message to Judi

Hello my love,

Sorry about not calling yesterday. Saturdays are different than weekdays here only because I don’t have my 17:00 conference call which I make from “The Claw”. “The Claw” is the term the Site One team uses for their original work station. It’s the name of the primary software application we operate in conjunction with the Wescam MX20 camera. C.L.A.W. stands for Control Of Links (or Lynx) and Analysis Work Station. The little one room shelter in which the CLAW computer is housed came to be known as “The Claw”.

Our shelter, the “GCS”, Ground Control Station, is larger, less cozy and less conducive to the loving conversations we have. The Claw is close, dimly lit and utterly private. Two people worked there when the Site One team had a balloon but they were crowded. One person can work (or speak to their most precious loved one) comfortably in The Claw. Since I wasn’t there yesterday a didn’t make the call.

Winston and I finished preparation for the “Reconstitution” of Site One yesterday. I wrote an inflation procedure before we left Florida and we used it to verify that everything we need is here. Today I can finally tend to my business expenses and write to you about some of the things that have happened.

Encounters here with others are sometimes pleasant and sometimes not. Often we walk to the wee DFAC for chow but if we drive we always pick up anyone we can. Soldiers with weapons are grateful to get out of the heat. Finding out about their units and homes and telling them of ours is nice and they are always interested in the balloon, or the blimp, as they invariably refer to it. If they are in one of the units we’ve seen on patrol the discussion is even better.

Contact with other contractors are less enjoyable. Service workers are from Russia, eastern European states, the Philippines and elsewhere. They are the same kind of people you find working at Wal-Mart without the corporate image to maintain. The KBR workers who operate the dining facilities, infrastructure, the gyms and other MWR (Moral, Welfare and Recreation) operations and facilities are often pretty sullen and unapproachable. I think it’s because we are here to impose force. Seeing the troops, armed as they are, as they transit in and out of the base and knowing what goes on outside the walls, while drawing large paychecks, tends to harden us.

We were seated next to two young women at the DFAC a couple of days ago who Winston correctly identified as Arab. He also suspected they were interpreters, which also turned out to be true.

His fiance, Haifa speaks English, Arabic and Farsi so Winston has been thinking about the possibility of her getting a job here. At first the two “terps” were unresponsive but Winston, being engaged to a Kuwaiti, and in the Mideast on several deployments, is sensitive to the cultural points. He even reads and speaks a little Arabic.

He persisted in a polite manner until one of the two warmed to him. I paid attention to what was said but otherwise didn’t participate until the friend finally looked at us.

They revealed that they are residents of Baghdad, or at least they were until they got their current jobs. Leaving the base now is probably rather dangerous for them. The most important thing Winston wanted to know was if they are required to go outside. They are. With that knowledge Winston said Haifa could not come. Before coming to the PTDS program he worked for private security firms involved in ordinance disposal and convoy escort. He knows the dangers that exist on the highways and streets of Baghdad. He couldn’t function if he knew she was out there.

They were curious about the balloon and what we see. The second interpreter, the one who initially wouldn’t speak, asked what is apparently on the minds of most of the Iraqis under our eye, “You watch people sleeping and making love on the roof, don’t you?”

I told her, no, we don’t. At any given time scores of people could be viewing the image we are transmitting so if we view a soccer game, people shopping, people making love, or any other scene without military value we will be quickly corrected. Officers don’t want to see any of those things while their troops are out there.

I told Patrick before we left that I wouldn’t be interested in the culture here. But I was wrong. I am interested and I’ve tried to be respectful during each encounter. The luncheon with the interpreters was the forth time I was able to interact with Iraqis and each time I was glad I’d read the cultural section of the “ Iraq Transitional Handbook” I picked up at CRC.

The first encounter was during the first hours I was here and Mike Barron (“Mike Ritalin”) took me to buy a Sim card at one of the bizarre shops. He greeted the business owner with his right hand over his heart and asked about the man’s family, a necessary greeting in Arabic culture. When I was introduced I too momentarily placed my hand to my breast and thanked him for his help. The other two encounters were with women vendors at another bizarre and they were more satisfying. Like the interpreters these women were reserved and cold at first but with interest in their goods and lives came smiles and openness. I suspect I’ll enjoy contact with Iraqi women here more than those with the men.

The question regarding what we see was relevant to another aspect of the Arab mind. Privacy is very important to them. For example in the Transitional Handbook it’s written that when you seek entrance to an Arab’s home you should stand to the side when he answers the door so you can’t see inside.

The other day when I was operating the camera and watching a young man another interesting insight into their minds occurred. He was carrying something under his arm and behaving as if the package needed to be hid and looking around corners before entering streets, stopping and starting and doing something I took to be strange. Three times he put the package down, walked away from it and blew his nose. It turned out the package was a case of Coke, he may have been behaving as he was because it was stolen, and the nose blowing behavior was explained by one of the more seasoned members of the crew as attributable to the fact they’re “funny about bodily fluids”.

I have enjoyed this but now I must go to the wee DFAC and afterward receive JSWS, Joint Services Work Station, training. Personal time is over.

I love you baby girl.

© Robert A. Crimmins, Felton, Delaware, USA