Tuesday, February 13, 2007

How do you define "nothing going on"?

On Monday I stopped in the First Sergeant's office to see if anything interesting was going on, and find out where I would get the most interesting stories for the day. He said that it was going to be a quiet day, and there was really "nothing going on", but why didn't I go hang out with 3rd platoon for the day.

I got to 3rd platoon's area to let them know that I would be in the area all day, and they said they were heading out in an hour, and I should get my stuff (body armor and water) if I wanted to go (that was the mission that I photographed sweeping a village for weapons).

Fairly interesting stuff for me, but so routine for Bravo Company that everyone I asked said that there was "nothing going on" today. That's because many Bravo Company soldiers have been doing this sort of thing 6 days a week for almost a year, and going out on a combat patrol is about as unusual for them as doing their laundry (actually most of them only do their laundry once a week).

I've learned that I have to ask people WHAT they are doing today, instead of whether they are doing anything I might find interesting...

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Day by Day, by Chris Muir (updated daily)



Chris Muir is the cartoonist that I met in Kuwait. He spent two weeks in Iraq at the same time I was there in February 2007, and so thought it would relevant to showcase his work on my site. Here is a link to Chris' humorous travelogue of this Iraq trip: http://billroggio.com/archives/2007/03/arrival_alignright_v.php