Life in TQ, Iraq

This base is pretty much just a transient base. We should only be here for a few days and then on our way. There isn't a whole lot here, but they do have WIFI! It's the greatest!!! Since I have nothing else to do but eat and sleep I think my time here will be spent on the internet.

Where is my home?!?

Its like a maze in here, how am I supposed to find my tent?!?

Oh, here it is...

Finally, a real mattress to sleep on!

I just need to try to ignore the fact that 1,000 other people have slept on it too!

Haha.... they make it seem like we are in some hotel.

Can I get some housekeeping service in here?!?

My new desk, do you like it?!?

Leaving Kuwait... Finally!

These last few days have been quite hilarious, let me recap for you...

12 July:

The day I have been waiting for for 3 months now, we are finally going to Iraq! We loaded on the buses at 11:00 pm to go to the airfield that was 1 1/2 hours away.

13 July:

We got to Ali Asalem, the American airfield in Kuwait, to find out that the plane had to be repaired and we wouldn't be flying out at 5:00 am like we were scheduled to. At 10:30 am they loaded us on the buses to take us out to the plane to leave... FINALLY!!!!

As we are sitting on the plane waiting to take off my friend tells me that we will be doing a combat take-off and landing. What the heck is that?!? It is where the plane goes straight up and reaches cruising altitude in a matter of minutes, and the landing is pretty much the same just in the opposite direction. Plus, this is a C17 we are in, it is a cargo plane, no windows, this plane is huge!!! So I am sitting in my little seat wondering what kind of roller coaster ride I am in for. My friend sitting next to me a was right up against me on the take-off because she is so little and light weight that when we went straight up she couldn't hold herself in her seat. It was so funny, we were laughing so hard. Once we were at cruising altitude (2 mins after take-off) we leveled out and I fell asleep. It was such a smooth ride, I loved it! Then I was rudely awaken to the crew chief telling us that we were circling TQ, the base we were to land at in Iraq, but the sandstorm was so bad they couldn't land and we were headed back to Kuwait. I really thought he would tell us he was joking... that never came. An hour later we were doing the combat landing to the same place we took off from. We were cruising one second, the next we were in a nose dive, and 3-4 mins later we were on the ground. CRAZY! But I actually loved it!

In the Army there are 3 learning phases, they are called crawl, walk and run. We were laughing and joking that flight was our crawl phase to going to Iraq, it was just a practice run. Hopefully they will actually let us do it for real soon! So back to the holding tent we go. They told us the weather probably wouldn't clear out for the rest of the day so we would be staying the night there. This was at 2:30 pm. At 3:00 pm this is what I looked like in the holding area...

13 July cont...

At 5:30 pm we were told to get all our stuff on and we were being taken back out to the plane. I was laughing so hard, here we go again! So back out to the plane to load up and try this all again. Hopefully this time they will do more than just fly us around the middle east and actually land in Iraq and let us get out!

We made it!!! We actually landed in Iraq at TQ!!! I am so excited. We still are not at our final destination but at least we are in the general area. I should be here at this holding base for a few days and while they figure out how we are getting to our base we will be working at for the next 9 months.

July 4th!!!

Happy July 4th Everyone!!!

A year ago I would have never guessed I would be sitting in Kuwait for this July 4th! I guess it's pretty fitting that I am. It's kind of a cool feeling to be serving our country in a combat zone on our nations Independence Day.

To celebrate July 4th I woke up at 5:00 am to run in a 5K. I was asked if I wanted to do it and that I would get a free t-shirt, so I thought sure why not, I have nothing better to do. It was my very first 5k run! I had two goals for this run, to not finish last and to break 40 mins. I accomplished both of those goals so I feel pretty good about it.

The rest of the day was spent like all the other days here, I did absolutely nothing. I hope everyone is having a good holiday weekend!!!

Finally in Kuwait

I am finally here in Kuwait. Nothing has changed since the last time I was here. Its still very hot, very sandy and smells like a porta-potty. The main differences between now and 2003 are that there is the internet and a lot of call centers. Also, the USO has a pretty nice tent/building for the soldiers. Other than that, it's pretty much as I remember it.

The wind has been pretty bad, it's been getting up to 40 mph. So with the sand and the heat it hasn't been too pleasant. If you are wondering what this all feels like, go buy the largest/strongest hair dryer you can find, get a handful of sand, hold your hand about 6 inches from your face and then turn the hair dryer on full blast. The hot air mixed with sand feels wonderful.