I’d like to thank CBS News for their brief story, “How One Soldier’s Strategy Turned Tide in Iraq” Thursday night. There is another link here.

In related news, I’m late ordering “A Soldier’s Dream: Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq.” But I should be getting it in time for Christmas. I’m looking forward to reading it.

     As it happened, I rolled home and straight into an exercise! I’d like to say I swapped my ‘Battle Rattle’ for a chemical defense ensemble, but rather the chemical defense ensemble went on underneath the Interceptor body armor.  Mercifully it’s been a cool June here in northern Japan. 

     It certainly was fun to get a few flights in, too, even if the weather obscured everything but the Pacific and the Sea of Japan. 

     Now back to the grind!

     Thank for the tip, Mr Patriquin!

     At the leader’s signal, everyone would commence eating.  Did I mention everyone eats with their hands? Yes, the glass was the only utensil available, and you ate the food straight off the banana leaf.  In the past, whomever ate the fastest literally got the most, so in that sense it could get to be a kind of fight.  Today a roasted pigs’ head made an appearance at the table, it didn’t last very long!  In my handful of experiences with Boodle  Fighting, there has always been more than enough food.  Sometimes our hosts have to go find someone else to finish eating the food.  It’s certainly a fairly quick way to eat a lot of food. 

     Now for the food critic portion:  I usually eat the rice and the noodles.  The noodles are about like spaghetti, just cut shorter.  Today the cook put some sort of spice on them which tasted great! I like the adobo, but the cuts you tend to get here contain a lot of fat (not much goes to waste in this country).  Without utensils it’s difficult to trim the fat, so I didn’t eat a lot of the adobo today.  The fish and calamari was reportedly good, I didn’t fight very hard for the seafood, though. 

     I’m thinking about importing the Boodle Fight home.  I think I’ll use some sort of finger food to substitute for items we Westerners tend to eat from a dinner plate, though.  I’ll probably use pizza and finger sandwiches. 

     The second significant event today occurred while I was making coffee at the team house.  I’m not normally at this particular station, but I’ve been here several times a month or so ago, and I’m always billeted at one particular team house here.  As I poured water into the coffee machine, one of the guys who lives here more permanently asked if I’d looked into the reservoir before I’d poured.  

     "Of course I hadn’t," I said.  "Who does that?" I figured something was up, that seemed like an awfully odd question. 

     He then explained that last month they’d found a dead gecko in the reservoir.  Apparently it had become trapped, died, and it’s spirit had slipped away some time well prior, as the poor lizard was fairly well decomposed before one of them found it.  One of the co-workers complained of being sick for two days just due to the mental image.  One of my teammates mentioned there’d been a film on the coffee and a slightly odd taste.  No one really suspected anything, though; they thought it was just the water.    

     Naturally I asked if it’d been in there the last time I’d been here, and they assured me it certainly had been.  So there you have it, my teammates, co-workers, and I had all been drinking dead gecko coffee for who knows how long! 

     I think I’ve just developed another new habit–I’ll check the coffee machine before pouring the water into the reservoir! At least while I’m still in this country!

     I think I’ll be redirecting my search efforts. 

**20080607 Update:   I found the photo my friend sent me where I was pointing at the spider.  You have to click on the photo to see it in its entirety (meaning both my smiling mug and the spider itself). 

     This place is no different, although I’ve had to adjust my tactics.  There is a field I have to traverse to get to work sometimes.  It’s not a very big field, and it has varying grass heights.  Parts of it get mowed, other parts are kept short by roving goats, and other parts rarely get cut so the grass grows about knee-height.  Some of my friends pointed out that sometimes people have found snakes in that field.  Snakes? Cool!

     Oh! The snakes are often cobras.

     I’ve stopped walking across that field. 

     . . . at night, that is.  Let’s not get unnecessarily frightened here.  I would love to see a wild cobra! From a relatively safe distance, anyway.  I figure I’ve got the goats as an early-warning indicator during the day when they’re out.  I just stay away from the tall grass where I can’t see anything. 

     . . . At least according to him! You know how these young folks can be brash sometimes.

     You’re doing great work, AJ! Keep it up!

     I can’t believe I traded in a G-suit for kevlar!

Update 11 Apr 2008:  Due to popular demand to know which one of these fighter pilots-turned fighter-pilots-on-the-ground is me, I’ll give you all the following hint:  I’m the one on the side.  (Seriously, I may tell you via e-mail if you ask nicely)

     Anne, I’m curious now about that riding crop, I’ll keep my eyes peeled.  There aren’t many horses around here, though. 

     Even though water wasn’t scarce, the plumbing wasn’t quite as good as most Koa campgrounds, so it was Navy-style showers, which wasn’t too bad.  The toilets weren’t the ‘flushable’ variety, though, so you had to fill a bucket with water and dump it in order to effect a flush. 

     The food there ensured you’d get familiar with the flushing process. 

     Hand sanitizer, while not really abundant, was fortunately available in places where soap was not. 

     If you like sun, surf, insurgents, fish, and mangos, this is the place for you!