Yet another post...

So I know I’ve said to most of you that I’m not doing anything while I’m here. And technically that is almost true. I do a lot of walking around, just killing time. There’s a movie theater that plays a mix of movies, but they play the same ones for a week straight, and well, if you don’t have anything to do for a couple days, you can easily knock out the ones worth seeing in a day or two. I stroll around the PX, the military’s version of a mini Wal-mart. Of course it doesn’t have anything I need or really want, but you go there just in case and often stare at the long lines of people buying stuff, thankful that you don’t have to be in it. We have conversations about the latest graffiti on the porta potties and how stupid it is, or if it’s funny. We talk about if and when we want to go eat, and which chow hall we want to go to. Do we go to the closer one that has plastic utensils and plates and is closer, or do we go to the one that has nice tile floors, real sinks to wash your hands in, get this, a FOUNTAIN!!! But it’s really far away. It’s not like we have much going on so we just probably spend more time debating what we’re going to do than actually doing it. One of the most common things you hear is “are you going to lunch?”
We went to the range the other day, to shoot our weapons off into the distance to verify that they work. Well they dragged 250 of us out of bed at 3am so we could get out there and do it before it got too hot. Once we got there, they realized that they forgot the ammo back in my tent… we waited several hours while they went back to get it… Not the brightest move ever. I imagine the thought process went something like this:” ok, we’re going to go shoot, what do we need to bring with us? People? Check. Weapons? Check. Transportation? Check. Place to shoot? Check. Are we missing anything? Hmmm, um nope, we’re good, let’s go!” Sigh, duh. We did have to chase some camels off the range so we could shoot, that was pretty fun. Of course everyone brought their cameras to take pictures. As much as we all realize it’s stupid and “green” of us to take pictures of ourselves in our “full battle rattle” (that’s something that we did in Basic Training because we thought it looked cool) we knew we wouldn’t have much of a chance to do it later and in a fun setting so we took full advantage of the situation.
Ooh so my unit, other than being stupid for forgetting ammo, is a group of jokesters. Let me give you some background… Soldiers live off of rumors. You can forget to feed them for days, but as long as they have a good rumor to hold onto, they’ll be fine. Word of mouth around here is quicker than IM. One of the guys in my unit started a rumor that there would be a camel race last Friday, and even put up a poster in the chow hall and made a scene about looking at it. Well needless to say that there wasn’t any camel race going on, but still, somewhere between 600 and 1000 people showed up to watch it, including some people in my unit! We have pictures of tons of people standing around this gravel field waiting for something to happen. There were even two busses of people whose tents were a ways away that showed up. Oh it was funny. At least for us.
As you all know, or used to know, there are so so many contractors here in Kuwait and Iraq, Halliburton and its subsidiaries are everywhere. Well every Friday one of them sponsors a 5k run/walk here on base, and the first 500 people get t-shirts. My friend Danny (SSG Hanks- Legal guy and soon to be roommate) and I decided to run it. It was quite a bit of fun! We were hurting around the 2.5 mile marker, but we each got a t-shirt!
Hmm, what else… Two of my nemesis, or nemisisi? Got into a huge fight over the temperature here in the tent. They’re both lazier than the anyone else around, and about as worthless as byu’s run defense against Florida State. But depending on where you’re at in the tent, it can be either really cold if you’re sitting under the vent or decent if you’re not. Well apparently they got into a fist fight about how high or low to set it. Quite amusing if you ask me. On a not so amusing note, the same guy who failed the PT test while we were in Texas because he gave up on the run and left in the middle of it, got into a fight with a kid a third his size, and put him in the hospital with a concussion. Granted the smaller guy talks crap like you have never heard in your life, and is super super annoying, and it was dumb luck that he hit his head, but my guy shouldn’t have lost his temper, especially in that manner. So we’re not really sure what is going to happen to him, I’m pushing for taking half a month’s pay, and 12 hour work days, 6 days a week for two months and taking his mid tour leave. And that’s kinda light compared to what they could do to him. It would be a stretch, but they could throw him in jail.
I think that’s about it for now. We took some classes yesterday about stuff that nobody really wants me to talk about, and we have some different ones coming up this week. Basically we’re just killing time and trying to get used to the heat and the time change so we can jump right into our mission up in Iraq. Oh, I did get dates for my mid tour leave; sometime in early May, I don’t remember exactly what though. To be honest, I probably won’t take it, but depending on my financial situation and how I’m feeling about things, I could be persuaded to go if the location and company is right. And if I feel right about it, so if I don’t go, as much as I would love to go to a number of spots, don’t be offended. It would be hard to be over here, then head back to the states for a little bit and get out of the mindset that I need here, and then come back to Iraq and get back into the game.
Ok, it’s almost time for lunch; I need to go join the debate about which chow hall we’re going to go to. I need to decide which one I’m going to root for today… Miss you all, hope to talk to you all soon. If you want to do something for me, send me pictures of yourself and what you’ve been up to, or cookies and other goodies will work just fine. Take care, and keep me in your prayers.