Back in the Dorms and Wheres' the Party?

Finally I am no longer living out of a duffle bag and my ruck sack, I signed for my room on the 2nd and stayed up late that night emptying out my duffle bags and the boxes that I present from the states with all my military and snivel gear. When I walked into the room it reminded me of my dorm room at UW-Whitewater. This room is definitely longer and somewhat narrower. The window due to force protection is sandbagged from the outside to 1) keep any shrapnel from a rocket or mortar attack from entering the room and it keeps any light from the room from shining out during the night. The building exterior remind me of a Motel 6 or those old motels that are on HWY 41 between Ryan Road and Drexel Ave in Franklin WI. I am lucky though as a Colonel I get a single room so there is only one bed and one wall locker in the room which makes it a decent size and it is a cement building not a trailer! It was 45 + days since I packed a couple of those duffle bags that I forgot what I had packed. Needless to say some of items went back into the duffle bags and unlike some of my peers I don't need knee pads to get my work done so those went into the duffle bags also.

The first night we were sitting outside smoking some cigars and BSing and I hear this thundering boom and off course get up and start heading to the hootch for cover. When I get up I pull that same quad muscle and all the guys are laughing at me because it was out going artillery fire. No one told me that there is an artillery unit close by depending on what's going on outside the wire periodically will support some of the ground troops with artillery. Now it is not uncommon to be sleeping and you suddently hear the loud booms of the cannons, I imagine that soon I will get used to it and will just rollover and continue sleeping. Talking about big booms, a couple of days ago I had just finished getting served in the chow hall and was looking for a seat when there was this huge and I mean huge boom and the DFAC (dining facility) shook like an earth quake. At first many of us thought that a huge rocket had landed outside the DFAC, so I just dropped the tray on a table and made my way to a duck and cover outside the DFAC. After a couple of minutes there was nothing else so it was back to the DFAC and finish eating. Come to find out it was a VBIED (Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device) that went off outside the wire. It had over 400 lbs of explosives and I would imagine did a number in the vicinity where it went off.

I got to play Lieutenant again the other day. The Iraqi soldiers that were supposed to be attending boot camp seems they never made it to boot camp. I was out checking some of the construction sites and ran into some soldiers at the depot site. Our interpreter asked them if they belonged to the depot and they said yes that they had just finished training. That struck me as odd since the only way to get out of any military boot camp worldwide is to either be carried out in a body bag or to graduate. Come to find out they showed up at the follow on course they were supposed to have taken after graduating from boot camp. So I spent the next 2+ hours coordintating with the senior Iraqi Depot officer on post who was Major J of the Iraqi Army to ensure that by 0830 the next morning the troops were moved out of the billets they were staying in, had all their personal belongings and were on the bus which would take them to boot camp. Sure enough Major J came through with flying colors and when I showed up at 0830 they were in formation waiting to get on the bus. I was impressed since timeliness is not something the Iraqi's are known for. They reported in on time and democracy was saved for at least another 24 hours, these guys attending this cycle of boot camp were key since all the training we will be doing later this summer and fall hinged on them graduating from boot camp. I could now concentrate on my real duties as a PMO.

Things are starting to take hold at the work site, contractors are working on the main small arms building at this time, we have several small jobs for improving security and cleaning up and razing condemned buildings in the queue for funding, and once that happens we can execute and get this place cleaned up and starting to look like a real military complex.

Good news from the home front (I usually call home or HQ6 calls me every two days), with school ending, report cards were received and Ascension for the third semester in the row got a 4.0 in nursing school and she still doesn't have a boy friend, with great news like that what else could I ask for! She starts a nursing internship this summer at Kaiser in San Francisco. Javier had over a 4.0 with his AP classes so that is good news and I am impressed that he like his dad got an A in history! Looks like he'll be getting his drivers license sometime this summer, so San Jose watch out!! How about those A's took the first three games from the Red Sox and today go for the sweep, it good to see them at 4 games over .500 in June, they usually are about 15 games below .500.

The Colonel