We Al Asad-dwellers are in the middle of yet another hellacious dust storm which has lasted about a week, and have had a few power outages a day over that period (presumably related). When the power went down a couple of months ago, it wasn’t a huge deal; we would just move the functional clinic into the few rooms with windows, and we were back in business. Now that it is warmer, the power outages are a bit more problematic, as the temperature begins to rise rapidly and within an hour of the A/C going off, the buildings become almost uninhabitable.

We sat in the dark in a swelteringly hot clinic today when the lights went off at around 2 PM. After about an hour, the temps inside had to have been 90-plus. We kept the clinic open, but the patients slowed down to a trickle, so I sought a cooler location than my office, and ended up in one of the patient rooms, where I made myself at home on the exam table, inclining one side of the table and laying back on the butcher paper. I popped my ipod in my ear, and put on a good audiobook (”The Long Ball” by Adelman) and listened for a few minutes before the heat and the comfortable position put me to sleep.

I woke up about 15 minutes later in a pool of sweat, and noted that the lights were still out, and I could hear some shuffling down the hall. The medics were moving all of our vaccines into containers with ice, so they would not spoil in the currently-useless refrigerator. Another one of the problems that occurs when the lights go down. We stuck around until about 1630, when the lights came back on, and then we finished our notes and headed home.

Not a whole lot else to report to you from the Orange Zone today, but I would like to ramble aimlessly on one other topic. No Iraq content below, so feel free to check out here, if you wish.

Viva La Vida

In the seventies, when I was a kid, there weren’t nearly as many bands out there making music, but there were a lot more “supergroups”—the kind of rock group that can fill a huge arena, and for whom a new album release was a big event (Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, etc). Today, everyone and his little brother can “release” an album via the internet or iTunes, and they often do just that. As a result, there are thousands of “indie” bands, some of them excellent, some not-so-great (that part hasn’t changed). But a few supergroups remain, and one of those is Coldplay, a British group whose clean sound and artsy approach to music I have admired, but somehow have never quite “gotten into.”

Until now.

Coldplay’s latest album just came out this week (although through the magic of the internet plus a whole lot of patience, I had it a week ago), and is truly excellent. I’ll spare you the full-on review here, as you can read that elsewhere, but suffice it to say that Viva La Vida is a truly great album, start-to-finish. Added to Coldplay’s trademark top-notch production and instrumentation are some really great melodies, and an upbeat theme (”Live life to the fullest”) that runs throughout the ten seamless tracks. It has violins and cellos and pregnant piano chords, among other tricks (including, at one point, a full orchestra), all of which keeps things creative and interesting. Five stars from me, and something that I think even the dadster would like (though he might want to eat a Mento first).

[Note from your faithful editor: I tried to upload a song, streamable from this site, and will attempt again later, but for now the orange dust is gumming up the works and I barely got this much up. The band's official site (www.coldplay.com) allows you to listen to snippets, or watch a video.]

There is a statement, attributed by many to Winston Churchill, which goes something like this:

“If you are not a liberal when you are young, you have no heart; if you do not become a conservative as you get older, you have no brain.”

Now I know that a few naysayers have claimed that Churchill was unlikely to have uttered any such thing, and with this in mind I put rupard.org’s crack research team on the case. I am pleased to inform you that after five minutes of the most intense research ever conducted on this topic by someone living in a bulletproof plastic container, our editorial team can announce with a reasonably high degree of confidence the following: Some human being uttered some parts of this phrase, at some time. I’m not sure that the statement itself is entirely true, though, as many of the contributors to this blog (my friends Steve J and Steve A, to name only the “Steves”) tend towards the Obama side of things, and yet are fairly intelligent young men. And of course we have a few contemporary politicos on the conservative side of things who have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that they are, indeed, Not Quite Brilliant.

