For the first time in his 19 years in the Navy, Greg Renick watched a Seahawks playoff game at sea. There’s two good reasons for that, he said: Technology had advanced to the point of letting him watch it via satellite, and there were plenty of years when the Seahawks didn’t make it to the postseason.

Renick, a 37-year-old former resident of Woodinville, is a senior chief petty officer assigned to the USS Harry S. Truman in the Persian Gulf. He’s an operations specialist responsible for using radars, communications equipment and data information links to detect all aircraft, ships and submarines in order to defend the ship using our onboard aircraft and weapons systems.

He watched the game with several friends in their berthing compartment, a 12-foot-by-20-foot space that nine sailors share. It’s also 15 feet below the main portion of the flight deck where landing fighter jets hook onto arresting wires. That meant the football fans had to wear ear plugs during the entire game.

The E-2C Hawkeye squadron onboard is nicknamed the Seahawks, and Renick hoped it would be bring some good karma. Outside his berthing compartment, a banner hangs and displays pictures of families – including one in Packers attire.

“Seems like an omen now, after the fact,” he said.

Staff Sgt. Tommy Gwinn is fortunate: He doesn’t have to rely on the Armed Forces Network and hope it airs a Seahawks game. He has the NFL Sunday Ticket pay-per-view package.

Gwinn, a weather forecaster with the 612th Air Base Squadron, watches the games weekly with other Seattle fans in the Central American country. He lives in a "super-hootch": a four-room structure with a large common area.

Gwinn watched the game with another Hawks fan on a 52-inch big-screen TV. It quickly turned sour.

"We were so pumped after the first 5 minutes of the game when we went up 14-0," he said. "After it got tied, I bet we didn't say 10 words the rest of the game. It was quite disappointing."

Midnight is a quiet time at the Presidential Palace in Baghdad. Its marble-lined halls are largely empty, and the light in its immense rotunda is dim.

For three football fans, though, it was the place to be.

Maj. Brett D. McCreight works as a plans officer for the Joint Area Support Group-Central in the heart of the Green Zone. He’s also a big Seahawks fan, which is why he remained in his office early Sunday morning watching Seattle end its season with a 42-20 loss at Green Bay.

Two Packers fans – Lt. Col Ken Ryan and Spec. Jeremy Mills – joined McCreight for the game.

McCreight, though born in Colorado, is a lifelong Seahawks fan. He has family in Washington: a brother and sister-in-law in Olympia, grandparents in Spokane, and a brother, uncle and aunt in the Seattle area.

The three soldiers watched the game on the Armed Forces Network, which beams American sporting events to service members across the globe. But while watching the NFL playoffs might remind soldiers of the United States, there are telltale signs that they aren’t home.

Public-service announcements air during commercial breaks, and snowy, stable Wisconsin is about as far as one can get from Iraq.

McCreight, 33, has been deployed for almost eight months.

He had high hopes for the Hawks entering Saturday’s game. He said he was nervous when Chris Berman, an ESPN pundit with a habit of overreaching in his game predictions, picked Seattle to win.

When Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck connected with Bobby Engram to for an 11-yard touchdown pass to put Seattle up, 14-0, McCreight was excited.

“Big cheers in Baghdad!” he typed.

Mark Lee hasn’t watched a Seahawks game in person since Steve Largent’s final game in the Kingdome in 1989, but the Air Force master sergeant from Kennewick still watches his favorite team from his home in rural Germany when Armed Forces Network airs its games.

Lee is living in Beeck, a village near the border with the Netherlands while working as a software engineer the NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force E-3A Component. Several Boeing employees live and work in the area, which increases the small number of Seahawks fans.

“I've been a huge Seahawk fan since I was a kid,” he said, “and now my children love them as well.”

Andrew Henzel hadn’t slept in more than a day, but he mustered the energy to stay awake a few extra hours, and with good reason: The Air Force staff sergeant and Seahawks fan was reunited with his wife and father after a deployment to Turkey.

Henzel, a native of Walla Walla and member of the 488th Intelligence Squadron, is stationed at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, England, but was deployed the past two months to Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey. He arrived Saturday morning and joined his father, who was visiting from Rainier, and his wife, a Chehalis native.

He hadn’t seen his wife in 60 days. It had been more than a year since seeing his father.

