Sour Swinger Predominantly follows my Army & Iraq Deployment. Also has some Geek, School, and other talk.

Here is the second set of pictures from Camp Liberty. All pictures are from within the base. I picked 4 to show below. Click here to see the entire set. There’s about 51 pics total.

Wanna receive email updates to new Army postings? Register with my site.

I’m finally catching up to where I am now. Here is the first set of pictures from Camp Liberty. All pictures are from within the base. Those taken out on sector will be coming soon. I picked 5 to show below. Click here to see the entire set. There’s about 45 pics total.

Wanna receive email updates to new Army postings? Register with my site.

More videos courtesy of my step-mom. No specific theme with these. Just a bunch of randomly selected videos. FYI, that first video gets pretty vulgar however note thats normal convo for soldiers. Anyone with a soldier in the family will understand when I say our language deteriorates the longer soldiers are around each other.

Waiting for SP from Sour Swinger on Vimeo.

One of those days where everyone got ready to head out on mission only to wait because of some delay. Vid is more for the convo then the visual happenings. As usual everyone starts busting on everyone else. Be warned as there are a lot of sexual jokes.

Propane Tank Plus Bonfire from Sour Swinger on Vimeo.

While waiting for our Stryker to be repaired some of the mechanics decided to drop 3 small propane tanks in a bonfire.

Dusty 1 from Sour Swinger on Vimeo.

Dusty the cute little puppy lives on an Iraqi Police station. The American’s there take care of him as the Iraqi’s themselves are not big dog lovers. He’s received all his shots and is extremely friendly and playful. Rusty already has a family picked out and they are trying to get him shipped to the states.

Ghoats Eating from Sour Swinger on Vimeo.

During JRTC, every town seemed to have goats but week after week, I never saw any here in country. Finally, at an abandoned JSS, the goats have been discovered.

Wanna receive email updates to new Army postings? Register with my site.

I want to talk about all the donations received so far that are going to the kids and thank everyone for their support. I’ve received more then I ever thought. My room is so overrun, that I began having issues on space. After all the floor and locker space was taken, I was forced to start consuming my bed space. Haha. I eventually had to put up a large shelf because I’m still expecting more boxes to show up.

Many friends and family have started sending me donations following my Children of Iraq post. I know I was originally saying get everything in before June but now it looks like you’re clear to continue sending me stuff up until the end of July. I’ve received shoes, books, notepads, candy, food, stuffed animals, games and much more. Thank you all!

My platoon sergeant got his church, Beaver Lutheran, to send candy for us to throw to the kids. To his and everyone’s great surprise….they sent 100lbs worth! I know, holy cow right? Our current problem now is trying to hand out more candy then what we are getting in. Haha.

Somehow, Wilton High School of Connecticut got my name and has sent roughly 100 new pairs of socks to pass out to the soldiers. Hopefully they don’t mind that their socks have been going to the kids instead. This is one of many examples of soldier donations that get redirected to the children. Honestly, the soldiers are well saturated in supplies. Thank you Wilton High School!

The last donator I’d like to thank here is Simone Sauers. She helps run Berks Enduring Freedom group which gathers donations for soldiers. Just one week out of the blue, a horde of boxes started showing up. The group had assembled 2 boxes per soldier. One box full of food and the other of supplies. Food wise there was apples, girl scout cookies, chips, chocolate, candy, pretzels, etc. The supply box had a DVD, toiletry items, music cds, yo-yos, some small clothing apparel, etc. Everything in both boxes was zip-locked too. I wouldn’t be surprised if both boxes contained 50-75 dollars worth of supplies. Times all the soldiers in my company equals a lot of supplies! Of course we’ve been handing most of it out to the kids. Thank you Berks Enduring Freedom!

Now I have also been receiving soccer balls from Kick For Nick, however I’m writing a specific post just for them. Though I’d still like to say thank you for all the balls and socks that they have been sending. Kick For Nick was the first children donations I started to receive and continue to be my main supporter in sending what seems like an endless supply of balls.

If anyone would still like to send supplies for the children of Iraq, post a comment saying so and I’ll shoot you an email with my mailing address. Once again, thank you to all back at home who are sending supplies and helping supporting us soldiers. It means a lot to us.

Wanna receive email updates to new Army postings? Register with my site.

Another round of videos. Thanx again to my step-mom for uploading them. These are short clips of some of my encounters with the kids here.

Kids Pointing At Car from Sour Swinger on Vimeo.

These adorable kids kept pointing and saying a word I didn’t know. I later learned they wanted to take a picture in front of their family’s car.

Kids Horse Play from Sour Swinger on Vimeo.

These kids started horse playing with each other. Unfortunately, by the time I got my camera out they had stopped. This neighborhood is in fact very well off and the richest area I’ve seen to date.

Plummer Lines Up Kids from Sour Swinger on Vimeo.

SFC Plummer lines up the kids in order to hand out candy. Short vid but good example showing how the kids swarm around a soldier. This town’s kid’s have been known to get very aggressive in taking candy. That noise is the Stryker. I shot the vid from on top of it.

Donkey N Buggy In TCP from Sour Swinger on Vimeo.

We set up a TCP (Traffic Control Point) in a quiet part of the country. The only traffic we ever saw were these kids riding past.

Wanna receive email updates to new Army postings? Register with my site.

