew gathers and the infrequent rainfall gives life to green grass shoots. It's like something out of Dune or Star Wars. Fly towards Baghdad there's civilization, fields, roads, suburbs. You look down from a helicopter and you see the blocks go by underneath you and you think for a second it could be any midsized town in America, till you notice that whole portions are blacked out. We complain about electricity being out for a couple of days, wonder how long these guys with nice houses have been without power? Even after a couple of days with out power or showers you notice your veneer of civilization dropping away. Not a nice way to live.

We've bent over backwards trying to get basic services back on and the bad guys take it out. Don't they know that they're hurting their own people? Summer's coming soon and this place is going to be boiling. These jokers are trying to make everyone cranky and blaming it all on us. We're too stubborn and just keep going back and fixing the problem. The whole place is a tinder box and it's hard putting out all the fires. This is no longer an offensive war for us, it's turned into a defensive war. The regular Iraqi on the ground is getting closer to the snapping point and we're trying to keep the good guys calm while getting rid of the bad guys. The bad guys out here must love chaos. As usual there's no easy answer.

Welcome to Baghdad, at night there's hardly a flight that there's not someone shooting at you. They can't see the aircraft (hopefully) but as soon as they hear one coming they come out and shoot into the air. Mainly they're hoping to get a lucky shot in. A tracer flies by a window and we're banking and rolling which is kinda like gambling, they can't see us but we can't see them either, a great game of battleship in the sky. Wish sometimes the bet wasn't my life. In any case I'm glad I do not have to fly through Baghdad every day, I'll stick with the lonely desert.

Care package thanks,
Pop, thanks for the two 220 volt soldering irons, already using them!

Chad from Wake Island, the baby wipes just came in, thanks again.

Mary Ann Merritt, Women Marines Association and Girl Scouts from Romeo, MI sent a great box of goodies with Girl Scout cookies, toiletries and some great snack items, mmmm, thanks.

update on life

Life has been heating up for being a CASEVAC Corpsman, I hear the Corpsman at the forward operating bases are seeing quite a bit of action. Me I've been playing electrician to the unit (since today I'm not at a forward operating base right now). We wired up the tents to a generator and wired up all the shops to a switch that goes to another generator in case of power loss. The start of my hitch as electrician happened when I wired the lights and plugs to my new work space. Then the base started moving out all the tents in our area except for ours, taking the huge generator that was powering them in the process. No warning to the people that were living there, we just went without power until acquired the generator and me and Sgt C wired it up. It hasn't gotten really hot out here yet but we have night crew that sleeps all day. 90 degrees isn't that bad but it does make it hard to sleep. So that has been my life, haven't had much time to get on the internet.

Care Package thanks
If you have a loved one out here, send them a solar shower. We've lately ran into some water problems and people have been taking showers by holding bottled water over their heads, it's wasteful and cold. Yet with a solar shower, it uses less water and you get a hot shower. You know who you are that sent it to me, thanks! And thanks MEW! She sent my unit 4 huge care packages, over a hundred dollars in just postage! The package's contents have been handed out to my Marines and they all wanted me to pass my thanks. Chad from Wake Island sent me a huge package full of baby wipes, q-tips and insect repelling sun screen, very big thanks too. If you're sending something my way and leave an email address (I'm horrible at snail mail) I'll be happy to send emails in your direction. These packages mean the world to my guys, just to know there's someone out there that cares.

more fun in the sun

I watched CNN for the first time in a while yesterday, guess there's more going on then I know about. We're constantly being told about OPSEC, but if you're looking to get information off someone out here that's writing a blog, forget it. We usually don't find out anything that's happening until we see it on the news, someone from home tells us about it or several days after it happens in Stars and Stripes. We just don't know. Of course we can put down what we're feeling and nice little stories about what we're doing that day, tell a bit what war is like the people back home. But we're in a basic communications blackout. I was amazed at what was going on when I saw CNN, I can tell you that's not the war front that I'm on. People are going nuts out there. Hope what our guys are doing right now works, what those Iraq's did to those contractors in Fallujah was asinine. I'm sorry there should be a few rules on basically being included in the human race. Are these the types of people we want running any country? I know history shows us that it's happened time and time again but maybe it's time to stop these kinds of people? I would understand it more if we were doing horrible atrocities like the former regime was doing but if we catch our guys doing evil and mean stuff, it's an automatic ticket straight to jail, do not pass go. Well if you'd been watching the news, there's much action happing right now. We lose all of our un-secure contact with the outside world whenever someone dies, usually for a day till the family is notified (good idea) or if we're implementing some big plan. Personally I think it's a good idea, myself I don't say anything till its old old news. In retrospect, the average Joe on the ground isn't told anything, just told to do things. Does the pawn know the big plan?

Found another blogger out here by way of Salam Pax, she takes on a very anti-war attitude and though I respect her views, but how dumb can you be? Check out the places she's going, madness! Fiona (I can't help thinking of the girl in the movie Eurotrip) keep your head down silly girl! She's going to places where I wouldn't dream of going with out a platoon behind me in light of the news this week. Keep your head down silly girl!