Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken

Are you singing with me? Need it in English? My hat it has three corners, three corners has my hat...

Ha! Now it's stuck in your brain.

This is 2nd hand information, having gotten it from the Squid, who got it from Nano (Maria-lynn and Daniel, respectively), that 2SCR will be "feet on the ground" in Germany by mid-October. This is a whomping 2 months from the last tenative date we heard.

The good news is perhaps he can enjoy a smidgen of Oktoberfest. The bad news is the likelihood of being stop-lossed just went up by a factor of 2 months.

We'll wait and see. There is an election, the possibility of even more hot spots erupting into conflict and the remote chance we all call everything off on account of gas prices and spend the next five years dipping our toes in our kiddy wading pool.

Movie Review

We went to see Wall*e on opening day. Yes, we got the free watch. If you want one, hurry on down to your local theater because these limited edition souvenir time pieces are only available if you see the movie on the opening weekend (to boost numbers clearly). They are equisitely crafted pieces of plastic, big enough to fit on your Tickle Me Elmo's arm, and guaranteed to stop working if it even should *look* like rain. Don't say I didn't warn you.

And so what does a clean up robot (I hope I'm not spoiling the plot here) have to do with Daniel's blog? We sat in an air conditioned theater and ate popcorn. It was nice. Saturday morning Daniel called. It had been 120 that day and the 5 year old generator on the COP is not doing well. In order to keep air conditioning in the housing area, they are not allowed to use the microwave and the water heaters are also not to be used. All showers are cold. All food is too.

He also said that as they were leaving for their mission, they had no water; it hadn't been delivered yet that day, so they were scrambling to find a few old bottles of some sort of soda to keep hydrated with.

Our world of cool theaters and leisure time to watch movies is so far flung from what he's doing, but what he and the other guys are doing does, and has done since the beginnings of our country, made my life possible.

Thanks guys - sending cool, wet thoughts your way. Keep safe and hydrated.

Another perspective

http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/27/1172850.aspx

An egg on the sidewalk

Woof! Have you noticed the temperature? It was predicted to be 119 on Friday. I haven't heard from Daniel in a couple of days, but if I were he, when not at work, I would be lying on my bunk in the air conditioned barracks.

Maria Lynn said he called her, but the line got fuzzy and dropped. It probably overheated :)

Ho Ho Ho

We've been thinking about Christmas here lately; we're living in the presents [rim shot]. 2SCR is supposed to be back in Vilseck for Christmas and we've been making arrangements for visitations.

This morning there was an IED death in Ba'qubah which I had to add to the blog honor roll. How often do you read reports of a soldier's passing, weeks away from their end of deployment? There is of course no great time to end your life, other than peacefully in your sleep, surprising everyone because you're 98 and still amazingly healthy, but with so much hope and anticipation it seems particularly cruel.

My prayer for today is that for each of the families who has an 2SCR soldier representing it, there are presents underneath your tree and a joyful soldier to enjoy them with you.

AP Story snippet

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A female suicide bomber struck near a government compound northeast of Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 15 people and wounding 40, police said. At least 21 suicide attacks have been carried out this year by women.

The bomber detonated her explosives in front of a heavily guarded area that includes the courthouse, the post office and the governor's offices in the city of Baqouba, a police officer said.

The 15 killed included seven policemen, the officer said, giving the casualty toll on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

-------

There were no US injuries.

Popcorn and a soda

Daniel has been absent from the phone or Internet for a couple of days, so no news is ... well, no news.

The advance, advance, advance party for whichever unit is going to replace them wandered through a few days ago. I am guessing the reaction was, "Yup, there's a lot of sand."

Daniel says his orders are till November 1st, but he holds with the mental conviction they may be there longer. It's sort of like the tribulation debate, which comes down to be prepared for a post-millenium tribulation and pray like heck it's a pre-millenium rapture. If that doesn't make any sense, write me and I'll explain.

Browsing Stryker News this morning, I followed the link on a story about a DVD premiered at Ft. Lewis. It documents the battle for Ba'qubah, which was one of the fiercest in Iraq during the surge. The reason 4-2SCR has a relatively quiet assignment is because the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry, in the words of Bill Pullman in Independence Day, plowed the road!

http://www.nwguardian.com/103/story/3410.html If you have AKO secure access (you're a solider basically), the program is viewable on Stryker News; pull up a root beer and a batch of Orville's finest and enjoy!

Sometimes I forget

I pray for Daniel, his buddies, and others I know who are serving.

I talk to Daniel and covet the time he has on the phone or by IM, but sometimes it serves as a smoke screen to cover what I know he is doing. It's good to not forget.

Hansel Hadams

From the lens of my aspiring photo journalist.

Now you see it, now you don't

Daniel wasn't pleased with the posting about how cute he was, so I pulled it down. Sorry if you didn't get to enjoy it more.

Keeping with the "all grown up and saving China" motif of this blog, I'll offer instead an article link describing what they are doing in Ba'qubah.

Sensless?

The majority of their missions involve knocking on doors and asking, "Sunni or Shiia?" I wonder what the rate of obfuscation is and whether there would be a purpose to disguising data.

He said they were just doing "census." I asked if there was an "L" in there.

I am grateful, despite my cynicism. Knocking on doors should be a far sight safer than kicking in them.

This article pinpoints why they currently have the ability to conduct this census. The troops who have been in Diyala prior to Daniel et al's arrival have done some really tough work. Kudos to all contributors to that effort.