Those caveats aside, I have found the liberal-maturing-into-conservative pattern to be true in my life. When I first went to BYU in 1985, I took a “colloquium” class which combined English, History, Science, Psychology and others (help me here, Steve Jordan?) into one big, beautiful, multi-teacher course, in the Karl Maeser building. I spent hours every day attending those classes, and I loved every minute of it, as my intellectual curiosities were awakened, and I began to realize how exciting the pursuit of knowledge truly is. In discussing American History and deconstructionism and philosophy and new psychology, I became more and more convinced that the world was not as simple as Reagan’s speeches made it out to be. I remember feeling sad and a bit ashamed when I watched on TV as the United States dropped bombs on Grenada, while the rest of the people in the Helaman Halls commons room were whooping it up. By the end of the school year, I took the final step: I went to the Provo town hall and registered myself as a Democrat.

Then, I went on a mission.

I will spare you the excruciating details, but suffice it to say that during the time I spent with the actual human beings who lived on the United States’ side of the Mexican border, I saw the fallout of many government programs aimed at the poor people in that area, and I became convinced that Reagan’s mantra was indeed true: “Government is not the solution to your problems; government is the problem.” Many years later, though I am not a lock-step conservative (nor by any means a George W. Bush Republican), I still find that my voting patterns tend to follow a very simple pattern: whichever candidate wants to shrink the size and power of government is gonna get my vote. In these days in which both parties’ mantra seems to be: “Ask not what you can do for your country; ask what your country will do to help you pay for that house you had no business buying in the first place,” it can be difficult to find that “small government” guy. For the 2008 presidential election, it will come down to which of the candidates promises to expand government the least.

So why am I not a fan of government? Ohh, my friend, in asking me that question, you forget that I am smack in the middle of a $12 billion-per-month ($400 million per day) government project, of the largest kind.

In other words, let me count the ways:

Exhibit #1: Individual Body Armor

When I went through CRC (Combat Readiness Course) back in March, I was given a full set of body armor. We were informed that the four “plates” which are inserted into the outer jacket are about $600 dollars a piece, and thus we should try really hard not to lose them. During my time in Iraq, I have worn the complete set of body armor (”full battle rattle”) for exactly 2 hours, which not coincidentally is the exact amount of time that I have spent in airplanes here. Yesterday, I was fitted for an entirely new set of body armor, with “improved comfort.” I am happy to accept this $2500 gift from the taxpayers, and will certainly appreciate that added comfort level when I am boarding a plane in the opposite direction, for another two hours. What will happen to the old armor? They haven’t told us, but if I was a betting man, I’d say that an indefinite stay in a freshly-built storage bunker is in its future. Take THAT, you not-so-comfy life-saving device!

Exhibit #2: The ACUs

I also received four ACU uniforms at CRC (the new-fangled camouflage coats and pants which are required wearing for all Army types since last year). Two of these are fine, well-tailored, and look/feel good even when dusty and well-used. The other two started out that way, but after a couple of washes became dramatically smaller, wrinkly, and (most importantly) quite porous, meaning that they soak rather than repel my sweat, and really like to collect dust (which they immediately deposit on my person). A quick perusal of the tags shows me that the good ACUs and the bad ACUs were manufactured by different companies. How much would you like to bet me that the Army paid the same amount for both types?

Exhibits #3, 4, and 5: The Parable of the Bus, the Truck, and the Routes

Our clinic consists of 10 medics, two providers, one administrator, and three optometry staff—16 people, if you are keeping score. When I arrived at Al Asad, we had a pretty good setup for transportation: a truck (for hauling big stuff, picking people up from the airport, etc), and a bus. The bus could hold 20 people, and was useful for getting the whole crew out for lunch, physical fitness training and tests, and was the sole means for transporting our entire unit of medics in the event of a mass casualty—ostensibly our main reason for being here. One month ago, the Powers That Be at Al Asad decided that we (among many other units) do not need a bus. Upon investigating this in an unsuccessful bid to get the Base Command to make an exception for our clinic, I discovered some interesting things about these modes of transport.

The ubiquitous Mitsubishi buses cost the DoD nearly $5000 a month to lease and maintain, including $1000 to get the oil changed, and a minimum of $1000 for every service call. We would be hard-pressed to go 100 miles in a month in the thing (our living area is a square mile), which leaves the cost at a cool 50 bucks per mile. And the truck? $2800 per month. (And not even a manual transmission!) There are literally thousands of these trucks all over Iraq, most of them leased from the same Iraqi, Kuwaiti, or Saudi companies. Does it seem to you, as it does to me, that it would have been cheaper for the DoD to have simply shipped a few thousand Chevys over here, and had our (extremely bored) uniformed mechanics maintain them? Too easy, apparently. But the story does not end there.

