Combat Zone Tourist: My 13 Months of Emails from the Sandbox

By Mike Belter

An Army Reservist is called up in 2004 to go to Iraq. He leaves his civilian job, travels to a mobilization station in El Paso, and then spends the next 13 months in the sandbox. While there, he starts writing a weekly email back home to family and friends at work about what he is doing and what is happening in Iraq. He is quickly thrown into the chaos of the Baghdad Green Zone during the last days of the Coalitional Provisional Authority, the new American Embassy, the handover to the interim Iraqi government, and the on-going military operations. He spends the next five months in the "world's largest gated community."

Next, the Reservist is transferred to Camp Victory, next to the Baghdad airport, and becomes a staff member of the Corps, which commands most coalition forces in Iraq. There over the next eight months, he deals with personnel issues, funding problems, humanitarian efforts, training commanders and comptrollers to use "money as a weapon system," and petty rivalries between staffs and commands.

All during this period, the officer deals with near daily mortar and rocket attacks, dangerous trips between the Green Zone and Camp Victory, and travels to visit other commanders.

You can read his unblemished emails written each week, combined with comments about what was going on and what was not talked about, plus information on the thousands killed during his 13 months in Iraq.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Belter
• Release date: Oct 12, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370105618

Mike Belter

Mike Belter is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. He also holds graduate degrees from Ball State University and Syracuse University. Mike has worked many years for one of America’s largest electric utilities in a variety of roles. He is heavily involved in the Baldrige process, being a volunteer in the national Baldrige Performance Excellence Program; state/regional programs, the Alliance for Performance Excellence, and the Communities of Excellence program. Mike is a retired Army Officer, having served in active Army, Army Reserve, and National Guard units as a Finance Officer, Operations Research Analyst, Inspector General, and Comptroller. He served in Desert Shield at Norfolk Naval Base and in Operation Iraqi Freedom in Baghdad. Mike and his wife live in the Midwest with their pound-puppies and love to holiday in Bermuda.

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