Against a wall in Baghdad

Over Baghdad

Convoy Humvee with .50 cal

Memorial Day

What I did Special for Memorial Day:

Cleaned my pistol.

Trip back from Tikrit

Helicopter ride from hell. Blacked out. [no lights on the helicopter - admin] We must have stopped at every Podunk LZ between Tikrit and Baghdad – it seemed to take forever. Sometimes we had some rough guys with us (you know, the bearded guys), sometimes regular Army, sometimes we were alone. Once we even slung a load (i.e., carried it in a huge sling beneath the aircraft). I swear to God, every time we came upon a high tension wire I thought it was going to snag the load and bring us down. We were so low that I could have told you what channel the TV was on in a house, except I was too scared to look

The last stop before Slayer was the IZ. Actually, it was just a soccer field and we were all blacked out at about 0400 in the morning – it was spooky. By now I couldn’t hear a thing from the constant engine noise inside the helo, but all of a sudden we felt this low rumble - sort of like you can feel when a diesel locomotive goes thundering by, but not nearly as loud. We looked out, but didn’t spot anything unusual until a minute later when a huge light grey mushroom cloud rose high enough to be seen above the buildings. A car bomb had exploded about a mile and a half away. It was spooky, moving against the background of city lights. I’d heard the Muj don’t like to fight at night, but apparently this one did.

When we finally arrived at base camp we were about an hour late and the ride I’d left had given up and gone home. After all that, we had to hump those dammed packs two miles from the LZ. I think I finally got to bed about 0600, and I slept all the way until past lunch.

A Letter to God

Dear God,

You suck. I miss my family and everything I do reminds me of them and you suck. I was running on the treadmill in the gym, because it’s the only place you’re allowed to use an MP3 player., when the song Cats in the Cradle came on. And I just started crying. That’s Jack, asking me to play ball with him. Or just to cuddle. How could I be so stupid? Now I’m so sorry for every time I ever said I was too busy.

This place isn’t worth it. It’s not ready for democracy. It’s full of fanatics who put ideology before people. They blow people up for an idea - they blow themselves up! The only reason I’d willingly give my life would be to protect my family or friends. And these people are neither.

Humvees on the road from Liberty

Tikrit

Tikrit is hotter and dustier than Baghdad. I can’t believe they have an Air Force officer doing this stuff! I thought I’d humped my last ALICE pack when I got out of the Corps.

I slept on the roof of an Iraqi house last night (this morning, actually). Because it’s so dry out here, roofs are like an extension of a house’s living space. They are all flat, with three foot (or higher) walls around them. Often there is even furniture or a TV, and maybe a potted palm or two. All in all, it’s a pretty smart use of the space, although it also provides the Muj a great place to snipe from.

We’re working with some pretty rough guys up here. The kind that have beards and carry all sorts of non-regulation weapons. It’s interesting, especially watching them in action via the Pred feed (Predador – one of those unmanned aerial vehicles). Of course everything they do is at night, so just when my system is getting over jet lag I have to screw it all up again.

Don’t get the wrong idea, I just help with the comms. I leave all the heroics to these guys, and am thankful that I can. But still, it’s gratifying to be so close.

Incoming

I was walking towards work this evening after dinner, listening to the sounds of a firefight outside the east wall. This one was a bit closer than those I’d heard before, but still not too close. It’s not that uncommon to hear firing, and often it’s just a wedding or some other celebration, so I didn’t think too much of it.

I couldn’t hear any Americans firing. Then all at once you hear a roar as we opened up, just like on the range, Pop pop pop, BAM! Pop pop. BAM!! Then the humvees of the base QRT (Quick Reaction Team) shot past, spreading dust everywhere. Another humvee pulled up next to me & the driver said “Get in, Major! Rounds are impacting over here!!” And although I didn’t see anything, from the sound of it all this was entirely possible. So I got in for a quick ride to the palace where we almost screeched to a halt, jumped out and ducked behind the sandbags barricading the front door. In a minute we were ushered inside by the guard.