The idea behind de-busing all of Al Asad was that our base can get by with fewer buses if the current bus routes are expanded, and some of the “confiscated” buses are placed in the public pool, thereby reducing the wait time to catch one of these buses. Not a terrible idea on the face of it, but when the bus routes came out, it turned out that they forgot to put either our Troop Medical Clinic (the busiest medical facility on post) or the Combat Surgical Hospital on the bus routes. Yes, they did have stops that were “near” the aforementioned medical facilities. But it turned out that this “nearness” was only “as the crow flies.” The new stop “near” the TMC was only about 100 yards away if one could take a direct route, but unfortunately there are two workyards in between said bus stop and our clinic, both of which require specific passes for entry, and neither of which has a back gate. So the prospective patient who comes to see us with, say, a swollen ankle, or nausea and vomiting, or (gosh forbid) diarrhea, would have to walk a quarter mile to get to us. If the unfortunate soldier/marine needed to be transferred to the Hospital, well he would just have to limp his sorry, hospital-bound butt back to the bus stop, onto the bus (hope he’s not contagious!) then past stops at two mess halls, the stadium, the gym, and the PX to get to his final destination, the post office, which is a mere quarter-mile away from the CSH. Previously, we would have loaded this guy onto the bus and taken him directly to the hospital ourselves.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Lest you think our situation is more dire than it is, I should make you aware that we have had some windfall after all of this bad news. A week ago, our commander in Balad learned of our transportation problems and, bless his soul, he sent a truck out to us which arrived Saturday. It is not an open-bed truck, but it is transportation. However, we still need more transport and are currently in the position of begging the Iraqi army (across post from us) to let us “steal back” one of the Hummers that the US so kindly gave to them earlier this year. They actually have some extras that they aren’t using, but we haven’t been able to negotiate a deal yet, as they are quite aware that they presently hold all of the cards. Good news, though: word on the street is that our latest offer (500 Crystal Light packets, a couple boxes of Marlboros, a carton of Wet Ones ["the rich man's baby wipe"], and a bag of Diana T’s biscotti) is being seriously considered. Cross your fingers!

As I conclude this sarcastic little missive, I sit in the dark, for the third time in the past hour, and the fourth time today. To paraphrase longtime Cubs’ announcer Haray Caray: “400 million dollars a day, and they can’t keep the lights on!” No worries though: any moment now I expect someone will emerge from the darkness to knock on the door of my darkened trailer and utter those inspiring words: “I’m from the government and I am here to help.”

I am sitting, happy as a clam in my little plastic shell. It is 11:21 PM, and I have a rare opportunity tonight to watch a live Red Sox game—a day game to you, but late-night for me. I won’t make it through the whole thing. Probably won’t want to: Tim Wakefield and a Manny-free, Ortiz-less Sawx versus Edinson Volquez probably spells “L” for my boys. Still, with my Crystal Light lemonade on the desk next to my bed (thanks Barry and Ellen!), and my Maranatha Almond Butter (thanks mom and dad) and some Ritz Crackers, and life is just good. A few topics to write about this week, in no particular order:

Friendly Crustaceans

Today is the Army’s birthday (233rd, I believe), and we celebrated today with a grand feast for lunch. The menu included prime rib, breaded shrimp, Martinelli’s sparkling grape juice, and lobster tails. These were not some mini one-ounce tails, or chunked/formed lobster meat. They were nice, big six-to-eight ounce babies, and they gave us two of them each. You could negotiate more, too: the big dude in front of me in line ended up with about six after sweet-talking the Iraqi server for a few seconds. Not too shabby. They tell me that the 4th of July will be an even bigger, better meal. You’ll read about it here first.

