The elections are over and all was quite in my very small corner of Iraq.  Shutting down vehicle travel in the country apparently worked.  I’ll find out later this week how all of the security measures effected people when I see our local national workers next.  I doubt anyone complained too much.  Vehicle travel within cities and villages was prohibited as was traveling between provinces in an attempt to disrupt possible attacks across the country.  I read that a British C-130 crashed near Balad today which was a real surprise to me given the fact that I’m there for one.  I have no idea how many people were on board at the time or what the circumstances of the crash are but I certainly hope the losses are minimal.  It has been a bad week for aviation in Iraq.

In one of the more unusual occurrences I’ve seen here, a unit on patrol was given a live turkey today and decided it would be a great idea to release it and brought it to my location to set it free.  It’s impolite to refuse gifts in Iraqi society so hey, now there’ve stuck with this turkey.  The bird was in an MRE box with only its tail-feathers sticking out .  The Iraqi soldiers working with us immediately saw an opportunity.  In fact, the sergeant had just finished telling me how he had a farm with an orchard, 25 chickens, a mule and two turkeys, amongst other things.  Of course he wanted it.  The US soldiers who had the bird were set on freeing him despite the fact that its wings were clipped and it was completely domesticated.  I guess everyone is getting caught up in the spirit of freedom with the elections and all.

I tried to avoid getting sucked into this mess but alas, I was unsuccessful.  The bird was released and immediately ran towards the fence to get back inside.  Not a bad idea as we think it’s safer inside the wire too.  The Iraqi soldiers immediately requested council with me to debate the wisdom of letting a good male turkey get eaten by wild dogs rather than being paired with a couple of eager chicks back at the sergeant’s hen house.  The argument was persuasive and I gave the go ahead for the sergeant to catch the turkey.  After all, the other soldiers who brought him here were gone and the turkey appeared to want to be back inside the safety of a wire cage anyway.

So the sergeant and a couple of his cohorts started the process of catching the turkey.  The chase is on.  I can only imagine what this must have looked like to others who didn’t know what was happening; three Iraqi soldiers running around frantically chasing bird.  At one point one of the soldiers thought it would be a good idea to order the bird to stop at gunpoint.  I’ve seen this technique work on cartoons before.  As expected, the rifle ended up being aimed at the other Iraqi soldiers.  I thought for a minute how my report on this would look as I attempted to explain exactly why an Iraqi soldier shot his comrade by accident.  Eventually the turkey was caught and all was good.  It was entertaining for about ten minutes and we made several people very happy, including the turkey ultimately.  He should be living the high life by the morning.  This was a rare win-win scenario.