235 CEF Fighting Gumbies

Gumby Fighter Pilots

The area around the base is riddled with the remnants of an Iraqi Air Force.

Click HERE to see some remains of that air force and some Gumby "wanna-be pilots."

Gumbies take to the sky!

Big Al captured the team early on while we were wisked away from Martin on our privately chartered C-130J.

Click HERE to view the photos.

The Ancient City of Ur

The Gumbies first filed trip was to the ancient City of Ur, believed to be the birthplace of Abraham. The ruins were phenomenal, dating back some 6000 years.

Click HERE to view some of the photos we took.

Gumbies Update #2

It’s been and exciting couple weeks for the Fighting Gumbies. We officially took control of this place (well at least the DPW function!) last Saturday, Feb 21st. Our first official act was to host the Weekly Strategic Planning Meeting. Col Fischer proudly led the Gumbies into the conference room and announced that we weren’t going to meet so much anymore! Needless to say there was more than one furrowed brow in the room, but the boss quickly made it clear there was a new Sheriff in town and we aimed to be doing business a bit differently. So, we’ve set the stage and we’re all running as fast as we can.

Our mission continues to develop and we are actually starting to make sense of it all; we are learning new things every day. The folks we’re replacing continue to be a big help, patiently guiding us through the Army organization, nomenclature and SOPs (that’s Standard Operating Procedures for those of you not completely versed in military acronyms!) Of course, there are SOPs and then there are “how would Hagi do it” SOPs. Most of what we’re dealing with falls into the latter category. We had our first “emergency” this Sunday and we were notified that the water supply to the Camp up north was down. Little did we know thins would start a long learning experience….

After making a couple quick phone calls thinking we were hot stuff, we quickly got a call back asking what we thought we were doing and that we didn’t understand how things got done around here. Oh well, shoot first, ask questions later, right? I quickly realized that this was a job that only an officer could screw-up and stepped back and let the “Shrew” take control. Jeff took the logical approach and said, “hell, I’ll go fix the thing!” Before I knew it, Jeff was packing heat and headed out the front gate with two of our adopted Gumbies (Capt Ian Doiron and SFC John Mintus). Jeff instructed John to keep his eyes peeled and hands on the trigger of his M-16 as Jeff drove about 80 miles and hour in the Hummer out to the well. You see, what actually happened wasn’t a real emergency. The water that supplies our camps here comes from a tributary of the Euphrates River. A local Iraqi citizen owns the pumps that supply water to a surface drainage canal that brings water to the bases. The Gumby gang went out to see if they could help fix the pumps and were somewhat surprised when Hagi told them he needed and old tire and a couple heavy rubber mud flaps to fix it! Yet another lesson in “How would Hagi do it!” Well, it took two trips and a box full of candy and snacks for the local Iraqi kids, but I think they got it running. At least next time we know not to just start making calls…”thanks for that advice Major!!!!”

Most of the Gumby crew took our first field trip last week out to the ruins of the ancient city of Ur. This City is believed to be the birthplace of Abraham and the ruins have been dated back some 6000 years. Now that’s history! The site is visible from miles away as the Ziggurat towers like a pyramid in the open desert. Unlike the pyramids, the ziggurat is actually a temple, not a tomb. The area is covered with ruins of the old City that apparently was once home to over 1 million people. Pretty amazing! The ruins are remarkably intact. If this site was in the States they wouldn’t let you get anywhere near the actual ruins, but there we were walking thought the halls and crawling into some of the old tombs. Honestly, it was a remarkable experience. We all took numerous pictures that I will get posted to the site soon (Upload times are killing me!)

Overall the team is really starting to gel and our personal eccentricities are starting to show. It appears there are actually two Maj Moore’s on the trip, there’s Al and then there’s Maj Mike “we need more!” Ray. You see, Scooter and Jeff have done a phenomenal job of taking care of us; as you would expect from a couple seasoned NCOs. The problem is, they are too good. Whatever we think of, they make it happen. So as they make improvements we once thought impossible, we (OK, “I”) seem to quickly come up with other ideas to make it even better. For instance, hopefully you’ve all seen the hooch renovation pictures. Amazing isn’t it? Of course Scooter and Jeff are totally to thank for the addition! Once we had it in place, I merely asked about heating and cooling the place. Sounded reasonable to me! Also, these guys are spoiling us. Everyday they seem to find some new toys or gadgets that we absolutely cold not live without. So now, when we come back to the tent and there are no new toys, we are disappointed. See, it’s not that we (OK, I again) want more, it’s that they have built up an expectation! Besides, I know they love the challenge.

In addition to taking excellent care of the officers and improving our overall quality of life, Scott and Jeff have absolutely immersed themselves in the ongoing construction on base. They are serving as the construction managers and contracting office representative on almost 30 active projects worth almost $1M. They are getting to know the local contractors and making sure the projects are being completed as quickly as possbile, and are being done right. The end product quality is going up significantly thanks to thier tireless efforts. Keep Hagi on track fellas, you're doing great!

