Good Morning Baghdad!

Final Post — For Now

Well, for those of you who’ve been following my progress to Iraq for a second time, I’ve made it! It was a long and arduous trip, marked by travel difficulties, poison oak contracted during my week of training in Texas, long, hot, humid days (in Texas and Qatar), and long, hot, dusty days (now that I’m here in Baghdad).

Now that I’m living in Camp Victory (along with far, far too much stuff–I’m going to have to go through it and send some back home to family), I can see why the people from this side of Baghdad always called the International Zone, where I was before, “Club Med”. Certain things I took for granted, like private bathrooms, TVs, internet access, phones that call home, and easy access to work are not part of the package here! While I did a fair amount of email whining about this for my first couple days, I’m getting used to the long walk to the bathrooms and the fact that the only internet I get is (defense filtered) work internet. Never mind–I’m going to be busy around here, and busy with interesting work!

Baghdad is very different–in a good way–than the way it was when I left a year and a half ago. Things have quieted down greatly, the Iraqis themselves are in charge of lots more stuff than they were before, and the main complaint the powers-that-be are making about security is that military personnel are getting too “complacent” because things have been quiet for so long. And all in all, that’s not a bad problem to have–it means that life is starting to feel semi-normal to even the troops out here. It requires correction, of course–it’s not like everything is golden yet–but it’s also not the razor’s edge that it was here a year ago.

However, my lack of unrestricted internet access, along with the Army’s policy of requiring blog registration and monitoring, combines to make it too difficult for me to continue blogging, at least for now. I’ve been having some “blogger burnout” lately anyway, so maybe it’s all for the best. Should my circumstances change (I hear that there may be some wireless coming my way in the future), I may well be back, but for now, this is goodbye. Even this I had to send back to the States for someone to post it for me.

I’ve enjoyed keeping up with all of you here, and I’m going to miss hearing from you in the comments. I hope I’m going to be able to return to you at some future date! Good luck, and I’ll talk to you later (I hope!).

*****End of post********

Airports ‘R Us

Or should I just say, “Airports are my life?” Anyway, I’m sitting in an airport at the moment, as I have been doing for the majority of the day, and expect to continue doing for the next half-dozen or more hours! Ah well, it’s all part of the process, right?

So, let’s see… Busy life makes for little blogging, and there’s a lot that has been happening over the past couple weeks. When I last checked in, I’d just done my continental road trip and then managed the moving-out process. I hopped on a plane last Sunday (see why “Airports are my life” works as a catchphrase?) that took me out to San Antonio (TX) and I spent a lovely week tromping in the South Texas sun in full gear (flak vest, helmet, automatic weapon, etc.) through underbrush, woods, and fire ant hills… (Our squad’s navigator liked the straight line approach over the following roads approach.)

Anyhow, I learned how to do all sorts of great things like fighting with a rifle, land navigation, challenging an unknown person… The point of this training is for Air Force people who are going to support the Army to get at least an initial introduction into the kinds of things that you might need to know. Of course, no one really takes into account what sort of job you will have, supporting the Army… but at least they’re trying, right?

The accommodations were… semi-primitive. We had tents, about 8 people in cots, but AF standard air-conditioned tents (thank goodness). We used port-a-potties all week. Not fun, particularly when they’ve been baking in the midday heat! We all got used to being soaked all the way through with sweat, after working hard outside. It’s probably a fairly good representation of being busy with that kind of job in a place like Iraq, though (thank goodness!) I’ve ended up staying in trailers and working in converted palaces and having access to real bathroom facilities. It’s funny how a flush toilet really does feel like the lap of luxury when you’ve been away from one for a week!

Anyway, I’m glad all of that is over–though I did make some AF-style “insta-friends” that I will (as usual) miss seeing. However, many of them will be coming through the airport in Baghdad, so I guess I’ll probably get a chance to see them if I know when they’re coming through.

Well, I would write more, but I’m amazingly tired and not really capable of much clever wordsmithing at the moment–there’s something about a week sleeping in cots combined with a wakeup time of 3 a.m. that’ll do that to you!!!

In the airport this morning!