Airing My Dirty Laundry

No, I'm not about to disclose any dirty secrets, or whatever the subject line is supposed to mean.  It's meant more literally.

 

This week is a series of lasts, and today was my last chance to turn in my laundry, which is collected between 9 and 9:50am on certain mornings.  Except that this morning, for some inexplicable reason, they decided to collect it at 8:50am.  So when I went to drop off my dirty duds shortly after 9, I had missed the deadline.  So I now have an increasing pile of dirty clothes to carry around with me to Kuwait.

 

But even if I never had the chance to launder anything again until I got home, I think I'd still be happy.  Now that my return is a virtual certainty, it's very hard to disappoint me with anything.  Even very bad internet connectivity and a very busy schedule as I turn over with my replacement (poor excuse for lack of a post yesterday, I know.)

Grin and Grip

Every time my officer in charge sent out an update of the schedule showing who would go home when, it was accompanied by a caveat, "Subject to immediate and violent change without notice," as well as a warning not to be too excited about going home until you were shaking hands with your relief.

 

I haven't quite made that handshake yet, but my replacement is on an airplane as we speak, and before the night is out, I expect to be making that important handshake that really locks in the certainty of my imminent return home.  I am, of course, in a great mood and looking forward to a busy week of turning things over to him, as well as packing my bags.  Soon... so very soon.

Thoughts on the Surge

As I digest what will hopefully be my last Sunday dinner in Iraq, I figure I should answer the few of you who have been asking me what I thought of the latest surge plan.  I'll start out with a few disclaimers.  First, I have no special inside knowledge into what's going on here.  I'm basing my opinion largely on what I read in news reports.  Second, I'm not an expert, and my opinion is just that, an opinion.  It's probably wrong, and many people much smarter than I are working the problem.  Third, as an active duty member of the military, I've sworn an oath to obey the orders of my Commander in Chief and I will continue doing so.

 

Now, a few thoughts about the current plan:

• The U.S. Military can be expected to succeed at any particular task assigned to it.  Specifically, the 20,000 extra troops sent to secure areas of Baghdad can be expected to complete that mission successfully.  Personally, however, I don't know what that will get us.  Will it buy us time to proceed with more reconstruction? Create jobs? Make life better for the moment?  Yes.  But that improvement will only last as long as we stay, and I don't foresee our country collectively having the stomach to stick it out as long as it takes.  And any gains we make will be undone when we leave unless the Iraqi government steps up.
• In light of the above point, it is good to note that this is not a military war.  It is a political one.  Iraq, and the insurgents, have very little organized military power.  Unfortunately, the media and anti-war politicians are helping the insurgents get their message out by wavering in their support and encouraging opposing forces to continue attacking.  In particular, the current move in Congress to pass resolutions opposing the President are a horribly bad idea.
• The Government of Iraq is more disfunctional than the U.S. Congress.  And they aren't getting any better, and won't, until they are in extremis.  The surge will do nothing to put more pressure on the Iraqi government.
• General Petraeus, who was just confirmed as the top General here, is the Army's counter insurgency expert.  If anybody knows how to succeed here, he does.  He should be given a chance to implement his doctrine.  I think we'll know by mid-Summer whether we're having any success.
• The Iraqi Army is slowly growing and slowly getting better.  You can't build an army overnight.  You can't rush the process.  Yes, there are deep problems with it, but the media highlights the few exceptions to the generally good news coming out of the transition teams.
• The Iraqi culture is utterly different than our own.  If it turns out that this policy fails, it is not a failure of the US, but rather a choice of the Iraqis: in particular, their government.  If they choose to perpetuate their culture of violence and sectarian divisions, there's not much we can do to help them, and we need to back away and let them figure it out for themselves.

 

Technical Difficulties

Those of you looking for a post yesterday were, obviously, disappointed by the lack thereof.  The dish I share with a bunch of other people went down (and still is down) so I've got limited ability to post updates.  Compounding that, apparently Yahoo Groups, which distributes the mailing list, apparently had some sort of database crash two days ago and is backlogged delivering the old messages.  Fortunately, I'm down to single digits for days in Iraq dealing with these issues. 

 

I have truly procrastinated as long as I can in cleaning my room for my relief's arrival.  I'll spend the good portion of my day off tomorrow doing that.  Or perhaps even tonight if I can't log on to the internet!  Perhaps the outage is a message from above!

Contact!

Every time the phone rings these days and I hear that it’s a call from my boss, or our unit’s headquarters, I’m always paranoid that it will be someone informing me that something happened to my relief, and that I should plan on hanging around another month. I’m not sure if that’s pessimism or cynicism, or really what the difference is between the two. I guess I’ve just gotten used to surprising news regarding this deployment and I’m still trying not to celebrate too much until everything is really certain.

Fortunately for me, the contact from headquarters today was from my relief! Lots of simple questions that I was more than happy to answer, but more importantly, evidence that I’m still on track to make my way homeward. It’s hard to stop me from smiling these days. Other than that highlight, I kept busy doing important things, with a small cleaning break, but I’m still procrastinating the major cleaning until this weekend. Literally the last minute, as I’m hoping my relief will show up on Monday.

So close I can taste it

I mentioned in a previous post that the menu at the DFAC rotates on a 20-day cycle. I realized today that I have less than 20 days left of eating Army food! That brings a whole new meaning to experiencing the same meals I’ve had for nearly 300 days previous. I can look at that glob of noodles and tomato sauce I had for lunch that they claim is lasagna, and savor it as the last time I’ll have to eat it! Or at dinner, hope that this is the last T-bone steak that I will attempt (unsuccessfully) to cut with a plastic knife. Mmm. I’m already coming up with the list of restaurants I want to visit after returning to the real world.

I’ve continued to procrastinate preparing for my relief’s arrival, but time is running short, so I really should get focused on that soon. With luck, I’ll also be able to sell him the TV and some other comfort Items I’ve picked up to make my stay here more comfortable. And he won’t make me reassemble the bunk bed I took apart. There are some advantages to turning a room directly over to someone instead of having to vacate it and get it inspected.

Acting Presidential

It's interesting how much politics is in the news these days, a few weeks after the new Congress has convened and years before the next Presidential election. I've lost track of the number of candidates who have declared that they have formed exploratory committees. Actually, I saw a brief segment on a news show which told how to get the form declaring such to the Federal Election Commission. It's free (the news show said it cost a 39 cent stamp, but mail's free from over here!) I'm debating sending the form in so that I can run for President. I wonder how many votes I could get...

The other Presidential thing in the news is tomorrow's State of the Union address. It'll be 5 in the morning here when it's broadcast, so I don't think I'll watch it live, but I feel a constitutional duty to catch one of the many replays tomorrow. Supposedly he's going to talk mostly about domestic policies rather than the war. And given my relocation in only a couple weeks' time, I'm in the mood to think domestically as well.