What we have to deal with: Recent News

So far, I doing decently on holding the fort till SSG Hatley gets back. I haven't had a break during daytime in at least 2 weeks though, and it certainly makes me think twice about being a supply sgt.

What's in the news lately:

Lawmakers bribing other lawmakers to vote for the latest Iraq War supplement bill (which forces the army to mostly pull out of Iraq by next summer, regardless of what the army has to say about it) by putting in billions of subsidies...
Unless you can tell me how funding the construction of Peanut storehouses has a ***n thing to do with funding the soldiers, sailors, and airmen serving in a war zone half-way around the world, I think the word describing this would be "repulsive".
Not to say that neither party is innocent of putting unrelated and unnecessary funding in every bill in the past 10 years, it's just that no one seems capable of stopping it. We have been reduced to the point where it's not unethical to sneak a "rider" in the next farm bill about funding for the "Electrical Engineer Museum and Hall of Fame"(ironically and seriously enough, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Engineers may have the lobbying power to pull that off).

In other news, thousands of anti-war protesters in Portland, Oregon circled around an effigy of an American soldier, where they then set it on fire, along with the American Flag. My guess is they couldn't find any crosses to burn, so they had to settle with an imitation of us. Frankly, it looks to me as just another form of bigotry, no less than a neo-nazi rally.
I know many of you former Vietnam veterans have sworn to protect us from the hate that you hate to deal with when you came home from war. Don't let us down, don't let these hate-filled scum take over our country. God knows we have to deal with it from over here.

http://www.ktvz.com/story.cfm?nav=oregon&storyID=18920

It makes me sick.

I have learned to despise the blogspot network more over the next few days than ever. If I wait more than a few hours to save or post blogs, the connection between the blog system and me messes up, and an entire night's worth of words goes down the drain. The horror, the horror.

I have effectively taken most of the duties of supply while SSG Michael Hatley gets to see his family and go to Disney world. While there are periods of time I just about shut the door on people once the crowd goes away, but it's not all bad. Doing desk work is a nice change for doing the exact same errands every day, though it would help not to keep taking crash courses in how to fill out supply forms every other day (my gosh, how many weird situations do you have to come up with in order to warrant the number of different supply forms, I will never know). It doesn't really matter though in the big scheme of things. SSG Hatley is finally taking a break to see his wife and kids for once in over 6 months, and for me that's uplifting enough.

It's amazing how paper work, authority, and governmental-contractor management can seem to create a world of it's own. I have been dealing with the civilians here on my FOB trying to get a guy a piece of equipment, and it's the convoluted nature of it all is amazing. Keep in mind, you don't see "Halliburton" mentioned as much as you have thought, hearing from the great mind himself, Michael Moore(gag). Rather, Halliburton's Iraq work is done mostly by a subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown, and Root (as we call them, KBR), who then subcontracts various work to various other subcontractors.

Meanwhile, they of course need civilians running around telling soldiers that they are not authorized to get Item X because they don't have DA Form 37234337-dagzulualpha-to-the-number-of-pi.

....in come the south and southeast Asian folks from "Prime Projects International".

Needless to say, understanding each other here doing logistics and supply work can be challenging, assuming the usual situation of the moment: a KBR manager, me (the customer), some guy from some island I've never heard of before(FYI, all Prime Projects International personnel in the future shall collectively be known as "Fez") , and usually some active duty guy over seeing the rest of us, are all trying to be on the same page while not being in the same place. It happens, eventually.

I find that to deal with the whole craziness of it all at the weirdest of those times is to first sit down, have at least one hand holding up you head, and simply start laughing. It makes for a nice short break, and apparently the Asian workers apparently think it's funny too. Why did I choose supply again?

....and yes, this was a picture I have used before already. My camera had to be resent. So there.

While getting ready for coming back to Iraq from leave, I forgot to pack my camera, so I'll be using pictures from the internet and ones already on my computer in place until I get it back, which shouldn't be much longer.
This week, I've been learning more about supply paperwork, like doing issues and turn-ins, as well as how to drive a person not normally involved with supply work to the point of insanity, with a single sheet of paper. Since all of the civilians have been doing this to us the whole time we've been in Iraq, this must not be hard to do.

As I've heard right before leave, Congress is thinking of cutting funding for soldiers that are part of the Iraqi War "surge", or at least adding nearly impossible goals in legislation that would least lead to that end. Congress is walking on seriously thin ice by trying to take control of this war. Just because you have "power of the purse" of the military doesn't make you a general.