IRAQ 2009/2010

2009 Christmas in Iraq

2010-01-11T08:01:00.000-08:00

Christmas morning in Iraq...

It sucks! It doesn't even feel like Christmas, but me and my good friend Liesl sure had a good time trying to have the Christmas spirit. The fun lasted until 11:30, there was a few loud explosions and so I thought I better leave her room and go get cleaned up. It turned out to not be anything, it was our own guys blowing stuff up, but it killed the mood and so I just slept and read the rest of the day.

Me with Santa

Cards I received from friends and school children around the country

My good friend Shelly and her family sent me this tree with the presents...

THANK YOU Shelly, it gave me a little holiday spirit for my room!

I decided to open the presents early, good thing I did because it was all the decorations for the tree. I loved it!

Shelly had soldiers I work with back in Colorado write messages on this stocking for me...

When Liesl would open a present she put the ribbons and bows on us.

I looked like a cancer patient at the end of it all...

Me and Liesl with our ribbons...

This was all the stuff we were going to play with

Liesl's friend sent extra presents for her friends. That was really nice of her!!!

Liesl gave me the majority of them and we had so much fun with them!

Left over Halloween gifts from my friend Tina...

We broke it all out!!!

Shirt says...

"I told Santa what I wanted for Christmas,

He washed my mouth out with soap."

Christmas Light Paining

2010-01-05T07:58:00.000-08:00

A few of us went out light painting on Christmas Eve. It was the most fun I had had since getting back from leave in Utah and Wyoming. Christmas in Iraq... not that great, it was actually just another day off. It was a little better being around the few people that mean something to me and being able to laugh and have a fun time for a few hours. These pictures actually are harder to do than they look!

Light Painting

2009-10-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

Liesl introduced several of us to something really cool you can do with cameras and chem lights and/or laser pointer lights. We have gone out a few times at night to do this and it's been a lot of fun! I am learning all kinds of cool things here and it breaks up the day-to-day boredom.

Flowers, Trees, grass, etc...

This is me blowing out candles on a birthday cake

A guy trying to get into the back of our vehicle, little explosion to the left of him

When I got promoted, this is me and a Marine Warrant Officer

Liesl and me posing with "Army Strong"

Promotion

2009-10-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

I am a Chief Warrant Officer 2 (CW2) now!!!

I'm sure some of you are wondering what the difference between aWO1 and CW2 are, let me explain. A WO1 (Warrant Officer 1) is appointed by the Secretary of the Army and a CW2 is a commissioned officer appointed by the President of the United States. So there is a lot more responsibilities as a CW2, plus you are expected to know a lot more. Hmmmm..... sure, ok.

Me and my soldier, SGT Thurman, before promotion.

My promotion formation

LTC Morris was so nervous about putting the new rank on me because it goes on our chest, it's in the center of our boobs.... HAHAHAHA

Abraham's Oasis

2009-09-21T00:21:00.000-07:00

According to Arab legend, Abraham (patriarch of the Hebrew Bible, the Quran and other Islamic writings) visited this oasis at Al Asad on his journey from Ur to Haran. According to the legend, Abraham stopped at the oasis, drank from the water and bathed himself. He and his family camped here for a short time before moving on to Haran.

The Arabic name of the village near the oasis is Eyen Al Asad, which means Spring of the Lion. The name was derived from a time when this area was a wilderness with all kinds of wild animals to include lions.

The oasis had neither settlement nor village before 1920 other than the occasional occupation by Bedouins who passed through with their flocks and stopped for water. Over the centuries, most people in the region lived much closer to the Euphrates River, along it's banks or flood plains. They preferred to stay close to the lush and trade route that the river naturally provided.

A friend took me to the Oasis on one of my parts runs to Al Asad. No one knows for sure if Abraham truly stopped here, but it is a protected area and the Iraqi's and Americans treat it as a sacred piece of land.

Having Fun

2009-09-20T23:44:00.001-07:00

These are just random pictures of me and friends...

Teva and Nani

2009-09-19T11:11:00.001-07:00

Here are pictures of my 2 little ladies, well one isn't so little anymore. Teva is my 5 year old Australian Shepard, I love her so much and miss her even more! Nani is a 6 onth old 1/2 lab, 1/2 Australian Shepard. She's going to be a monster!!! I've only seen her during the first month of her life. My friend is keeping both of them and training Nani. I'm kind of happy about missing the whole puppy stage, I don't want all my stuff chewed up.

A Little Sight Seeing in Iraq

2009-09-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

On one of my trips to Al Asad for our parts/supplies run a friend took me around the base to see the sites. It was a fun afternoon being able to see different things and hanging out with people I don't get to see that often.

Signs don't mean anything to me...

These are Iraqi planes

This is overlooking the base

DB wanted to fire off a few rounds...

