VIRB

Sunrise over Ramadi.

I've tried to be objective about the band's travels and what's been going on, but I have to get a little personal here. Today is my birthday, and to wake up here in Iraq on that day was a little overwhelming. Almost like it was an honor to be celebrating a birthday there with those people. Definitely something to remember.

When you look around the camp, you can tell that at least this part of Iraq is beautiful - palm trees, pretty nice weather, etc. But being that this base you know that it's serious business. Ramadi used to be one of the more dangerous places in Iraq, but now it's not only quiet, the troops are really connecting with the locals. We've all heard several stories here about what's getting done that we never hear about at home.

But Ramadi is also hard living, harder than any place we've been on this tour. We stayed overnight in a plywood type of house structure with a few beds, and thankfully air conditioning. None of the roads on the base are paved, and the terrain is rough to say the least. This is a forward operating base, so no planes come in, only helicopters. In the DFAC, only plastic utensils and paper plates because water is a precious commodity. And of course, 3 minute combat showers in the cadillacs.

This morning we got a tour of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, a type of mobile transport for a few troops at a time that is agile and well-armored. After that, lunch and set up for soundcheck. At this base, and maybe all in Iraq, the power is 220V, so we have to wait for electricians to come in and bring us step down converters for the gear. In this case, we get not only a converter but need to run Rob's bass amp off of a little Honda generator out in back of the venue - yes, bass players are high maintenance. But we get into soundcheck and it sounds pretty good - thanks, Dallan.

Early show at 1800, which is a little touch because it's a Wednesday night so we're competing against the weekly Surf & Turf dinner. No, not an extravagance or wasting the taxpayers money AT ALL. When you're stationed at a place like this, you deserve something like this. Period.

The show started on time, with armed guards at the front door and surrounding the building. And the show rocked, we had a good crowd, and people were into it. But the band's big new fans - Uganda! It seems that a lot of the base security people are from Uganda and work for one of the subsontractors. But when they heard about a band playing, all of the off-duty Ugandans came over and rocked out. Wait till you see them singing along on HiFi Connection.

After the show, packed up the gear and a little dinner. And a little time spent with a great soldier who's job is go go out and look for IEDs. Yeah, whoa. I won't go into details because it was very personal with the band, but all I can say is that they lifted his spirits and helped him get through a rough patch. If they connect with one person like that at a show, then that's worth everything.

Late night choppers (CH-46) back to Al Asad and sleep to get ready for the next show in Iraq. Let me also take a minute to wax philosophic about helmets and flak jcakets. On this part of the tour we need to wear them on all chopper flights. The vests are hot, heavy, and uncomfortable, and you sweat profusely in the Middle East heat. And that's just us in t-shirts for maybe 1/2 and hour. So imagine soldiers on patrol for 8-12 hours at time, in the middle of the day (at least 120+ degrees) with even heavier vests that have additional protection, plus backpacks, and long sleeves tops and pants, and boots. When we all think about that, we can't even say a thing about a lousy 1/2 hour....TM