Fallujah

Folks, Truth is, things here are comparable to there, only smaller. The MWR is actually nicer, from what little I've seen of it (this is the first time I've been here), with more computers. Camp Fallujah is about a fifth the size of Al Asad, with much fewer people. Our command center and barracks are a ways away from mainside, unfortunately, so we have to take a bus to get here and the PX, but we do have a chow hall within walking distance. My billeting is quite a bit nicer, in that I have a room I'm sharing with three lance corporals and an E-3 navy doc, so I've got more privacy and it's nice to finally be able to set my stuff up how it's going to stay. Also, in response to one of dad's responses, Fallujah itself is indeed pretty torn up from what I've seen of it, but Camp Fallujah is a ways out of town and pretty nice. So yeah, I'm with Hotel now. I've been here since...Wednesday morning. Or something like that. I've completely lost track of days. Somebody yesterday said "It's Friday already?" and I was thinking it was Tuesday or something. This is to say I've been absurdly busy. It's been four days or something and I've been on two convoys. Yesterday I was working for 19 hours, ten of which were as the upgunner, so it was pretty exhausting. I've also in that same time seen pretty much every major place in Iraq outside Mosul. They've actually got me working comm, and I'm fully integrated with the comm team here, which is awfully nice. I've finally got a functional place in a real platoon. Which reminds me, I have a real, solid, permanent mailing address finally, which I will email to Mom, Dad, Ali and McBride following this post. My fears of being sort of outcast from my platoon were unnecessary. I thought that since these guys have been together for five months already without me, they would be close knit and weary of outsiders. Quite the contrary, everybody has been terrifically helpful and friendly, and I'm beginning to make a few friends, not to mention that Doc Vanderlois, one of the E-5 navy docs we came to Iraq with, has been hanging out with me quite a bit. I've only seen Klauer and the other two I came here from Straggler PLT with two or three times since I've been here, so it's good that I'm not having as hard a time as I thought making friends. I've been assigned to a vehicle, and one of the LCpls in the vehicle rooms with me and is friendly, and the other one is a fellow comm bubba so he's been showing me the ropes and offered to show me all the different radios and comm systems we've got, the ones I didn't learn much of at Comm School. Also good: our leadership seems to be locked on, namely our platoon commander, Capt. Keady, who is a badass and has the respect from everybody I've talked to. I bought the sixth season of West Wing today (something for which I feel I owe an explanation to my father: it is indeed consistently liberal, but it's a thinking man's show and a show about politics, so it's good for me right now, since I don't get much of either). Sure, I don't own any other seasons of the show, but I know basically what was going on from watching Bravo and it's a good season, what with Leo's heart attack, the presidential campaigns and so on. All I know is very soon I will need the seventh season (hint, hint, folks). I'll try and get pics of the place sometime soon. It's pretty nice, all things considered, especially being able to see the stars at night. That's one thing that got me thinking. Judging by the purple light pollution in the sky at night, I would say Fallujah is smaller than Sterling. I'm sure it's not, but it says something. My mind's not engaged enough to determine what. I read Ender's Game, Slaughterhouse Five, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas last week. I just tried reading the next book in the Ender series (by Orson Scott Card) and it turns out it takes place 3,000 years after Ender's Game and has none of the same characters or basic storyline. I'm pretty pissed about that. I need books, desperately. Anything good. I wish I'd written down a list of things to have Mom or Dad send me. There's also a number of other things I've been meaning to purchase online and have sent to me via someone at home. Ah well. I'm out of stuff to post. I know there's more I've been meaning to say, but I guess this means I need to start writing it down when I think of it. That's all, take care folks.

3 miscellaneous pics

Here they are. Please note that I am not now and have not been since first grade photogenic.
http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/rogerwilley/Al%20Asad/?action=view&current=DSC01490.jpg
http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/rogerwilley/Al%20Asad/?action=view&current=DSC01489.jpg
http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/rogerwilley/Al%20Asad/?action=view&current=DSC01488.jpg

Quick update: False alarm on the moving thing for now. We went, checked in to Space A, loaded all our bags onto a pallet, bused out to the flight line, and sat in a building for half an hour before a sandstorm hit, grounding all the helicopters. They got us back on the buses, moved us back to the terminal, and told us to standby in case it didn't get cancelled and we could fly later. We sat around for five hours, and then at 0230 they told us the flight was cancelled. So we'll try again today, but our chances of getting on today are decreased since now it's all the people that were trying to go to Fallujah last night plus all the ones that will try to go tonight. We'll see what happens. It's a godsend, though, because I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to anyone before we took off, so I'll try and get that done today. I did, on that note, get the song "We'll Meet Again" by Johnny Cash stuck in my head, though.

