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.

"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.

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)

Support the Troops

To you, From Iraq

-Shipping & Receiving

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!

Chow hall food on the recycle.

On a typical night you can always get hamburgers (vegetarian only), hotdogs, onion rings, French fries and grilled cheese (they make really good grilled cheese here). Your typical style American high in fat caloric intake. There is usually a choice of two main dishes. They have about 14 different main dishes they choose to serve here. Mix and match two main dishes with the staple of rice or mashed potatoes, and there are usually two veggie choices.

I am not sure who eats wax beans or why? They look like sickly string beans (green beans to some). Canned corn and cauliflower are staples in the vegetable mix-up. When you run out of enough of one kind to serve the base, you then serve mixed veggies.

Anyone else remember the swan pizzas? I do, and they have them in Iraq. It must be one heck of a delivery fee, but the pizzas are always available for chow. You can also get various types of sandwiches or a meager salad. For a combat zone the chow hall here is actually very well stocked.

what you do while not working?

When not working, I am usually sleeping, eating, showering. I usually take a few minutes each night to read or play some PSP games. A lot of times after work we'll just sit around joking about the day (or complaining as the case maybe a lot)

reply to previous comments and questions

As far as chow we usually take a lunch and a dinner break for an hour. It takes about that long to walk there, get food and eat it. Breakfast I usually choose to sleep through! Cleaning my room? I am only in it to sleep, so cleaning usually involves sweeping the floor about every other day. There is a laundry facility here on base, so two times a week we bring our dirty laundry with us to work and then we put it in a big box and the TCN's (third country nationals) will wash it for us. It comes back in the laundry bag all nicely folded! Definitely not our grandfathers war (if you can even claim we are truly at war anymore)!

-W

Marine Hording

I am sure it comes from our training of having to do without, but what possesses Marines to horde ‎perfectly good items from the chow hall? I really don't know what causes this. I do know that you ‎can get 8 cans of soda in your cargo pockets (not mine per se, but a friend). I also have ‎witnessed 15 cans of "Rip-It" coming out of the chow hall by another Marine. Rip-Its are about ‎the same size as the baby soda cans you can get at Wal-Mart back home. Today I was guilty of ‎this action as well. We needed coffee creamer back at the shop, so I walked out with 12 packets ‎of creamer. 12 packets! That is a weeks worth of dairy creamer for me! Near-beer (or NA beer), ‎is another hot commodity. Non-alcoholic beer seems to go very quickly. Somehow our small ‎section of 7 Marines now has horded close to 18 cans of this stuff. It’s not even that good! I ‎imagine its going to be a tough transition when you go to a place that has "grab your own" sodas ‎with the meal not to just stuff 4 in your pockets and try to walk out when we all get home.‎

didn't plan to do this in Iraq...

Ugg I have phone watch...it's a stupid post that was invented to punish certain people, now we all have to do it. I sleep next to a phone in the office, if it rings I have to go wake up the Major....but if the phone doesn't wake me up, it will automatically forward to his room anyway, completely pointless.

No fridge in the office?

Not a problem for us! The air outlet portion of a standard window ac unit (like the 4 we have powering our shop) will hold 2-3 soda sized cans perfectly. Any more than 3 and the A/C will start to ice over on the front.

weather relief

It is finally cooling off a bit in this place. In the mornings it is a nice 70 degrees and sunny. Although twice in the past week it has clouded over and threatened to rain. I assume they were rain clouds and not just overcast from all the burning in the dump next door. During the day it is getting to the mid 90's to low 100's, which is a big relief from when I arrived and it was 120+. Everymorning I sweep my can (aka my trailer I sleep in), and every evening there is a fine layer of dirt on the floor. Not sure where it all comes from (well outside would be the obvious answer). I want to thank everyone for all the goodies I've received in the past week. It means a lot getting mail and packages.

Sgt Ellis

Promotion

"When people ask what I do out here the easiest way to explain it is I am the UPS/FEDEX/ and USPS delivery guy for the shop. Actually I don't deliver anything, I organize and sort and then let them know their stuff is ready to pick up :)

-W"

Congrats to Will!! He was promoted to Sergeant on October 1st. This has been something he's been chasing for a bit now, and it is nice to fine earn the title and recognition. His address will change slightly now on the first line. Update your MotoMail accounts and mailing addresses to refer to "Sgt" rather than "Cpl". His mailing address will always be current on the blog.

