Cpl M asked that I post some of my stories from when I was in Iraq. As I said, most of that is either on my blog or in the book, but I do have a few stories that didn’t make it in to either of them or were shortened due to space in the book. I thought I would start off by giving ya’ll a few of my first impressions of the country, the life and what we are doing there. These will be pulled straight from my journal, so please forgive me if they are a bit emotional or if the writing is not the best in the world.

September 29, 2003 I am so glad that the kids at the border didn’t lay across the street. I know that they told us we were not to stop for anything. I know that they said the kids would move, but I am not sure that I could have done that. We were told that if the kids did lay across the road, to put our truck in the lowest gear and keep moving, the kids would get out of the way. I am just glad that I didn’t have to face that. There were so many of them out there begging for food or what ever. Some of them are so cute. Many of them didn’t have shoes. It is so hot out there on the sand. How can they stand it? This rips my heart out. I gave 2 little boys a bottle of water for letting me take their picture.

October 1, 2003 Last night I wanted a shower. You would not believe this. The shower they have near the unloading and staging area is a few boards put together to make a box and a pallet for a floor. There is no roof. Well, not really what I would call a roof. There is a board up there on one side that has a water bag on it. That is the shower water. It is heated by the sun. I made the mistake of waiting to late to take my shower last night. With the open roof I wanted to make sure no one could see from the air. The thing is, there are no lights in there either. I had to take my shower in the dark, standing on that pallet. The only light I had was from a small mini mag light. Oh and the water! I will know next time I come here to not worry about being seen from the air. The water cools off very fast!! It was down right cold. I bet they could hear me scream all the way across the camp when it hit me. Mike, my CC, and the guys just laughed their tails off. I could hear them. Mike stood guard on the door and a couple of the guys kept him company. When I screamed they busted out laughing and I have to deal with the teasing all day. It is kind of funny now, but it wasn’t last night. And now I know why they all decided to “keep Mike company” while he stood guard, and why they told me to wait till after dark. I wont fall for something like that again.

Even though it is cooler here than in Kuwait, it is still hot and there are no clouds in the sky. I didn’t think I would miss such a thing as clouds, but I do. Funny how you can miss something like that. But it is those small things that we get use to being there that we forget they are there till they are not. Clouds…… yeah, I miss the clouds.

It is dark now and the stars are shinning very brightly tonight. I don’t think I have ever seen so many stars in the sky before. I stood outside looking at them and thinking about everyone back home in the states and wondering what they are doing right now. It’s around 2300 here, but in the states it is around 1500 and it is the middle of the day. It really is strange to think about that. Arkansas is over 7,000 miles away. For this to be a small world, tonight it seems really big. There is no way to not think about all this when you are doing what we are doing here.

October 3, 2003 Several of us went to the MWR last night and went dancing. We had a good time. It was really cool to watch all these young kids, some my sons age, having such a good time. By day they carry an M16 around and could be shot at any time. And then, to see them relax and just have a little fun was just so cool. This is a side that I have never though about. I am not sure anyone really does. When I think of a war going on, I think it is bombs and bullets all the time. I never thought that our troops would be able to have a little fun and forget where they are for a few hours. And in that few hours, not have to worry about if they are going to be killed tomorrow or watch their friends get killed. It is heart warming. I will have to make sure that I find this kind of stuff in other camps.

Well, I think that will be enough for now. I hope this brings a new perspective to things for ya’ll. I will post some more old journal entries next week, as long as ya’ll still want to read them after this.