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Hello,
everyone! ☺
Today is
an
impressive 111 degrees! There’s no better feeling than walking across a
parking
lot and feeling the heat and steam just rise up from the ground! I love
it
here! My continuous prayer is that my AC
unit in my tent doesn’t mess up this summer! I checked out my
Baghdad Donut and I am 41 percent
completed with my
tour! I have 38 days down and 55 to go…my replacement will be SSgt
Watts from
Shaw AFB, SC, so when I get in touch with him next week, I’ll know
exactly when
I can depart, I’ll just have to wait to arrange military airlift.
Back in March we deployed our RED HORSE
squadron from Malmstrom to go to Al Udeid, Qatar (that
was where my
flight landed before I got moved up here to Baghdad.) Anyway, they deploy in a group of 300
people
and will fly straight from Qatar into Great Falls (they fill up
an entire
rotator with just their own guys), so my hope is that they’ll be due to
head
home about the same time as me, then I can just grab a C-130 from BIAP
(Baghdad
Int’l Airport) down to Qatar and then I’ll be able to head straight
home. The
way the RED HORSE guys work is that they are deployed on a mission
(i.e.
establishing a bare base location, making runways, etc.) they stay
until they’re
done, so they can either finish early or late…when I get a little
closer I’ll
try to make contact with them and see if I can bum a ride back
stateside.☺ Today was rather routine…I had to escort
media over
to BG Kimmitt's office
for a TV
interview then we headed back over here to the convention center. I
went to
chow and had macaroni and cheese and chicken! (I’m so sick of
chicken!!!). I trekked back
to the office and then
“acquired” (we never steal!)☺
the keys to a suburban and grabbed my
chauffeur, Specialist Almengore, to drive me over to Titan so I could
return
the pay stubs for our translators. We
then went on a small journey trying to find where Saddam’s lions are,
but we
didn’t find them so I was pretty bummed. No worries…I meant up
with retired Marine “George” and he
told me he’d
show me where they are later today…I should have some good pictures of
that
tomorrow! ☺ Rumor on the
street
is the humane society people and the zoologist who is minding the lions
had a
big pow-wow because someone threw a dog into the lion’s den…I bet that
fight
lasted about 30 seconds! Anyway…there’s always something new
here!
A few nights ago I woke up to the lovely
sound of the sirens and the giant voice screaming “take cover, take
cover, take cover” because some insurgents got bored and decided to
start lobbing mortar
rounds into the Green Zone. I tell you
what…you really have to be at peace with God because there isn’t a
thing you
can do about avoiding a mortar when you have no idea where it’s going
to land. No doubt you’ve heard on the news
about all
the explosions, etc., but I’ve been so far away from them I’ve really
been left
in the dark. Three more of the Army geniuses who abused prisoners at
Abu Ghraib
will go on trial here at the convention center, so next week will be
horrible!
I drew the unenviable job of court room check-in, so I get to ID all
the media
guys, etc. It’s a circus…there’s no other word for it! Just one
more historic thing I get to have a
part in. My boss, Lt. Col. Clutter, is
leaving next week to head back stateside, so I have to go and meet my
new boss
at the bus tonight, Maj. Robyn Chumley. We’ll spend tonight showing her
the ins
and outs of the Green Zone.
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