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.