You know you’re in a wild place when you’re sharing a 256k satellite modem with a bunch of soldiers in the desert. That’s what Paul McKellips, Global Outreach Officer, US Embassy Baghdad, The Green Room – Public Affairs GO Team, is doing in Iraq to help get out the word about what’s really happening there, especially related to agriculture. He can’t send out an audio report but provided this text report for us. I think you’ll find it fascinating.

For the past 37 days – since the Super Bowl – I’ve been living at a Combat Outpost in Diyala Province, Iraq. The new Baghdad surge has driven many of the al Qaeda terrorists and Sunni insurgents into this area. I’m less than 3-miles away from Baritz and 8-miles from Ba’qubah. This is increasingly becoming “ground zero” for combat operations. COL. David Sutherland, Brigade Commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division invited me to come out here and launch an Iraqi radio and television station. I can assure you that I got a lot more than what I was bargaining for. Safety and security within our 40-acres has been excellent. But I can watch the IEDs explode on the roads all around us. Apache attack helicopters circle the area numerous times each day. But the 50 or so US Army soldiers who protect this facility – and me – are doing their jobs heroically. The conditions are horrible. There is no running water. No showers. No toilets. No phones. The Iraqi desert is not the place for a contact lens wearer. Every two days I warm up two water bottles in the morning sun and then take a shower behind one of the parked Bradley fighting vehicles. The outhouses have wooden plywood seats with cut-out garbage cans for catch-pans. Every morning a couple of soldiers get burn detail where they pour diesel fuel in the catch-pans and incinerate the waste.
Every Thursday I risk the IED roads in order to take a Bradley ride 17-miles northeast to FOB Warhorse where I grab a hot shower and cleaning supplies for the Iraqis. My favorite stop is the coffee shop where I drink as much as I can possibly hold. A Forward Operating Base is hardly civilization, especially Warhorse. But it seems like paradise to me. Two Iraqi men have been holed up in this media facility for well over a year. Rafed (31) is a Shia. His wife and two small children live on the floor in his office with him. Samir (28) is a Sunni and speaks pretty good English. They have no water to clean their kitchen, flush their toilets or bathe in. Bottled water is all that exists. When I arrived their equipment was in bad shape. Dust and severe heat had left their radio transmitters in disrepair. Only one channel of the three power amplifiers was up and operational. Our broadcast signal was reaching a 17-mile radius at best. Regardless, we started to develop programs. They have a heart for talking about peace and progress; they want to see sectarian reconciliation and progress toward joining the modern global world. One day as I was walking around the back warehouse filled with Army cots and the medic’s table I noticed an old transmitter unit. The Iraqis told me it was Saddam’s equipment and the transmission cables were wired to the top of the 350 meter (1,000 foot) tower. The Iraqis said it hadn’t worked in years. I noted the manufacturer’s name (RVR) and their location in Bologna, Italy and tried Google. Fortunately the company was still in business and we sent an email to their customer service address. The suggestion came back to get jumper cables that you’d use on a car, attach it to a 12-volt battery and the diodes on top of the rack system. We did it and this old beast roared to life. Suddenly we went from a 17-mile radius to a 500-mile radius. Even as I write this southern Iraq to Hillah, all of Baghdad, Fallujah, Kut, Tikrit, all of Diyala Province and even parts of Iran are hearing the voices of Rafed and Samir. Since we got back on the air two more employees have joined us. Donia (20) is Shia and she has an incredible vision for Iraqi women’s rights and encouraging young girls to go to college and join the future of Iraq in business and government. Mohannad (40) “retired” from the Iraqi army the day before the coalition invasion in 2003. He is a Sunni and wants to encourage men to stop being intimidated by the terrorists and make a stand for their futures. All of the people are marked. They know they’re dead if they ever leave this compound under these circumstances. They’re willing to die for what they believe in: a free and democratic Iraq. So between these four Iraqis and this old geezer white guy from America we’re broadcasting on the radio 14-hours a day and playing pre-recorded programs on television 4-hours a day. Our grand opening launch of IRTN (the Independent Radio & Television Network of Iraq) is scheduled for 11:00am on March 25, 2007. Yesterday the Brigade Commander visited our facility and we expect the highest ranking officials in both the Iraqi government and Coalition Forces to join us for the opening celebration and our first “live” television newscast. While thrilled with the progress and building excitement I am also more than ready to get back to civilization. Last Thursday I had the most unique ride in the Bradley one could ever imagine. Samir and I were riding in the belly of the last Bradley in the convoy. We had just left the compound and were out on IED roads when suddenly the back hatch door flew open. We were looking at road. I pounded on the driver’s hatch but no one could hear us. I hung my body out over the road and tried to pull the hatch in but I couldn’t latch it. We both pulled and tried to bring the latch handle down but to no avail. As Samir held the 500-pound armored hatch partially closed I scrambled for a rope or something to hold the door closed. I found a nylon strapping hitch with metal cups and latched it into the door. We strung it through the steel and hung on as though we were water skiing. Driving through the worst part of central Ba’qubah the Bradley suddenly stopped. We pounded on the door again. Before anyone could hear us they took off just as suddenly and the door flew open wide. The cups came off and I had to hang out over the passing gravel and grab the door again. I was wearing a helmet and Kevlar vest but dressed in civilian clothes and of course carrying a gun. I can’t imagine the thoughts of the driver in the old Datsun trailing behind us as he saw the petrified American hanging out of the Bradley trying to pull the door shut. And when Samir’s head popped out to help I’m sure he thought we were Iraq’s version of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover filming a combat chase scene. I can safely say I’m the oldest person out here on this compound. I watch what our young men are doing on a daily basis and I stand in awe. I say young men because conditions have prevented females from being assigned here. I have seen their blood, their sweat and their tears. One young man was shot several times in the upper chest last week. He laid in the weeds of the next village for 90-minutes waiting for the firefight to end and his comrades to rescue him. He had bled out for a very long time. I was next to the Bradley when they pulled him out and started an IV. They popped red smoke and waited for an eternity as the medivac helos landed in our field. On the way to the helicopters he chided his buddies for being “whimpy” (not exactly his words…) for not staying and killing all of the terrorists. I won’t say his name but “Sarge” was cracking jokes and assuring his brothers he’d be back by tomorrow. Sarge won’t be back tomorrow but after four hours of surgery and lots of O-positive, he will be back in two months. Our soldiers are fighting so that Iraqis like Rafed, Samir, Donia and Mohannad can have the freedom to broadcast peace and hope; our soldiers are fighting so that this scourge that is called radical Islamic terrorism does not return to our shores as it did on 9/11. God bless our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, and God bless Rafed, Samir, Donia and Mohannad. May they be to Iraq what Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin were to the beginning of America.