charlie weis journal from iraq

[irishmarine]

Editor's Note: Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis is taking part in a first-of-its-kind tour of the Middle East with four other college football coaches to meet with members of the U.S. military. The tour started Tuesday at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois near St. Louis, then continued on to Germany before Weis and the other coaches arrived in the Middle East Wednesday night. Weis, who returns to the U.S. on Monday, shares his thoughts with the South Bend Tribune's Eric Hansen for a daily diary. This is the second installment in the series.

It's after midnight here in Qatar, and we have to be packed and on the bus, ready to head to our next country by 6:30 a.m.

One of the wildest things about this part of the trip was getting here. We left Germany Tuesday night, and it's about a six-hour flight. I zee-out for a little while, and then I walk up front and I'm talking to the pilots, and they're like, "Oh we're about five minutes away from Iraq."

I was shell-shocked. It's just like you're in any commercial plane going over Pennsylvania, only you're going over Iraq. And I'm talking to the pilots and I'm saying, "How the hell do you get away with this? They know you're here."

The feeling is we control the airspace. It isn't like they control it. Their answer is we're at such a high altitude going over, it's a non-threatening aircraft that's going over.

From the air, Iraq looks very deserty. It would be like you and I were flying over upper Nevada. You see miles of nothing. It's not like you see bombs all over the place. You'd see patches where there was population, but if you didn't know it was Iraq, you'd think you were in the States in the western part of the country, heading to California.

I go back to my seat, and I'm talking to some of the coaches. And I'm saying, "We're flying over Iraq right now. How do you do that?" It wasn't like you were scared, but it's like how does that happen? You're in the middle of the war, and it's no big deal?"





We land here, and they had just finished having a sandstorm. Besides being over 100 degrees, the wind's blowing 50 miles an hour. By the time we landed, it had died down to maybe 25 or 30 miles an hour. Even though it was sandy and it was blowing, it wasn't like the sandstorm we had an hour before we got there.

This country is strategically kind of in-between Iraq to the Northwest and Afghanistan to the Northeast. It's a little peninsula that's the size of Long Island. They have just over a million people, and it's a very, very rich, rich country. Right now they produce the third-most natural gas in the world. They have a facility that they're building, and when they finish, they'll have 200 times the amount of natural gas of any country in the world. Right now Russia is No. 1.

The average person in Qatar makes 80 grand. You'd never know it where we are. We're out in the middle of the desert. There's like one city -- Doha -- where almost all of the people in the country live. They have some oil money, but mostly it's natural gas.

We left from here, which is an Air Force base. We went to an Army base, which is called Camp As Sayliyah. We have to go through customs every time. If you don't have your passport around here, you're done. For the most part, besides going on the tour of the base, it was meeting and greeting soldiers and troops. We did that for a good couple of hours.

We gave them T-shirts. I was in cahoots with the (Notre Dame) bookstore. We gave out the old (official) shirts from last year. With the help of the bookstore, we sent over like 5,000 or 6,000 shirts. Whereas all these other coaches have run out of stuff, we're still handing out shirts. And of course, I'm signing every single thing we're giving out. These people stand in line to get these things signed.

I signed so much today. There were kids from South Bend. There were kids from Mishawaka, kids from Fort Wayne. There was one kid from Cleveland, Ohio. He came in fully garbed in all his Notre Dame deal. He was just going bananas and he was literally shaking. This was my highlight of the day. He said, "I'm the biggest Notre Dame fan. The only bigger Notre Dame fan than me is my father."

So I have this international cell phone. I made the kid call his dad up. It's 4 o'clock in the morning in Cleveland. His brother answers the phone. Now I'm a little concerned because of the hour we're calling that they're going to think something's wrong. He said, "Go get Dad. Tell him I need to talk to him." So I go on the phone and talk to the dad and I give the kid my international phone and said, "Hey, go talk to your dad for a while." Who knows whether these people can call or not?

This kid came back to me and said, "This is the best day of my life." A kid that's over here in this country from Cleveland, Ohio says this is the best day of his life. It's 115 degrees. The wind's blowing 50 miles an hour. It's oppressive. It feels like your whole body is getting blow-dried by a giant hair dryer. And this kid is telling me it's the greatest day of his life? Just imagine that. It was easily the best thing that happened today. Easily.

Later in the day I got to see a B-1 bomber. Not only that, they let you go pick out a bomb and write a message to Osama Bin Laden. They wanted you to write a message on one of the bombs that they'd go ahead and drop. You just literally pulled out a Sharpie and wrote on it. "Go to hell" or something like that. I wrote something like "You will lose. Go Irish." I think everyone might have written something a little nastier, but I was conservative.

But you had to pick out a big bomb or a small bomb that they were going to drop later tonight. I thought that was pretty good -- your own personalized message to Osama Bin Laden.

