Dog Days of Summer No Longer

Apologies for not having written anything all week long but between getting up at 0530 to go out and run and not getting back into the hootch until past 2100 hrs free time is rare and that usually means skyping with the family or reading my running and wine magazines until I fall asleep in bed. Then it's up at 0 Dark Hundred and the start of another day.

You can tell it is now autumn here in Iraq. We are still hitting the 100's but the Sun isn't so direct bearing down on you anymore. The evenings are now more enjoyable and when I hit the trails before 0600 on my runs it's in the mid 70's. Today it actually reached a nice 72 degrees. We should start seeing 90's as the high and start reaching into the 60's at night. Something tells me when we are in the dead of winter these 70 degree mornings will seem like heaven, since that 40 yard walk to the showers and rest room when it's in the 30's and 40's will be a eye opener!

We've been busy obligating the remaining 2007 monies for the construction project, the last three days 10 additional buildings were funded at a cost of $25M for the upgrades/refurbishment or new construction like some warehouses and the blast building. That basically means that by the end of the month work will be ongoing in at least 15 buildings here at the Depot. As I always tell people that Thiele-Sardina means Murphy in Spanish and sure enough the one refurb that will impact the depot the most was misrouted and sent to another agency for approval and now they are trying to get those monies back where they belong. That funding will enable us to tear down the old buildings, fix the front entrances, guard houses and do a massive cleanup of this base. You can not imagine the junk that is laying around here on our part of the post and elsewhere. Old combat tanks, trucks, train cars, tires, artillery cannons old jet engines, you name it it's here! On top of that in the outlying areas here on base, people stop and throw their garbage into the quasi trash dump. One of these days I will post some pics of the equipment that is worth a mint in scrap metal, unfortunately the bureaucracy here hasn't decided in the process or given the green light for the Ministry of Defense (MOD) to sell this junk. Part of our depot will contain a DRMO and DeMil yard which will sort out the equipment for the MOD to then sell the scrap metal and the monies from those sales can go to the treasury and be spent on the countries infrastructure.

This week we will be moving into the new joint Iraqi-US PMO headquarters at the depot. I will be in meetings with my counterparts to review their organization and align it to the manning roster that will be required to operate the depots buildings.

Its almost 2200 hrs and I can smell the fine aroma of cigar smoke that is coming from outside vicinity of the poker table so I guess I will be taking a break to go over and partake in some nice conversation while smoking a nice cigar. The only thing missing is a nice cup of brandy or some port wine.

Talk to you all later!

The Colonel