“During a deployment and especially through the holidays service members are always looking for those ties that bring you closer to home,” he said. “During this deployment Hawk games have done that for me and a few other Seahawks fans deployed with me.”

During the deployment to Turkey, Henzel and two Seahawks fans met every weekend in their dormitory’s common room to watch Seattle games. He called Seattle’s playoff victory against the Redskins last week “very intense,” and said there was a lot of yelling and cheering echoing throughout the dorm – even though it was 3 a.m.

He was disappointed with the Seahawks’ performance Saturday, he said, but valued the time with his family.

“I haven't gone to sleep yet and have been up for 38 hours,” he said before kickoff. “I told myself I wasn't going to sleep until after the game.”

I'm chatting with several people today. Later I'll post stories from these folks:

Maj. Brett D. McCreight, who is watching in Baghdad.

Mark Lee, who is working for NATO in Germany.

Andrew Henzel, back at RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom after a deployment to Turkey.

Thomas Gwinn, an Air Force weather forecaster in Honduras.

Greg Renick, who is serving aboard the USS Harry S. Truman in the Persian Gulf.

Daniel Jose, an airman stationed at NSA Souda Bay in Greece but serving in Turkey.

There might be a few more adding stories later.

They wanted to see Rhubarb cheer a game-winning home run, and he waved his arms as he bounded across the room.

They wanted to see Rhubarb upset with a tough loss, and he collapsed and pounded his fists against the door.

They wanted to see Rhubarb react to a cute girl in the stands, and he flashed his best come-hither look.

They wanted to see Rhubarb interact with a muscle-bound jock, and he flexed and pointed to his noticeably flat biceps.

They threw almost every kind of scenario at Rhubarb – how to act shy, flirt with a girl several sections away, dance to funk and calm a scared child – and when the audition was almost over, Payton Foutz removed the oversized reindeer head, wiped the sweat off his brow and flashed a bright smile.

“Man,” he said, “that was fun.”

Foutz, a 20-year-old South Hill resident, was one of seven people auditioning this weekend to play the part of Rhubarb, the mascot of the Tacoma Rainiers. Whoever is selected will make more than 150 appearances a year, including games and community events.

The candidates met with several employees of the Triple-A baseball club at its headquarters in University Place, and then put on the Rhubarb costume – complete with a baseball jersey on top of his brown fur and a head with a Rainiers hat and large antlers.

But before the interview began in earnest, Foutz, a recent Clover Park Technical College graduate loosened the atmosphere by distributing packets of Pez candies. He impressed the panel of judges by explaining he was an Eagle Scout and with his knowledge of American Sign Language – useful because Rhubarb, like most other mascots, can’t talk.

Foutz peppered the interview with a bit of humor. His mother is battling rectal cancer, he said, and he wanted to get a tattoo with a blue ribbon. The logical place?

“I got it right on my butt,” he said. “And yes, it hurt. A lot.”

He donned the Rhubarb costume and went through several drills. He first had to demonstrate position awareness of several of the costume’s body parts. He then showed his range of emotions. Judges put him in several scenarios – for example, they asked how he would interact with a drunken fan – and watched his reaction. They asked him to “walk like Rhubarb would walk” and then dance to 1970s-era funk music.

The judges finished by asking Foutz if he had thought of a unique move he could demonstrate. Foutz asked Tony Canepa, the creative director for the Rainiers’ parent company, Schlegel Sports, to stand in the middle of the room. Foutz then ran behind Canepa, placed his hands on his shoulders and leaped over him.

After a few last questions, Foutz was finished – and encouraged by the audition.

“I made them laugh the whole time,” he said. “I don’t think I answered any of the questions poorly – I was worried a wrong word would slip out.”

The Rainiers staff will make a decision in the next few days, said team spokesman Geoff Corkum.

Foutz’s hair was matted with sweat when he stepped out of the costume. He said he considers himself to be in good shape, but he had no idea how much of a workout it was.

“It’s a lot hotter and a lot harder than most people think,” said Canepa, who was a mascot during his college days at UNLV and later worked as a mascot with the Las Vegas 51s. “Plus you have to have great personality and showmanship, and you really want to entertain. You have to be somebody people want to hang out with.

“We’re really looking for someone who’s comfortable in their own skin.”

Coming later today, we'll be checking in with service members (and Seahawks fans) stationed in Iraq, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Honduras.