Finally, some news worth posting

I got word this morning that we're flying out tonight for Fallujah to join up with Hotel. So, my little vacation is over, although the last few days haven't been terrifically vacationy, anyways. Two days ago, Klauer was duty driver so I rode a. driver with him for most of the day, running our four little stops. Then yesterday was my turn, but old Klauer didn't feel much like returning the favor, so I drove around all day without any company besides the few riders I'd get. I spent fourteen hours driving around between the tent city, motor t., BDOC (our battalion headquarters) and Charlie MP's company headquarters. I got to see a lot of the base, but man was it tiring. I have a sore palm from shifting all day. That bus is a pain in my ass, though it is quite the monster in terms of driving over any terrain. Anyways, I basically got done driving my route around 1900, then at 2030 I had to take a few Marines to the flight line because they were flying out, and then had to stay to pick up somebody flying on a space available spot, which means he could be there when I got there or he could come in at 0400. He ended up getting in around 0330, so I slept between 2300 and 0230. I'm pretty tired today, but since we're leaving I don't get the day off to recuperate.

One of the cool things about being on this base is we see fighters flying around all the time. All of a sudden there'll be this mean shriek from the sky, and you look up and see two F/A-18's hauling ass and then pulling these absurd banks, making an absolute mockery out of the laws of physics. It's pretty motivating.

My major concern for today is finding Schauer, who was just pulled out of Bravo for some reason and assigned to Headquarters, and let him know I'm taking off as he requested. No luck so far, but I've still got four hours. I'm generally a touch upset about leaving all these fine gents whose company I've come to enjoy for a whole new batch of jokers I've never met and who have had the last five months to grow tight knit without me. At least I'll have Klauer along with me. Klauer and I get along swimmingly.

I just finished reading an e-book version of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Despite its contradictions with the high value I place on war, destruction and death, I enjoyed it immensely. It really cracked me up, to tell you the truth. It reminded me of Catch-22.

I have three new pictures, but no time to upload them. Next time perhaps.

Obligatory update

As usual, there's really nothing much to report on. Still in Al Asad. There's been some scuttlebutt about the possibility of us four Hotel detachments ending up doing range control with Sgt. Miranda, which would be good for the people we'd be working with (Jensen, Sgt. Miranda, SSgt. Thomas), but it would probably be terribly boring. We wouldn't likely see much of any action. Also, I ran into a bunch of my Al Quaim brethren yesterday and they said they just got audited and it was determined Al Quaim RDF needs three more Marines per squad, so they're in need of nine Marines. I don't know if any of this will end up affecting where I go, but we'll see.

A bunch of the lance corporals decided we wanted to grow out the lance corporal stache. Though everybody started a day or two before I decided to get in on it, I've got the resident king mustache. It's something to be proud of. Furthermore, I actually think it looks decent this time, if you can believe that. The last time I had a mustache, I only kept it for two days because it looked so asinine.

Nothing else is new. Just been hanging out, doing my thing. If I'm here much longer I'll get into the rotation of duty driver. Basically they asked who all can drive a stick, because there's a big nasty Iraqi mini-bus thing that we have to tote people around on.

Our whole platoon last night sat outside in our little camp chairs smoking cigars and pipes. It was outstanding, like something I'd probably be doing at home, just a really relaxed smokin' and jokin' session with some friends. Sgt. Miranda and SSgt. Thomas and the docs got in on it, too. It was a good time. Now I need to get Mom to send me my nice pipe, if I can remember where I put it and ever get a solid mailing address.

Pictures and brief update

http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/rogerwilley/Al%20Asad/
Today SSgt. Thomas let it slip to me and Schauer that I'm one of the three of us from Straggler PLT going to Hotel Battery, meaning I am doing convoy security. It was a bittersweet revelation for me, because though I've reconciled myself with convoy security and realized that it's a hell of a lot more interesting a job than most of the other dumbass jobs they've been throwing out there, I'm going there with Horner, Houser and Rummens, three guys I don't know very well and at least two of which whom I'm pretty sure I have nothing in common with. Specifically, it's upsetting because I won't be with Schauer, and that really, really sucks. I guess I just always counted on having him around the rest of the time. He's the only one I've been with the whole time since Jan. 1st, and he and I are damn good buds now. So I guess I'll just have to get used to seeing him from time to time and then catching up with him when we get back to 29 Palms. We (as in the lot of us) will definitely be doing an Iowa/Illinois Colleges tour of all our respective colleges when we get back though, and he only goes to Western so it's not like he's too far. Not to sound like I'm in love with him or anything. But he's my boy, you gotta understand. Anyways, so yeah, convoy security I'm happy about, not being around Schauer I'm not. That's all, I'm out.

