Okay, Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Vent

Since we don’t see a newspaper over here more than once every six weeks (hey, Stars & Stripes – what’s up with that, anyway?), I’m not even as minimally attuned as normal to what’s going on in the Land of Balmy Temperatures. However, I do get some inklings of what the buzz is from my li'l buddy, ry, who recently asked my thoughts on a subject he'd heard bruited about: “Why haven’t we gotten a better Iraqi Army for all the money we’ve spent?”

Ummmmm -- huh?

First, *we* didn’t get an Army -- Iraq did. Sure, we foot the bill -- just like we foot the bill for most of NATO during my growing-up years (pssst -- Marshall Plan, remember?), and for a lot of our other allies during their growing or reconstruction spurts (*waving hi to all our buddies in South Korea and Japan*) -- and Iraq is now an ally.

Second, everything else. Let’s take a look at the Army Iraq got.

• Light infantry, with a decent mech capability and recent airmobile experience.
• Operates jointly with allies as necessary or solo as required.
• Battle-tested in urban warfare against urban guerrilla terrorists (hey, there’s a catchy term from the past – urban guerrilla. You know, what Weather Undergrounders like Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers were calling themselves before they decided to stop planting IEDs *in US cities* and go work for the Lightwalker).

The New Army has some tough people, in my book, and I've got a real small book. They appreciate the hell out of what we've done for them -- remember all those articles in the MSM about the cash donation the Iraqi *Army* made to California Wildfire Relief? About passing the hat for us while they and their families were getting killed just because they wanted an Iraq with a future?

Huh? There *weren't* any?

Why am I not surprised.

And that wasn't a question.

/vent

Now for an update on the IqAF, courtesy of El Capitan.

Airmen with the Iraqi air forces' 3rd Squadron took over a wide variety of maintenance duties on the unit's Cessna [C-208] intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance fleet, a task formerly performed by U.S. contractors.

"The 3rd Squadron was recently asked to transition from contracted maintenance to full Iraqi support," said Capt. Gordon Beran, the 870th Expeditionary Air Advisory Squadron combat aviation adviser. "Having the ability to take over maintenance for their new fleet is very important. It brings them one step closer to a fully autonomous Air Force." 

Third Squadron’s the folks I taught some instrument flight tricks to a couple of months back. They’d never flown at night before.

Guess who was out doing aerial surveillance over Mosul during Lion's Roar -- at night?

Guess who's out there tonight, looking for scuzzballs?

I’ll have some pix of the other good stuff as soon as I finish putting together the instrument training course for the Rotary Wing side, getting the new Iraqi flight surgeon oriented to the oddball things that helicopter pilots are subjected to, helping 3^rd Squadron assemble a unit library, teaching the kaydets aerodynamics and general handling of the fearsome C-172TD, formalizing Mr. T’s Inadvertent IMC Survival Course, tutoring the new C-208 pilots in…

And in the afternoon, I'll be...

Heh.