As the palace is probable the safest place on the base, no one was allowed out until the shooting died down, which was about 15 minutes later. I heard afterwards that one American had been slightly wounded, but it turns out there were actually three soldiers wounded, including a female from my building who was cut by flying glass. And so that was my big adventure – and I didn’t see a thing.

The Sounds of War

War mostly sounds like a generator, constantly growling in the background. This is punctuated not infrequently by trucks or humvees roaring by, with their rattling diesel engines and shouting occupants. Lots of shouting. Helicopters often fly overhead at what seems to me to be dangerously low altitudes, with their whoop whoop whoop sound. Like jet fighters, they always come in pairs. It gets so you don’t really notice it any more, which is good, as I tend to walk along thinking about being at home with my family.

Only occasionally does one come across the sound of gunfire off in the distance. You can tell the M16s from the AKs because the M16s make a quick popping sound, while the AKs sound more like what you hear on an old TV Western. I have trouble distinguishing the newer M4 carbines from the AKs though because the M4 uses a more powerful bullet than the M16. And of course, you cannot but notice the slow blam, blam, blam of a .50 caliber. You know things are getting hot when you hear that.

Inside almost every building the sound is one of air whooshing, a white noise caused by the ubiquitous air conditioners – I don’t know how we’d ever be able to fight a war down here without AC. And, of course, the squawk of telephones and radios (I have three on my desk alone). It gets so that you want to just walk off somewhere and find some peace and quiet, except there is no peace here.

Forward Operating Base Slayer

Well, this is it. Home for the next 51 weeks. The FOB itself is located adjacent to Baghdad City, and covers most of a former Iraqi government complex. It’s surrounded by cinderblock walls topped with concertina, or dirt berms, in some places. Baghdad lies over the east wall, and it’s not uncommon to here shots from that direction, although they are mostly not aimed at us. Most of the buildings are either sandbagged or surrounded by really tall jersey barriers, to protect against shrapnel. The chow hall even has a sort of raised second roof, designed to ensure any rockets or mortars explode before they penetrate. It’s like living in an army movie.

Across the way there are a couple of large burnt out buildings, one of which is the “Victory over America” Palace. Kind of ironic, I suppose. Most of the buildings, however, have been rehabbed for our own use. My own office is actually in a second palace that was apparently used for meetings and special events. It has three beautiful rotundas, several huge chandeliers, and is almost entirely finished in marble (poor quality marble, but marble none the less). We have erected all sorts of antennas and satellite dishes on the roof, and partitioned the interior with plywood into a rabbit’s wren of offices, watch centers, ops cells, and other cubby holes. It’ll take a mint to put this place back together the way it was.

I sleep in a protected trailer with seven other guys, but it is partitioned into four separate rooms so it’s really only like sharing a bedroom with your brother. Except that you both have guns and ammunition, so you don’t want to piss each other off. The bathroom is about 30 meters away in another trailer, and the showers are next door to that. I look forward every morning to reading the new graffiti on the walls of the stall. Actually, its not so bad. Since my regular duty hours are 0900 until 2100 (9:00 pm), at least I miss the early morning rush on the showers.

Although there is an infantry battalion here, most of the place is taken up by various Intel units, like mine. We provide support to the Multi-National Force Commander, the Intelligence staff, 5^th Corps, and a couple of outlying units in Fallujah, Tikret, and the IZ (that’s the International Zone – what TV reporters call the Green Zone). My immediate headquarters is over in Camp Victory, which is a separate camp that I end up driving to almost every day, but it’s considered within the secure area. We use ¾ ton land rovers for driving on the base, land rovers or humvees for off base within the secure area, and armored humvees everywhere else. Most of the armored humvees have at least a machine gun mounted in the air turret (the gun position on the roof), sometimes even two or a 40mm grenade launcher. This used to be considered quite a hot area, but attacks have really tapered off since the beginning of the year when they deployed a reconnaissance blimp (called aerostat) with cameras that can pin point anything going on outside of the wire. So please don’t worry. Although you hear a lot of news about Baghdad, I am probably in one of the safer areas in Iraq.

