Good Neighbor Program

(the female with the u.s. flag on her arm is Msgt. Smartey-pants. Don't let the smile fool ya! Read below)
Today was the good neighbor tour day. It started out a little wild at work, we came onto a 7 hr delayed plane, a ticked off major, yes, a major of all ranks, and a severe dust storm. The dust storm delayed the plane and the delay ticked off the major. We heard he was demanding to speak to the officer in charge and even the squadron commander, give me a break, you’re a flipping major not a general, and do you really think we actually have an officer on shift at 11 at night? Pllllease we had him talk to the port superintendent. I used to be so in awe of officers when I was younger but now I'm older than most of them and have a bachelors just like they do. I understand you’re tired and cranky but we’re not waking anyone up to talk to you. The plane finally arrived but had to circle the airport for a whole hour before it had enough visibility to land.
I'm pretty sure were losing Nelson for a month, his wife is pretty I'll and needs to go home on emergency leave. It's not life threatening but he needs to take care of her until her medicine starts kicking in. He's a huge help but with every day now I feel more capable of singlehandedly running things, but we work really good together, we bounce ideas off each other all the time. So that might happen in the next three days.
There is supposed to be this squadron barbecue to kick off the beginning of each month at the mwr. What a joke, I get there at 1 pm because our weekly staff meeting went way too long and the food is pretty much gone. No burgers a few pieces of burnt looking chicken, I look around and I see no grills! They got the food all at the dfac. What nerve, calling it a barbecue! Never again. Darn! It's 105 and we have to report to the good neighbor thing at 135 and I haven't ate. Gotta run for the border, literally! Can I walk there, eat, and make it back? Gotta try, I'm starving. I made it, I was 30 seconds late. I see Shawna, good, someone I know. Everyone here I don't know and there is a lot here. We load the trucks with goodies and get on the bus and go. We're going to area iv.

What is area iv? It is where the families of the Iraqi special forces
live. Is it off base? Technically yes, you have to drive literally 3/4 of a
mile then you are the Iraqi side, their special forces. Their base looks like a more rundown version of ours but not much difference. A few cool murals but not much. We get to area 4 and it looks kind of like a campground with a playground. Where are the houses? They said were going to pass the bags out to the families. I see two girls playing on the swing but no other kids. It's funny, our sponsor said not to get in water fights because it is viewed as wasting water. What do I see when we pull in? A water hose on full tilt watering the ground. I think it's funny, I want to take a picture of it. I start fiddling it and this female Msgt SF gives me this annoyed look and says you’re not supposed to be taking pictures. I thought they said in the living area, I ask her this and she gives me this same annoyed look, now I'm starting to get ticked, she doesn't know what she's talking about, so I turn my back to her without saying another word. I noticed that no one else is taking pictures so I don't press it. Every branch of service every era, you’re going to have the person with the chip on their shoulder trying to expose someone’s faults to make themselves look good. She outranks me so what can you do? Pretty soon a few boys start to play soccer with
some of the guys, it's still like 35 airmen and four kids. I thought we were
going to pass out the boxes to the families at their houses. I take pictures and shoot a little video, I wonder what Msgt. Smarty-pants is thinking about her premature comment now? Honestly I am starting to get a little bored. I see two other boys come in, they are trying to get some people on the side together for a team. I’m just not really feeling it, why don’t they want to play basketball or volleyball and not soccer?

A few more girls come in and before I know it they are having relay races where they are getting on the shoulders of the female airmen. This looks fun, I want to join in. I get there and none of the girls want me to piggy back them. A few minutes late the girls want to do some game, they a trying to choose airmen and the most sad thing occurs. A girl is searching, she looks me up and down, and moves past me. These girls are between 5-9. Wow, I got passed by, kind of embarrassing. Either because I’m male and they don’t trust males or I look old. I mean, I am one of the older people on this tour. Later on I noticed, once a lot more kids came in there were much more girls then boys, if they picked a male airmen, it was they were either brown skinned or big, maybe they relate to big as looking like a bear. Who knows?

This is what I imagined it would be like: We pass out the care bags to the families, families are grateful, smiling from ear, makes us feel good. We get to take lots of pictures. Then we go to the playground area, tons of kids clambering for us to play with them. They are very eager, excited, and when we pass out the toys/candy in the end, grateful.
Reality: We do not get to pass out bags to the families, the kids have fun but there is not that many of them, 20 at the most, they are happy but their actions indicate that this is routine, they have done all of this before. Some kids don’t take any candy/toys at all, while some do so without even a smile. Honestly, even though these people in area IV seem poor in our eyes, they are probably middle class to common Iraqi’s. I bet if we went to a real Bagdad neighborhood it would be like what I had envisioned.
Then again I have to ask myself, why are we doing this? For our benefit or for theirs? It should be for theirs, so if that is the case, hey we were here, we were available, that is all we can control, and we should be able to feel good about it, no matter how goofy it turned out. We got into the bus and drove off, a few waved while most did not, were back in their own little world. I’m feeling a little tired, a little sunburned beside putting on sunscreen (I can’t imagine when it gets hotter?, and ready to give and buy a small pizza. As we get dropped off, Msgt. Smartypants has to get one final, “I’m going to make myself look good at your expense,” when there is a sergeant blocking the busway trying to put on his IBA and she has to say, “C’mon people let’s move we don’t have all day.” Mohr says under her breath, “what’s up with feisty?” Off to go eat!