After waking up and having some breakfast I took sometime to explore War Eagle, to poke my head around and get a sense of where I was. We were due to meet Colonel Hort, the Brigade Commander, later in the day; I figured that now was as good a time as any to be nosy.

War Eagle was a much different FOB (Forward Operating Base) than others I had been to. Taji and Falcon had seemed more like small cities …

We left the dining hall, our stomachs feeling like we had just eaten a bowling ball and all ten pins in the lane. We had received word that the convoy that would take us to War Eagle was spooling up, and we quickened our pace; we had no desire to get marooned at Taji, and I was eager to get Apache. We picked up our gear, got into our IBAs (Body Armor), and headed out toward the trucks taking us …

Shadows had lengthened by the time we left the building; the induction had taken longer than any of us had expected and my father and I had grown hungry. We had been to Taji, the airfield we were at, once before, but we were on an entirely different side and had completely lost our bearings. Sgt Mott was quick to come to our aid, and led us towards the nearest dining hall, which turned into a much longer walk than …

Traveling with the Army can be an exhilarating experience or a painful one, and my ride to JSS H2, a combat outpost manned by the 101st Airborne was no exception. Getting to H2 was unpleasant, mostly because the MRAP was crowded and I had set my bag on my lap at an awkward angle, resulting in my legs going numb yet again. Sitting in the vehicle I started to become oddly paranoid at how often my legs were becoming numb …

Soldiers began trickling into the building, taking time to hunt among the chairs for their assigned seats. The trickle soon became a flood, and then stopped, the room filled to capacity, and the ceremony began. Speeches were given at the podium, songs were sung, the order of activities outlined in the flier followed to a T. I hung on the edges of the room taking pictures, and as I did I watched the soldiers being honored.

They sat against a …

Time seemed to lengthen as we waited for the induction ceremony to begin. We grabbed lunch and then hung around Sgt Mott’s office, reading old issues of Sports Illustrated. As a Cubs fan I became more than a little depressed reading about how the 2008 team was sure to make it to the World Series. I read the entirety of the article, though reading it was like picking at a scab; mindless action going unnoticed until you look down and …

When my father and I returned to Baghdad there was no debate on where to go next; COP Apache was was the only choice, and a place my father had talked about often. It was located on the east side of the river, in Aadahmiya, a neighborhood in Baghdad that had seen more than it’s share of violence. My father had been embedded there before, years ago; in talking about it the phrase “cowboy country” often arose, a descriptor …