Technical difficulties

We had heavy rain here in Iraq last night, and I wasn't able to get a good satellite connection to upload pictures (4000ms ping times and 95% packet loss for the geeks reading this).

We also had to do the television upload in a non-standard way, and apparently the audio was lost in transmission. Maybe weather related, maybe operator error...

Not to worry... we will resend everything again later today. Along with today's stuff.

Today is my last day in Fallujah, a day earlier than planned due lack of open helicopter flights tomorrow. But I still have a ton of additional photos and lots of stuff to write about, so stay tuned for the next week or two...

UPDATE: The clouds went away, and we have a sunny afternoon, and my satellite modem is working great. Moral of the story: BGAN does NOT work in rain or heavy clouds, and loves clear skies (1500ms ping times now, and 8% packet loss... MUCH happier). Photo upload in progress.

Soldiers names

I have a system of index cards and mug shots to help me identify all the people in my photos, but it's not perfect, and sometime I'm in a hurry to just get something posted... That is all a 'round-about way of asking for your help:

If you know someone in a photo that I have not identified in the caption, please put their name in a comment, and I will update the caption as soon as I can.

The incessant hum...

... of generators is the one universal truth that I've found of the Iraq war. Everywhere I go in Kuwait or Iraq there is a generator running, often multiple generators. There are certainly hundreds of generators running on Camp Fallujah at any given moment, and there may even be thousands of them.

Their incessant hum blends into the background fairly quickly, except when you are shooting video, or recording audio, and then it is a nagging pain that just won't go away. If the meter on your audio isn't registering sound constantly it means something is broken, because there is no such thing a quiet here.

This morning they had to take the MWR internet center, were I was working on my email, down for an hour because they had to service the generator. Surprisingly, I've never noticed a fuel truck on Camp Fallujah. Perhaps the diesel fairy comes around every night, I'm not sure.

New photos from Fallujah - Day 7

I was able to spend another day outside the wire today with CPT Rankin and COL Stewart the new Marine commander of Camp Fallujah, and CPT Rankin's direct superior.

The primary purpose of our mission was to introduce COL Stewart, who has only been here in Fallujah a week, to the local Sheik and to the manager of the local water treatment plant.

The water treatment plant is currently broken, and engineers from Camp Fallujah have been working to help get it working.

http://ericbowen.smugmug.com/gallery/2474800

Articles

I'm sorry that I haven't written much in the past couple of days. I'm prioritizing on shooting photos and video, and there just aren't enough hours in the day.

I have lots of stories in progress, and I should have lots of time to write next week as I work my way home "space a".

New photos from Fallujah - Day 6

I spent today focused on the Bravo Company headquarters platoon, including the medics, supply, commo, the arms room, and the mechanics. I did some fun video interviews with all of these groups, and hopefully you will be able to see some of them on KSTP this evening (note: all KSTP programming is available on the web the following day).

I'm working on a special in-depth profile of SGT Ruben Resendiz and his family in cooperation with the Crookston Daily Times, and so that is the reason that there are quite a few pictures of him today. More details over the next several days...

Here is the link to today's photos:

http://photos.scrappydog.com/gallery/2471724

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...