That’s all for now – you guys stay safe and happy. I love you.

Mark

Anais's 8th grade dinner-dance

Anais missed not having Dad there to "drive her to school in style," for the "biggest thing ever" in her young school life.

Bush's victims

Kraig, I read what you said about your contempt for this government for placing our brothers, fathers, sons and sisters in harm's way. Don't forget - those in harm's way are wives and husbands, too. Yet, it is the children of those sent to fight who suffer the most - they are the silent victims of Bush's self-serving and misguided ideology. For them, there is no compensation for a missing parent. It is worst still for those who have completely lost a parent and return home in a box. It is our children who are really paying for this war. Our children.

Lisanne

Mounting up at Camp Liberty

Mark in Baghdad

Christians

Two things in the Stars & Stripes (Mideat Edition) stood out today. One was the appointment of conservative talk-show host Tony Snow as President Bush’s Press Secretary. While I applaud the Administration for bringing in new blood, I have to wonder whether the President has given up all pretense of being fair and impartial? Have you heard this guy?? All I can say is that the November elections won’t be here soon enough!!

The second item was an ad on page 7 titled “As a Christian in the Armed Forces, What Does Active Duty Mean to You?” Apparently, with only faith, a willingness to serve God, and minimal training, you too can become an “active duty missionary for Christ>’ Just what we need over here? Am I the only one who sees Christianity being one of the principle issues dividing the Middle East/North African nations from the West? I think I’ll wander over to the chapel to see if they have a Wiccan service.

Note to self: Next time pack a set of those tactical knee pads. I’ve already torn holes in the knees of two pair of trousers!

A Somber Trip In

Well, we finally departed Qatar on a C-17 bound for Ali Salem Airbase in Kuwait. It’s a hole. After stocking up on water and MREs we took off again for Balad (airfield east of Baghdad) where we had to drop some cargo before continuing on to Baghdad. Well, after being told that we’d be spending only 10 or 15 minutes on the ground at Balad because a C-17 makes a nice target for the mortars, we sat and sat and sat. An aircraft’s air conditioning is connected to the power generated by its engines, so when the engines are at idle you don’t get much air – you can imagine we were all frustrated and soaked to the bones with sweat. After about a half an hour the crew chief announced that we were waiting for some cargo to be delivered, and that we had been diverted south to Kuwait. Of course this resulted in numerous groans from the officers and worse from the enlisted.

By now the sun is going down. It goes down fast out here, so it seemed to get dark in no time. Twenty minutes later a civilian truck pulls up to the tail of the aircraft and opens its back door – there are two flag-draped aluminum coffins inside. Now everyone is quiet. We filed off of the aircraft, formed two lines, and watched in awe as soldiers from these guy’s units gently picked up the coffins and brought them into the cargo bay. We saluted, and the loadmaster tied them down with cargo straps. It was very somber.

A chaplain came aboard and led everyone in a prayer. Usually, I make it a point not to cross my hands or bow my head, but I did this time out of respect. Most people didn’t talk on the way to Kuwait, but I did get up to touch one of the flags.

The bodies were off-loaded in Kuwait in the same manner they were brought aboard, except in reverse order. Then we took off again for Baghdad, which almost seemed anti-climatic. As I recount this, it sounds like the beginning to an Oliver Stone movie, but this is the way it happened.

Twenty-six Steps

Twenty-six steps down the jetway and I am on the ground in the Middle East. Two hour layover in Bahrain. In typical military fashion, we flew over Iraq to get here. Everyone is herded into a large tent aith a pop machine (Arab Coke), a snake machine (Arab Reeces), and 2 large fans. Bahrain hasn’t changed much since I was last here in 1997. I remember this is where I heard Princess Diana had died. In fact, it may have been in the very tent. It already seems so long ago since that dark blue Air Force pick up truck picked me up in front of the house. I’ve been traveling for 28 hours and 15minutes now. Will this trip ever end??

