19 Feb: Departed Philly for Atlanta, hooked up at ATL with the newbies I was to Father Goose into Iraq. Amused myself with fruitless attempts to access the "free" wireless net service.

20 Feb: Arrived Amsterdam, had a boring layover (terminal renovation in progress). Eight hours and four Time Zones later, arrived in Kuwait, got 90-day visa and hooked up with the LSA reps at 1830. Sent us to the USAF side to sit on concrete T-barriers for four hours, then got the bus for Ali al-Salem, which we could have caught from the terminal on the civilian side after spending four hours sitting in padded armchairs. Turned in 90-day visa and passport for outprocessing at Ali and got a tent for the next two days. Dust storm all night and most of the next day, tent canvas thumped like a clipper ship's sails in a gale – lucky me drew a corner cot so I received the full benefit of thwup-thoomp from two sides *and* the rogue fuh-WHAP charging through the storm flap without slowing one iota.

And that was the last entry in my ‘lectronic diary. The battery in this particular HP laptop is only good for about an hour – which I didn’t find out until *after* I brought it to Pakistan last year, but KtLW insisted it was a good deal (hey, it was on sale, and the Luddite Wife would buy Ebola-laced mouthwash if it was marked down 50%) – and I’d already shipped my transformer and adapter collection via DHL.

Meantime, aside from the week-late editions of Stars ‘n’ Stripes we get up here (mebbe a tad more than a week late – the Sunday edition features Calvin and Hobbes), I’ve been keeping up with the civil side of progress over here via a PAO-type at DA, of all places. I don't normally shill for the HeadShed, but these are some Big Picture Things you won’t get from the MSM:

-- The U.S. Army has rehabilitated and constructed nearly 1,100 schools, providing classrooms for more than 324,000 students.

-- By early 2009, Army projects will have completed 137 new primary healthcare centers that will serve a population of 5 to 6.5 million Iraqis.

-- An estimated 4.1 million more Iraqis now have access to clean, drinkable water that they didn't have before. [Two of my stoon'ts said they were surprised to find out that water was *supposed* to be clear]

-- Cities like Fallujah have their first sewage treatment plant. Before 2003, raw sewage in most of Iraq was discharged into rivers and waterways. [I can vouch that the one up here is operational]

Got a neat vid, too.

Aaaaand, to bring everybody up to date on the mil side, go see John’s post from yesterday.

Go ahead – I’ll wait.

All done? Okay, to continue: first, the Good News.

We got a new blast wall for our bunker!

Now, it may not seem like much to you, but it’s the simple, quotidian things that make a hootch a home.

Now, the Bad News.

We needed it.

Heh. No, I didn’t just give the dirtbags a free BDA, it’s been a while since I took the pic. I mean, you wouldn’t expect me to stay someplace that’s actually *dangerous*, would you? Besides, my Iraqi neighbors are a nice, quiet bunch who don’t throw loud parties after dark – I wouldn’t want them all upset by an increase in the local noise factor.

ANYway, you guys don’t come visiting just to see if I’ve developed a sudden case of common sense, so I’d better get down to something serious or John will dock my pay.

Again.

Sooooo -- Whatziss?

That oughta keep John off my case for a couple of hours. In the meantime, while he’s burning up bandwidth googling "thingies that have threaded receptacles,” meet Hubert, 21st Century version. The Huey II.

Despite the cosmetics, such as the radar altimeter, ECCM suite, wirecutters (sorry – I meant to say Wire Strike Protective System, which are those, uh, wirecutters top and bottom of the cockpit), GPS, upgraded nav-comm avionics package, Cobra engine, drive train and tranny, exhaust diverter, additional cooler intakes in the tailboom and IqAF desert cammy paint job, it’s the same plain-vanilla UH-1H that served as the foundation for most of my TINS.

BTW, if anybody (or anybody’s – * sigh * – dad) flew 68-16473 in the Land of the Two-Way Gunnery Range, that’s what the ol’ girl looks like today. Hi-rez here, for us fling-wing grognards.

Ooooops – short-term memory lapse alibi. There’s something * else * different (ever so slightly) from the RVN config. I’ll wait while you try to figure it out.

Come to think of it, I’ll wait until tomorrow.

If our sat-link doesn’t crap out.

Heh – it’ll give John *another* reason to hope the bottle rocketeers take the night off…