Mormons v. Chaplains

The Chaplains run religious services on base. They lead the services for Catholics and a variety of Protestant flavors. I'm am unsure who leads the Jewish group. But the Chaplains control everything. There is a program, however, for those who want to meet with others of a specific denomination. It works kind of like an after school club. If someone wants to hold a Bible study for a given denomination, he has to get approval from his chain of command, a letter stating approval from a minister or leader of his congregation back at home, and then he has to have a sponsoring Chaplain. After getting all of this he is appointed as a Lay Leader of that group. He can't “preach” and he can't administer communion, but he can lead a meeting where they study and sing hymns.

As you can tell, this describes neither the appointment nor the responsibilities of a Mormon “lay leader,” but the new group of Chaplains that came out at the beginning of the year apparently didn't realize this.

So when Bro. Martin, our LDS Group Leader (and a civilian), went to meet the Chaplains, there was something of a misunderstanding. They asked for our letters of approval from the LDS church and, as it turns out, we had them. Salt Lake sent us each a letter, addressed to the military, that describes our positions and informs them of our authority to act on behalf of the church. Apparently, the Chaplains never actually read the letters that Bro. Martin gave them, or they would have seen that the letters were informing them that the church had appointed us, not granting the military permission to do so.

The Chaplains were concerned about designating a civilian as the denomination Lay Leader. The Lay Leader program is a military one and appointing a civilian as such in a forward deployed location is unprecedented. The head Chaplain said he'd have to get approval and further guidance from higher up back in the States and that he'd prefer to just appoint the lieutenant as the Lay Leader.

Bro. Martin took him at his word and got kind of nervous about having to call the Stake to tell them that the military had revoked our callings. This was the first I had heard of any of this, so at this point I stepped in and told the Base Chaplain, an officer multiple ranks above me, that he's not the boss of us. Really. I emailed the Chaplains and, speaking kindly but firmly, basically told them that the LDS church does not participate in the military Lay Leader program. I explained that we were called independently of them, that we acted independently of them, and that we were not subject to their oversight.

None of the Chaplains ever emailed either of us back. I hope I didn't burn any bridges there, cause we depend on them for sacrament cups.

The Al Asad Group

The base has a pretty nice chapel building with nice pews, stained glass windows and everything. But we don’t meet there. Jews and Mormons meet in the chapel annex building in the back.



Church at Al Asad works exactly the way church is supposed to work: two optional one-hour meetings. The first is at 1:00 and the next is at 8:00 in the evening. We generally get about 20 people for the afternoon session and 10-15 for the evening one, with very little overlap. Each meeting is structured like a sacrament meeting all the way up until after sacrament, when we turn to lessons instead of talks. During one of the sessions we do the SS lesson and during the other we do the Priesthood/RS lesson. Sometimes we’ll just watch General Conference talks.

We’re a Group – the smaller form of a Branch – of the Manama Bahrain Stake. We have a Stake Representative for Anbar Province at another base and a Senior Stake Representative in Baghdad. All of the group leadership was leaving as I arrived and a new Group Leader was called. I was called as an Assistant Group Leader. We’re trying to get a second called right now. We have a few people called as Instructors, but we’re trying to get a total of six so that everyone just teaches one session once a month. The problem is that there’s so much movement, it’s hard to find people who aren’t leaving in a couple of months. I suddenly feel sorry for the Bishoprics of all my Single’s Wards.

A few odds and ends about the group:

-Two meetings can mess with our institutionalized language. During a closing prayer at the afternoon session someone said, “and please bless that those who could not make it this week will be able to attend next week . . . or this evening.”

-We wear uniforms to church, as we do everywhere, but we don’t really recognize rank, which is a little jarring. I still remember walking into church for the first time and a Lt Col comes up and shakes my hand and says, “Hi, I’m Brother B–.”

-We also bring weapons to church, as we do everywhere. There’s a rifle rack on the wall for people who have rifles, but those of us with pistols just keep them on us. It was a little strange at first blessing the sacrament while armed.

-The Jews meet in a room right next to us. They have a sign by their door that says, “Congregation Brothers of Israel.” I am tempted, almost above that which I can bear, to put a sign by our door that says, “Congregation Elders of Israel.”

Happy Halloween

Someone got confused when decorating the chow hall for Easter.



But they made up for it with these cakes.



All of this was in the chow hall that is closest to me, but on Sunday evening I made it down to the big chow hall which is down the ways a bit. I wish I had my camera with me. It was ridiculous. I’ve seen little Easter villages in malls in recent years, but nothing that compares to this. There must have been about 20 large decoration pieces in this Easter village in the middle of the chow hall. My favorite was a 4-foot angry looking rabbit that was pulling a green handcart full of giant eggs.

