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!

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)