All five of the coaches, we kind of divvied up and went to different groups. I met with around 30 people, and their main thing is Medovac. When soldiers go down, they fly in and they air-transport them out of there -- either back to the base or back to Germany, based on the severity of the injury.

After that, we had a panel discussion with the other coaches and (ESPN.com's) Ivan Maisel. He asked us questions as did people in the audience. They want to know how Jimmy Clausen is going to be, how the offensive line is going to be -- nothing different than you'd get from any Notre Dame club. Harmless questions, most of them.

After dinner, all the coaches sat at tables outside for about four hours and signed things. We signed and signed and signed and signed. Needless to say, you were spent at the end of that. And it's worth it. They're just so happy to see you that it makes you happy. They're trying to thank us, and we're the ones who should be saying, "Thank you." If you saw the enthusiasm of these people, you'd be shocked. It's infectious. You definitely feel something special here.

editirishmarine, when you have a chance, post a link to the place where you got the story from, just so we don't accidently post premium or copyrighted content from another site. thanks, SoCalDomer

 

[Sir John]

What the?

What the?

Where did you get that pix of Mccane. Jeese he is 72 years old. He can't be under the stress of Commander in chief of our armed forces. Obama is the way to go.

 

[irishmarine]

there is no political crap on here! i dont want to hear anyones views on politics. you wanna debate go somewhere else. this is all about irish football. thats it!

 

[irishmarine]

my bad socal. ill try to remember that next time.

 

[HereComeTheIrish]

there is no political crap on here! i dont want to hear anyones views on politics. you wanna debate go somewhere else. this is all about irish football. thats it!

LMFAO...Have at 'em Sir!!!

 

[SoCalDomer]

Where did you get that pix of Mccane. Jeese he is 72 years old. He can't be under the stress of Commander in chief of our armed forces. Obama is the way to go.

keep the political stuff on your own board. thanks.

 

[Sir John]

No problem. I'll edit it if you want?

 

[Epitome]

Great find. It's truely funny how exciting it is to have celebrities visit us when we are over there. The days are so long and routine that they just run into each other. We often use the dining facility menu as a calander. Me for instance, I would know another week went by when we would have steak and lobster dinner as it would come on sundays. I was able to meet Toby Keith which was pretty cool.

 

[irishmarine]

thats so true. except we didnt have a chowhall the first time we were there. we had MRE's yum. nothing better than a thirty year old hotdog. but thats how it was in bootcamp. meal to meal sunday to sunday, sunday was mail day. woohoo

 

[Epitome]

From The SBT

South Bend Tribune: From Middle East to White House for Weis

Editor’s Note: Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis is taking part in a first-of-its-kind tour of the Middle East, with four other college football coaches, to meet with members of the U.S. military. The other coaches are Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville, Georgia’s March Richt, Yale’s Jack Siedlecki and Miami’s Randy Shannon. The tour started Tuesday at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois and concludes Memorial Day with a visit to President Bush at the White House. Weis, who got to meet roughly 5,000 troops in the Middle East, shares his thoughts with the Tribune’s Eric Hansen for a daily diary. This is the final installment in the series.

Sometimes military protocol dictates you can’t be real specific about your location, so let’s just say I spent the day (Sunday) somewhere in the Southwest Pacific. But we’re in the middle of a desert again, so it’s hot as hell, which is about 115 degrees.

The quarters we’re staying in are actually pretty comfortable. As hot as it is outside, you’ve got air-conditioning, and it’s very livable and all the people here have it. All the soldiers have it. They work long, hot days, but in turn they treat them pretty decent.


We went over to their dining hall and sat down there and did a long meet-and-greet — a conga line of signatures like we’ve been doing. That went really well. Probably the highlight was this one girl who was supposed to be flying on one of the most secretive planes (Sunday). She is a 2005 graduate of Notre Dame. Her first name is Laura. They were scheduled to fly out (Sunday) morning. So she was going to miss me being there, and she was miserable.

This got back to me as the day went on. She was all geared up and walking up on the plane to take off. Her commander said, “Nah, we’ve got somebody to cover for you. Go ahead and meet coach Weis.” This girl was doing cartwheels the rest of the day. She was at the lunch and then when we went on a tour of the base, who’s standing there on the tour, showing off a plane? Her. Smiling as big as you can imagine.

Later in the day, I’m driving around, and the guy in the back seat is from Indiana and a huge Notre Dame fan. It’s almost like you’re set up everywhere you go. There’s somebody from Indiana that’s a Notre Dame fan that’s either in your car or on your bus or on your plane. They’re everywhere — it’s unbelievable.

I met a couple of guys from South Bend (Sunday). One went to John Adams High School. One went to Culver Military Academy. You’re in the middle of signing for people in this long line, and you hear this voice saying, “Yeah, I went to John Adams. If you’re going to my house, you turn off Twyckenham ...” Here you are in the middle of the desert! Those three kids were like my three highlights of the day.

