Just wanted to let everyone know that I'll be in Iraq starting tomorrow for about a month or so. I'm uncertain whether or not I'll be able to update from Iraq, but once I get out I'll post all the articles I've written from Iraq and then some. So if you don't see anything for a while, know that it's coming. I'll be checking my e-mail when I can (though not always responding) and would love to hear from you while embedded (or anytime). Drop me a line if you feel like it at TomAPeter@gmail.com
In the meantime here's part of a story about what I went through getting my body armour through customs. It's from an e-mail I sent to a friend, so it's unedited and filled with "adult language." Reader discretion is advised.
(Earlier I'd explained getting stuck in customs the day before for 5.5 hours trying to liberate my body armour. I no longer have that story, but you don't need to know it to start reading here. Just understand that I spent 5.5 hours in customs the day before and thought I was finished with paper work, etc.) I had all the forms signed, letters permitting me to have body armour in Jordan from the Directorate of Public Security and an express letter of consent from the Ministry of Interior. The DHL rep told me I just need to go to the airport and a DHL representative would help me get my package cleared through customs. I drove out to the airport this morning, which you know isn't exactly a short trip and had to get several clearances before airport security would allow me to pass through to DHL's office. After the forty or so minutes that took, the DHL office starts telling me that I need to go back to their office down town to do some more paper work, to which I started chanting, "No, NO, NO!" Then they start accusing me of losing a form that they never gave me and tell me that they're helpless without this form. I could see my package. I could touch it, it was right in front of me, but they wouldn't let me have it. Finally I bullied them into going ahead with the operation, but then came round 241 with Customs.
Customs officials claimed it was illegal for me to have body armour in Jordan unless I paid them half of the value of the body armour as a tax, or I could pay them 150 JD as an "insurance" fee, have my body armour sealed an in industrial strength trash bag, and if the bag wasn't open when I left the country, they'd give me back my 150 JD... DHL officers insisted that the customs officer wasn't look for a bribe, but when I opened my wallet and only had $100 (which I'd just exchanged for my trip to Iraq) and 11 JD, the customs agent told me that would be plenty, made me exchange the $100 back into JD and give it to him, along with my 11 JD, of which I was allowed to keep 2 for parking... Then they send me to ANOTHER office to get a receipt, making their extortion more legit, so that I won't start complaining until I'm in another airport on the other side of Amman and the customs agent has no clue what this bull shit receipt is. Anyway.... although there were 5 people in this other office, the only one capable of writing a receipt wouldn't be into work until 10:30 (it was 10:00AM), so they had me wait for her, while one or two people worked, one play solitaire, a few gossiped and one read the paper. Finally, I get my receipt around 10:40AM and go to seal up the box so they'll let me take it. But something doesn't look right to me about my body armour box. It felt too light, so I asked to open it up before they put the official seal on it. Inside is one vest sans helmet, for which I paid an additional $250, and is required gear for an embedded reporter. The shabab called me Rambo as when they saw the body armour and respected me a little be more. In sum I spent 9 fucking hours dealing with customs. Nine hours. Nine. It took customs nine hours to get me to the right person to bribe to let me have my box which I can't even open until I leave the country.
But with a whole new fucking set of problems to deal with, I didn't have time to dwell. Now, if they'd just forgotten the helmet, I wouldn't have been so angry. But, the body armour company (AKE) had already told me they'd shipped my gear on Jan. 29. After I sent them daily e-mails for a week and a half asking for the tracking number (bear in mind that I've already paid for the armour in full), the realized there was no tracking number because my armour had never been shipped. By this time there wasn't enough time to send the armour from Australia (the company's home base), so they had to ship me used body armour from Baghdad. Now, I'm not a snob about this kind of stuff, but at the very beginning of my interaction with AKE I'd asked about buying used equipment. They said they didn't sell used gear. Fair enough, but don't turn around sell me used gear for the price of brand new equipment. Sending me used armour for the price of new armour without all of the equipment I paid for sent me over the fucking edge. (I was also supposed to get a jacket designed to wear over the vest that conceals the armour, making you look like more of a civilian, which of course wasn't included. I don't really care about the jacket, but it was part of the body armour package I PAID for.) Also, had their not been mechanical problems with my plane, I would have missed my flight and wait three days for the next one because of this shipping snafu.
Driving home I yelled at Sallie Stone, the armour coordinator, and planned our phone conversation. My opening was to start, "Look Sallie, if I wanted to pay $1,800 (cost of my armour) to get fucked, I would have called a fucking whore!" Instead I ended up being remarkably pleasant with Sallie, in fact I was so plea sent I offended myself. In her sweet, Australian accident she apologized, saying that she'd just completely forgotten to tell the Baghdad office to include a helmet in my shipment........... So, long story short, I had to call the Department of Defense who coordinates military flights for civilians to Baghdad, and they're now loaning me a helmet until I get to the Green Zone and AKE will deliver me a helmet. I guess the story has a vaguely happy ending, but fuck... I'm not filled with rage any more, but fuck... Fuck...
