Regrouping in Baghdad

After several hours on standby at the airfield in Balad, I finally managed to catch a Blackhawk out and back here to my home base in Baghdad. It was a long 8 days away for sure... it rained most of the time I was away and Balad is extremely muddy, which contrasts sharply to Al Asad in the west, which is devoid of vegetation and is mostly covered in rocks.

After a few days to regroup with Brenden here I will be heading back out on the road for another week or so to do some more training. A few things about the traveling I've been doing in Iraq: I dont mind the traveling as much as I or others thought I would - its nice to have a change of scenery every few days and to meet new people; Its incredibly rewarding for me to be able to sit face-to-face with the people that will be using my system when it goes live in a few weeks and get their feedback about what we did right and what we missed... I've missed having that opportunity at some of my recent jobs, and lastly, it is way harder to travel in Iraq than I thought possible, despite what people have said. All of the legs of my travel were delayed by at least an hour, and because mission times and flight plans are classified I usually sit in the passenger terminal at the airfield not knowing when I'd be leaving or even how long my trip is. I know now that for future travel I need to bring several books in my bag to help me pass the time.

Still in Al Asad

I'll be here in Al Asad for a few more days while I'm conducting more training before I move onto another base to take care of more training there. Fun times -- its nice to get face time with the folks that will be using my system on a day-to-day basis and get their suggestions and feedback.

The weather here cleared up since our little flood yesterday morning and has been pretty nice. Its a bit chilly, but a welcome change from the heat and the skies are clear here for the first time since I got here, which has given me a few decent photography opportunities.

The photo above was taken at sunset with a CH-53 Pave Low below the sun and the top of a satellite dish in the foreground.

Flooded!

Yesterday it started raining here at Al-Asad Marine Base... the first rain we had seen in quite some time. Last night it started pouring, which I knew could not be good in the desert. When I woke up this morning to a thunderstorm, I was not surprised to see a flash flood running through the base, effectively separating me from work and, more importantly, the chow hall and any other source of food. For right now I'm stuck and probably going to take a nap since our power is also out and my laptop battery is about dead.

The photo above is a truck trying to cross the river on what had been the road to get out of here.

Combat programmer!

My job in the US Air Force was a computer programmer, and I essentially did then what I'm doing now, except I was doing just outside Washington, DC supporting HQ Air Force and the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. When the war here in Iraq started I tried unsuccessfully for volunteer for deployments. There are no jobs for programmers in Iraq, I was told. Me and the guys used to joke about the concept of a computer programmer in the desert with a laptop jumping out of a plane and programming in the desert.

Aside from the jumping out of the airplane part, I realized last night that I'm now fitting the mold. Laptop in hand and body armor donned, I got onto a Marine helicopter early in the morning to come out to Al Asad Air Base in Anbar Province. I'll be out here for a few days to train some of the users of my application on how to use it, as well as some performance testing in low-bandwidth environments.

Pictured above, a combat programmer in the flesh.