Whiskey, Blair and Electricity

21 May 07
We had a great evening Saturday night. Mike met some guys from the next camp over who invited us over for a cookout. Whiskey is a very likeable Royal Marine. He was wearing a USMC t-shirt and refered to his American cousins all night. He’s stationed with a UK Army engineer company next door at the Turner Camp. They have quite the oasis over there. We had a great time and had a great time watching the British Football Association finals. Manchester United lost to Chelsea in overtime. It was a great escape…like being at a cookout back home.

I was visiting some U.S. guys up at division Saturday and one of them had received a care package from an anonymous patriot in Monterey, CA. The pkg included some 25 really nice Churchill cigars from the Dominican Republic. He offered some to me so I grabbed a couple and gave one to Mike and one to Whiskey. The Brits do everything in moderation (except maybe drink) so everyone that saw the cigars were astounded by how “massive” it was. Both guys loved the cigars. I think they lasted some 2.5 hrs.

Coincidently, PM Tony Blair was on base Saturday and at division the same time I was there nabbing cigars. I didn’t get to see him and left before him but we did see his entourage all over base.

Mick was one of Whiskey’s “mates.” He’s Scottish and they are notoriously difficult to understand. At one point I complimented him on how easy to understand he was. He said, he was speaking incredibly slowly so all of us could understand him. He said he’s used to doing that for all the third country nationals (TCNs) that work in the Turner Camp. Funny that he equated English speaking Americans with TCNs from Pakistan, India and Bosnia but he knew we also struggled to understand the Scottish.

I met two really nice TCNs at the cookout, Jimmy and Alex. Jimmy was an alias for the guy’s real name which was some huge Pakistani name. He told me his name several times but it was impossible…good to know you Jimmy. Alex was from Bosnia. I didn’t get to speak long with Alex but I’m anxious to hear his story.

The British have been in Bosnia and Kosovo since the end of that war in 1999. As a matter of fact, lots of their vehicles here have “KFOR” written on the side which stood for “Kosovo Force.” Naturally, they had contractors helping to maintain their bases and the contractors hired local civilians. Alex was hired on by Turner. The British have slowly been leaving Kosovo for Aghanistan and here and subsequently many of the Bosnians they hired have been coming with them. Sting said Bosnian-Serbs have been flooding the U.S. truck industry. The same is happening here.

At one point Alex complimented me on my English and how easy I was to understand. I told him I was speaking incredibly slowly so the Scottish guys could understand me. ;)

We recently received two IqAF doctors in the squadron, Dr. Adel and Dr. Salman. Both are decent guys but before coming into the IqAF they hadn’t been practicing medicine for some time. Salman was working in the port at Umm Qasr (“Um kaSAR”) as a welder. About a week ago I coordinated with the head RAF clinic, Dr. Leskevitch, to do an exchange visit. Dr. L spent several hours with the guys. They took a lot of great ideas back to the IqAF camp but having lived in their camp, knowing what they have for facilities, and knowing how badly Brigadier Jaffar will treat the troops (since he lives here in Basrah and goes home each night he won’t spend a dime on protecting them), I know they are fighting an uphill battle to receive any equipment or medicines.

The power has been out in Basrah for 3 days now. Temps have reached as high as 110º during the days. At prayers today they briefed that the temps in the British armored vehicles are as high as 140º. Adnan said when it is this hot and they have no electricity, the Iraqis move their beds outside onto their rooftops and all Iraqis will sleep under the stars. There have been several large battles downtown lately so venturing outside is quite dangerous, even to find a cool wind in which to sleep. School has been canceled for several days as a result of all the violence in town. Everyone from Basrah looks very tired from a combination of the heat and violence.

Yesterday, the British had a large operation downtown. We took some 15 Multinational Force (MNF) casualties though most of them were very light. MNF leaders reported dozens of contacts but no known outcome to the contact.