Tired

I've heard from Will and things are getting up and running in his new job. Right now he's still getting acclimated to all of these changes.

He's been super busy and worn out. It sounded like his days have been a blur between WORK, meals, and sleep with work taking up a good 12 or more hours a day - 7 days a week. He hasn't had much of a chance to do anything other than those three things.

Evidently a common thing is getting sick when you first arrive. Your body needs to adjust to the foreign country just as if you were traveling. Different things in the food or water than what you are used to. At the moment, it sounds like that is his hurdle he's facing.

MotoMails have been arriving to him at the address, so I'm glad that system is up and working. He says they arrive sorta like bills. You rip off the three sides, and get the letter/email printed for you inside.

He also passed along this URL:
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/90398464FCA173998525734F00454E64?opendocument

Arrived and How to Communicate

Will is now officially at his 'home' in Iraq for the next 7 or so months. He was able to call on Saturday and say he was there. He says the chow hall had a wide variety and was happy to see things from home like "Coke" were available. He is very grateful for the kindness of CEC for the phone cards. They work perfectly and certainly help as a morale boost.

I have moved forward with trying out a few communication techniques. I want to get a feel of the different types so I could answer or help anyone else with questions. Check out the post early on this blog about "Investigating communication" for specific details about these avenues.

First I called the post office and requested the Military Care package set. That was super easy. About half a week later a big box appeared with great supplies in it. They shipped me 6 boxes (of 3 flat rate sizes), a role of tape, customs forms, address stickers, and the baggies for everything. I have completed my first box which will go out tomorrow morning. From the address link on the side bar, I've linked to an example of how to fill out the customs form. It was VERY helpful to me, since this is all new to me. From what I understand it should be $8 and some change to ship this package. I've read that you should not mix food and hygiene style products in one box. So the box I'm sending has no food, but other goodies that can be useful. I will try my best to send them about once a month, so if you want something to go in one let me know ;).

Next up, I've also tried MotoMail. I think I really like it, and once it is confirmed that all went as planned with it, I think I'd recommend it to anyone fairly computer savvy who would like to send letters or notes to our troops. MotoMail is a hybrid email / letter provider for the troops. We write into the system similar to an email, then it is printed at his base and handed to him like a letter. I've written one and it appears it was printed for delivery 14 hours after I wrote it. Not too bad of a deal. It stepped me through the process for setting up his address in the system. If this first test one went well, I plan to send these on a fairly regular basis. Maybe to tell him what I've been up to that day or any little tidbits from home. They are super easy and hopefully if it all went well a great way of adding a regular taste of home.

... and he has left for war

Well reality finally hit hard today. Today was the day where a new phase begins. Will has boarded the plane and left American soil. Will described it best with "Surreal". It's crazy to think that life can change so much with a flight. The blog will be updated as soon as we know he's safe and settled at his base. It could be a bit of time, so we all will need to sit tight and be patient.

I'm so grateful for the Maine Troop Greeters. Big thanks!!! They are a volunteer based group that makes sure they hug all the troops coming and going. Will was able to drop a quick call from one of their available cell phones. Here's an article about them and the wonderful part they play in the deployments of our troops.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0124/p01s01-usmi.html

Good chance they got a photo which should be posted soon at http://mainetroopgreeters.smugmug.com/Troop%20Pictures%20by%20Month/357893
I'll post the photo if I can find him!

*** Edit - Robin found the best picture ever!!! Here's the URL for it if I doesn't show up. http://mainetroopgreeters.smugmug.com/gallery/3391495#189577122

Happy Birthday Will - 6-27-07

I'm writing this on Tuesday, but the emails to the subscribers will come out early Wednesday morning. Hopefully we'll all have a chance to join you here for wishing you well!

Happy 29th Birthday Will!!! With the ever changing face of hallmark, I guess we will make this our own little Hallmark store to celebrate holidays with you! While it would be a blast to go somewhere for dinner or the Taste of Chicago, I have complete faith that you'll go somewhere fun and have a beer or so with your buddies out there!

Take Care!!!