At Qatar

Dateline: Qatar

I went running today. They have a quarter mile track bull-dozed out of the desert sitting just outside of the cantonment area they call Coalition Compound. Actually, accept for the fact that the track is mostly flat, it’s basically the same as the surrounding desert. It’s been a while since I ran in this kind of heat!! Luckily, there’s a fairly steady breeze that cools things down a bit.

The base itself is huge. Most of the structures are either tents or cheap looking trailers of corrugated aluminum. I live in a large tent shaped like an old Quonset hut with 38 other guys, mostly fire dawgs (firefighters). There are 19 wooden bunk beds, one light bulb, and an unplugged refrigerator in the corner – the billeting folks say we can’t use it because it’s a fire hazard.

Beside the hangers and workshops you’d expect for an air base of this size, there is a small BX (in a tent), a library with hardly any books, a 24-hour theater, and a chow hall (my tent is four tents away from being the farthest from the chow hall). Oh, and an all-night coffee shop where I go in the morning to read the gulf times and pretend that I’m at the Royal Oak Starbucks with Keith.

The bathrooms are all trailers set on 3-foot pilings for some reason. All of them have 2 large plastic water tanks in the back (I hesitate to imagine what the seond one is for), and most have a smelly brown puddle that creeps out from underneath, which I avoid.

Much of the cantonment area is covered with a whitish pea gravel in order to keep the dust down. This works well, but the trade off is that the reflected sunlight is absolutely blinding. I squint even with my sunglasses on. It’s 0645 and I’m in the library writing this before our day starts. The lines for the internet café are about an hour long, so I may not send this for a while. I received a really nice email from Lisanne yesterday. Tell everyone to write to my TRANSCOM account as all civilian emails seem to be blocked. Take care.

NOTE FROM ADMIN: Marks email now is: mark.binkowski@iraq.centcom.mil

Over Qatar

Altitude: 33,000 ft ASL
Airspeed" 514 MPH
Distance to Qatar: 733 Miles
Time: 0128 (1219 in St Louis)
Outside air temp: -22

I always hated traveling. For me, it was never about the trip itself,
but about getting there. The journey is slightly un-nerving when you're in
that in-between state where youv'e left one home but havent yet
established another. It's not quite so bad when your traveling with
your familiy and you can focus on the familiar faces, voices, mannerisms...
but it seems that the only think to do when you're alone is to focus
inward.

In Flight

World Airways Flight 8050 - somewhere over the atlantic

Numb.  I spoke to the family for the last
time from the USO phone in Baltimore.  Herd
aboard the plane - an MD-11.  Ironic, isn't it?
That I might have built the very aircraft that
is to carry me to war when I worked at McDonnell-Douglas
thirteen years ago?

Now the seats are filling with tan uniforms, mostly men,
but more women than I would have thought.  Average kids
from the neighborhood, or the small town... None look like
they would have grown up in Grosse Pointe. They are full
of false impressions, prejudices, and a sense of bravado,
even the women,  Some laugh, and I think that they're not
leaving behind  what I am.  These are the children America
sends to war.

Our children's debt

Well, at least we won't be paying the debt on this war - that's going to be for Natalie, Joe, Katie, Jack and maybe Anais. Way to fuck up their retirement Bush! Attaboy.

Lisanne

Message from Mom

Hey Major Major,

I can't stop thinking about you and trying to imagine what you're doing. My number one little boy, who was always playing army is really gone to Iraq. Whenever I hear the word Iraq I will think of
you. Whenever I look at the flag in our window I think of you. It is going to be a very long year.

I guess it is too soon for me to think of anything upbeat to say so I'll try again later.

I love you.

Mom

More

More Pics

Pics from Mark's last day at home

Leaving today

Packed last night. Leaving this morning. A sense of dread. We had a little birthday pie for Anaïs last night since I won’t be here for her real birthday. I gave Jack the fuzzy dice from my car to hold on to until I get back. Lisanne and I stayed up late because we both knew that once we went to sleep the next day would be here. And now it’s here.