The rest of the team is doing well. Bud is slowly but surely immortalizing himself at Tallil. He’s done a fantastic job of re-arranging the trailer beddown sites and has made it possible to get many more soldiers out of tents and into trailer much quicker. We’ve officially named the first site “Camp Bud!” Hey, I know, I can get Scooter and Jeff to make a sign for the ribbon cutting ceremony!

Big Al is also making his mark as the building renovation king. He successfully saved the Army $120K today by working the new chapel project into a tighter scope which will end up with a much nicer building in the end. His first challenge was finding out that the project had been awarded and included no site prep! Was Al discourage, NO WAY! He went right to work, made buddies with Hagi, stuck to his guns and the project was officially awarded today within the scope of the original funding. Way to go Al! One might say he’s “found religion!” The funniest part of this project was when he was going to one of the very first meetings at the chapel center, and one of the NCOs we’re replacing (who had done much of the original planning) did not show up for the meeting. He later told Al, he couldn’t go to the meeting because he didn’t go in churches. Needless to say, Al persevered and made it happen anyway!

Dave has been “the rock.” I truly believe there is nothing you could throw at Dave that would get him flustered. He’s slowly but surely getting his hands around the electrical system on base. Actually, it’s much better described as a spaghetti system, than an electrical system. I credited Scooter and Jeff with much of our Hooch quality of life, but truth be told, much thanks and praise go to Dave as well. The star electrician! Thanks to Dave we’ve got a refrigerator, TV and DVD player. When faced with an awful dilemma of having a 220 to 110 transformer and needing the opposite, Dave simply rewired it and boom, we’ve got refrigeration! Luckily it was a couple days later when we had the “tent city rules” briefing where they said there was to be no working on electrical systems in the tents. Hell, that doesn’t really apply to us anyway, we’re Gumbies! Plus, Dave could probably teach half the guys here! Make it happen power man!

The Col has been really enjoying himself attending meetings what seems like almost every hour! OK, he has been attending the meetings, but he’s not enjoying it! As I said in the beginning, he’s making the Gumby leadership theory well know, less meetings and more work! He’s been a great sport, living with the guys as he awaits his DV quarters. We don’t want to see him leave the tent, but we are looking forward to having a Gumby hang-out where we can have a coffee pot and a microwave! Hope they give you a big trailer boss!

As for the troop commander, well, I’ve been backing up the boss and focusing my efforts on getting my hands around all of the projects and requirements that exist at Tallil. So far, I’ve been Mr. spreadsheet and Mr. PowerPoint. We’ve got our first big meeting on March 6th and I’m trying to make sure we “WOW” our Army friends as well as our Air Force brethren here. With the team of Gumbies here feeding me info daily, I’ve no doubt we will do just that.

I think that about covers it for now. I’m sure there are many antics that I’m leaving out but I’ll count on my fellow Gumbies to start posting “war stories” as they come up. Love to all our friends and family.

HOOAH!

The HOOCH

The modifications are about complete and the Gumbies are living in style!

Click here to view some before and after photos of the 235th Forward Headquarters!

Mailing Address

Here's the Gumby mailing address in country for "snail mail." A couple of us got letters yesterday and based on the postmark it took 7 days. Not sure how long packages will take, we'll find out! Keep those cards, letters and packages coming!

Name
407 AEG/235CE(DPW)
APO AE 09358

Glory and Fame!

Downrange Gumbies!

We drill as usual and of course talked about you a lot. It was great to have Mike's detailed story from last week and many hypothetical re-enactments of Al's swashbucking swordplay were staged ;)

We'd like to ask for you a few things:

1. Keep the updates coming! People LOVED them.

2. Please send us your mailing address AFTER checking security considerations. Also, if you have an APO address that would be helpful.

3. The base wants to do a piece on you from a PR point of view so if you can send some hi-res pics of Gumbies in action that would be ideal. Feel free to stage them ;)

Take good care of yourselves!

Sumit

E-Mail Address

We are all getting set up today with e-mail addresses that we will be able to access directly from our offices here at Tallil. Just fill in the individual's first and last names, then we all have the same "@" address as follows:

first.last@adder.arfor.army.mil

These accounts should be set up by the end of the day today, so keep those letters coming!

Team Deployment Photos

Click here to view the deployment photo album:

How to display an Album

Once you've created an album by uploading photos, all you need to do is paste the link to that album into your post, and then press the link button above the Post Body (It says LINK). Like this:

http://235cef.typepad.com/photos/gumbies_deploy/

In order to get the link to paste, open up the album in Internet Explorer and copy the address out of the address bar in Internet Explorer. Select the entire address, hit Ctrl-C and then go to the post that you are writing and hit Ctrl-V.

When you press the LINK button, you'll need to paste the link into the popup window as well. Try it and let me know if it works.

Good Luck!

Dave