Between Iraq and a hard place...

[Recon by Fire]

Your not strange, I rather enjoyed the climate also. Never been to Balad however.


Cover your 6 and be safe

[Army]

After the 3rd hit, we stopped going to DFAC 1. Too many holes in the walls to suit me. We frequented DFAC 2 for the brick and concrete atmosphere....and it had better bunkers then.

[MedicDVG]

Now everything is surrounded by 9' T-walls and all the DFAC's have mortar protection over-roof's... Like a building under a building..

BTW... They built a Trukish Cafe in the seating area of the old outdoor theater... But the screen is still there.. and lo and behold.. I can see Army's hole.... um.. that didn't come out right...

[Army]

LOL!..my...

[Recon by Fire]

Okay guys, what happens in Iraq, stays in Iraq


They must have not really liked us, our DFAC only had a mortar roof over half of it.

[MedicDVG]

Wowzers! I am famous now.. It seems some yuckelhead from back home stole the American flag from memorial park. Took the cable and everything. Well sirs, I can tell you that pissed me off. I called up the local American Legion commander who maintains the park and told him I would get him a new flag, and one that had flown with honor over here in Iraq.

Well.. musta been a slow news day cause the local Newspaper, and TV station picked up on this and I was even named "Patriot of the Month" by a local organization.

Man... talk about no good deed going unpunished....

You may now kiss my ring plebiscite rabble.

[Army]

We just put an old M60A3 in front of a certain building in town, with some fanfare/news coverage for the local Legion chapter.

Nearby neighbor drool decided he didn't like it out there, saying "we don't need to be glorifying war"....and proceeded to splash peace signs, and anti-Bush crap all over it in white paint. Needless to say, the turd got his hiney reamed by the town, veterans, and the local PD. About 2 dozen good folks showed up on their own time and dime, to scrape off the offense and retouch the combat colors.

This tank took us about two months to de-mil, paint up in Marine livery, and transport it 45 miles to it's honored resting place.....

.....in front of the County Veterans Memorial Building.

Keep doing good Doc. Hooah

[Army]

BTW, working on getting deployed with a transport battalion, running Tampa from the LSA to Kuwait. They need my MOS's, and they are very short handed.

It's possible I may seen you soon.

[MedicDVG]

Bring your level IV... word is that now that Baghdad is too hot for the insurgents, they are coming this way to their safe havens... Yay!

Just another day in Mortaritaville.

When you get here, look me up.

[Swampy]

seein as I'm going to Army boot in about a 2 weeks just wanted you to know that I will support you no matter what guy. And I support you cause I really don't know what is going to happen and maybe you'll end up helping me in some way and I'll probably end up forgeting your real name in the long run.

I salute you. Please make us come home in the best health you can offer.

[Army]

The Trans company turned out to be a maintenance company...and I SRP in 3 weeks. Looks like I'll be in Texas by May, then ship over after the transition.

[MedicDVG]

Army, when you get over here look me up. I am heading soon to Ashraf for a few weeks, and then R&R the last part of may but otherwise we should be chewing some of the same dirt.

Anyway, I haven't posted in a while. Just thought I would let you know that I am still alive and well. Things get pretty much set in a routine, and the 86 days I have worked in a row kind of all blur together after a while.

Things are heating up here. The insurgents aren't welcome in Baghdad anymore (not that that stops them) so many of them are coming north and making things interesting for us. We have been getting more frequent Alarm Red for indirect fire and mortar attacks, but so far none have landed anywhere to do any damage on the base.

We had a rainstorm here the other day to remind me of home. It hailed like a mo-fo and we got about a 1/4" of accumulation. Pics are attached.

Other pics of my adventures includes a real time Chlorine release exercise. You may have heard in the news that the insurgents are wrapping explosives around chlorine trucks... makes for a nasty and volatile cloud of doom -- definitely make for a bad day. The AFTH took about 40 casualties from the latest attack near Taji. So we began to train how to treat patients with chlorine and battle damage. Just like back home, dispatch called us with an emergency and we responded for a real time exercise. They didn't tell us it was an exercise until I wanted to start IV's on the patients.. seems they didn't want us to be that realistic in our simulation. LOL

Anyway.. I hope that everyone is healthy and well as spring break takes the world by storm. I still have 248 days to go.. and so far I have loved every one of them.

Medic

[Army]

Passed SRP with flying colors...better PULHES than last time too. Looking at being in Texas by May, train up, then be in Balad July/August---ish.

Email your APO (or post it here for everyone), so I can keep you updated.

[MedicDVG]

Passed SRP with flying colors...better PULHES than last time too. Looking at being in Texas by May, train up, then be in Balad July/August---ish.

Email your APO (or post it here for everyone), so I can keep you updated.

Sounds good.

Dean Goulet
KBR
APO AE 09391

Stay safe

[ProblemKinder]

if you get a chance you should hop on over to the other side of the gulf and go to Dubai. it's a very nice and you can go snowboarding in the Mall of Emerates. it's pretty wicked.

stay safe.