Sept 7th Bombing

2009-09-09T01:59:00.000-07:00

The morning of Sept 7th, around 7:45, I was getting ready to leave for work when a VERY loud explosion went off. My little combat trailer shook like we were having a huge earthquake, these trailers are great to live in, but not so great for things like earthquakes, bombs, etc. So after the explosion I went outside to see if there would be anymore or if the sirens would go off letting us know that we were under attack. None of that happened so I grabbed my stuff and started walking to work, it's about 1/4 mile away. There was however a lot of gunfire, I guess the bad guys and the Iraqi police were in a firefight. This was all going on less than a 1/2 mile away, the Iraqi Police base is right next to ours, and the explosion was right outside our perimeter.

What I saw on my way to work was shocking!!! I don't ever recall in ANY training I have given or have sat through that said to get up on rooftops with a camera and start taking pictures of the explosions and/or gunfights going on around you. I do remember something about making yourself a small target so that you will be harder to kill. I realize that all this was not going on on our base, but it was VERY close and I'm sure those bad guys with the large guns can see people standing on rooftops less than 1/2 mile away. What is wrong with people?!? I am so glad I'm surrounded by a bunch of tourist with cameras, and to think I was actually in the middle of a war zone.

Here is the story on the suicide bombing....

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/09/07/iraq.car.bomb/index/html

Mom and Melissa, can you please print it for me/us for our books. Thank you!

On the Road...

2009-09-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

Part of my job is to go pick up parts and supplies. So when we go we convoy to these other locations, it's usually 4-8 trucks that go. Yes mom, we are safe! Whenever we pass vehicles that are parked on the side of the road, the 1st vehicle will get over the radio and tell all the other trucks in our convoy so that way we can keep an eye on them to make sure it's not a bad guy. So you'll hear something like "Parked vehicle on the left shoulder of the road 100 meters to the front." No big deal. They also do this for people.

So the other night this is what I heard...
"100 meters up on the left side, BEDSHEET walking"

I laughed so hard!!!! No wonder they want to shoot us half the time!

Also, my friend Liesl's mom is the greatest! She wrote in a letter to her "OMA." You all know what OMG stands for, well since we are over here it's only right to say Oh My Allah.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

2009-09-06T12:56:00.000-07:00

I know this is a little late, for those of you who don't know, my birthday was on Aug 29th. I had to wait to celebrate my birthday for 2 reasons, first my mom's package didn't come before my birthday and second I was on the road on my birthday. But hey, at least I got to drive through the beautiful countryside of Iraq on my bday... what more could I ask for?!? My mom's box finally came and the fun began...

Mom sent me a pinata... he was scary!!!

This little guy is now named DB (deployment bear), he will go everywhere with me

ALL my gifts... THANK YOU MOM!!!

Notice the 'Exit' sign... It's a good thing they make us put that by our doors! These rooms are so big I don't think I could figure out where to exit!!!

My 2 friends I celebrated with... Liesl and SFC Manzanares
Mom, thank you so much for always thinking of me and making holidays (yes, my birthday is a holiday, duh!) special for me no matter where I am! I'm so glad I have friends that will 'play' with me and make things like birthdays fun when they are usually forgotten in places like this. I am very lucky to have the friends and family that I do! I love you all!!!

2009-08-24T03:06:00.000-07:00

My good friend here, SSG Liesl Marelli, is the PAO (Public Affairs Officer). She is here to document this deployment, so she takes thousands of pictures and writes the monthly newsletter. It's really cool being friends with the professional photographer! First off I get a lot of pictures and second she is willing to teach me everything she knows while we are here. Besides all that, she is just a really good friend and a lot of fun to hang around with. She keeps me sane and we have a lot of fun. Liesl is the one in the other pictures with the rifles.

Liesl has a little bear that does everything she does. So yesterday it was the bear's day to have his picture taken. He was helping me shoot my rifle. I thought you might enjoy these....

Having Fun

2009-08-17T14:16:00.000-07:00

I constantly have other Army and Marine soldiers turning in Iraqi weapons for me to cut up. I am the only person on base that is qualified to legally destroy weapons. It's not hard, I take a blow torch and cut through them so no one can use them ever again. I have to sign forms that I took control of the weapons, and if I don't completely destroy them and they were found being used by someone in the future, I would be in a lot of trouble. But before I put a blow torch to them I have fun...

Rifles took off insurgent in Baghdad

One of these rifles I am trying to take back to Colorado to put in the Colo National Guard State Headquarters building. It was produced in 1939 by the Nazi's. The Nazi eagle is stamped on the rifle in a few places with the symbol of where it was made which was in Berlin. (I really don't know a lot about guns, I have had to sit for hours on the internet researching all this.) One thing I found interesting was that the Nazi's produced this weapon for their military and it ended up here because the Nazi's trained the Iraqi army during WWII.

Inside my room

2009-08-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures of my room, well the inside of my room...

Yes, ALL my clothes actually fit in these two wall-lockers, PATHETIC!!! I can't wait to get back home and have all my clothes!

My little bookshelf

Yes, that is a microwave and tv you see in this picture

Yes, I am really putting in my room! Love It!!!

As you can see, my room is small and plain. Feel free to send pictures or anything else I can put up on my walls and stuff to make my room feel a little more like home! I can't print pictures, (they won't let me run off base to Walmart for some reason), so I don't have many.

