A Good Birthday Froking...Whooo Hoooo

The whole birthday party was a pretty funny thing. Laura wanted to make sure I had a good time so she set up a suprise party for me...rather long range. She coordinated for the past few weeks with some of the guys I work with to pull the whole thing off.

She sent them some cash so they could go out and purchase party favors for the group. She sent a powerpoint slide show with loads of embarrassing photos carefully choreographed to fitting music. She and Sami ordered a banner to be displayed at just the right time. And she sent some very inappropriate reading material. (Which is very popular by the way).

So the day started like any other, we arrive at 7 to listen to the BUA (Battle Update Assessment) which is over an hour of the commading general discussing all of the developments throughout the country. This can be rather long and tedious, but is necessary to be able to do the job. At the end of the BUA the chief stands up to gives the orders of the day for about 5 minutes, but today he and another soldier put up the banner Laura had sent, which was accompanied by the Bee Gees singing Saturday Night Fever and the beginning of the slide show. My boss who is a crusty old active duty Army guy, with 30 years of hate built up inside of him, came into the room saying, "What the Hell is going on in here?" He had heard the sounds of happiness and was intent on stopping that right now. But there was something about the pictures of family that immediately softened him. He just stood there and stared. When it was over he yelled, "Hall, come over here!" in his usual tone of scream, so I figured this would be fun. I love screwing with him. There is nothing worse than a career Army guy trying to deal with a National Guard guy who just doesn't take this whole Army thing too seriously. "Yes, Sir." "Damn it, I want you to".....long pause...."tell who ever did that".....another long pause....."that was damn nice." Then he turned and walked away. I thought I saw a tear there for just a second...

Then the boys handed me a package that had pasted on it a quote from General Order #1. "The introduction, purchase, possession, transfer, sale, creation, or display of any pornographic or sexually explicit photograph, videotape, CD/DVD, movie, drawing, book, magazine, or similar representation depicting pornographic or sexually explicit material shall not be allowed." I slowly opened the package, and inside was the July issue of Playboy Magazine. The war suddenly stopped. I was surrounded by some very eager Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines who had not seen a woman in quite some time. Well not in this way at least.

Now my wife is pretty cool, but I didn't think she was willing to supply me with a book load of femaleness to get me through the tour, so I knew something had to be up. She had taken every page, and every girl, even every advertisement and sanitized them. I mean really, how hot can even the hottest woman on earth be if she has an image of John McCain glued over her finest photographic qualities? The best part was the center fold. "Miss July" had a nice pair of..... compact disks for her bikini top, but there was still hope because she just had a sticky note for her bikini bottom.

Everyone knows how easily those are removed. So as a Marine hand reached from behind me to peal it away, he was bitterly disappointed to find, pasted under the sticky note but over Miss July's.....the snorting ass that is a logo for the US Army, and written neatly above her bikini line the words..."Nothing to see here!" Now you want to see a bunch of disappointed troops, then cover up Miss July.

One eager troop turned the page and removed a picture of two puppies that were glued over a model's...well....two puppies....only to realize these pictues were double protected because a black sharpie had scribbled out the image. Everyone had a laugh and went on with the business of the day.

The day was busy with several major news events occupying our time, but at the end of the day there was to be partying. One of our navy guys was being promoted early because of his position, which is called a "froking". We celebrated in proper style with "near Beer" (non-alcoholic) and several trays of Iraqi food which one of our interpreters had brought in. It was great fun, the merging of two parties into one....a birthday celebration combined with a promotion party and all the beer you can drink...but without the intended effect.

After the food was all cleaned up, a group of us went outside to smoke a few of the Cuban Cigars Laura had asked one of the guys to pick up for me. So there we were drinking "near beer", laughing as we thumbed throgh Laura's creative destruction of the Playboy bunnies to make them Iraq appropriate, and smoking Cuban cigars.

Rather a strange sight we were, but to add to the fun was a small group from the Italian Army sitting near us. Two of them were arguing rather loudly. We turned to see what was disrupting our peaceful moment when crashing into our table came an Italian soldier, knocked there by his Italian girlfreind who is also in their army. "Excuse me" (say this with your best Italian accent) Then looking at us and throwing his hands in the air he said, "Mama Mia! (he really said that) Italian women are crazy! Don't ever get involved with one!"

As the night wore on we continued to enjoy the Italian opera which ended as all great shows, with a burst of anger, followed by a kiss, and an exit to where only our imaginations could take us.

It was yet another surreal Iraqi moment as we ended the day drinking legal German beer, smoking Cuban cigars, eating Arabic food, and watching Italians fight and fall in love again.

What a great day, and certainly one I will remember for a long time. The gifts were great. I received 3 bags of chocolate candy (very difficult to get over here) a box of Captain Crunch (from the Cousins family-Thanks!), a dozen Cubans, an embarrasing presentation of great memories, a magic carpet, and 61 birthday cards from some of the nicest people in the world. Thank you all for your support and thoughts. Thank you Sami and Laura for orchestrating such a great day even though I am half a world away. You all made a great day for a soldier far from home.