07OCT2007: ANOTHER DOOR OPENS...

My Home for a year: South Victory Station #2

Sunday night, September 24th I arrived at South Victory Fire Station #2 and right off the bat I was made to feel right at home. Throughout this blog I'll use my co-workers names', but I will not use last names, hometowns or any other personal info. It was after dark when I arrived so the day was winding down, I was on the schedule for the following morning so I was assigned a room and began to settle in and unpack. All the accomodations are inside the Firehouse, no running out to a latrine trailer or port-a-john in the middle of the night which is nice because it is damn dark around here at night! I hit the sack ready for my first day, 0700 was starting time, morning meeting, time-sheets and stuff. I set my alarm early, back in DC I would try to be at the Firehouse an hour early. I woke at 0530 and threw my gear on the Irons position, forcible entry (My favorite, you get to smash things!). I made some coffee and waited for the day to begin. Since everyone is living in the Firehouse most get up shortly before 0700 because there is no travel/commute time. Morning meetings are very organized, short drill and it's out the door to chow. Once back it is clean-up time. This is one of the cleanest Firehouses I have ever seen, everybody is involved, everyday. Then, most weekdays involve inspections, Fire Prevention is a big part of the job over here due to the faulty electrical in the temporary housing, Capacity of the existing electrical work and the arid conditions. Therefore we are spending a few hours a day inspecting, getting signatures and scheduling buildings for the rest of the week.

The Station houses Engine 611, Tanker 611 and Support 611 (mini-pumper). In DC I was assigned to a ladder truck of which there are none here in country. No real need for them since most everything is single story with only a few buildings between 2-5 stories. I never got much experience doing Engine work in DC, pumps or driving etc. It's all about the Engine here and I'm already learning to draft and work the pumps. The week was spent getting use to the Engine, where the equipment is located and how things are run on a daily basis. One of the D/Os (Driver/Operators) is Cedric, extremely nice, very funny yet serious about his job. He teaches Fire Prevention/ Extinguisher classes to the soldiers and civilian contractors a few times per week. I started helping him out and hopefully will have a chance to start taking these classes to get certified in D/O and Inspector 1 & 2. The pictures with Fire in them are of the extinguisher classes, not incoming bombs or rockets. One thing I was seeing alot about being over here is there is not a high call volume, which I found out this week. Not a call all week but still lots of work done. There is always something to keep you busy, especially with all this damn dust!

On a serious note, during my first week I had a dream that really affected me. Being in a new environment I definitly have felt out of place and more than a little lonely. I miss home and everyone there and I can't wait to get back for R&R. I have been sleeping a bit deeper than usual, back home I had horrible sleeping habits which can happen with up to 6 dogs on the bed with you. I never slept very well at the Firehouse either, always on the verge of consiousness. When the bell went off at night I would literally jump off my bed wether the call was for the Truck or not. Anyway in this dream I was talking to someone, not someone you could see or touch, more of an entity. Also it was not a spoken word talk, more like mind-reading talk. Shortly after I had it I got a feeling that the entity was in fact my Grandfather (Pop), John Fennell. Although I distinctly remember thinking that there was no heavy Irish accent. The conversation was short, I was saying that I felt alone, not reallyy upset, but isolated. He almost laughed and asked me why I would feel like I was ever alone. There was no physical body to lookk at but it was as if he gestured off to the side. I looked over and saw Donna Curley, one of my very good friends growing up. Since she was killed by a drunk driver I think about her often. I have few pictures of people I grew up with that are readily available for me to look at, her graduation picture is always close by, she wrote on the back, it's really faded now but still legible. Whenever I come across it I keep it around for a few days and read it over and over. She was a wonderful friend, we had a lot of fun in High School. I think the highlight was Spanish with Mr. Inkles, that class was the best. We had a ball. If I could do it all over again and go back to High School i'd do it just to see Donna!!

Week two started off the same, kinda slow. A few of the house members were sheduled to be in classes this week and next so we had an open spot. It was filled by Chris, one of the guys I came into country with, young guy, 23 Army brat with a lot of Firefighting experience under his belt. He's a very knowledgeable guy for his age as well as a good person. He is assigned to Station #1 right next door at Camp Liberty but he got to spend the week with us. So over in Houston he was dubbed "McLovin" by me because he looks a bit like the kid from "Super Bad", plus he looks real young so he could pass for a senior in High school. I'll post his pic on here later, have to ask him if it's cool. I was happy to see a familiar face when he arrived and we manned the back step that week, me on the line and he on the irons. Mid week we had a small brushfire over at Lost Lake, not much too it, not much brush to burn! We literally used the dirt to put it out, didn't have to worry about a re-kindle, there was very little in the vicinity to burn.

The next day around lunch we had a small electrical fire in a bathroom that was out on arrival, not much to it but always good to have something. No medical calls yet either, which is a good thing, from what I have heard if there is one it is usually pretty bad. This is a warzone and the camp will get incoming.

The big news was the fire at Al Faw Palace, nothing huge, just a good room and contents probably electrical in nature. The whole room burnt up, fire jumped up pretty good when we got in. The building itself is very, very big so it took a while to actually get to the fire and get hoselines up there. Initially the guards brought us to the wrong part of the building, there was smoke coming out of the HVAC and they thought it was the fire. The call came out at about 0130 hours and I was dead asleep, McLovin knocked onn my door and I was out-of-it! I ran out to the Engine and put my gear on. Now I was sleeping with no socks on and later forund out my boots were also a bit too small ( Logistics wrote size 11 on the outside of the boots, but the inside manufacturer label was 10.5). We were on-scene for about 4 hours and every part of my feet were covered in blisters, man was it painful! I got through the next couple of days with little problems but thank God I am on dispatch this week so I can heal and get new boots! Anyway, so far that was the best fire we've had, cool to think it was in probably the 2nd most important building in the world right now. Kinda surreal looking back, things are still sinking in.

Another incident we had was kinda funny, started at the gym. I was on one of the weight machines with my ipod on. I was moving around and didn't feel anything but noticed people all of the sudden start looking uneasy. I took one bud out of my ear and heard a 2nd explosion and felt the impact pretty good. So people start jumping underneath the weight benches and equipment. So I get down on the ground like everyone else because thats what you do when there is an air attack, right? Then I see two of the guys on the Engine with me running out the door and I remembered I am supposed to be responding to wherever the mortar/rocket hit. So I got up and ran to the Engine and got suited up. The driver, Terry, great guy with a heavy, heavy southern draw says "you got your battle-rattle on?" I was like "battle-what?" Turns out he was talking about body armor, we have to wear it under our turnout-gear when responding to incoming incidents. Another new experience for me, even though it wouldn't hurt sometimes to have it in SE, DC. Boy is it heavy too! In the end there were two hits, one outside the fence and one in. Nowhere near anyone or anything that could catch fire, only about a 6 foot diameter crater to show for it. They missed this time.

The rest of the week was uneventful, "McLovin" went back to Station 1 and we got another addition to the house, Greg. A real nice guy. Next week I am on night dispatch which means I'll be up from 7pm to 7am everyday for 7 days. Not much fun, but I'll get to go to the pool all week during the day! More to come soon!

This is the beginning of a new career for me, yet this career requires me to live in a different, unfortunatly hostile, country. No doubt there will be many things worthy of sharing with people close to me and others I do not know as well. I will document as much as possible and look forward to your emails and comments, update me on your lives but most important of all, stay connected. On that note, I'll start a new post and look for correspondences from you all.