I also love reading the comments that are posted on this from some of you, so please keep it up! And Lorraine... yes I know you are my cousin! (hahaha)

Random Stuff

2009-08-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

The National Guard Unit we took over operations from was from Oklahoma. They had the Oklahoma Sooners (College) flag hanging everywhere. So the day we completely took over we hung our flag... Mom you will like this!!!

The Denver Bronco Flag!!!

In our first week of being here we got called for a very important mission. A donkey had got himself caught up in our perimeters barbwire so we had to go rescue him. Once we rescued him we had to keep him in our area until we could figure out what to do with him. It's not like we could call the local Animal Shelter. So the higher ups emailed the head guy from Ramadi (the town) and told him we had a donkey and didn't want him. He told us he would pay us $50 and give us 2 horses to keep it! HAHA, it was so funny. So soldiers actually had to feed him and take him on walks, I never laughed so hard watching all this. I am so glad I wasn't one of those soldiers writing a letter home about this... "So mom, I came to Iraq to serve our country and am doing it proudly by walking a donkey everyday." A few of us wanted to make t-shirts with a picture of the donkey with him as our mascots. We thought this motto would be perfect...

"the Colorado National Guard, a bunch of Jackasses."

Church

2009-08-11T10:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, you read the title correctly, I'm writing about church, yes LDS services.

Most of you have no idea, I have been going to church since I was in Ft Hood. So the first Sunday I was here in Ramadi I went. We only have Sacrament and its at 8:00 pm. There is one other lady that attends, her name is Linda and she is not in the military. The lesson for that Sunday Linda gave and it was on the Relief Society. The services aren't like anything that any of you are used to, it turns into a regular lesson with discussion from everyone. Afterwards Linda told me why she was here. Her and her husband live in Virgina, he is in the army and on Active Duty. He was scheduled to deploy here, Ramadi, so she applied for a civilian job so that they could be together over here. She got the job and within a few weeks of them both leaving for Iraq his orders were changed. He went to Afghanistan and she came here alone, its pretty sad. So she went on to tell me how excited she was that I was here and that she has been the only female member since she has arrived and blah, blah, blah... then she started crying. Oh boy. I didn't want to tell her she probably shouldn't be too excited, and No I was NOT going to do visiting teaching like she just had spent the last hour telling us all how important it is. (haha) Also, every Thursday we meet and play games or have a lesson. So this past Thursday was on how we should all be speaking with the members that aren't attending and get them to come to Church. Then once again visiting teaching is brought up. I'm sorry, but I had to say no. I just think it would be really odd to go to her room and she give me a lesson then I give her a lesson. Um... I'm a little new to this as we all know, but something about all that sounds funny to me. I guess I could do it so she would be happy and I would be at 100% for visiting teaching EVERY month. (HAHAHAHA)

Proof I went to Church...

The Marine that is to the right of me is not a member, but he comes every sunday just to play the piano for us. He is a Colonel, and I'm sure has a lot of important things he could be doing instead of playing the piano, but it never fails, every sunday he is there. He plays very well and it is much appreciated!!!

A Day at Work

2009-08-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

I'm sure some of you don't know exactly what I do for the Army, yes I do a little more than play golf. I am a maintenance Warrant Officer, my field of expertise is weapons. To become a Warrant Officer you have to work in a certain field for at least 6 years in a supervisor position. I am supposedly the expert for weapons maintenance, and I can also run the motorpool. I basically can be the manager of a large car repair shop that also fixes weapons and radios. No, not radios that play music, the radios we use to speak to one another. Our motorpool here has about 135 vehicles, over 700 weapons and over 100 radio systems. I am the one to schedule all the quarterly and annual services, assign all the work to the mechanics (which right now is a headache because everything needs fixing), and manage over $1 million worth of parts and supplies. Oh, and as for weapons, only myself and one other guy is qualified to fix them so that gets added on to my workload. Have I ever done all this before? Nope... but I am learning very quickly!!! Actually my college degree ( not the golf one, the Business Management one) is really paying off right now.

Part of the motorpool...

Me in a sandstorm in the motorpool...

My office and little staff work in the little corner building

Hard at work!

Hey! Take that crap out of my golf cart!!!

The days go by very fast, we are so busy! The hardest part of my day is when the sun is up, it's been around 130 degrees with humidity. You can feel the heat through your boots when walking on asphalt, it's ridiculous! I can't wait for August to be over with!!!

I have been so busy since the day we arrived trying to learn this job as I go. I have never read so many Army regulations and management books in my life. I am so glad I was given this job though, the time here is going to fly by and I will have learned a lot.

Finally in Ramadi, Iraq!

2009-08-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

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!!!

Life in TQ, Iraq

2009-07-15T06:07:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-07-15T04:22:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2009-07-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-06T07:37:00.001-07:00

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.

Christmas in Utah

2008-12-28T21:49:00.000-08:00

The whole family was in Utah for Christmas this year. It has been about 15 years since we have been all together for Christmas. Here are a few pics of us.

The girls

My brothers