1000 Words

Back in the States

Will has officially arrived back in North Carolina after a long journey!!!! The official "deployment" is now over - now it enters the 'reintegration phase'.

Welcome back to America Will.

:)

The footlocker has arrived, and welcomed me home today. Just another nice step towards HOME.

The turn over

The time has come and past for us to turn over our shop. It was a joyous time for all. It was also a bit difficult, we have spent 7 months making the place our own. We put many long hours into getting our mission accomplished. With a change-over the new command always wants to change things, they have their own views of ways to do things "better". One of the hardest parts of the change-over is the last day you are in the shop, you are supposed to sit and observe and just be there for questions only. I didn't realize how engrained in our work habit it was to get up and answer the phone, or help a customer at the counter. To our guys replacing us, good luck! I clearly remember the change-over with my replacement. His advice was to find out what works for me, and go with it.

As I write this blog post I am listening to Circle of Life from the Lion King soundtrack. I feel it is a fitting song.

I have a small request. The guys in the shop and myself would like to write Noah, unfortunately in our mass cleanup I seemed to have lost the address. If someone can email a snailmail address to me, we would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks
Will

"March"ing the Transitions

Communication and updates here on the blog might be a little sparse for a bit - but this is a decent thing because of why. Here's a bit of an update with some nice news about this deployment.

First up, March marks the 6th month of 7 month orders in Iraq. Seems like it has taken forever to get here, but we've finally arrived to the light at the end of the tunnel.

Will is currently involved with the transition to send their unit home. This entire transition process has quite a few more steps and stages than I would have predicted. Documentation needs to be detailed to define status of everything. Picture looking ahead and knowing you have one week to train someone to be you and they'll never have the opportunity to ask questions after that training.

time marches on

One of the things that is hard to do here is keep up with the "stateside time" of things. When you do the same thing 6.5 days a week day in and day out, your mind tends to forget that all of a sudden "oh another week has gone by". I can remember how how it was getting off the plane for the first time in Kuwait, but I could not tell you what I did 3 weeks ago Monday, except for it was a monday so it was more than likely busy in the shop. This is the only way I can figure our Army counterparts are able to cope with 15 month deployments. You just get in a routine and go with it.

Children never cease to amaze us. A couple of the care packages we received had valentines made by various aged school children. Though I do enjoy chocolate, some of the pieces of chocolate were held to the cards with so much glue that I am not sure its ok to eat it. (No to what you are thinking only kids are allowed to eat glue and not get sick from it ).



Sgt E

Thank you for the boxes

I received two boxes from work yesterday. Someone is the devil for putting oatmeal peanut butter cookies in there! I guess it is ok, we have all had our weigh-ins and completed our PFTs for the deployment. Yes, we still ran a PFT in a combat zone, granted it was not a requirement to take our Physical Fitness Test for score we still ran one. Looking forward to the end.

Exciting Step

At the end of this week, I am going to remove Will's address from this blog. His address at some point will become inactive while he is deployed and packages no longer be able to find him. My suggestion is to get anything out before the end of the week, if you were anxious to get anything out (includes packages or letters - anything through any US postal services). After this week, no more :).

Overall, Will is doing well on supplies and goodies. In addition the guys are currently trying to consume or thin out what they have over there to make packing at some point down the road lighter!

Time to pass along the support to the other deployed folks who need it more. He's grateful for all the support he's received. This is a wonderful milestone in the deployment as well.

*big cheers*
-Carolyn

(This does not impact MotoMail or emails for the time being)

Things I won't miss in Iraq

As I wind up my last few months in the big desert, I can think of a few things I will not miss. Most recently I will not miss the fact that it does in fact rain here. It has rained here a few times a month. The other night after I got back from chow I walked into my shop and noticed that my rifle was covered with mud! It was raining, but the wind was blowing so strong that the rain turned to mud as it came down.

Everyone back home is getting ready for the superbowl. I can't wait, we have mandatory fun for the superbowl. Mandatory attendance to watch the superbowl. I am really looking forward to being awake at 2 in the morning. I wonder if the commercials will be as funny with the lack of sleep?

Sgt E

Support the Troops

Snow in Iraq

As many of you may seen on the news, it snowed in Baghdad the other day. Yes it also snowed where we are stationed as well. Big white fluffy flakes that did not stick as they hit the ground. I think we officially hit our "rainy" season out here with our first measurable amount of rain. If I had to estimate I would say .4 to .5 tenths. Not much by back home standards, but it was enough to wet all the sand and leave mud puddles everywhere. It is also alot of rain for a place that doesn't get over 2 inches a year.

