Baghdad-home sweet home?

All apologies for taking so long to blog. I’ve been here for almost 2 weeks but I wasn’t allowed to blog until I had my site checked out. Since a handful of very stupid people leaked classified information on their blogs the military is really serious about making sure we know what we can and can’t say. It’s a good thing though because even though I can use my common sense not everyone has that luxury! From what I understand, very recently a soldier talked on his blog about where he was traveling to, what time of day, what kind of vehicle, and bragged about getting to ride with important people and they got ambushed. Thankfully everyone got out ok, even though they had to commandeer a local’s car to get back into the Green Zone! Either way, it should have never happened which is why I’m holding a “DO/DON”T list…so I don’t get anyone killed.

OK, so here’s the update. Last I blogged I was still in Kuwait waiting on jacked up orders. My new orders came in right at the last minute and we barely made the flight to Baghdad. It was quite a change from the big and comfy commercial flight we took from Texas to Kuwait. I finally got my first ride in a military issue C-130! It was so loud but I loved it. You could feel every move the pilot made which I thought made for a very interesting flight. When we landed In Baghdad we were still not where we needed to be so we got to ride in a “Rhino.” I had never heard of a Rhino before now and it was also an interesting ride. A Rhino is an armored bus with extremely tinted windows. That was by far the most nerve racking part of the journey because we traveled through the red zone. Everyone’s heard all the stories about what can happen on a convoy through the red zone so I was really nervous. I was eyeballing everything in the road, on the side of the road, and up ahead. I was seriously imagining and expecting the worst but we got to our new home without a hitch. I stayed in a really nice temporary trailer with a real bed and everything! The next day we all went in to meet our new unit and check out our office.

WOW! We have it really good! We have a nice air conditioned office with working toilets and a sometimes working elevator. Our office is in a convention center that Saddam used often. It was interesting talking to a media member the other day about this building in previous times. She had visited here for press conferences during Saddam’s reign and said it was like waling on thin ice. If you did anything that made anyone mad you got kicked out and she couldn’t believe she was sleeping (we let some transient media people stay here) in the same building. It’s been said that the same conference rooms that we set up and use every week were once used by Saddam to gather people so he could kill them. An Iraqi said we only need to pull up the carpet to see the bloodstains. Rumor or not it’s still crazy!

Well now I’m all set up in my new home. I share a two room, 4 man trailer and a restroom. I’m happy we have our own bathroom instead of having a latrine trailer that the whole place shares! I have a great roommate, Michelle Guy. She seems pretty nice and has a really cool English accent because she’s from South Africa. It works out pretty well because we like a lot of the same music so I can keep my radio on all the time. I hardy ever see my other trailer mates; I think they’re on a different schedule. Anyway, I have a real bed, it’s pretty bad though so I’m ordering a memory foam mattress pad online. I have a fridge and television as well and we even get a few good channels! Mostly I’ve been reading in my off time since I don’t know many people yet. We do have a small and under stocked PX that I’ve hit almost every other night. I think I just want to shop because there’s nothing there I need and I keep leaving empty handed. I think I may redirect my shopping affection to online shopping; it may be my only option! We also have a small food court with a Subway, a burger place, a gyro place and a coffee shop. All the food from there I’ve tried so far was just kind of off. Not quite right, not quite wrong, it’s hard to explain. I’ll just say I don’t eat there much! Our DFAC (dining facility) is actually very good; they served steak, shrimp, and lobster tail two nights ago! I’ve been eating almost every meal there. My mom will be so happy to hear I actually eat breakfast now! I pretty much have to because my 1SG makes me and another Specialist meet him at 6:30 in the morning to do PT. He said we just got lucky enough to be on his schedule so we get to work out with him. Yesterday was rough because we ran but today we did upper body in our very nice gym and I did ok. My body is just taking a bit of a beating wearing body armor every day; it even feels like I have shin splints just from the extra weight! How crazy is that? I was really happy the other day because we got to lock up our bulky M16 rifles and start carrying an M9 pistol. Yayy!!! I have the funniest holster! We were told we couldn’t get a pistol till we had a holster so I bought one from a hajji shop at the Al Rasheed Hotel across the street. The only one that fit was black felt with white stitching…I look like a 3 year old playing cowgirl in a Wal Mart costume! I’m looking online for a new one, preferably one that points down at the ground, not straight back toward people walking behind me.

Wow, I’ve really been rambling huh? I’ll finish up for now but I’ll leave with this last story. A couple nights before we got here Iraq played Syria in a soccer (futbol) game and Iraq won. Apparently this means everyone who owns a gun, which is pretty much everyone, has to fire all their weapon up into the air to celebrate. Well, that isn’t a great idea when you’re in Baghdad in the red zone! The guys manning our office that night heard all the shots and thought we were under attack. They ran around putting on gear and getting ready for a fight! The phones were ringing, everyone else thought they were under attack. Eventually it all calmed down but the next day we found out that a bullet had crashed through our LT’s trailer roof! She had the lights off and heard a crash, when she turned on the light she found a hole in the ceiling and a bullet on the floor by her bed! How scary would that be? Omigosh!!!