Jim Spiri in Iraq

By the time I arrived at the PAO office, things had
begun to look up. It was a welcomed site to meet my
POC, (point of contact), face to face. The Sgt. and I
had been corresponding via email for the past week and
the coordination that the two of us worked out at the
speed of light, worked like clockwork and I needed to
reconfirm some new arrangements for the upcoming
departure. We talked for awhile, discussed cameras
and journeys, and I soon left the Sgt's office with a
smile on my face. It is always a pleasure to work
with those that "get it done."

By now, it was pushing towards noon, and it was just
too hot to eat. I went over to the internet room near
my quarters and caught up on some emails and then
returned to my quarters and laid down and immediately
fell asleep. At around 1600-1630 hrs, the wind-up
alarm clock I have, rang like an old dial phone and
awoke me
right on time. I threw some water on my face, brushed
my teeth, and headed over for the long, hot walk to my
son Jimmy's hooch. It was now really hot, as it
always is at that particular time of day in Iraq in
July. The walk would take about 15-minutes and I
always look forward to a walk, as long as I know where
I'm going.

About 2/3-rds of the way there, I heard a loud
"KABOOOM". I instantly thought about the story I had
recently written about the marine artillarymen in
Fallujah, so mentally I was thinking, "artillary".
However, I also knew the recent sound of artillary on
the "outgoing side" and began mentally processing the
brain waves that were now racing to collect some
thoughts in proper sequence. Then all of a sudden,
another, much, much closer, snap-crackling, "KABOOOM"
hit in very close proximity to me. Now, I knew it was
close. And this was a rocket attack, just like I had
experienced hundreds of times in Balad from 2004-06.

I had no choice but to keep on my path for now I was a
couple hundred meeters from my destination which was
my son's hooch. We were to meet at 1700 and head to
chow together with his roomate, another "Jim". As I
proceeded further, I walked close to the big concrete
blast barriers and looked over my shoulder to see the
now black smoke rising behind me from the impact. I
had just walked through an open area and then to the
hooch section on my way to locating Jimmy's hooch. As
I looked back, I now saw that where I had been
walking, was rather close to where the impact had
occurred. Had I taken the exact path, with a bit later
of a departure, things could have turned out ugly.

When I arrived at Jimmy's hooch, he was not there. I
figured he was in a bunker, or the shower. By now,
many folks had been
running towards the impact area, to see if anyone or
anything was hurt or damaged. To my knowledge, there
was neither
injury nor damage. And to my knowledge, Taji, like
anywhere else in Iraq, can be at times, a dangerous
place to be.

As I waited on Jimmy's doorstep, I saw this man come
out of the shower trailer carrying toilitries bag and
all clean shaven and tidyed up. It was Jimmy who
greeted me with a big smile and said, "hey dad" as he
saw me standing on his steps at the door to his hooch.
I asked him if he heard anything and he said "no, I
was in the shower". I realized that the two of us had
just been through a rocket attack in Iraq, and neither
of us were hurt.

to be continued.....END PART ONE