Late in the afternoon, they held a flag football game on the base. The Southeastern Conference coaches — (Auburn’s) Tommy Tuberville and (Georgia’s) March Richt — coached one team. And (Yale’s) Jack Siedlecki and (Miami’s) Randy Shannon coached the other team. I was the head referee, because I was the only one not affiliated with a conference. So I got to bust everyone’s chops.

So right away I called a 5-yard, delay-of-game penalty on Mark Richt for “overcoaching.” And then Tuberville’s yelling, “The fix is in. The fix is in.” Actually their team won 14-12. It was 6-6 at halftime. Their team scored and went for two to go up 14-6. The other team scored with 14 seconds to go, went for two and didn’t make it. Everyone loved it, the base just loved it. The field was 80 yards long and made of dirt. No grass anywhere. After the game, they had a big cookout. They gave them kebabs and ribs and lobster. That was like the big Memorial Day cookout they had.

We’re leaving for the airport at 1 o’clock in the morning (Monday) and we’re flying out of here at somewhere around 3 a.m. And it’s at least a 15-hour flight going back. We’re going to land in Washington, get cleaned up, then we’re going over to the White House and have a private meet-and-greet with the president for about 15 minutes. Then he’s going to bring us outside the White House and do a little press conference with him talking about us, with us standing behind him. I’m sure we’ll answer some questions after he says what he has to say. That whole thing will last until about 4:45. Then I’m going to head to the airport, hop on a plane and come home.

Fifteen hours will be the longest flight I’ve ever been on. Remember, it was broken up coming over in that we went to Germany first. The longest flight I’ve ever been on prior to this was Newark, N.J. to Honolulu, and I think that might have been about 10 or 11 hours. Now the difference is that was a 10- or 11-hour flight in first class with people catering to your every whim. We’re going on a military tanker.

It’s way different. They had to put some seats in there for us. Usually there’s some product in the middle and some fold-off seats off to the side, like portable seats. That’s what the guys who work the plane are sitting in. But they did bring in some seats for us to sit on. There are almost no windows, either. There are two little windows in about the middle of the plane. What I’ll do is spend some time up front in the cockpit. That’s about the only place you can look out.

There’s no announcement of putting your tray tables up. Food is a bag of peanuts. There’s some coolers with water, Gatorade and sodas. “Go serve yourself.” The temperature ranges anywhere from 120 degrees to 40 degrees within the flight. On the way over, the heat didn’t faze me too much, but a couple of us walked up and down checking on people to make sure they were OK, that they weren’t getting sick or dehydrating.

I think the other coaches and I have become pretty close on this trip. I don’t think you can help it. We’ve been busting chops with each other pretty good, to tell you the truth.

What I learned from this trip is that it’s strikingly obvious that everyone over here is so upbeat and optimistic and so proud of what they do. They’re just happy that we’re over here to let them know how much they mean to everyone. It’s almost like validating their existence, so to speak. But they are prideful, and it’s important to them and they have total faith in what we’re doing.

They want to be here. Other than a handful of people who were right at the end of their tour and just a couple of days from going home, there wasn’t one person that had a long way to go that complained about how much time they had left. Not once did I hear that. Not once. And I must have talked to 5,000 people.

If I were single — which I’m obviously not — I wish this thing went on for a month. I could do this for a month. But I miss my family. Sometimes it was frustrating not being able to have access to (wife) Maura and (son) Charlie, because I’m so used to talking to them so much every day. I thought it was a small price to pay for what I gained. There isn’t one day where you couldn’t be over here doing some good and just perking up the troops. You should see the reaction we’ve gotten. It really has been unbelievable. I’ve had some good good-natured teasing moments. I’ll always remember those.

My biggest hope coming over here was obvious — going in a role to try to lift the spirits of our troops and tell everyone how important they were. However, one of my biggest concerns was that these kids, these soldiers would think we were hypocritical, that we were just one big PR stunt. You don’t know how they’re going to take it. The big dogs are proud to have you there, but you’re always concerned on the ground floor how they’re going to perceive it — like is this a dog-and-pony show or is this the real thing? Not once did you feel anything but thanks, sincere thanks. Walking out the door, you’re convinced and they were very, very, very happy you were here.

And what better way to end the trip than standing outside the White House behind the president of the United States on Memorial Day?

It doesn’t make any difference if you’re Republican, Democrat. You just came back from the Middle East and you’re visiting with the president and standing behind him while he talks to the media on Memorial Day. Does it get any better than that?

 

[irishmarine]

it sure doesnt and god bless that man!

 

[SoCalDomer]

No problem. I'll edit it if you want?

Not necssary. I would have edited it for you if I thought it completely inappropriate.

My point was, just as you appreciate people not starting off-topic political discussions in non-political threads at DD, we appreciate the same.

if someone starts a political discussion thread, then feel free to post your views there.