Deployment to Sather AB, Iraq - 2

30Dec08

Well I haven't deployed yet but I thought I would send some history of some of the Iraqi people. Here is a little information on the Kurds in Northern Iraq:

The Kurds are non-Arab people who live in the mountainous area straddlingthe borders of Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.Scholars believe their culture was strongly influenced by the ancientHurrian and Persian peoples.The Kurds are mainly Sunni Muslims, but some are members of other religionsor sects, including the Yezeidis.Political events in the 20th century prompted a Kurdish diaspora and smallKurdish populations have since developed in a number of European countriesas well as in the US.Over 80 per cent of Kurds in the West come from Turkey, while Kurds fromIraq form the second largest group.Throughout their history, there has never been a formal Kurdistan while inmodern times Iran, Iraq and Turkey have all resisted the creation of anindependent Kurdish state.Western powers have seen no reason to help establish one.Kurds in TurkeyKurdish nationalism stirred in the 1890s as the Ottoman Empire was failing.The 1920 Treaty of Sevres, which divided Turkey's Ottoman Empire after WorldWar One, did promise the Kurds independence, but three years later KemalAtaturk, the Turkish leader, abandoned the treaty.The Kurds were not recognised as a separate people. Kurdish revolts throughthe 1920s and 1930s were put down by Turkish forces and the Kurds were notallowed to speak their language in public.The Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, was established in 1978, and it took uparms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland inthe southeast.Since then, the conflict has claimed 30,000 lives.While the PKK is generally supported by Turkey's Kurds for championing theirrights, not all Kurds support the PKK's separatist aims or approve of theirmethods.Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK leader, was captured in 1999, tried and sentencedto death, though his sentence was reduced to life imprisonment in October2002 after Turkey abolished the death penalty.Turkey lifted its ban on the use of the Kurdish language in 1991.Kurds in IraqUnder a British mandate, revolts by the Kurds in Iraq were put down in 1919,1923 and 1932. After World War Two, the Kurds, led then by the nationalist Mustafa Barzani,conducted an intermittent struggle against Baghdad.In the 1980s Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, conducted theso-called Anfal campaign -using conventional and chemical weapons to attackIraq's Kurdish population and destroy Kurdish settlements.In 1991, with US help, Kurdish northern Iraq won autonomy from Saddam.The area developed economically and, subsequent to the US-led invasion ofIraq in 2003, has become the country's most secure region.The fall of Saddam brought the Kurdish area closer to autonomy and inSeptember 2006 the president of Iraq's Kurdistan ordered the Kurdish flag tobe flown on government buildings instead of the Iraqi national flag.

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Deployment to Sather AB, Iraq - 1

23Dec08
Here is the start of my blog to Camp Sather, near Baghdad International Airpport (BIAP), formerly Saddam Hussein International Airport. Some info may be copy and pasted and credit given in perenthesis ( ). Others may post emails I send as blogs if given authority. Plz keep checking back for more information and regular entries!
447th Air Expeditionary Group - Sather ABThe 447th Air Expeditionary Group, located at Sather Air Base, adjacent to Baghdad International Airport, was established in April 2003. It's a self-sufficient and geographically-separated unit of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, Joint Base Balad, "Tuskegee Airmen." Sather AB is co-located with the Victory Base Complex that also includes a series of U.S. Army camps, Iraqi Special Forces and Police training areas, all surrounding BIAP. (http://www.sather.afcent.af.mil/ , Google)
Sather Air Base or Camp Sather is a United States Air Force base on the west side of Baghdad International Airport. There are about 1,200 Air Force airmen serving at the base as part of the 447th Air Expeditionary Group. The main function of the base is to serve as a hub for transporting military cargo and personnel through the Baghdad area. The only permanent building was Saddam Hussein's old personal terminal but has been converted to the Camp Commander's support offices. Most VIPs enter Baghdad using this terminal known as the "Glass House". Sather Air Base includes a small BX, Subway, Green Beans Coffee shop, gift shop, and barber located next to the main Air Force Passenger Terminal.
Camp Sather is named in memory of Staff Sergeant Scott Sather, the first Airman to give his life in Operation Iraqi Freedom. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
Well this will be my home for 6 months, starting mid January! Should be fun! For those that don't know me, I am a nurse/medic in the Air Force and will be medical affairs liason and work for med command as well as treating patients for 6 days a week and 12 hours + per day. This is my third deployment, having gone to Al Udeid AB in Qatar, and Balad, Iraq, 40 miles north earlier this year. I've done trauma, codes, sick call, pediatrics, cardiovascular, lab, orthopedics, neurology, pain management, wound care, outpatient surgery, ICU, and trauma surgery, etc while deployed. I've been bombed, shot at, the whole nine yards and am proud to say I treat the thousands of soldiers, sailers, airmen, marines, coalition troops, and Iraqi casualties of this war, mostly with success, some, regrettably not. In any case, here we go, and look back here for more as this deployment, and this blog, continue! Thank you all for you kind words of support!