Killing time in Al Asad

I've been in Iraq for 3.5 days now and all we've been doing is sitting around Al Asad, trying to occupy ourselves. Battalion doesn't know what to do with all of us or at least hasn't decided and isn't ready for us, so for the next little while we're free to do whatever we want to do. For me that has been reading, listening to music and sleeping. Our first night after we flew in from Kuwait on a nasty C-130, we stayed in some temporary little huts over by the airstrip, but now we're in a nice big tent with plenty of air conditioning in mainside, close to the px and all that fun stuff. They've got Burger King, Pizza Hut and Subway here, not to mention a really nice chow hall and the MWR, where I'm at, with internet, phones, pool tables, movie rooms, all sorts of fancy stuff. From all I've heard this is about the nicest base in Al Anbar province. For the sake of pessimism, it's worth noting that that means it's only downhill from here.

My chances of meeting up with my boys in Al Quaim are sounding slim. It sounds more likely that I'll either stick around and be on radio watch with Schauer and a few other guys at battalion HQ or maybe I'll get to do convoy security, which is sounding ever more promising a job, if also a touch more dangerous.

We had our first sandstorm yesterday, but sadly I forgot to bring my camera with me today so I could upload the pictures for you. It was a really awesome sight to behold, and it also brought blendy of wind to blow away the heat, so yesterday and today have been pretty nice. I'll try and remember the pictures for next time.

I can't think of much else worth reporting. Hope all's going well back home. Take care folks.

Kuwait

That's where I am right now. The keyboard has all sorts of squiggly lines on it. I just got done eating breakfast, and while I was doing that I said, "Hey, check this out: it's 5:30 in the morning, I'm eating a quarter pounder from McDonald's, and I'm in Kuwait." I thought it was humorous. Anyways, we're supposed to be heading for Al Asad today, and I imagine we'll be waiting around there for word on when we meet up with our platoon.

The weather was pretty damn nice here around 3 this morning. But it's supposed to get up to 109 today or something, and Iraq's not going to be any better. I've been here like five hours and I've already drank about a gallon of water. I'm peeing about every thirty seconds.

For posterity's sake, I'd rather not post it openly online, but I just emailed my mailing address to Dad, Mom, Ali, and McBride, so if you would like it and don't have it, those are the folks to go to for it.

The past couple days have been pretty exhausting, due to my inability to sleep on flights. I think I slept a total of 5 hours the last two nights together. I got to see Baltimore and Ramstein AFB, though, so I guess that was neat.

I heard Mr. Beaty died. That is terribly sad news. I can honestly say I never knew a better man, and the world is much less without him. I just wish I could be there for his service and all that. I don't even know how much I can expound on what everybody else is already saying about him. He was a friend to everyone, and cared deeply about every student he ever met. He was contagiously jovial. You couldn't be around him and stay unhappy. Just an indescribably nice person, the likes of which I have never met. Well, keep his family and friends in your prayers.

That's all for now, I need to go meet my battle buddy outside and get back. I'll try and get some pictures of the place for the next time I post. Take good care folks, love y'all.

One more day

Folks,
Tomorrow night I'm outta here. I have to make this short because I have stuff to do, so bear with me.

I took a train to Anaheim Saturday night to go to some godawful hiphop club with lots of skanky girls and too many guys to compete with. I got to see the Mighty Ducks stadium and the Angels stadium. I drank too much and had a massive hangover Sunday. Glynn's uncle, who lives in Anaheim, picked us up Sunday around noon and we got some In 'n Out burgers and hung out at his uncle's house. He was a very kind old guy and pick up our tabs both for lunch and dinner (we had dinner at Chili's...carne asada steak is really good). Then we headed back to base. Nothing too fancy.

I finally watched Rocky and then last night Rocky 2. They're much better than I originally would have guessed, and now we're trying to watch at least the third one before we head out.

Nothing else too exciting to report. Hope all's well at home, and I will try to catch up as much as possible as soon as possible. Supposedly we've got reliable internet at Al Quaim, so if I ever make it there it should be easy to catch up. Take 'er easy, folks, and take good care of yourselves. Love ya all.