Mine Tastes Like Leukemia…

The water here is getting worse and worse tasting. Here’s the dilly: I have mentioned in the past that we drink bottled water all of the time, and that the bottles are kept in big pallets on street corners throughout Al Asad. Well, as the weather gets warmer, those bottles get really, really hot during the day, and I think the heat causes some of the chemicals which make up the bottle to leach into the water, which makes it taste kind of like drinking hospital air. Because of this, when new water bottles are put out (distinguishable by the lack of a dusty sheen on the plastic wrap), all of us scramble to get the “fresh” ones, sometimes digging deep into the pile to pick out a less-tainted twelve-pack. But we often have to make do with the funky water, so we flavor the stuff with Crystal-Light-type mixes or Gatorade powders (supplied by the DFAC), which does indeed cover up the bad taste. Still, one has to wonder how much DNA is being damaged with every chemical-laden sip.

A Rush Of Blood To The Noggin

Today while playing some basketball on a very small half-court, I had a head-on-head collision with SPC Hert who is a big, muscular guy. Both of us saw stars for a moment, and I felt a bit wobbly afterwards for the rest of the game. Later, as I was taking a shower, I felt the big mushy lump over my right temple where Hert’s nose had bashed into me. I continue to feel a tiny bit nauseous, and a tad Alzheimery, and wonder if I may have been slightly concussed during the collision. Don’t worry, mom: if I have any symptoms tomorrow, I’ll get checked out by a doctor. (Other than myself.)

Russert

I’m surprised at how sad I am about the sudden death yesterday of Tim Russert, the “Meet The Press” guy. I’m not usually much affected by the death of “celebrities.”However, if you have read this blog much, you probably know that I am a political junkie, and thus have been “watching” (podcasting, actually) Russert’s show for many years. I liked Russert quite a bit—he seemed to have a genuine “everyman” quality about him. As opposed to many of the talking heads, he went after politicians on both sides equally and fairly. In flipping through the channels tonight, I saw tributes to Russert from people ranging from Dick Cheney to Barack Obama—political polar opposites if ever there were any. Sunday mornings (afternoons here) haven’t been the same since David Brinkley died; Russert’s untimely demise will have a similar effect, and of course his passing at such a young age (58) is truly a tragedy for his family members. My heart goes out to them.

Well, that’s all I’ve got tonight, kids. Wakefield is holding his own against the whiz kid, with the Sox having somehow eked out three runs against Volquez (wild pitch, error, string-o-singles), and the Sox leading 3-1 in the sixth. See you tomorrow!

Today at around 1 PM, as I sat in my clinic typing up a note, I got a call from COL Gober, who works at the CSH. He is a Urologist, and the Chief of Surgery there, and recently took care of one of my soldiers who had a kidney stone. But this call was not about medicine; COL Gober had heard that I was Al Asad’s mad biker, and he wanted to ride the big loop with me. Today.

The problem was: I had already done the 14-mile loop around post at 5:30 this morning. And at 6:00 last night. If I agreed to go, this would be my third trip in the last 24 hours. But I did want to do something aerobic this afternoon, to work off some of the rice krispy treats which I scarfed last night (see below), so we made plans to meet at 4:30.

By sometime around 3 PM, I realized that agreeing to go was a mistake. I felt exhausted, dehydrated, and just downright pooped out. Too late to back out now, though, so at 4:15, I donned my gear (geeky spaceman goggles, geekier red bicycle helmet, and “Camelbak” water pouch), and headed out the door.

COL Gober is a gregarious man from northern Georgia. Like many urologists, and many southerners, he has a natural friendliness about him, which immediately disarms people. The very first time I met him (just a few weeks ago) he introduced himself and then immediately launched into a story about how he had once run for a local political office. “My campaign slogan,” he said, “was ‘If you’re sober, vote for Gober.’ I did not win that election. Now, what does that tell you about the American voter?” Good point.

We met by the CSH front gate, and started our journey around the loop, going slowly enough so that we could talk as we rode. I learned about how he started his practice many years ago in Tiger, Georgia, and now had seen 8000 different patients from that area. I also learned that this is COL Gober’s fifth deployment, and that he has been in just about every country in the middle east. At one point, a big truck passed us, and he stood up on his bike and rode after it like a crazy man, trying to keep up. The sight of this National Guard COL—dressed in full Army PT gear with legs skinnier and whiter than mine, pointing madly at a big fuel truck and trying to run it down on a bike—made me laugh out loud. And he laughed too. We cruised around the loop, and on the way home he took me by his canister to give me a replacement inner tube for the one I blew last week.

