A Place Called River City

 "River City" is the brevity code for a communications blackout (it may be code but it's not much of a secret), and it's where we've been for most of the last week.  Obviously, it’s not fun being cut off from the world.  However, River City usually happens when a Marine is killed, to ensure the family finds out the right way rather than through the grapevine.  As such, it certainly puts things into perspective.  It also makes reconnecting with the world that much more gratifying.

This week we lost a number of Marines, which is why the blackout has been virtually uninterrupted for so long.  In part due to reports I see and briefs I attend, I have some thoughts on the deaths of these Marines – the number and the manner – but after several tries I can’t find an Internet-appropriate way to express them.  All I'll say is that if I meet the enemy, I will not hesitate.

Enough about that.  I owe you an update on the last week or so.

Last Friday night, or possibly Saturday night, Gunny and I went down to the Danish compound to relax.  It was great – we smoked Cubans (Montecristo), drank cold Dr. Peppers (I get paid for all this product placement, you know), at cake (I don't know what kind, I don't understand food things...it was green) and just shot the breeze for several hours.

The cigar that's just a cigar.

At one point the Danish civilians from the YMCA who run the coffee shop handed out hymnals and everyone sang a few hymns in Danish.  It was slightly surreal.  They provided us the translation to one prayer.  I saved it.  It goes like this:

Good G-d!

Bless our work
For Peace and Justice
Against division and injustice, cruelty and violence.
Strengthen our camaraderie and unity
And keep us from abandoning one another in distress and danger.
Be with those who are supposed to lead and command,
Give them vision and determination
And care for them, they have responsibility.
Thank you for my country,
For family and friends and everyone who loves me.
Dear G-d, I ask you:
Keep me and my nearest
From disease, accident and everything worse.
Be with me when I am threatened
And seized with fear for my life and health.
Let me be allowed to return
To my everyday in good condition,
When my service is over.

Let me be allowed to return to my everyday…that's nice.

Sports update: we remain undefeated.  We’re working on a league and as of right now I made our team’s starting lineup, playing center field.  Final cuts this Saturday (tomorrow) but it’s looking good.  Brian Cashman, take note.  (Curtis Granderson, watch your back.)

The newest Yankees farm team

Yes, we play on rocks.

Also doing MCMAP training again (Marine Corps Martial Arts Program) - working toward my gray belt (tan-gray-green-brown-black).  I don't like MCMAP much as a martial art, but throwing people around is fun.

Weather update: we’re officially into the wind of 120 days.  It is not, as I naively assumed, four months of wind.  It’s a weather pattern that essentially spawns sandstorms most afternoons.  So that’s a relief.

Page 6: Nada.  Not much time to socialize.  Held a meeting yesterday down at the flight line.  Someone made a joke about hors d’oeuvres and I thought about how different my life is compared to just a few years ago.

In back-to-the-future news, the British are coming.  Some high-level Brits are moving into some offices nearby, and the gravity-assisted poop has come to rest at my (former) doorstep.  The Brits displaced the lawyer and the lawyer displaced the antiterrorism/force protection cell (us).  Obviously, this poop-roll instantiated the pecking order – Brit commander trumps lawyer trumps AT/FP.  That lawyers are more important in this war than AT/FP is as surprising as the rising sun.  But it’s also telling.  What exactly it tells history will decide.  I hope it's not what I think it is.  Anyway, it's left us in much cozier confines with about a dozen of our closest friends.  Temporary, I'm told.

For now, time to get back there and get something done.  More to follow...

Battlefield illumination, seen from the Danish compound.