On the lighter side of things, Myrtle "Frank" the Turle was brought into the world yesterday. Carolyn sent a chia pet over for christmas. The long name comes from I wanted to name it Myrtle for obvious reasons (mainly because it rhymed). While a certain Twizzler hoarding Marine wanted to name it Frank. I compromised (he still claims victory due to the fact he has been a Sgt longer than me...I humor him).

Kicking off 2008

Happy New Year Will!!! This year will bring you back home which as I see it as a very happy new year. Here's to a speedy rest of the deployment :)

Thank you

Thank you for all the goodies I have received in the last few days. We are going to have to go run an extra mile or two just to work off all the cookies and peanut brittle. Hopefully all of you back home are getting ready to enjoy your nice break off from work for the Holidays :)

To be a P38 or not to be a P38

A question was posted to me in an email and I figured the all the readers would like to know the answer. The P38 is not still issued to American service members anymore due to the fact that MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) are all in bags. You can still buy replicas of them in the PX back in the states for a few dollars. When the question was originally posted to me, I thought the submitter was referring to the Walther P38 pistol that "an old timer" had given them. A nice gift! Then I did a little research and I assume it is the can opener that was the gift. Either that or it was a P-38 lightning (a WWII aircraft). Ahh the military and its acronyms

To read about the P-38 can opener

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_can_opener

to read about the Walther P38

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_P38

to read about the P-38 Lightning

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-38_Lightning

Thank you

To the Ladies of Upper Essex Church,

Thank you for all the goodies. I have shared them all with my fellow Marines in my shop. I look forward to heading home in a few months. Have a Merry Christmas.

Sgt Ellis

Winter Changes

Silly as it may seem, chocolate is a luxury out here. It's getting better now that the winter months are here; they will ship the stuff over without it getting ruined in the transport over. The PX had tons of snickers imported the other day. Do we buy just 1 snickers? No, we bought a whole box!

The weather went from hot during the day and warm at night to warm during the day and cold as soon as the sun thinks it is going to set. This took place in the span of a week it seemed, then again it might actually have been a month. I am not really sure as it doesn't feel like the middle of December.

I appreciate all the Christmas cards I have received in the past week or so. They get hung up inside my little workspace in our shop. We are all missing you guys back home and can't wait to get back. On a positive note, today is our 100th day in country for our band of misfits.

To you, From Iraq

-Shipping & Receiving

Base PX 101

I am not sure if it’s a funny story, but it's an odd perspective on the PX system here in Iraq.

I will confirm the story of another entertaining milblogger in the fact that the PX has lacy frilly women’s underwear. I am pretty sure they are not combat/field expedient. Maybe they wear them in their cans to feel like a woman in the desert? I guess I have my rifle to help me feel like a man, so whatever works? I jest, their underwear are not a hot ticket item for some reason.

Another aspect of our PX system here, the prices don’t match. The PX on mainside is much larger than the one we have on lakeside. A 25 pack of DVD-R’s on lake side is 1.50 cheaper than on mainside? I am not sure how this works but whatever, I’ll buy the cheaper ones.

Cheese in a can anyone? I am pretty sure no one in the states has the stuff anymore, because they shipped it all overseas to sell in our PX (or at least all the expired ones).

Black Friday Sale in Iraq

It cracks me up, Will sent am email to me talking about the Black Friday Sale at the PX over there. You can't get much more of a captive audience than the guys living on the Bases, yet they still offer sales and promotions.

On a completely different topic, the deadline for holiday shipping is coming up. I believe they'd like the packages by Dec 4th, but the 11th is the Priority Flat Rate Shipping deadline. Typically packages sent to him have been arriving in about a week. I expect it to be slower around the holidays. It has gotten cooler there, so things melting are not the same risk they were at the beginning.

Time distortion:

I was on the phone last night talking about the normal things from back home. Who is stirring up trouble, the weather, sports etc... The comment was made that next Thursday would be Thanksgiving. I was taken aback. Here it is less than a week away from a major American holiday and it had completely snuck up on me. We have a couple of civilian contractors working in our shop and they said Wal-Mart was already putting up Christmas decorations! This shocked me. Christmas is not even a thought on my mind. It's not that I don't care about these things, its just we are not inundated with the commercialism of American culture out here so the holidays sneak up on us. Actually, we still have a Halloween decoration up in one of our vans, a little witch on a broomstick that someone had sent over here from their family. I think it will be here for Valentines Day; perhaps we'll leave it up for the next guys!