Kuwait to Iraq

Wow, I just woke up from an almost 2 hour nap, and it’s not even noon yet… Thanks for paying your taxes everyone. I guess I should give an update as to what I’ve been doing lately, other than sleeping. For the past two weeks I was in a large base that served as a hub for people coming into and out of theater (the region that Operation Iraqi Freedom encompasses). It was a constant buzz of people, helicopters, generators and sand. So much sand. We took classes about IEDs, Iraqi culture, and a pretty sweet medical class. The medical class was kinda graphic, but it was one of the better training sessions that we’ve done. They had mannequins that looked like they were breathing, the blinked, had pulses, and yes, bled. The focus of the class was on tourniquets and how to apply them properly, so of course the mannequins were all missing at least one leg or part of one. The class was taught by an ER nurse who had quite a bit of experience. After the classroom portion, we all went outside for a minute and then the nurse played battle sounds on the loudspeakers in the room, people shooting, shouting, screaming, explosions and it was really intense. We worked in 3 man teams to apply our tourniquets to our little dude, and of course mine was missing both his legs, and squirting all sorts of red water all over the place. We got the bleeding stopped (either that or they ran out of red water for ours) and called in a medevac helo to take him away. It was way intense, and some of the people who took the class were visibly shaken by it.

The time came to leave and attempt to fly up to Baghdad International Airport. I say attempt because I knew a few people who had been trying to leave for 4 days and still were stuck in Kuwait. They actually were on a plane and in the air at one point, about 15 minutes away from BIAP when the pilot announced that they had a mechanical issue and were going back to Kuwait. I guess he said that the parts or the right mechanics were only down there and they didn’t want to get stuck in BIAP. It only took us the better part of 3 days to get up here, and we’ve been living out of our carry-on luggage. Some people didn’t remember the efficiency of the military and didn’t bring anything to sleep in like a blanket or a change of clothes so they suffered. I brought that, so I didn’t have as much of a hard time. I did have to do laundry in the shower, which I haven’t had to do in quite a while. It’s amazing how picky some people can be when they don’t get their comforts. We had one female Major complaining loudly one morning about how she wasn’t woken up in time to take a shower. Heck, last time I was here I was lucky to get a 5 minute shower in which I did some laundry and you didn’t care what temperature the water was as long as you got some.
But anyway, the facilities from the time I left Texas till I hit Baghdad were pretty decent. A bit simple, but better than I had the whole time I was in Kuwait last time. My back is starting to really hurt again from sleeping on the cots, I’m going to have to figure something out about that. I find it amusing the things that we do to mark time, and how we break up our days. Everyone uses the meals as ways to mark the passage of time. Even though we usually aren’t hungry, we know we ought to eat and it gives us something to do for a little while. I really can’t wait to get to Taji so we can get into our rooms and get into our offices and such. I think feeling like I’ve settled into a place will help things all over.
Last night, my first night in Iraq, it sounded like there was a firefight taking place in the distance. You could hear the sounds of the different caliber weapons going off, and then our helos flying to the direction of the fight. It was an experience to be sure. I was never even close to being in any danger, but it served as a good reminder of where we’re at. Speaking of where I’m at, this base near Baghdad has massive concrete sectional walls everywhere. They’re like 16 or 20 feet tall, 1 ½ feet thick, so every time I go outside I feel like I’m in a maze and I should be looking for cheese. It makes it slightly harder to find the buildings that you’re looking for too.
We should be heading out tonight sometime. I’m skeptical as to if that will happen or not, but if it does, I’m excited to ride on a helo for the first time. We’ll have 15 minutes from the time it touches down to get ourselves and all our gear loaded onto it, or it will leave us. The first group of us that went up actually had 5 people join them since they were left behind. I’ll let you all know when I get there safely. I miss you all, and I hope to get in touch with you all once I have better communication.