It was at the COL’s canister that I realized just how lucky I have been here. My can is 10 x 20 feet, is quite new and clean-appearing, has a remote-control air conditioner which can be made to recirculate during a dust storm, and is generally a decent, if none-too-glamorous place to live. COL Gober’s can was smaller (8 x 17, he tells me), old, dirty, and equipped with a standard window A/C, which clearly spewed a lot of dust into the room. Most of the doctors at the CSH have this same arrangement. Then and there, I vowed not to complain about my can again. As I sit in here now, I note that my trailer is clean, cozy, and very comfortable. Although I have no family here with me, I am nonetheless constantly surrounded by reminders of my kids, my sweet wife, my mom, dad, brother, sisters, and my friends out there who have sent me pictures, treats, magazines, books, DVDs. All of these things allow my humble abode to seem somewhat homey, which I’ve realized for me is crucial. I can get through just about any bad day (or days) if I know that at some point, I will be able to get into my own clean, private, well-lighted place, talk with the people I love, and sleep in a bed with cool, clean sheets.

————

Rupard Mailbag

Over the past two days, I have received four packages, each one of them truly amazing. Barry and Ellen Rupard (of Shrewsbury, Mass) sent me two massive boxes, which included (but were not limited to) the following bounty:
- About 1000 drink mixes, Crystal Light style. These are absolutely essential out here, as the water varies a bit in its palatability, and one has to drink a lot of it if one is to stay upright in the heat.
- Ankle-high socks. Socks get destroyed out here pretty quickly, a result of constantly having sand in our boots, and the fact that we all sweat profusely in the heat.
- A bunch of issues of The Sporting News. I have read through all the baseball and football stuff in most of these, and my medics are now working through them.
- A magnesium light. Essential around here, as we are blacked out at night.
- A bunch of nacho cheese doritos and cheese-it packages. I am rationing these out to myself veerrrry sloooowly.

So a big thanks to Barry, Ellen, Molly, and Sam Rupard for your kindness.

Packages also came from Lorri and the kids: but parts of this I have not opened yet, as they are for Fathers Day. I did, however, dig into the chocolate chip cookies (homemade and survived the trip very well, I must say), and the Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Treats (hereafter PBRKTs). I scarfed down a good third of the PBRKTs within five minutes of opening the package—my first pig-out session in a long, long time, and boy, did I enjoy it. Thanks Lorri and kids! I’ll Skype you when I open the card and the rest of the stuff on Sunday.

A final package came from mom and dad. Mom had requested a list of items I wanted, and I sent her a long list, thinking she could send me a couple of those things. Instead, she sent all of them: Kudos bars, almond butter (I ate that tonight on some Ritz Crackers with just happened to come into the PX while I was shopping a few days ago), some of the salt-and-pepper micropop that I love so much, a big three-pound canister of jelly bellies (woo-hoo!) and two precious boxes of Propel strawberry-kiwi flavored drink mix. I’m enjoying some of that now, and all I can say is: “kiwi-licious.” Thanks mom and dad! Dad, you have a Father’s Day present coming from me, so put that under your Father’s Day tree until Sunday.

I have mentioned in passing that we had some more flying sand this weekend. Although I think this blog had a bit of “sandstorm overload” initially, it’s been a while since I perseverated on this topic, and I have some new pictures for you.

Over the three-plus months that I have been here, I have noted that Al Asad sandstorms come in three different flavors. The first is the “mellow” kind which happens at least a couple of times a week, wherein the trees on main street sway to the southeast and enough brown dust flies up to make it very uncomfortable to be outside without wearing some of the nifty wrap-around goggles which the Army provided us upon deployment. (Or, even better, my geeky spaceman goggles, courtesy of Panoptyx corp and my own hard-earned $300.) This type-1 storm is happening outside even as I write this, and is fairly benign, usually passes by in a few hours, or overnight. It does ground planes, though.

