FOB Warhorse

Last week I visited FOB (Forward Operating Base) Warhorse....located northeast of Baghdad, in Diyala Province. We have 3 ag advisors working there, and I was on a visit to their location. While there we had meetings with local sheikhs regarding poultry, date palms, vegetables and honeybees. Diyala is truly an agricultural province, but it is experiencing a severe drought this year.

One a mission one day, we visited a group of Iraqi farmers and discussed the possibility of forming an agricultural cooperative which could help them reduce costs and improve marketing. It was an interesting discussion, and they quickly selected some from among the attendees to serve as officers. All this is still very new to the Iraqis........they're not accustomed to making their own decisions about many of the things that we take for granted. It was good to see them adopt these basic tenets of democracy!

On the return trip to FOB Warhorse, one of the vehicles in our convoy broke down, and it was the one in which I was riding!! Murphy's Law!! We were just driving down the road at a normal speed and the engine just quit. Turned out that it had lost the coolant, and overheated....probably ruined the engine. There were 3 more vehicles in our convoy, so they assumed protective positions around ours, and we sat there for about 90 minutes before they could get another vehicle out there to pick us up! It was about 2 pm and must have been 120 degrees...outside. We tried not to think what it might be inside!! But really, it wasn't too bad. They opened the hatches for some air movement, and we had plenty of water that we kept drinking. I had a bandana with me and kept it wet for a little cooling around my neck, which felt very good! After they picked us up in another vehicle, we traveled down the road for a few minutes with the hatch open, and the dust started rolling in!!! That's why I quickly put my bandana over my face.