It seems you can find a movie shop on any Army FOB. In Taji, it was called The Movie Shop. How original. There were 2 that I knew of. Here in Liberty it’s called the Ali Shop and I’m aware of at least 3. This isn’t any normal movie shop and its not because they also sell computer software and games. Almost everything found in these stores is 100% pirated material.

Upon first walking in, I was totally flabbergasted. Movies only cost 2 bucks and they have just about every movie you can think of. If not, simply request it and they’ll have it for you within a week or so. They even have movies that just came out in theater. Some, like Wolverine could be bought before the movie even hit the theaters. Of course it was an uncompleted version with many of special effects not digitized yet.

The movie shops even have collections that make you wonder why the entertainment industry doesn’t follow suit. You can find complete movie sets of famous actors such as Jackie Chan, Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, etc. Other movie sets include famous horror flicks, major block busters, top science fiction, etc. Of course it doesn’t stop there. They also have TV shows. From classics like the original Batman series to newer programs like CSI. Just like the movies, you can find seasons that have not been released on DVD.

It gets even better with the games. They go for 3 bucks and you can find them for any system. Whether it be PSP, Playstation (2 & 3), Xbox 360, Wii, or PC. They even have game packs (not found any where else) such as the best of strategy or the best of first person shooters. Some game packs will include over 25 games! For a small fee they will even mod your system to play these hacked games.

Of course nothing beats the computer software they sell. By far it offers the best bang for your buck. I can pick up a full working copy of Vista Ultimate which normally retails for $300. You can also buy MS Office Pro (normally $500), Adobe Creative Suite 4 (normally +$1500), and even AutoCAD (normally +$2500). You name it, they got it and it’ll only cost you 5 bucks! That’s It! FIVE FREAKIN BUCKS!! HOLY SH*T!!!!

You may ask, as do I, how is this possible? Of course your how is probably how they can achieve such low prices and get movies out while they are still in theater. That’s easy. My how, is how the Army allows this and why the MPAA, RIAA, Gaming Industry, etc haven’t raised a law suit! Granted its a different country who is concerned about more important things then international copyright laws, but its blatant piracy found on…(this is the key point) American installations. American installations that not only provide a building to use but power to run said shops.

These movie shops are extremely popular. Buying movie after movie on a regular basis is pretty common. And why not? With merchandise so cheap who wouldn’t. It makes me wonder whether the company’s back home should take notes. Are newly released movies worth 20 bucks a pop? Will I watch that movie more times in a year then I would renting it 20 bucks worth. Will the DVD even last a year before it gets scratched beyond repair? Are games really worth the 60 bucks brand new? This reminds me of an interesting tid bid from Valve (a game developer & distributor) which claims games are too expensive. They found the more heavily they discounted games, the more it dramatically increased sales. No brainer right? Well I’m talking about a ridiculously crazy increase. They cite a 50% weekend sale on one title increased its sales by 3,000 percent! You can read their report here. Its no wonder why piracy in the entertainment industry is becoming more common.

Oh and to those still wondering on the how can the movie shops be so cheap….allow me. If Pirate Bay was a store, it would look like these shops. Pirate Bay is like a Google that specifically tracks movies, games, software, etc to download for free. It just so happens most of those files are illegal and as such has become the prime place to find black market material. I bet these Iraqi merchants go on Pirate Bay (or other similar site) download the said movie, game, software and burn it to a DVD. Then they Google for the label art, slap it on the DVD, plop it on the shelves, and call it a day. Cost of overhead….next to nothing. How do movies still in theater show up on the black market? Either someone on the inside stole a digital copy of the film (like the Wolverine movie) or more likely, some one video taped it from inside a theater. And yes those kind generally aren’t the best of quality.

Wanna receive email updates to new Army postings? Register with my site.

For one of our missions, we went to a different units AO (Area of Operation).  First time for us in that town.  Its a really bad section so we had to present a harder appearance.  Like usual kids showed up to see what they could get from us.  Due to the area, we couldn’t afford to let our guard down to converse with the children.  Instead we shooed them away.  This is always hardest for me.  You literally have to be a jerk else they think you’re joking.  You play hard ball from the start and they will respect and listen to you.  

Well these 4 little kids attached on to me (for who knows why) and followed me around for a couple hours.  I was stern and they kept their distance but I could tell they were trying to get me to smile.

The oldest was about 7 and the youngest was only 3 or 4.  They wore horribly ragged clothing and flip flops that were obviously to small for their feet.  They were very dirty and unkept.  You know, all the basic signs of being poor and living in poverty.  The one boy had the bluest eyes though and stood out from the other kids because of it.  

Anyway, they slowly kept chilling closer and closer to me.  At one point, the two boys started horse playing in front of me.  Wrestling around and demonstrating cool ways to kick the other.  They would then say “Japan Zien”.  Zien (probably not even spelling right) means good in Arabic.  I think they might have saw some kung fu movie or something.  I knew what they were up too and I was trying so hard not to laugh.  It was after all very humorous.

Then while I was kneeling down, the one 6 year old comes from behind and puts his arms around my neck. He leans against me as if giving a half hug.  He then puts on this overly exaggerated serious face and starts “scanning his sector”. The little punk was imitating me. It was too adorable to see him looking around and having this I’m cool face.  I couldn’t hold back any longer and broke out smiling and laughing.  Of course the 4 kids all started cheering and going nutz and doing this celebration dance.  

They got me! LoL.

Wanna receive email updates to new Army postings? Register with my site.