OIF

Hey everyone. So a few new things but not much. I woke up this morning to gunfire from the fenceline...pretty interesting. We also had an IED go off outside the gate. I don't know if anyone was hurt during the attacks.

There is a talent show right here on base next week that I'm going to enter. This time I won't have to travel anywhere and I've decided to go solo on this one. I'll make sure to get someone to tape it for me, hopefully I won't get booed off the stage again...cross your fingers.

Something I forgot to mention on my last post. The 8th of December was my one year anniversary for this blog. I started the blog on Dec. 8th 2003 on our first day of home station drill. So I have been in this deployment for over a year now. Crazy to think about huh? And now it's all coming to an end. I'm not sad about that at all. I'll be happy when I don't have to do this blog anymore because it'll mean that I'm home.

I've been pulled for the last couple days to be the company gofer. It gets old fast. One day I had to work in the post office and I pull guard duty about 2 sometimes 3 days a week. I guess the changeup isn't that bad, but I enjoy being in the motorpool so much that I hate being switched around.

I don't think anything else is new. I appreciate all of your posts, I love getting messages back. So thanks everyone for your support and prayers and I'll see ya when I get home. God bless.

Hey everyone. So what's new? Not sure anything really. It's bee prank central around here for the last couple days. It all started when our 1SG got water boxes and stacked them up on our porch in front of our door so we couldn't get in our trailer. So me and Klinge retaliated by getting Barrett. We put the whole pallet of water on his porch. Then we lied and said we didn't do it, so we all got together and got SGT Barks. We stacked it while he was inside and made it so that he could open his door only to find he was completely surrounded by water boxes.

Then he got me back by stacking water all the way up to the top of my door. But you can't mess with tall people like that. So me and two other guys stacked water all the way up to the roof of the trailers in front of SGT Barks' door. You could see the water bottles from the other side of the trailer, it was hilarious.

But the funniest one happened when we were cleaning all the boxes up and SGT Whitney said he wasn't going to help because he was never involved. We decided to involve him. We got the key to his room from 1SG and put individual water bottles all over his floor. Then we stacked 4 water boxes in front of his door.

So when he went back to his room, he saw the 4 boxes and thought "Wow, what a bunch of pansies. Is 4 boxes the best they can do?" Only to open the door and fine 144 water bottles lined up like dominoes along his floor. That was the best one, we got plenty of pictures and video tape. Good stuff.

Other than us being complete idiots, we're trying to get in the mood for Christmas. It's not easy but we're trying. SSG Watson put one of those cheesy door covers over his door. It's awesome though. 1LT Knight put a small tree and a bunch of decorations in the APO office and I'm putting up a tree in my trailer, but I'm being lazy.

We just got finished with about 4 days of being slammed in the motorpool. In one day we had like 8 deadlined vehicles that needed to be fixed. I replaced the glow plugs in one, replaced the gasket in the top of the fuel tank on another vehicle, Klinge had to fix the oil pan and battery box for the little Ranger Gator vehicle that our commander drives, and more. We still have some stuff in here, but we've worked until like 6 or 7 almost every night. We usually get off at 3. I have to work at the post office on Friday because some of our guys are going to be getting ready to leave. That's exciting to know that we're starting to move out, but I still really don't want to work at the post office. But it's only one day, so I won't complain too much.

Well, that's about it. Hope you all are having fun and I can't wait to get back home. Love you all and thank you so much for your support and prayers. God bless.

Hey everyone. I regret to tell you that I was wrong in my last post about no one getting hurt. The attack was on a guard tower and a soldier was killed. I jumped to conclusions and I apologize. I did not know the soldier but I ask that you keep his family in your prayers. From now on I will try to make sure I KNOW before I post.

We were in communications blackout for two days, but for some reason they don't cut everything off, they just tell you not to use it. I didn't get word so I went ahead with my postings and e-mails as usual not knowing we were in a blackout.

Things here are still about the same. Work in the day, find something to do to keep my time occupied at night. Yesterday I laid down to take a nap and accidentally slept for 4 hours. Made for rough sleeping that night.

I had guard duty yesterday and there was an Iraqi there that spoke english very well. It was nice because I actually got to talk to him and ask him some questions that I wanted to know about. I didn't get to record the conversation, but I wanted to let you guys know what we talked about, so I'm going to paraphrase the conversation. It was kind of sad and a little bit suprising.

me - so your girlfriend is from america?
him- yea, she's a sergeant.
m-so are you going to try to make it america
h-it's so expensive, plus i can't move there because of september
m-september 11th?
h-yea, i'm sorry about that
m-you have nothing to apologize for, you had nothing to do with that. we know who's responsible for that. plus, there are a lot of muslims in america and while some parts of america are more rasist than others, we mostly live in peace
h-i'm looking for someone to help me get to america because it's so expensive
(After a pause) m-so what do you think? how has it been here in iraq since the americans came? is it better or worse...you can be honest.
h-(laugh) i don't know, i can't answer that
m-well, has your situation improved or are you in greater danger?
h-well, when i come to work here i can't tell people whre i'm going. they say where do you work, and i say, just take me there, and they say who do you work for, and i say just go this way.
m-why do you work for us then?
h-because my uncle works and i want to help him. plus i like the US and i really want to respect my uncle.

That's about all I could get out of him, I wish I could have set up a real interview, maybe before I leave I can get something going. He let me take a picture of this old Baath party coin that his father owned before he died in the first gulf war. His father was an officer in the Baath party and the old Iraqi army and now he's trying to sell these coins so he can move to america. He says they're real gold, I looked, I'm not so sure, but if anyone is interested in getting a real Baath party coin, e-mail me, I have his e-mail address. I told him I would see if anyone wanted to buy it. I know I know, it's Baath party, but I know a lot of people are interested in stuff like that, not to support them, but trophies. I mean, plenty of people have WWII German helmets and knives etc. and no one thinks it's because they supported the Nazis. So if anyone is interested let me know.

I guess that's about it. Hope everyone at home is doing well. I miss you a lot but I'm coming home soon enough. God bless and thank you so much for your support and prayers.