I don’t want to say good bye. I don’t want to leave my family for a year. I love you all so much.

Lisanne, Guam, Bob, and Sophie

I want to tell you a story that illustrates why I love Lisanne so much. A couple of weeks ago a neighbor and I were cutting down a tree and we came across a squirrel’s nest. But not just the nest, there was a mommy squirrel and three itty, bitty, baby squirrels in there. They were so small that they didn’t have any fur and their eyes weren’t even open yet.

Well, when we cut into the hollow space where the nest was mommy squirrel got spooked and ran away (okay, “spooked” may be an understatement. She shot practically straight up into the air and literally flew past us – I never saw a squirrel move so fast). So I figured that I’d throw a tarp over the open nest to protect it and mommy would come back in a little while to move her babies. To tell the truth, I wasn’t so sure what mommy would do, and I didn’t really want anything to do with the squirrels, but it seemed too cruel to leave them there un protected with rain storms on the way. We get a lot of rain storms here.

Anyway, the next day, Lisanne was driving to school and noticed something on the grass. Mommy hadn’t come back, but one of the babies had fallen out of the nest and was lying in the grass. This was about a ten-foot fall, and I wasn’t to confident about his chances, but Lisanne asked me to bring all three squirrels inside and wrap them in a blanket. I have to admit, they all looked a little rough, cold, wet, and dehydrated. And so we became the proud parents of three bouncing squirrel babies.

We did some research on the web and found out that adapting orphan squirrels wasn’t so crazy as it seemed. Or, at least, that we weren’t the first to ever do so. We gave them a heating pad to keep them warm and Lisanne had to feed them with a dropper every couple of hours. With me getting ready to leave, a family to raise, and final exams just around the corner, Lisanne made room in her schedule and her heart. Eventually, they started to get bigger, and there really were kind of cute once their hair started to come in and they looked less like a naked mole rat. In fact, it was impossible not to fall in love with them. We named them Guam, Bob, and Sophie.

Unfortunately, first Guam, and then Bob passed on over the next several weeks. I don’t know what happened, as they seemed to be doing so well. They just seemed to get sick and started to have trouble breathing until they just stopped. Lisanne and Anaïs took their deaths pretty hard. They are buried on the side of the house. But the point of this whole thing is that Lisanne had the guts to try, to invest herself even when she knew the odds weren’t in her favor. I can still see her sitting there, feeding the babies by hand…. And I love her for it.

Lisanne, if you’re reading this, thank you for everything you’ve given me. You make me human. I love you.

Mark

Anaïs's concert

Friday my fourteen-going-on-twenty-one-year-old-daughter sang in her last elementary school concert. Well, okay, technically it was her last middle school concert, but the point is that she starts high school next August and before I blink an eye she’ll be all grown up. The years sure have passed quickly.

Anaïs had a solo and she smiled at me from the stage as she stood there. Her voice is so beautiful. At first I was sad, thinking that this was the last time I’d see her on this stage, but then I realized that it’s not because I am going away, it’s because she’s growing up. No one ever told me being a parent would be so hard.

This is the hardest thing I have ever done.

Tire swing

Yesterday Jack suggested that we move into another house - one with a tire swing in a big oak tree. When Lisanne asked how Daddy would know where to come home to, Jack replied that we could “leave him a note.” Thanks, bub.

I hung a tire swing from the tree in the back yard just in case.

Mark's address

Mark's address in Iraq (mail should be there in 10 to 14 days so don't mail ice cream)

Major Mark M. Binkowski
MNF-I, DCSINT (Systems)
APO AE 09342

His email is: mark.binkowski@us.army.mil

Bases in Baghdad

Mark's base is adjacent to camp North Victory, just West of Baghdad city center.