The funny thing is that no one knows, nor can even figure out, the reasoning behind it all. There are certainly no kids here. And I really don’t think there were very many that even appreciate it. It seemed to be largely ignored when I was there – except when Marines would first see it. They’d pause, take it all in for a moment, and then say, “What the **** is that?”

A Conference Miracle!

I couldn't access the internet where we meet for church, so I couldn't manage to air an audio stream of General Conference for church like I wanted to. We initially planned to do testimony meeting as usual, but at the last minute we discovered that audio files of talks are downloadable from the church website not long after they actually speak. A member brought in the files which I copied onto my laptop and hooked up to our boombox. For the afternoon session of church we listened to the first half of the Saturday Morning session and during the evening session we listened to the rest of it. People seemed to appreciate it, but I think really they were just glad they didn't have to bear their testimonies again.

Nothing special for church tomorrow except that we assigned people to give lessons on the resurrection instead of whatever. So I guess that's special. One guy we assigned to give the lesson only came for the first time last week. I hope he shows up tomorrow because I really have no idea who he is.

Highway Robbery

I went to get my haircut yesterday from the Turks or whoever they are – Indians maybe, I’ve never asked. They could be Iraqis, but their language doesn’t sound like Arabic to me. Anyway, I was astonished to discover that prices had gone up from $3.50 to $4.00. I assumed at first that it must be some April Fools joke, but no, they wanted four big ones for a hair cut. They keep this up and I’m going to start shaving my head.

Can City

We live in cans. Literally. They’re cans. As such, we call them “cans.” A little subdivision of cans is called a can city or a village. Each of these subdivisions are named after famous battles, except that one of them is called “Circus Circus.” I live in Guadalcanal.  It’s not the most prestigious of battles, but it beats Circus Circus.

The rooms are about the size of a dorm room and each has two beds, though I have my own can. Each can has its own heater/air conditioner. I’ve never seen anything quite like them, they’re pretty snazzy. The biggest downside to the cans is that the walls are paper thin – that is to say, can thin. It’s actually not much of a problem for me because my can is on the end of a row in the quiet part of the village, so I probably have it better than most.

Of course, the best part about it is that it’s free.  And it’s right across the street from work.  You can’t beat that.

Hearts and Minds

For years it has been discussed and debated. What brought about the Anbar Awakening? How did the Marines succeed in turning the province so long before the rest of the country? I now reveal to you our secret weapon. 

Seriously, this cracks me up. I mean, it’s pretty quiet out here, but it’s still a war zone. At least, technically it is. Who’s buying this stuff? And who are they trying to impress? I get the feeling it’s the same people who buy the lavender bed sheets. 

Orange Crush

I wake up. There’s a strange almost florescent glow coming from the window. I look out. Orange. Everything is orange. I can make out the images of the things nearby. I can’t see anything else. It’s all orange. I lie back down and try to go back to sleep.

Before I doze off again, the oddity of the scene suddenly strikes me, and I wonder if I had dreamt it. I get back up and look out the window. Still orange. I don’t think to take a picture. The confirmation that I’m not hallucinating is good enough. I go back to sleep.

I wake up. It’s dark. Dark yet gray. I go outside. The wind is blowing hard. And then I feel it. The density of the air. Walking to my destination, eyes nearly shut, I start breathing harder. Trying not to. Every breath is like consuming a teaspoon of dust. I finally get there. I can still feel it in my lungs. I didn’t even walk that far.

I check in with Wikipedia, to learn more of this monster that confronts me. Guess what location has the feature picture? That’s right. It’s us. 

Welcome to Tatooine

Al Asad reminds me most of those summer months on Tatooine. Not far outside Mos Eisley, there were structures just like these.

I tried to get a closer look once, but we were chased off by sand people before we ever got a chance to explore them, so I couldn't tell you what's in them. Needless to say, I keep my distance from these ones as well.

C-130 Rollin' Down the Strip

Camp LeJeune’s air station is actually an hour north in a town called Cherry Point, so after people had said all their goodbyes to weepy wives and families, we boarded a bus that brought us all up there. We arrived six hours early, just to be on the safe side. In the waiting area at the hanger in Cherry Point, there were about three bookcases worth of books that had been donated by area libraries. Every single one of them was a paperback romance. I never really decided whether anything of interest had already been sifted through or if some library ladies somewhere were enjoying a cruel joke.

