Brothers (and girlfriends) in Iraq
 

One of my brothers posed some questions and I thought greekchat would be a good place to get them answered. Maybe this isn't the best forum and there might be a better one. If so, please tell me. For now, here's what he needs to know:

Brothers:

A few days ago the word came down. My longtime girlfriend, [a 2LT], will be deployed to Iraq sometime within the next month. My
feelings on this are obvious, yet irrevalent. She has been attached to the 101st Airborne Division, unit unknown, as a movement control officer. The rumor is she will be based out of Mosul, but that won't be confirmed until she has the formal orders. As a civilian who has never had to endure a loved one being deployed, I am ignorant to all the expectations and eventualities of such a situation. Aside from the questions below, all I ask is that you add her to your list of brothers and sisters to pray for. The questions posed below are some of mine and
some of hers, being her first deployment. Thank you all in advance for any guidance you can provide.

1. Care packages - Content? Needed items? Prohibited items? Shipping
times?
2. Movement control - What the hell is that? (One of my questions,
obviously)
3. Any advice they don't tell you in OBC?
4. Length of deployment - Army says till March, when the 101st comes
home. Is this reliable?
5. Communications - Email I guess, phones?
6. Homefront - What can I / should I do?
7. Brothers in the area - Can she run across brothers out of the area?
8. Intel on Mosul - People? Places? Climates? Etc.
9. Anything else anyone feels we should know.
Again, I thank anyone who can find the time to educate me, the silly
civilian ;-)

In ZAX,
MC

---Jono

Intel on Iraq
 

The following information has not been formally evaluated and is considered to be raw data:

1. Mosul is up north. See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul
Approximately 220 miles northwest of Iraq. It is up near Turkey, sort of.

2. Movement control sounds like a transportation / logistics job that plans and manages to movement of people and stuff. Matching up transport requests with available cargo movers, trucks, etc.

3. E-mail is an iffy thing. I know it's available, because I swap e-mail with a brother who is in the Marine Corps. Rather not share screen names and the like, though. Don't know what the Army has for it's folks, but if they have connectivity, then they have it. I suspect that if she's in the transport / logiostics business, she'll have Internet and hence e-mail.

4. Care packages are allowed, but the contects are regulated. No booze, no pork, no revealing photos, in the case of a young lady, no undergarments from Frederick's of Hollywood, no non-Muslim religous material. Basically, if the locals cannot or should not have it, our folks CANNOT have it. Would suggest that text in letters be kept 'modest'.

The foregoing is based upon rules in effect in early '03. They have not loosened up.

John L. Gezelius, Lt Col, USAFR (Ret) [as of 3/14/03]

Just got this from one of the brothers in the sandbox:

Always bro, always.

Worry not, tho I may not write, I read...and it's nice to know all that goes on over there in the states.

Take care.

In ZAX,
Hover
BN509

I can only wish him "safe home".

In ZAX,
Jono

Bless all of Our Brothers, OUr Family, and Friends who are in teh Military and trying to Protect us all!