Deployment Preparation

Preparation for deployment continues:

Yesterday I ran my pre-deployment physical fitness test - I did one extra push up (“one for the Corps,” as they say) and cut an entire minute off of my run time, which I was very happy about. Unfortunately, I missed maxing out the sit up event by two sit ups. Hard to believe that I was knocking out 300 sit ups every morning back in Iwakuni. It’s really hell getting old, you know?

This morning I went through the gas chamber for refresher NBC training. There are few things in this world that I truly hate, but I can say without reservation that I HATE gas. Even without the damned gas you can hardly breathe in those evil rubber mask-contraptions. I vomited, although thankfully I was able to demask in time. I really hope we never have to do that for real!!

More paperwork today and pistol qual this Friday. If I have time, I’ll also re-qual on the M16 (I know an officer is supposed to direct fires, but if it ever came down to it I’d really rather be able to take out a target at rifle range that (500 meters) than at pistol range (50 meters).

Camping

Dear _______,

Jack and I went camping this weekend at La Jolla National Park, in the Ozarks. At first I was worried about spending two days away from the rest of the family, but we had such a great time that I am really glad we went. In fact, it was one of the best times I have ever had with Jack - and what makes it even better is that he thinks so too. He’s a great son.

We stayed in a cabin instead of a tent because the weather forecast was for thunder and lightening, and I don’t think I ever got over the trauma of freezing my butt off in 3 inches of water inside of that leaky-ass tent on the Bruce Peninsula back in ’94. And for only slightly more money than the standard version, we got a “deluxe” cabin, which meant the place had a TV and shower. Having been raised with Charter Cable’s Silver option, Jack was amazed that the “old fashioned” TV we had only received 3 channels (or 4, if you count the one with lots of static). It was quite a shock to him that Cartoon Network was not included among these channels.

During the day we toured the Merimac Caves (Jessie James’ one-time hide out), went canoeing in a down pour, fished in the rain, chopped wood & made a spear in the drizzle, built a smoldering fire (well, we tried to, any way), went to a zoo (Jack actually held an alligator), wrestled with each other, had a pillow fight, ate cold corned beef hash and Spaghettios out of the can, caught tadpoles, and panned for gold. Jack actually found two rather large pieces of gold – luckily, he never did catch on that I had seeded the area with Pyrite (fool’s gold) before hand. He even tried to pay for lunch with one of the nuggets, but the waitress told him that a chunk of gold that size was worth much more than lunch, and that he should save it.

Most of the tadpoles died the first night, but the survivors have been doing better since we started to feed them.

Take care.

M.

First Post

Dear _______,

Well, it’s less than two weeks until I leave for Iraq and it’s finally starting to sink in. I guess that as long as I had six weeks or a month before I left I could still tell myself that it was a long ways off; that I still had plenty of time. But now I find myself realizing that this will be the last time I do this or do that for a year… the last time I cut the grass, or fill the bird feeder, or stack Mug Root Beer in the back fridge. It’s funny how such mundane things can be so integrally associated with what you do and how you live your life. Even cleaning the smelly old fish tank takes on an exaggerated importance when I stop to realize that I won’t be doing it again for another 12 months – though it’s a chore, it’s something I do with Jack, and I will miss it. But I suppose it’s really Jack that I will miss… He’s the one I am worried about. It saddens me to think that at this point I can actually count the number of times I will hug him and give him a goodnight kiss before I leave.

Work is okay. I have been pretty busy tying up loose ends and checking out. I was issued my desert uniforms, helmet, flak vest, etc., yesterday. The new vest is a lot heavier than the Kevlar model, but they say the ceramic plates are better. I can tell already it’s going to be a hassle lugging all of this stuff everywhere. What ever happened to the light infantry???

It was great seeing everyone while on leave. Being with you guys is always fun, and now when you or Keith mention this or that about your new houses I’ll have a picture in my mind of what you meant. The tiles turned out even better than I thought!!

Well, that’s it for now. I will write more as I can. You have my email address for over there don’t you? Take care.

M.

PS I had the Power of Attorney notarized today and will drop a copy in the mail this afternoon.