RACE #3: Special Forces unit (7/12/09)

Another 4am wake up and a 6:00 race at Camp Bennett, a small compound inside the Speicher base. Speicher has about 20,000 soldiers and is quite expansive geographically. It’s not as MASH looking as Taji, but much more open and desert-y. The villa compound we’re in looks like somewhere in AZ. There are still MRAPs and other military stuff all over the place, but we haven’t seen the concentration of soldiers, so it doesn’t feel quite the same. So we got everything set up for a small race for the Special Forces troops and their support crew. There were about 18 guys there to run. They ran the .8 mile loop around their compound twice, making a 1.6 mile race. I chose to sit this one out so Josh could run and I could take pictures which was really fun! They parked an MRAP by the finish line, and we lined the finish chute with banners, and we put the UA and ESS banners on the cement barriers. It looked great and hopefully I got some great pictures. Josh had his shutter set on rapid fire, resulting in about 18 pictures every time I pushed it. (ok, maybe just 3-4, but still, there were a LOT of pictures!) Maybe I need to work on my gentleness! So after the race we had an awards ceremony, an honorary presentation to their commanding officers, and their Lt Col (who came in 1st in his age group by the way!) showed us his office with the memorial wall of their fellow special ops soldiers who were killed in action. They had a framed picture and description of each one on the wall. It was very touching and sad to think of these young, talented, patriotic, devoted men who died in this war. One was awarded the silver star for jumping on a grenade that was lobbed into the room he and 3 other soldiers were in. He dove on it to save the other troops, who walked away with minor injuries. Had he not done that, they all would have died. It was an amazing illustration of the bond these guys have with each other and their commitment to their duty. You could look in their faces and see the sadness at losing these fellow soldiers and great friends, and know that the memories would burn brightly for the rest of their lives.

We were about to miss breakfast, so we ran off and ate, then returned to Camp Bennett to help Robi clean up the race flags, banners and all that. We then headed to their MWR to get on the computers. Computer connectivity has been limited, and we’ve had a hard time finding places to plug in our computers to transmit pictures and stories. The NASA folks, Robi and the Sterns have made a considerable effort to find it because they need to get the story out to the media and to the troops who have spent time with us on our tours. Since I’m only updating friends and family, I decided to take a little time to rest rather than chase around an internet connection. It’s been nice to be off the grid a little.

Christian, Zach, Sandy and I had been talking about going to do a Crossfit workout, or some other kind of butt kicking workout at some point, and it was going to be after the computer time this morning. We were waiting for DC (badass muscular, Under Armour wearing special ops dude) to come take us back to housing and go workout. We waited and waited and waited. I got sick of surfing the internet (I’ve been keeping this blog on my laptop in free time, and couldn’t hook it up to the Ethernet cable, so I couldn’t update this blog. Sorry!) so I did a few pushups, did some quad chair sitting against the wall. I was getting antsy knowing that we probably weren’t going to have time to work out before lunch. Christian and I took a lap around the compound; the same .8 mile loop they did in the race this morning…..but at noon. Damn it was hot and it was starting to get windy.

We panted our way back to their break room and found DC. He and our bus driver had been there all the time. We rounded up our computer users and headed back to the villa. Quick shower (much needed!) and off to lunch. After lunch we had a little time to chill out, then it was time for the band to go get everything set up. I still wanted to get a workout in, and it turned out that the concert tonight was in the gym. Perfect! Just enough time to have a decent workout and get back for another shower, off to dinner then the concert. On the way to the gym, we noticed that it was considerably windier and the sand was getting all kicked up. In fact, visibility was very low, and rumblings of “no planes flying” and “red zone” were mentioned. The forecast was right, seems we were launching into another heavy sand storm. Fun!
The concert was great! Chris had arranged for 2 cases of non-alcoholic beer to be put on ice in the hall. Apparently at other shows, they’d had beer fights. It was pretty funny! This crowd was pretty subdued, probably due to the fact that it was in a huge gym with full lighting, so the atmosphere was not very rock-concert-y or conducive to letting loose and spraying beer all over the place. I did do my part by doing my first shotgun, pretty unsuccessfully, but still quite entertaining. The band invited me to come up on stage with them during their second set to sing with them which was really fun! Those guys are such great showmen, and their enthusiasm and comfort on stage makes their shows really fun to watch. Being on stage with them was a blast as well. Sandy and Frank did autographs after the show while Rick took race registrations for the next morning, and the Catch Penny guys gave out and signed CDs. They got their stuff all packed up, and we headed back to the villa.

NASA was supposed to launch a shuttle the night before, but it was postponed to the next day, so a bunch of us went over the the MWR to check the computers and see if the launch was going to happen. Robi was planning to video Sandy watching the launch online with some troops, which would be happening at 2:30am Iraq time. They checked NASA online and the launch was still a “go”, so we headed back to the house for a few hours of sleep. I really wanted to get some rest, but how often do you get to watch a shuttle launch with an astronaut?? Not often, so I decided to get up at 1:30 and go to the main MWR to watch the launch with them.