5.6.10

...There Are No Break Pads In Iraq...Part I...

30 MAY 2010

There are no brake pads in Iraq. I find this difficult to believe, as I assume you do too, it was certainly difficult for SGT. Whos’it, desk jockey for the maintenance shed at FOB Adder. This last mission had already brought me to Scania, Taji, and VBC—which is where I decided brake pads no longer exist—and at each stop I went along with these motor-pool guys to seek out some of these pads but came to no luck every time around. So when I walked into that shed at Adder I gave the guy behind the desk a song and dance that went something like, “Let me ask you, I’ve got an 1151, up-armored Humvee, with a Frag 7 kit. It needs brake pads. Now I’ve heard this rumor that there are no brake pads in theatre, and I’m starting to believe it. Is any of that true?” He didn’t think much of the rumor, called it silly and tried to give off the impression that I was stupid for asking. So I said, “Well, do you have any?” And I gave him the stock number and he made some phone calls to sort it out. But his tone was only slightly apologetic—it was more of an as a matter of fact—when he said, “Well, we don’t have any…” So no, there are no brake pads in Iraq. And I couldn’t help but to think, if I were to break into one of our loads on the back of these trans trucks, it would be nothing but wall-to-wall stock full of fucking brake pads.

But we weren’t hauling out connexes of brake pads, or any connexes for that matter. The trans unit had hauls of HEAT trainers loaded onto flatbeds. A HEAT trainer—actually I think the ‘T’ in HEAT stands for trainer so it isn’t right to call it a ‘HEAT trainer’, it’s like calling it a ‘blanket-tee-blank-trainer trainer’ and so on—is the body of a Humvee or MRAP on a giant rotator, think of a chicken rotisserie. It’s meant to help soldiers experience a vehicle rollover and train them on how to egress and establish aid and security in the event of accident or explosion. It’s a good system, I imagine, and whenever I see one it helps me to smile. You see, my Uncle, Uncle Joe—not Joe because he’s a soldier but Joe because that’s his name, well, he was a soldier too, but let’s move on with it—works with some fancy-pants DoD office that manages or over-sees or helps develop or something with all these private contractors that the army pays to make toys for training and fighting. The trainers on the flatbeds were one of those toys Uncle Joe had bought or built or managed or something. And it always makes me feel a little less lonely when I see my family is involved in the army version of myself.

The trans unit, the one I spoke of last week with all those super soldiers and so on, did their part to drag out this mission with blatant acts of unorganized foolishness. I don’t mean to complain, it all actually gave a certain role of comic relief, making me half expect a dozen clowns to hop out of their truck cabins each time we halted—peddling unicycles and juggling flower pots and going on make-believe to be stuck behind walls (I think clowns do that, if not, eleven clowns and one mime). I think of the one friend every group has, who walks into every conversation screaming, “That’s what she said,” or some other cliché of supposed comic relevance. The best example of their misdirection could have been our second attempt to push from Taji to VBC. Their lead truck took off from the staging lane with the choice of a hardball road to its left and another to its right. Instead, they tore off between the two, deer-in-the-headlights style, and managed to sink their truck into the only mud puddle we’d seen in days. And then there were massive U-turns and jokes on the net, but I liked the puddle of mud best.

I was actually quite relieved not to make the push that night. There had been a full moon over a cloudless sky. Which isn’t to say I worry for hoards of werewolves attacking the lines, I worry that the ‘enemy’ had clear line of sight and calm conditions for mounting an offensive. I worried for this in memory of the old days—2003—back when we were still doing all that fighting and crazy movie scene combat and so on. The enemy can be very predictable at times; certain weather, day of the week, time of day, terrain and other little things could have been converted into likelihood of attack. And there was some little tingling on the back of my neck that night, seeing that full moon, a paranoia picked up and stored away years ago just coming out to say hello.

My Father does his best to remind me those days are over and sets himself in parrot-mode-repeat, saying again and again, “I’m glad you’re bored over there, it’s better this way.” It must be unnerving to have two sons deployed. Oh, yes, my brother Stevie is out here too, off being a Captain somewhere and doing officer-type things, I’m still not certain what.

- The Exodus

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