Home away from home… (Not quite!)

In this blog entry, I thought I would give you a look at my living conditions over here. I live in a “trailer park” directly behind one of Saddam’s old palace. You can probably get a general idea of how things are laid out. There are rows and rows of these trailers and each are fortified with high walls of sandbags. To answer your question, I do feel relatively safe inside them.

The room is what you make of it. I purchased risers for my bed so that I could stow my bags and footlocker underneath it.

Fortunately, I have had roommates who are clean and not jerks. Nothing can ruin a perfectly good deployment like having a jerk for a roommate. And to be honest with you, with the hours I work over here, I hardly see my roommate other than when we get up in the morning.

But this brings up a good point, what the heck am I doing with a roommate to begin with? Why, when I was newly commissioned Second Lieutenant, I never saw a Lieutenant Colonel, or even a Major for that matter, get tagged with a having to have a roommate. Being a field grade officer back then got you something back then. All these perks seem to be just out of my reach during the past 18 years. Just another example of how things have changed. These young kids today don’t realize how good they have it.

To give you an idea of what they are like inside: when you walk through the front door, you will immediately see the bathroom and then on either side is a bedroom shared by 2 people, so, 4 men share the bathroom. Looking at the photo, you’ll see that each room is just big enough for two beds, two wall lockers, a AC/Heater unit, a small “dorm room type” refrigerator, and a TV/DVD combo.

I actually have pretty good compared to other locations. At some camps, people live in trailers without bathrooms and have to walk down the way to a bathroom/shower trailer to do their business. At least I’m able to just take a few steps in the middle of the night if nature calls.

Also, since I’m located within the perimeter of the palace, I’ve got a swimming pool just down the road (too cold right now to use), a coffee shop where I can read and hang out in at night, and lots of open room for me to run in the morning.

I do have the option of moving to a different area where I would have a room to myself, but it would be a smaller room and would have the “amenities” that my trailer park at the palace has (such as the pool close by and the open area to run).

But my living conditions here are great compared to what I have endured in the past.

In another example of “how things have changed”, during my first deployment to Iraq back in 1991 for Operation Desert Storm (you know, during the war where we “should have finished the job”, as oppose to this war where “we had no business coming here” to finish the job) I spent most of my nights sleeping on the ground or at best, on a cot (supplied by National Guard units along the Eastern sea board…don’t ask, inside joke).

Maybe I shouldn’t complain too much about having a roommate.

Still in a combat zone

At times, living in the IZ can make you forget that you're in a combat zone. For the most part, life is relatively quiet around here. A few nights ago, a building within the IZ got hit with an RPG, and it reminded us all to be safe and be prepared. Thank God, no one was killed in this hit.

Video worth watching

Please take the time to watch this video of a recent graduation ceremony for new Infantrymen at Fort Benning. The Battalion Commander does an outstanding job explaining just how important our young soldiers are to all of us.

https://www.infantry.army.mil/videos/video22/index.htm

After Saddam

A lot of people have been asking me what's been happening here now that Saddam has been executed. You may find this surprising but the last few days have been extremely quiet. We were anticipating Iraqis to shoot their guns up in the air in celebratory fire but we saw none of it. Heck, the Iraqis made more noise when they won soccer games at the recent Asian Olympics.

Interesting story: an Iraqi lady who works in our offices was very anxious to see footage of Saddam as he was led to the gallows. I don't think she believed the news until she saw the images on the computer screen. When she did see them she raised her hands in the air and said, "Victory! My family has won. That man is dead and my father is still alive!" She was very excited that her father had survived the dictator's regime and was able to see it come to an end.