1000 Words from Iraq

December 5

For the next five days I will be "embedded" with a cavalry unit at a FOB a little ways away from where I live. I think maybe I’ll try to give everyone a day by day idea of what it is I do on a typical embed.
If I’m lucky, this may be my last embed before I leave, it’s getting that close. It’s not that I don’t like getting out, but I’m way excited to get home.
I’m sure everyone has heard of how the military "embeds" civilian journalists with units in the field. What I do is pretty similar. We usually go out in teams, with one print journalist (that’s me) and a broadcast journalist to gather stories on a particular unit. Sometimes we go out for one or two days, sometimes a week or more. We spend the time going out on missions with the units and getting to know what they do, so we can find the best way to get the story out.
We were scheduled to leave on a bird this morning at 10 am. I was waiting at the helipad when a bunch of officers came for the bird that was leaving before ours. I saluted them as they approached and then I turned to go back to my five days worth of gear (more about how much we pack later). I was standing there and I heard someone say my name, or rather, Spc. (insert my name here). I turned around and came face to face with a one star general. So I whip out another salute and had a nice little chat with the sir about what I do and where I’m from.
After the brass flew safely away, to my relief, our birds landed and we gracefully loaded our immense pile of gear into the helicopter. Nobody else I know travels with as much stuff as we do. When we leave for a few days we bring at a minimum- our camera and accessories and laptop in addition to our sleeping bags, rucksacks and clothes for as long as we’ll be gone. As little as I am, I’m sure I was a hilarious sight as I struggled up the hill to the helipad with my body armor, Kevlar, weapon, rucksack and camera bag.
The ride was alright. I’m not a big fan of flying- it’s this fear of heights thing I have. We just got a new unit of pilots in and they like to fly a little faster with a few more twists and turns than the last guys. But flying is a whole lot safer than traveling in a convoy, so I just sit back and close my eyes. When I did have my eyes open, I saw the ground race by beneath us. First the farmlands, which are surprisingly beautiful in this country, then the rolling, rocky hills near the mountains. My favorite thing about flying over the country is watching the animals below running like wild African animals on a stampede.
We landed without incident and went to look for our POC. Not so surprisingly they weren’t prepared for us coming. Some places you go the coordination runs smoothly and everyone is willing to help you, others, not so much. After they got used to the fact that we were going to be there for a couple days, it was on to finding us a place to stay.
Being a girl, I usually create a few problems in that area. But they found separate trailers for me and my male co-worker eventually. There is a rule on this FOB that females can not walk around alone. That put a damper on my mood. I generally don’t go anywhere at night by myself, but during the day, I hate trying to find someone to walk to the computers or chow with. But, hey, what are you gonna do?
So, we settled into our new homes and then went out to find someone who could let us know what kind of missions would be going on in the next couple days. We let them know that we didn’t have night vision lenses, so day missions would be best and we got set up with a troop of Soldiers to go out tomorrow during the day. Sounds like a good time.

posted by Blair Heusdens @ 1:43 AM