Trigger's Tour of FOB Delta

Hi, my name is Trigger.CW3 Pedersen bought me for $50, which makes me feel grossly undervalued considering my fine pedigree. Guess he liked my bright orange color. Seems it went with some weird “safety” theme of his as the A Company Safety Officer. I like to call him, Mr. Poppy. He even decorated me with a bright orange reflective belt like he wears at night. Makes me look hot, don’t you think? Why the name “Trigger?” Cool name. I have no idea why Mr. Poppy named me that. Must have something to do with horses or guns or something.

Together, we travel Forward Operating Base (FOB) Delta’s fine roads. Picture a 1 x 2 mile flat dirt field peppered with asphalt, gravel and 12 foot high concrete barriers surrounding aluminum buildings. That’s our home. I’m a pretty good steed, but I do have one bad habit. I absolutely hate to ride into the wind! I just refuse to do it no matter how much Mr. Poppy huffs and puffs. And it gets very windy here in Iraq.

Being polite and safety-minded, we share the road with buses transporting troops…

…and nice military policemen in Up-Armored HMWVVs and MRAPS (something about mine-resistant blah-blah-blah). Their vehicles are covered with poles to deflect cables and low-slung telephone lines, and other electronic gizmos to detect Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) along the road. Personally, I rely on Mr. Poppy’s keen eyesight. (What’s so funny about that?)



We ride past the new control tower…










… which replaced the old control tower (which kinda reminds me of the Leaning Tower of Pisa; Look out below! Someone dropped a few bombs on it before I got here, so it’s a little shaky on it’s foundation.),…

…We ride past the Iraqi Air Force hangar (I haven’t seen even one aircraft come out of that hangar!),…

…and up to one of his offices (separated by nicely colored concrete barriers. He’s gone a lot lately.).

Once a week, we go visit the free laundry and drop off his duffel bag (with no more than 20 items, thank you for observing the rules. I was really nervous about this picture. See that No Parking sign? I’m never been impounded before!!!).





We sometimes go visit the Chapel, hidden behind concrete barriers, of course. (Good thing there’s a steeple on top to let you know the chapel is behind the walls.)

We’ve even visited the Haji Shops. (Mr. Poppy keeps looking for something to send home. For some reason, he hasn’t had much luck, but he’ll keep looking, I’m sure.)

Mr. Poppy sometimes likes to duck inside these little garages. (I don’t really like them. They won’t let me park inside when the siren sounds.)

He usually doesn’t ride me over there when he goes through the car wash. (Mr. Poppy says they have real hot water and 12 stalls, no waiting. I could use a good hosing down myself.)

These big machines scare me, but they keep making nice new walls to protect us in our living “Pods.”


Come visit us anytime in Living Support Area 32, Pod 2, Room 75. Home is a Containerized Housing Unit or CHU, with real air conditioning. Let’s go inside our stall, uh, room…

When you turn right this is what you see. His decorating style is “Modern American Priority Mail.” Nice bookcases, eh? Keep them coming.



Mr. Poppy says his bed is quite comfortable with the new memory-foam mattress. Too bad the window view is right into a concrete barrier. And Mr. Poppy likes to shoot baskets into his laundry bag /duffel bag.

But best of all, he lets me sleep inside at the foot of his bed. Under that green head scarf on top of the fridge is where Mr. Poppy hides his food. Too bad little Mr. Fridge keeled over this morning. Guess the frequent power outages caught up to him. He was a bit shaky anyway and a budget buy at only $50… Wait! That’s what I cost! Good thing he just received some bike fix-up stuff from Linda. Maybe I’ll get a hot shower, too. And the box she sent will make a new shelf for the bookcase. Yahoo!

What a nice little stall, eh? Well, I hope you enjoyed our tour of FOB Delta. It was pretty hard for me to type with only handlebars, so Mr. Poppy did it for me. But since he took such a nice picture of me at the beginning, I took this shot of him. He says he misses everyone very much but at least he’s got me to keep him company. (Sniff, sniff.) He’s such an affectionate guy... Guess I’ll keep him.

Love,

Trigger