In the meantime here's part of a story about what I went through getting my body armour through customs. It's from an e-mail I sent to a friend, so it's unedited and filled with "adult language." Reader discretion is advised.
(Earlier I'd explained getting stuck in customs the day before for 5.5 hours trying to liberate my body armour. I no longer have that story, but you don't need to know it to start reading here. Just understand that I spent 5.5 hours in customs the day before and thought I was finished with paper work, etc.) I had all the forms signed, letters permitting me to have body armour in Jordan from the Directorate of Public Security and an express letter of consent from the Ministry of Interior. The DHL rep told me I just need to go to the airport and a DHL representative would help me get my package cleared through customs. I drove out to the airport this morning, which you know isn't exactly a short trip and had to get several clearances before airport security would allow me to pass through to DHL's office. After the forty or so minutes that took, the DHL office starts telling me that I need to go back to their office down town to do some more paper work, to which I started chanting, "No, NO, NO!" Then they start accusing me of losing a form that they never gave me and tell me that they're helpless without this form. I could see my package. I could touch it, it was right in front of me, but they wouldn't let me have it. Finally I bullied them into going ahead with the operation, but then came round 241 with Customs.
Customs officials claimed it was illegal for me to have body armour in Jordan unless I paid them half of the value of the body armour as a tax, or I could pay them 150 JD as an "insurance" fee, have my body armour sealed an in industrial strength trash bag, and if the bag wasn't open when I left the country, they'd give me back my 150 JD... DHL officers insisted that the customs officer wasn't look for a bribe, but when I opened my wallet and only had $100 (which I'd just exchanged for my trip to Iraq) and 11 JD, the customs agent told me that would be plenty, made me exchange the $100 back into JD and give it to him, along with my 11 JD, of which I was allowed to keep 2 for parking... Then they send me to ANOTHER office to get a receipt, making their extortion more legit, so that I won't start complaining until I'm in another airport on the other side of Amman and the customs agent has no clue what this bull shit receipt is. Anyway.... although there were 5 people in this other office, the only one capable of writing a receipt wouldn't be into work until 10:30 (it was 10:00AM), so they had me wait for her, while one or two people worked, one play solitaire, a few gossiped and one read the paper. Finally, I get my receipt around 10:40AM and go to seal up the box so they'll let me take it. But something doesn't look right to me about my body armour box. It felt too light, so I asked to open it up before they put the official seal on it. Inside is one vest sans helmet, for which I paid an additional $250, and is required gear for an embedded reporter. The shabab called me Rambo as when they saw the body armour and respected me a little be more. In sum I spent 9 fucking hours dealing with customs. Nine hours. Nine. It took customs nine hours to get me to the right person to bribe to let me have my box which I can't even open until I leave the country.
But with a whole new fucking set of problems to deal with, I didn't have time to dwell. Now, if they'd just forgotten the helmet, I wouldn't have been so angry. But, the body armour company (AKE) had already told me they'd shipped my gear on Jan. 29. After I sent them daily e-mails for a week and a half asking for the tracking number (bear in mind that I've already paid for the armour in full), the realized there was no tracking number because my armour had never been shipped. By this time there wasn't enough time to send the armour from Australia (the company's home base), so they had to ship me used body armour from Baghdad. Now, I'm not a snob about this kind of stuff, but at the very beginning of my interaction with AKE I'd asked about buying used equipment. They said they didn't sell used gear. Fair enough, but don't turn around sell me used gear for the price of brand new equipment. Sending me used armour for the price of new armour without all of the equipment I paid for sent me over the fucking edge. (I was also supposed to get a jacket designed to wear over the vest that conceals the armour, making you look like more of a civilian, which of course wasn't included. I don't really care about the jacket, but it was part of the body armour package I PAID for.) Also, had their not been mechanical problems with my plane, I would have missed my flight and wait three days for the next one because of this shipping snafu.
Driving home I yelled at Sallie Stone, the armour coordinator, and planned our phone conversation. My opening was to start, "Look Sallie, if I wanted to pay $1,800 (cost of my armour) to get fucked, I would have called a fucking whore!" Instead I ended up being remarkably pleasant with Sallie, in fact I was so plea sent I offended myself. In her sweet, Australian accident she apologized, saying that she'd just completely forgotten to tell the Baghdad office to include a helmet in my shipment........... So, long story short, I had to call the Department of Defense who coordinates military flights for civilians to Baghdad, and they're now loaning me a helmet until I get to the Green Zone and AKE will deliver me a helmet. I guess the story has a vaguely happy ending, but fuck... I'm not filled with rage any more, but fuck... Fuck...
posted by Tom | 1:55 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home