News from Eastern Baghdad

Bob had only a few moments to write yesterday, but sent this email...

We have been in Eastern Baghdad now for a few days. We are with Major Sean Ryan and the 2ID/2BCT from Ft Carson of Colorado Springs. Our first day there, Major Ryan was our first guest. He shared some background of their time here and the progress they have seen.

Yesterday we went out on a convoy into Eastern Baghdad and spent some time with our troops in two large outposts. Outpost Sullivan holds both American and Iraqi armies together. Outpost JSS holds U.S. Army and Iraqi Police, all working together. We were able to interview some of the soldiers in-between their convoys, and had a number of shoutouts, too (where the soldiers said hello to family and friends).

We tried to get video as we drove through Eastern Baghdad in the convoys but the window in the humvee is just so small. But I think we got some. We will see later, when we go over the videos.

We are now back at FOB Loyalty. Tomorrow we will be interviewing some personnel from the 2/17 out of Ft Carson, who we spent some time with over the past few days. The 2/17 was originally deployed to Ramadi from Korea, then came to Ft Carson after that deployment. Now they are back in Baghdad doing a great job. They seemed glad that we are here to give the troops the opportunity to tell their positive stories to the American people in their own words and to say hello to their families.

We will be driving back into Eastern Baghdad to document more progress stories. Driving through Baghdad is an incredible experience. Business seems to be booming in this large metropolitan city, and we have heard the population could be as much as 6 million people. As we drive through the streets children wave at us, give us the thumbs up. People see me wave at them through the window and wave back. We see many Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police Checkpoints, and the streets are very busy with traffic and people.

Once again,the perseverance of our troops in not-the-best of living circumstances is amazing to me. Meals are brought out to the Outposts from the main base once a day. Fortunately, we could also see many boxes of care packages from back home.

[Bob cut this short, as he had to dash.]

In Iraq and Ready to Go

Here is Bob's follow-up to the report from Kuwait...

We decided to stay awake all night in the hope that we would be able to catch a C-130 early the next morning--Mission Accomplished on that. We arrived at BIAP around 8 or 9am Iraq time. We were told that we should go to Camp Stryker (at BIAP), and from there start making contacts with the wonderful people at Media Embed, MNF-Baghdad, CPIC (Combined Press Information Center) and other parts of the military who have made this trip possible.

We finally made contact with the Captain at CPIC, where we are to get accredited. We once again decided to stay awake, under the hope that we could catch a BlackHawk helicopter from Camp Liberty (where we were brought from BIAP) to the International Zone. Sure enough, later in the day we were able to get on a helicopter with the soldiers. What an experience to fly over Baghdad in broad daylight! You could see some damage from the bombings, but mostly what we saw was a very large, bustling city.

By the way, the heat today 114 degrees. On the helicopter... well, another reporter here described it as having a hair dryer blowing hot air on your whole body with no way to turn it off. Definitely hot. Hopefully on our next helicopter trip we will be able to take pictures.

We are now at the CPIC. Tomorrow we will be accredited. We are eating and we will get some sleep here shortly.

Next stop tomorrow is to meet Grant Sattler with GRD, North Dakota National Guard, Civil Affairs and Engineering. With them, we will be covering progress in Baghdad (what we should be hearing on all the nightly news).

Think about all of America hearing about these mostly untold stories! We can alter the conversation in America... all of us together. This is not about Bob Calvert or Jim Martin. This is about all of us!!!!

Until later...

Blessings,

Bob Calvert
Host, Talking with Heroes

P.S. Be sure to listen to the incredible stories from some of the top leaders of Soldiers' Angels, as they share stories about supporting our troops and their families this coming Sunday night at 5pm PST. Go to Stardust Radio Network, click on "Talking with Heroes," and enjoy. Thank you to Holly Aho for hosting this talk show.

Back to Iraq to Talk with Heroes

For those who are hearing about the Talking with Heroes Internet talk show for the very first time I am Bob Calvert, the host. What we do is not about politics. It is all about supporting our men and women in uniform, and their families.

Since Dec. 2005 we have been interviewing our military so that they can share their mostly untold stories of helping the people in the areas of the world in which they serve, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan after the earthquake, Louisana and other states after Katrina, etc.

When we started Talking with Heroes we never expected that it would take us to Iraq itself, but that is what we did in Oct 2006 and then again in Jan 2007.

On the second trip, Jim Martin, CEO of Altitude Sports and Entertainment Cable Company (based in Denver and covering 10 states), accompanied me to Iraq. The audio from all of our talk shows--including those from Iraq with both American military personnel and Iraqis--are all in our "past shows archives" section of the Talkingwithheroes website for you and all Americans to listen to 24 hours a day. And for the past six months Altitude has been airing 30 minute segments from our interviews, convoys, Iraqi school grand-openings and more.

People losing their lives and people being injured is bad. We hear about that on the news all the time. But what we do not hear a lot about--at least on a scale of 50/50--is that there is in fact a lot of progress happening with reconstruction, training and more.

Soon you will be hearing more stories as Jim and I go back to Iraq again. Keep an eye on this Blog as FbL, the veteran Soldiers' Angel and blogger, posts our messages here for you and all Americans to read while we are gone. When we get back, millions will have an opportunity to hear the audio stories we will have collected.

And we will be depending on each and every one of you to help us get the word out.

A special thanks to Patti and Jeff Bader and Soldiers Angels for being the main sponsor of this upcoming trip to Iraq. And thank you to all those who have been supportive of this project, some for short periods of time and others from the very beginnning back in 2005.

To all of our troops be safe... stay alert.

[FbL adds: Bob will be spending most of his trip outside the "Green Zone," joining patrols and meeting with military personnel and Iraqis at/near outposts throughout Iraq. I'm sure he'll have some great stories to share as he travels.]