War in Iraq, a Soldier's View

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07-Apr-03 9:23 PM

Excellent news today, we got a warning order that we’re going moving back to Camp Doha, for de-mobilization!

It’s not for sure, I think the reason that we got the warning order was something about the Colonel getting and E-mail about us going home. I don’t want to get too excited, the order to go home if it exists may not have us leaving for another month, but it would still be nice to have a definite date that were going home. The odds are pretty good too, all of the last warning orders I’ve gotten have eventually gone through. First the order to be deployed, then the order to go to Arifjan, and then the order to move into Iraq. This will be the first good warning order we’ve gotten.

When SGT. Slocum called us aside for a detachment meeting, I had a bad feeling. It seems any time we get a “Detachment Meeting” we seem to get screwed somehow, that’s probably why I’m so apprehensive about believing the order to go home. But it’s still hard not to start planning on going home. We’ve all be thinking what we’d do when we finally go home, it’s probably the most discussed subject that we have here even before the warning order.

I’m wondering when I’ll tell my family (assuming the orders come through of course); I was going to call today because the guys that are letting us use the phone are moving out. Now I don’t want to call because I don’t want to tell the family till I’m sure I’m going home, and it would be too hard to talk about other things if I call now. How can I discuss how much I want to go home when I can’t tell them that there is a possibility of it coming true soon?

But on the other hand what if the orders don’t go through? Then the guys with the phone will leave so I’ll be cut off from the family until we can get another phone line here. What I’m hoping will happen is that the orders will go through and I can call at Camp Doha. I was originally thinking of calling once I was back in the US and springing the news on them then. The process of going home will take a week or two if things go smoothly, it can take a month or more if things go poorly, so is it worth having them know I’m coming home and getting their hopes up then me not showing up for another month?

I guess I better just wait till we know we’re going home for sure before I start worrying about things like that.

In local news everything is still the same, we got conformation to cannibalize a Humvee that was in a head on collision and so we started pulling parts off. It was amazing how quickly other units found out the Humvee was being taken apart. They started coming like vultures and claiming parts for themselves. We had to keep telling officers that they had no jurisdiction to tell us what parts to give them. The vehicles in our bone-yard took priority and a few others that had priority got first dibs. One guy was from St. George, Utah and I talked to him about what they needed. Apparently one of their Humvees had broken down on the trek from Kuwait and needed a new Differential. They were moving forward with the 82nd airborne but they had fallen behind due to the broken vehicle and the 82nd was already two jumps ahead. We started taking apart the drive train on the Humvee to get the needed part out but then some 82nd soldiers came up and told them to get the Humvee ready to be towed, they couldn’t wait any more for them to move.

It makes me think about us moving again; as me and Patterson were driving around to go to the gas point I noticed that a lot of convoys were getting ready to move out, but I’d bet good money that most all of them were moving forward. When we got to the gas point we found them dismantling everything, the guys said that they were moving forward in two hours. What if there was a miss communication? Maybe we’re getting a warning order to move forward with every body else, now that the 183rd is moving up here they don’t need us here anymore, maybe a small maintenance unit 100 miles further into Iraq is what they need. (Edit to Add: This last sentence shows that I can predict the future!) Or maybe the order to go to Doha is because all the Maintenance units have left there and they need us to come back and make repairs in the rear. On second thought that’s not very likely, they have all those civilian contractors back there to do the work for the units left behind. Not the Kabals though, maybe we’ll end up in one of those (I’m not superstitious but it can’t hurt to knock on wood).

They’ve been clearing areas around here for what looks like tents like they had back at Camp Arifjan; but only enough to hold about a thousand soldiers. I wonder how much force will stay here in Iraq. They say they want to get the country handed back over to the Iraqi’s as soon a possible and this is a pretty major airbase for the Iraqi’s. I’d think that they’d want it back eventually to rebuild their new air force, the area needs major refurbishing but if the US lifts embargoes and starts trading oil I’m sure the Iraqi government will be able to afford it.

Some times I think about what's going to become of this country. Will a change of government make much difference, and how much? Kuwait is rich enough to pay its citizens a yearly salary just for being alive. There’s a big gap between the rich and the poor but most Kuwaiti citizens are very well off and the government has plenty of money to throw around. If Iraq gets as powerful and rich will the US still trust it? I guess the economy won’t be that great because there isn’t much to export here except oil, so they’ll never get as big as the US; but they’ll still have tons of money.

Maybe that’s Bushes big plan; he’s not making a new trading partner, he’s making new customers for the US.