Henry's Web Log

I had the opportunity to recon some of our posts within Basra recently. It was a great opportunity to see what it’s really like outside of our COB, how the Iraqis are doing, and how the real soldiers are living!



In the photo below, you can make out the edge of the Euphrates river, Shat Al Arab, in the background.


In this shot, the cockpit glass is a little foggy, but you can see serveral homes and brick businesses in the dry dirt just yards away from the river.


Further away from downtown Basra, there were lots of mud huts. Shepards, canoes in the canals, dry fields, and a sparse lifestyle that could have been the same centuries ago.

Through a stroke of good timing, good luck, and my recent promotion, I’m now in a Containerized Housing Unit (CHU, pronounced “chew”). Actually, with the living space as tight as it is in Basra, even colonels share quarters. CPT Murray is bunking with me, but he’s on leave this month, and may be starting a new job next month, so we’ll see how it shakes out. This is living space Version 9.0 for me, and I’ve been warned that I’ll move again within Basra.
In the mean time, I’m getting used to sleeping with more than 18” of overhead clearance compared to the Stonehenges I’ve been in since arrival. My first Stonehenge was even more sparse.
Lest you think there’s not much going on here except me constantly packing up and moving my stuff, it has been extremely busy lately. We’re building new facilities all over the base, and getting a huge volume of convoys.
With the handover of the base from UK forces to US control, we’re adding additional dining space (and deep fryers), more fuel capacity (for our great big SUVs and tactical vehichles), a larger PX (for spending all our money), new finance and postal buildings, new air passenger terminal facilities, more parking, and just about anything else you could think of! The maintenance team has doubled, and is about to get a lot bigger as US forces roll in.

The COB (Coalition Operating Base) is in full tilt expansion as the American forces are making ready to assume control from the British. UK forces have done a great job in Basra, and now we must keep up their momentum, and ensure that the Iraqis can peacefully exist, even thrive, without us. There's a lot that has to happen, though. We'll be living in Containerized Housing Units (CHUs) instead of tents, which offers nice privacy, and much better insulation against the heat and cold. Popular British jokes, that we laugh at too, include poking fun at us for building a bigger fuel farm to power our oversized vehicles, adding deep-fat fryers to the dining facilities, and putting in hamburger and pizza joints because we just can't eat enough in 3 meals a day. Plus midnight snack. Sooo true!

Here you see lots of CHUs being placed, over a setting, hazy sun.

I blogged previously about a fun run in Basra- well not to be outdone, ACI’s Laureen Fleming has entered herself, her husband and her best friend in a TRIATHALON!
Way to go, Laureen! And thanks to Anne Clelland, we enjoy your blog and the recent content you provided in Valley Business Front (it’s a real, honest-to-goodness print magazine that ran several pieces on blogging for business in its second edition). Now wouldn't you know it? Anne runs, too. Triathalons and any old whacked out race. She blogs on blogging, blogs about running, and runs on about other blogs. Now I've blogged too much.

Catch and Release: the Best Strategy for Sustainment
I've blogged before about how we call ourselves "Convoy Catchers" - carrying this analogy a little further, I'd like to apply it to a favorite pasttime: fishing!





Catch and Release, Convoy Style

• Land convoy as quickly as possible. Keeping exhausted drivers at the gate leads to bad AARs.


• Keep drivers on hand while removing the load. Avoid brusing the cargo or upsetting the protective gunner escorts.


• Release drivers back to the road only after they have been rested and fed. If necessary, firmly remind the CC of rest requirements.


• For missions so critical on time that connexes cannot be downloaded, emptied and returned the same night, download the connex, and put an empty back on; backhaul missions will eventually clear your yard of empty containers.


• In COBs, release convoys when medevac is green.


• Use one experienced NCOIC. Experienced NCOs make the mission easy by delegating jobs to each section with a ramp yard, MHE section, and customer waiting area.