The second type of storm is much more dramatic. The trees are bent sideways, tables and bus stops blow over, and a big massive sandbank slouches towards Al Asad, eventually climbing over, under and into all things. We have had about four of these since I have been here, with the first one I experienced being the worst, a total blackout. These leave a hefty layer of dust everywhere, and keep us all coughing like John Keats for a week or so.

This weekend, we had a storm of the most rare, third type, in which the air turns a truly bizarre bright orange color. There is a Grateful Dead song called Scarlet Begonias, and its storyline goes something like this: Boy meets girl. Boy loves girl. Boy loses girl. Boy has a psychedelic trip and forgets all about girl. In the last verse, the protagonist can’t help but notice that “the sky was yellow and the sun was blue.” Well, with sandstorm type #3, the sky is in actuality orange, and the sun…well, it’s not even visible.

Some snapshots of our “all-orange-all-the-time” storm this weekend:

This is a view of the corridor outside of our cans, where the showers, trash, and water pallets are located. I am standing about 10 feet away from the bathrooms in front of me. The time is 11 AM.

These are the force-protection barriers about twenty feet in front of me. Gives you an idea of the density of this dust.

This hearty marine braved the storm without any protective gear. I had him take a picture of me in my geek goggles, but it didn’t come out right.

I’m not sure what causes the type-2 storm to be brown and just plain ugly, and type 3 to be orange. Perhaps one type of wind stirs up a certain type of dust (i.e., only the lightest stuff on top)? Or maybe these storms are all the same, but some natural phenomenon (the angle of the sun, maybe?) caused the air to take on this hue. Either way, this put a bit of a damper on my sabbath, and though I have to admit that I debated whether or not to go out to church and risk eye, skin and respiratory badness, not to mention grit in all of my pores for the next week (showers notwithstanding), in the end, I had to go because I was teaching the lesson. When I walked in the back door and our group leader Manny Diaz saw me, he breathed a sigh of relief. There were five of us in attendance.

After church, I took advantage of the fact that I had the clinic truck, and that I was pretty sure no one would be needing at, as no one would want to go outside. At 2 PM, I drove around post a bit. By this time, some of the dust had settled, but the wind was still whipping a lot of it around. Some pix from that little excursion:

The main road on Al Asad. As you can see, even four hours after the above pix, the visibility is still very poor.

To get an idea of how hard the wind was blowing at the time of this picture, take a look at the Mitsubishi emblem on the hood, bent over to the right by the full force gale.

We have been beset with wind and dust since Saturday night, which has resulted in a few of my friends from the departing Combat Surgical Hospital extending their stay here beyond their planned Sunday departure time. During the last few weeks that a particular unit is here, the new unit usually arrives, so that the handoff goes smoothly. The tradition is that as soon as the new unit arrives, they get the cans for their people, which means that the departing folks end up in tents, sleeping on cots, and with really no good place to put their stuff. In Kuwait, I slept in a tent for a few nights, and always felt pretty sheepish about leaving my laptop in there during the day. I would make rather lame attempts to hide it, but the reality is, anyone inclined to steal stuff could have wandered into one of those tents and done the deed pretty easily. In spite of this, things don’t tend to walk very much around this place.

So the CSH folks are getting a little extra “quality time” in Tent City as they await a decline in the wind and dust, so that their flight can get out. By the way: there has been no mail for the past four days, so if you have sent me something, it’s probably still on its way. I will do a Rupard Mailbag segment when the mail resumes (assuming I get something).

Got some info today which was welcome, but still very tentative: the big spreadsheet at the Brigade has my replacement named on it, and he is scheduled to hit CRC on 09 August, which means he should arrive here a couple of weeks later, and I would be able to get out to Kuwait and catch my “freedom flight” (I love that name) around the end of August, which is right on schedule. As always, I will not place my trust in the Army getting me home on a certain date until I am physically on the plane, but it’s nice to know that someone is in that slot. The thought of having completed my tour, and climbing onto a massive MD-11 leaving Kuwait is almost magical to me right now, and makes a certain late 70s bass line reverberate in my brain.

If you arrive and don’t see me
I’m gonna be with my baby
I am free
Flying in her arms
Over the sea