Internet in Iraq among Other Things

Today I had a meeting with a Public Affairs Officer to discuss the possibilities of that career path. While I'm currently assigned to the Armor branch (I play with tanks if you're not familiar with the military) and have not had any serious qualms during my time but it is not something that I foresee myself doing for years to come, provided I make the choice to stay in the Army. Since I only had a vague idea of what Public Affairs' job actually consisted of I felt I needed to do a little research prior to my meeting so I didn't portray myself to be completely incompetent. I logged on to the website that should have provided me with everything I needed but I faced one problem. The web page I wanted to view gave me the "webpage can not be displayed" message. Why is it that the pages we need to see the most are not available at the times we need them? You never see the pop ups "single, sexy women in your area are waiting for you on webcam" get the "can not display web page" message. Whatever the case it was just my luck; so I closed my computer, began to walk towards my meeting and I thought about something else, my internet provider.

For approximately the next two weeks I'm located at FOB Falcon here in Iraq and if you decide to have the luxury of internet on your personal computer there naturally is a price to pay. When I first arrived I opted to buy the cheapest package the TigrisNet folks had to offer, $25/month instead of the $199/month. It didn't take long until I upgraded for a $99/month package with the logic being I'll be able to talk with Celia every night in the privacy of my own room on Skype. The longer I've been here the more I've thought about the internet service provided to soldiers at FOB Falcon and all over Iraq for that matter. I have said on multiple occasions that the majority of Iraqi's are not the smartest collection of people in the world but a few select individuals are smart enough to know the term, "stick it to the man." At every major FOB and Camp throughout Iraq wireless internet service is provided and now at the smaller COP's and JSS's internet is becoming available. The service will run you anywhere from $50/month to $200/month; so it can be relatively expensive. Now think of how many thousands of soldiers there are in Iraq at this very moment and how many of them are paying for internet. It's a staggering number with an over/under of 70,000 I'd venture to guess over. I would like to have been in the room when the Iraqi's got together and talked about this, in my mind the conversation went like this.

"The Americans are pissing me off," Shouted Iraqi man #1.

"Me too! Let's kill them," Chimed disgruntled Iraqi #2.

"You can't kill them, they have super big guns," Sulked Iraqi #3.

"I build bomb," Disgruntled Iraqi #2 said excitedly.

"Then Americans destroy your house demanding answers," replied Debbie Downer of Iraq, A.K.A. Iraqi #3.

"I want blood," Demanded Iraqi #1.

"What if I could give you more than blood," Iraqi #3 said very eerily.

"I don't know what is better than blood or bomb," Iraqi #2 said scratching his head.

"We take Americans money," Iraqi #3 said.

"I like it, how," Both Iraqi #1 & #2 asked.

"American's are dumb. They need internet. They can't live without internet. They will pay large money for internet. Our service will stink but they will buy it anyway," #3 explained.

"Are you sure," Junior High drop out Iraqi #1 asked.

"Americans need MySpace. They can't live without it. And only we will provide service. Quick, spread the word that the time has come to bring down the evil empire," Iraqi #3 laghed.

Back when I was at JSS UR the internet service was worse than dial up. It took minutes for my homepage to load up and it was a guarantee the service would drop. Picking up a signal in my room was next to impossible so I had to buy this high-speed antenna for a small price of $50. The antenna provided absolutely zero assistance but fortunately for the Iraqi's that sold it there was a strict no refund policy. Then on multiple occasions the service would be completely shut down to "improve the quality" of internet being put out. Our course that time was part of our monthly billing cycle. By the way, did I mention that I paid $75 for that one month? It was basic economics; supply and demand, and we all fell for it.

I didn't think about all of that on my voyage to my Public Affairs meeting, a lot of those thoughts have been in my head for a while now. I did have my meeting with a Public Affairs Officer and needless to say it peaked my interest a little bit. A few people know this but I have begun to develop a fondness for writing and thought that this could be the opportunity for me while I'm still in the Army. I would prefer to write a column with my ideas, input, opinions, and whatnot but will most likely not be granted that. If I decide to go in this direction I would handle press releases, media relations, and working with local businesses to name a few. While trying to stay optimistic I would hope this could help to get one foot in the door to eventually some permanent writing in the future. Now the question would be "what makes me so different from else?" I guess the answer is nothing, really. Practically every idea imaginable has been done and redone but it's all about the style. I'd like to think if given the chance with a specific subject or column to write I could bring a different style to the table. That end state, it's farfetched I know, but I think if I could get into the Public Affairs that would be the beginning of putting me in a place I could truly excel in.

I didn't much else today to be perfectly honest. Everybody here is preparing to redeploy back to Germany which can not come soon enough. I think with one of the upcoming days I'm going to keep a running journal of my day; that ought to be overly dull. I would like to close out by saying Game 7 tomorrow night, Bulls vs. Celtics, does it really get any better than this series? Make sure to tune in!