I had a bit of a surprise today. Some bears came by and asked to see me! Fortunately we were able to get them onto the base for a meeting with relatively little trouble. The gate guards searched them, of course, but since bears don’t wear clothes it was easy for the guards to see that our visitors were not concealing any weapons.

I met them in the Animal Squad area. It turned out that the visitors were the sheikh and two of his brothers. I invited them in. Unfortunately I didn’t have any pillows that were the right size for them to lean on, so they had to make do with what was available:

In Iraq (and many other Arab countries), it is customary to serve guests chai (tea) as soon as they arrive. So I immediately told Winston to make some tea (I figured he was the best one to do this, since he drinks tea every day at 5 o’clock).

Unfortunately, our only teacup was being used.

After a bit of a delay, Winston was able to serve the tea.

After drinking tea, we got down to business. The sheikh told me that he was sorry about what had happened in his village. Unfortunately, some insurgents had come in and told all of the bears in his sleuth that if they helped or even talked to coalition forces, they would be killed! The sheikh explained that he and his tribe just wanted to live in peace, but the insurgents wouldn’t let them. He also said that because we helped the wounded civilian after the last battle, he could see that we meant well, but he knew that the insurgents were up to no good.

The sheikh offered to help us, but he asked for weapons so his bears could keep the insurgents out of their village. He explained that the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police never go out to that area, so there was no other way for them to defend themselves. He also asked for money so that they could dig new canals and replant the berry bushes Saddam had destroyed.

I told him the money was no problem, but that I was afraid that if I gave weapons to just one tribe, the other tribes might think we were playing favorites. After all, we’re fighting on behalf of all Iraqis, not just one village, tribe, or sleuth. So I told him that if the other tribal leaders were also interested, we might be able to make an arrangement.

Sure enough, the next week, all of the local tribal leaders showed up to meet with me!

(This time I made sure the tea was ready when they arrived.)

We reached an agreement to arm and train a few selected animals in each sleuth or herd so that they would be able to defend themselves against insurgents, in return for which they would have to cooperate with us.

I think that worked out very well!

Posted by Stone Cold at 09:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I mentioned in an earlier update that we get supplies and mail delivered by a reindeer-drawn sleigh (it’s actually what we call a “sleigh-130”). It makes a weekly trip from POLARCOM headquarters in the Arctic to the airfield at Tallil.

Today I got mail! (It is one of the last shipments we'll be getting since we're heading home soon!) Blitzen, the loadmaster for the sleigh-130, brought it over to me.

Hooray for cookies!

Posted by Stone Cold at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A few days later, our patrol took us through the bears’ village again. This time, though, something seemed different.

Only the adult bears came out to see us this time. And for some reason, they didn’t want to say anything to us – they just asked us to please leave them alone. I couldn’t figure out why they had such a change in their attitude….

We respected their wishes and moved through the village quietly, but I knew something was wrong, so I warned my squad to be extra careful.

Sure enough, shortly after we passed through the village, we got ambushed! Steve and I were pinned down, but we tried our best to return fire.

Fortunately we were able to get our air support on scene quickly. Tony dropped his “ordnance” right on target!

The RDA (Rock Damage Assessment) was one insurgent KIA (Killed in Action), although I think there may have been more who were involved in the attack.

Unfortunately, during the battle one of the village bears was wounded by a stray bullet! Winston immediately performed first aid and we called in a MEDEVAC (Medical Evacuation). Here is Winston preparing to load the wounded villager onto a MEDEVAC Bird:

Here is a closer look. You can see the villager suffered a nasty wound to his right paw.

The insurgents are definitely up to no good in that village, and I think they have those bears intimidated. I hope we can find a way to drive them out!

Posted by Stone Cold at 08:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My platoon got assigned to a new patrol zone recently. While we were on our first patrol in the new area, we came across something totally unexpected!

I didn’t even know there were bears in Iraq! They look kind of small, so I figured they were probably malnourished. I also thought they must be Sun Bears, since I figured only bears that really like the sun could survive in Iraq. MAJ Simer, however, said that if they live in this area they are probably Syrian Brown Bears. I asked him, “if they are Syrian bears, then what are they doing in Iraq?” MAJ Simer just shook his head.

Whatever kind of bears they are, they were a little apprehensive at first (you can see that one cub is staying very close to its mother). But they were not hostile. The village sheikh came out and welcomed us.

We spoke to him for a while. He explained that they hadn’t seen Americans or British soldiers in their village very often, so they were a little concerned as to why we were there. Once we explained that we were just passing through, he was satisfied. After the sheikh finished talking, the other bears felt more comfortable. As we spoke to them, many of them smiled at us, waved, and even came up to thank us (and America, and Britain) for getting rid of Saddam Hussein! Apparently Saddam did not treat these bears very well – in 1991, his secret police apparently uprooted or poisoned all of their favorite berry bushes.

So once they saw that we weren’t there to attack them, they were very happy. After a while they even let their cubs come up and talk to us. Their cubs were fascinated by me. Apparently most Iraqi bears don’t get much bigger than about 300lbs, so to see an 1100-lb polar bear was really exciting! The cubs especially liked to climb on me:

I had a lot of fun visiting that village! I hope we get to go back there again!

Posted by Stone Cold at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought today it would be good to post an update of what’s been going on at home! As you know, my wife, Milkshake, and our two cubs, live in Saint Paul. They live in an apartment with MAJ Simer’s wife, Kelly, and their cub, Amy.

From time to time, Milkshake sends me care packages. She tries to send me treats and food items that I can’t get over here. I told her that the food was not good here (no seals, whales, or walruses at all), and she thought that was terrible! So, she tried to send me a walrus. She figured that sending a live walrus would be best – that way it wouldn’t spoil on the trip. Here are a couple of pictures Kelly took of Milkshake putting the walrus into the box. Apparently the walrus didn’t want to go.

Sometimes, Milkshake and Kelly take turns watching the cubs. Today it was Milkshake’s turn.

One way that polar bear cubs develop is by play-fighting. That’s how they learn the skills and develop the muscles they need to catch seals and other animals to eat, and to fight other polar bears. Milkshake thinks that those are important skills for humans to have, too. So she often play-wrestles with Amy.

It looks like Amy got the better of this fight!

Posted by Stone Cold at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Those of you who read this blog regularly may wonder what happened to Ian, the animal soldier from the Royal Scottie Regiment. He’s actually been working over in the property book office with Sgt. 1st Class Pasch. I know I wouldn’t like doing all that paperwork all day long, but Ian enjoys it. Apparently this sort of work plays to his nature as a Scottish Terrier. Here’s a picture of him reviewing a turn-in document:

SFC Pasch really likes Ian. Unfortunately for him, though, she thought he would look really cute with a bow, and made him wear one:

Here is a closeup of Ian with the bow. He doesn’t look very happy about it.

In fact, Ian was so unhappy about it that he sent a complaint to our Brigade’s IG (Inspector General)!

MAJ Simer said that if Ian thinks wearing a bow is humiliating and degrading, he should try working in the S3 section for a while.

We’ll see what the IG does with Ian’s complaint.

Posted by Stone Cold at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)