Change of Duty

The latest news is that I am no longer residing at Camp Fallujah. I have moved "downtown" to the Civil-Military Operations Center (CMOC), located in the heart of the city of Fallujah. I got here on 8 June, and, believe me, it's a whole 'nother world out here! I work for a LtCol I met back in Camp Lejeune, "Hondo" Haldeman (yes, he's a pilot). Good guy, and fun to work for! We have about a squad's worth of Marines, a doc, and 6 interpreters.

As you know, in general terms, the CAG is the liaison between the military/government and the people of Iraq. Well, the CMOC is the where the rubber actually meets the road in Fallujah. Much business is conducted at the CMOC: city council meetings, reconstruction committee meetings, police recruitment, damage claims, etc. This is also where our tactical civil affairs (CA) teams solicit bids and award contracts. That's oversimplifying the mission, of course, but that's it in a nutshell. You can read more about the CMOC and what we do here:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=fallujah+CMOC

My duties as the XO here will include normal "XO stuff," as well as economic development and governance issues. We have a small, tight team here, and it is incredibly different from being "near the flagpole" at Camp Fallujah! The building is in a compound that used to be a youth center at one time. We have a nice little courtyard area where you may have seen pictures of us enjoying cigars (on that note, you can see a couple pics of us at http://www.cigarsinternational.com/html/BIA030821.asp).

The newly-elected mayor of Fallujah takes time to pose with lil' ol' me.


In my view, one of the more important programs we do here is the Property Lease Program (PLP) payments... we paid Iraqis whose homes have been / were / are occupied by Coalition Forces. Believe me, it is the "right thing to do" ... imagine being forced out of your own home, which is then occupied by a foreign army. Last week saw the inaugural series of payments/leases under the program. We had some folks from the Contingency Real Estate Support Team (US Army Corps of Engineers) from Baghdad show up to execute the leases for the properties, and we then paid the people once they signed the lease. Happy folks indeed, including the one stubborn old lady who stuck around and wouldn't leave b/c she found an error in her paperwork. Turns out she was correct, and we didn't realize it until she produced a picture and showed us her house on a map, one of the interpreters ("terps") recognized it, and I made the call to pay her the extra $1000 we owed her (she got $1800 vice $750). With tears in her eyes, she actually said to me "God bless you, my son" (through another terp). Hopefully that's one less person that's gonna leave here and head on down to the muj recruiter! Over the course of the three-day period, we wound up paying out $75,600 to 94 individuals.

An Iraqi signing his lease and gettin' paid under the PLP.

The chow here is ... different. While there is a nightly chow run from the mess halls in Camp Fallujah (they bring it out here to one of the buildings), I haven't been over there to sample it. The stories I've heard are enough to keep me from suiting up and walking the 400m to the "forward" chow hall. That said, it's not that bad here. We have plenty of water, some refrigerators, showers, and bathrooms. Electricity is intermittent, but the grunts out in the field don't even have that, so I guess you could say we're fortunate.

One of the things that took some getting used to is the evening call to prayer. Being in the center of Fallujah, we are surrounded by mosques. There are more than one in each cardinal direction. As you may know, the imams get on the loudspeakers and chant/sing the call to prayer. It's especially eerie at night, sitting in the courtyard, hearing these calls come in from every direction and bounce off the walls. The guy to the NE just got a "new and improved" sound system ... he's now much louder than the rest! I'll have to make a recording so you all can hear it. Another interesting fact is that these guys are live, not Memorex!

That's about it from here. Thanks to all who have sent mail, packages, and notes. They really do keep us going!

I hope all the dads and dads-to-be (Alex!) had a great Father's Day!

Sunset at the CMOC.