Slow news day

Waited around most of the day (yes, it called "hurry up and wait") and then had a Kurd teach us how to say "Drop your weapon", "I am going to search your car", and "Put your hands in the air" in Pashtun and Dari. Good stuff.

Two guys...

The two officers who bunk on my right and left. Good guys, both stationed in Japan.

Weapons

Two guns and alot of other stuff-- cleaning kits, extra magazines, slings, two holsters, etc...

Group Livin'

Typical morning.

Bag Drag

Sorting through all the gear and making sure we have everything. Finally my bags arrived.

Mountain Dew commercial

A common inspirational tactic in the military goes like this: prior to a large unit briefing show a video or photo montage of Soldiers or Airmen in Iraq and Afghanistan—usually a mix of handheld video camera shots of either things exploding, guns being discharged, depleted uranium shells from an A-10 strafing pickup trucks, or people walking around in full “battle rattle.” The default is for this to be played to a loud soundtrack of heavy metal, or some other sort of fast, aggressive music. Some of the video is harrowing—IED’s hitting a convoy, sometimes shot from inside the stricken vehicle. This technique has always seemed to resonate with a large portion of the crowd at these briefs—stimulating enthusiastic exclamation. This was the case when I saw this stuff at Wright-Patterson, Maxwell, and Nellis. At the start of the welcome brief today they had one of these running—a video montage of trainees engaging in all sorts of high speed training activities (heavy metal) and then later a video of course graduates who went to Iraq to work as trainers with the Iraqi police (hint: they walk and drive out on patrol with Iraqi police in Baghdad). It was a stark video — heavily armed man in body armor walking and smiling through scenes of urban chaos alternating with shots of smoking craters, bullet riddled cars, and soldiers posing for photos with small Iraqi children. The crowd was pretty silent, which is a notable comparison to how people react back at a base in the theater. It was the first time that I really felt the undercurrent here—that a lot of these Airmen (and Airwomen) feel that their pending piece of war may not be like a Mountain Dew commercial.