Finally in Ramadi, Iraq!

I finally arrived to Ramadi on July 16th. It was such a long journey gettting here, it sounds funny, but I am REALLY glad to be here!!! Since I started this crazy deployment I have been living out of one duffel bag. I can't wait to finally unpack all of my bags, it's going to feel like Christmas, well a really bad Christmas since I'll be opening up stuff I had already had at one time, but you get the point.

So this is my first home here (B9). Yes, thats right, I came all the way to Iraq to get my very own trailer!!! Well I don't even get a full trailer, I get 1/4 of a trailer, I guess the housing market crashed over here too.

Here is the bathrooms/showers... more trailers

Yes we have palm trees! Lots of palm trees and sand, all thats missing is the water.

There is also a MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) building that has computers we can use for the internet, phones, a room full of books, ping pong tables and a tv room. The gym is decent size and has every type of workout equipment you could ever want. The bad thing here is the food, it's really bad! Since I left Ft Hood this is the worst food we have had, but that will be good for those of us who need to diet!

I was here in Iraq in 2003 and volunteered for this deployment because I thought it would be interesting to see how it's changed from the first year of the war to the last year of it. Last time all we had was tents to sleep in and we had to find wood to build our own porta-potty's. Living in a 1/4 of a trailer is luxury compared to what I experienced before, and having the internet and phones now is awesome! We also have cable tv in our rooms which shows all the AFN (Armed Forces Network) channels. There is 7 channels: sports, news, prime time tv (House, CSI, etc), movies, and others. It's crazy being able to watch tv and get on the internet in my own room!!!