Welcome home Mr. Oxenreider.

Jeff Oxenreider left Taji, Iraq on the 16th of May, is currently in Texas, and will be home in Columbus Ohio with his wife and two daughters shortly. He was in Iraq for the past year as a civilian contractor, in support of the US Forces’ unlawful invasion and subsequent occupation. And I am so glad that his time there is over.

Jeff Oxenreider is one of my oldest friends; we grew up together in Columbus Ohio, Well at least from puberty on. We first met in Middle school; I think it was the 7th grade. Who knows & who cares? During high school we’d hang out, and our Junior and senior year we were a force to be reckoned with.

My parents had this philosophy that when you were eighteen, since you could vote, be tried in a court of law as an adult, could joined any of the armed forces and kill/die for your country, could marry, and many other things, you should be allowed to have beer in your own damn house.

“Would it be okay if I had a few friends over?” was my first question when they stated their beliefs and I was old enough to see the potential havoc

To say things got out of hand would be wrong. We’d have several dozen of our close, personal friends over most weekends for a “few beers and watch some TV.” Of course, all my friends were over eighteen; even the sixteen year olds.

To be fair, no one got hurt and it was only beer, and compared to some of the things I’ve done later in life it was all quite innocent.

In May of 1987, I joined the Air Force, I had joined to be a crypto-linguist, and they had sent me to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA. I thought the rest of the Air Force was as lax as DLI; and had talked Jeff into joining as well.

Being Air Force on an Army Post is something you have to see to believe. It’s similar to the sense of entitlement Americans get when they’re abroad; most local customs don’t apply to them, and they break any rules that don’t fit their agenda because they think they’re immune.

Jeff didn’t do as well on the Defense Language Aptitude Battery, the test you take to see if you have an ability to pick up languages, and he joined without picking a specialty first, so when he went through basic training, he was only given a limited set of choices in schools he could go to.

Around the same time I washed out of DLI; Jeff was going to school in Mississippi to learn about radios. The Air Force sent me to Denver to be a Target Intelligence Specialist. There I learned how to read maps and aeronautical charts, how to interpret photography, what bombs were good for what kinds of targets.

Afterwards, I was sent to Omaha, and he to Frankfurt Am Main, Germany, the place where forty years earlier, my father paved the runway when he was in the Army, rebuilding Germany and parts of France after World War Two.

After a year in Omaha, I went to a little airbase in Southwestern Germany, a Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, no bombs, just cameras. It was like being invited to someone else’s birthday party. It was fun, planning missions and all, but there was no ordnance. And that's the fun stuff, really.

I loved my job.

I also came to terms with the fact that as a targeteer, the better I did my job, the fewer people actually had to die. I n a conventional war, you take out a command post, the front lines don’t have any direction. You blow up the supplies and munitions, they can’t fight, the war’s over, fewer dead grunts overall.

It was while I was at this sleepy little base that the first Gulf War happened. I went down for a few days to help my unit out with a few technical issues, and they sent me right back to close the base I was at. I think it was because I pointed out why there was a need for Tactical Reconnaissance, even though the Cold War was over; three of my five examples had happened.

But this isn’t my story.

The second time I went to Turkey, it was in support of Operation Provide Comfort. President George H.W. Bush hinted at supporting an overthrow of the Baathist regime, and when the Kurds in the Northern part of Iraq tried and were squashed, Mr. Bush left them out in the cold. Operation Provide Comfort was created on-the-fly to deliver food and humanitarian aid to the Kurds.

Every time I deployed, I flew into and out of Turkey via Rhein Main, hanging out with Jeff before and afterwards.

After our time in the military, I traveled and Jeff went back to Ohio. I know he never felt trapped like I did, so it made sense. He was always into computers and became a Systems Administrator of one sort or another.

We lost track of each other, and one day a few years back we started emailing each other, keeping in touch when time would allow.


Then came September 11th.


If you know any veterans, their first thought was “How can I help,” and their first response was to see if they were needed, especially if they were still young enough to possibly go back into the military.

I couldn’t go back, even though I could probably get my clearance back, and I have several skill sets that come in handy in this kind of war on terror. If that war was fought the right way. It isn’t so I’m not helping anybody do anything, except to vote the Fundamentalists out of every level of government I can.

After the initial shock, the current Regime, who already had their sights fixed on Iraq, looked for ways to make scapegoats out of that country.

Was Saddam an evil beast? Yep. Did he deserve to be removed form office? You betcha. Should we have gone in? No way in hell should we have invaded another country. We had our chance to topple them a decade ago, but didn’t. It was the only time we had the right to do so. Hussein invaded a country and for that he should’ve been taken out of power. But we didn’t.


But this isn’t that story. This is about Mr. Oxenreider.




It all started in the beginning of February of last year. Jeff had gotten a gig with a company with a government contract to support the troops in Iraq.


When I found out he did it, I knew why he had, so the only thing I could do was to offer advice. Stuff he already knew, but I felt I had to remind him about.


Simple stuff really; be nice to the locals, keep a pack of cigarettes to share even if you don’t smoke, check your shoes before putting them on, carry candy and stuff for kids, crap like that. It’s the little kindnesses can be the difference between life & death.


I used to check his blog daily. Then after awhile, every couple of days, then once a week or so. When he wouldn’t post, I’d get to worrying, but it would be because he was too busy.


In the end, he’s glad he went. More importantly, I’m glad he’s back.


This occupation is wrong, and history will remember it as such, but the men and women there swore to follow orders of their Commander In Chief, even if he’s G.W. Bush.