We eventually boarded the plane – a commercial flight that was all military – and were told to secure our rifles under our seats.  We were carrying rifles and pistols every one of us but, I kid you not, we were told at the last minute that knifes over six inches had to be checked. Oddly, no one had anything to declare. We flew six hours to some obscure Irish town where we had an hour layover. So we all got out and stormed the few shops that were open in the middle of the night. I spent four dollars on a bottle of liquid that was labeled “Diet Cherry Coke” but was otherwise unrecognizable to me.

As we left Ireland the day dawn was breaking and six hours later we arrived in Kuwait as the sun was setting. Right by plane on the tarmac there were busses waiting for us that whisked us away to Camp Virginia, a US base in northern Kuwait.  Camp Virginia’s a bizarre place; feels kind of like a large-scale movie set. There are no trees anywhere, just tan tents and buildings up against a blue sky in every direction. We spent the night there and in the morning took another bus ride to another airline waiting station where we were again six hours early.

Flying into Iraq was, to say the least, anti-climactic. In training at The Basic School, we flew on helicopters multiple times, each simulating an extraction or insertion into a hot landing zone. We would board running and it would take off before we could even get our seat belts on. As soon as the roller coaster-like flight had landed, we were dashing off and diving into the tree line to set up a defensive perimeter.

So when we boarded the C-130 plane in Kuwait, whose interior is actually quite similar to the helicopters I was familiar with, my first instinct was to belt in as fast as possible. Then a 20 minute flight delay. After a smooth two hour flight we landed quietly and waited some more. Then we got off, slowly, and boarded busses that took us to our tents.

The most startling thing about Al Asad was how big and developed it was. Camp Virginia actually felt like a forward operating base in the Arabian Desert. Al Asad feels like a whole town from the nether parts of Arizona or Nevada had been lifted up out of the ground and retransplanted.  The below picture isn’t much to see, but it’s as a good an overhead shot as I’ve been able to get. What you see there is just a section of town – the industrial neighborhood, if you will.

I'll provide my entries for Things to See and Places to Eat for Fodor's throughout the year. 

Hangin Out in the Hood

A week or so ago I was waiting for a bus at a bus stop downtown at night. There’s still some construction going on and all the fences, the hastily built structures, the cracks in the pavement, and the worn down bus stop made it all feel like a typical urban environment. Especially at night when there is little light. At the bus stop there were two guys in hoodies and jeans and a couple of guys in American thrift shop-type clothes. I shivered. The wind was blowing hard. Probably in the low 40’s. All of a sudden it occurred to me: I’m in freaking inner-city Chicago.

The only difference is, I’ve got a pistol attached to my leg. And they don’t.

Never Winter and Always Christmas

This place is a like a reverse Narnia. February is upon us and it's still Christmas. Witness the mass of goodies that have come from Christmas care packages.



It's all on a table in the hallway for anyone to take. Candy, books, toothbrushes and toothpaste, stationary, all kinds of odds and ends. Everyday someone opens a couple of the boxes and puts the stuff out onto the table and, as of this writing, there are still stacks of boxes yet to be opened. And this is all just stuff that was given to the unit we're replacing. It's amazing that this stuff gets rumaged through by hundreds of people on a daily bases, and there's still all this crap.

Most of these care packages are filled with big baggies full of stuff, evidently intended to each go to an individual Marine. Generally, the bags get opened and sorted: the hand sanitizer in the box full of hand sanitizers, the playing cards with the stacks of playing cards, the toothbrush in the box full of toothbrushes, etc. We used to have a big box full of razors – those cheap plastic single blade razors – collected from weeks of care packages. I think someone finally just threw the whole box away.

The other day I was looking through one box of goodie bags that I was thinking was particularly obnoxious. In each bag a copy of Reader's Digest, some crappy candy, some handy-wipes, other worthless trinkets. Then I caught a glimpse of the handcrafted card placed in each bag. "Young Women's Camp, Summer 2008. Portland Oregon Stake. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." I thought about writing back to the stake, "Thank you so much for your thoughtful care package. We threw most of it away."

My Bed Sheets are Lavender

All the other colors were sold out. I don't understand why they even sell lavender. I keep trying to think of who their target audience is on that one (the Air Force maybe?) but I can't figure it out.

Inauguration Day

That's right. Today is the inauguration of this blog. 

So tonight at dinner I was in the chow hall and watching TV on one of the many big screens that are all over the walls. I'm not sure what show I was watching, but some black guy was swearing in as president. I think it was the start of the new season of 24.  

The chow hall also had this ginormous cake with a big presidential seal and some other nonsense on it. I don't know what it was for, but it sure tasted good.