Appalachian Patria

Appalachian Intellectual. To me that means plain thinking. I am A Non Commissioned Officer in the Army Reserves. Let me say...My views expressed here are mine and not those of The U.S. Army, Army Reserve or my fellow brethren in The National Guard. This is entirely Sua Sponte. This is My Thinking. I'm single and in my mid 30's. Politicaly, I'm a Libertarian. (Again, Sua Sponte.I do not represent the Libertarian Party.)I love my native Appalachia, Rock n Roll and...I love God.

Name:
Location: Brevard, North Caroilina

I started blogging for two reasons. I was concerned about the changes to the area I live in, Southern Appalachia and I was about to go to the war. I was in Iraq in 06 and 07 and now Kuwait in 11 and 12. Blogging was a means of documenting my experiences and hoping it would help gain clarity. I don't feel that way about it any more. It's said people write blogs because they are frustrated, that's why people read them too. That makes us sound apocalyptic. Are we? Let it be said, what I say here is of my own thinking. This is entirely Sua Sponte and not an official representation of the U.S. Military or the U.S. Government as a whole.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Another Much Anticipated Post

I have found that there is no word in Arabic that translates “bush”, as in the vegetation kind. It’s either a tall tree or a small tree. Of course my Iraqi Counterparts would be in disbelief if they saw some of the tree’s back home. In the Iraqi Chow Hall there are posters of various places around the world, all green and lush, none of the desert. In the movie Lawrence of Arabia, Prince Fiesal tells Lawrence that Arabs love trees and water, not the desert. I have a few pictures of back home, I may print one off for them. They sometimes ask me where I’m from…”Florida…LA…Washington?” They don’t know I have a Southern Accent. The other day we explained some Southern English to the Translators, they seemed to get a kick out of it.

Translators. I don’t know what we would do without them. They live a dangerous life…if it’s found that they work for the Americans they will be killed. Some won’t give you their real name, only a western nick name. Our Interpreters have a pretty good set up. It’s safer than going on patrols. They live on site and even have a day room with satellite TV.

The other night I saw a MEDAVAC Blackhawk go out being escorted by two Apaches. You don’t like to think of what someone is going through. Sometimes the phones are blacked out. That’s not good; it usually means someone was killed. No one yet has complained about a phone being blacked out. I don’t think anyone ever will. Someone’s going to get a knock on the door. Dealing without being able to call home for a few hours is not a problem.

Whenever you watch the news and you see that an American/Coalition Soldier has been killed, know that many more Iraqi’s are being killed. You only see and hear the dramatic stories, not the assassinations, or the bomb that wasn’t as big as the other one. This war is often paralleled with Vietnam, and in some cases eerily so. But, those who focus on deaths are wrong. Far more were killed in the same amount of time in Vietnam that we have been in Iraq. The Vietcong and NVA were good…Damn good. I wouldn’t credit our advanced force protection alone. Simply, this is not as intense as Vietnam. In Vietnam we concentrated on body counts. What kind of Government does it have now? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

To make a long story short I lost the 19D from my Escort Team. I had a young E-5 shooting for a Commission, but, he has to resubmit his packet. It didn’t look like I was going to have him, so I didn’t even mention him in my post about it. So, I had three guy’s, not including myself. It looked like I would be stretched thin…The Lord heard my prayers. I picked up two extra NCO’s to go on the team. One is from Puerto Rico and knew some of the places I had been. He told me Salinas, the little town outside of Camp Santiago had not changed much, but was “better”* since I was there.(You hear that Twister?) I would really like to see what it’s like now. The other is from Trinidad. Yeah, he’s got the cool accent and I really enjoy the guy.

I’ve had people ask me about Wildlife here. I’ve seen some birds by beautiful Lake Taji. I’ve also caught glimpses of the Phantom Dog. It’s not quite the size of a Feist. I ‘ve only seen it from the torso back. All way’s crossing a road. I’ve also seen other wild Dog’s. Hopefully one day soon I will be able to stop at beautiful Lake Taji and get a few pictures of the birds.

I get a kick out of this…My Mother sent me some news paper clippings from home. Someone broke into a convenience store and stole some things. He’s on $10,000.00 Bond. You know what he stole? Four packs of cigarettes and a lighter.

*I failed to ask how it was better…You ought to go find out, Twister!

I’ll have another post in a few day’s, so tuned for more Appalachian Patria!
The Appalachianist

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28 Comments:

Blogger Gun Trash said...

Goodness, two posts in one weekend! You're getting to be a regular war correspondent, AI! :-)

Seriously though, it's good to see you get some computin' time now and then and not out there on duty dodging the locals on the autobahn.

2:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes...I remember it as if it were yesterday. That is where I acquired the "airborne basketball" that I still have. I jumped back into Benning withit in my ruck sack. It is the same ball that, as a E-5 in Charlie was going up for a lay up with it, he was struck in the head by a water balloon fired from a 3-man slingshot team 2 buildings over and called in by us "spotters" (I provided the commo gear (2 motorolas) from commo shop. It was perfect. You remember that don't you Dan?

6:28 PM  
Blogger Hill Billy Rave said...

AGT, It helps to have a lap top and a memory stick to get posts in.
Thanks.
In other words I was Spot Blogged, Murf.
Twister, AKA, Twistoli, No. I remember hearing some about that, but, I was too busy working my ass off. I sure would love to go back to Salinas though. Those Motorolla's sucked. It was the beep. Beep Beep Beep. Here, batteries are not ran all the way down and they go dead early.

8:28 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah they sucked but they were handier than those PRC6's (handheld). I wonder if they still suck. Yeah, I know you were always busy. That sgt. of yours didn't let you out enough but you did get out every chance you got.

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