Iraq
Travel Blogs from Iraq
happy halloween
Today our patrol was an easy one, we even took a break in the middle to go eat lunch at the best DFAC in baghdad, the place was far better than ours, and it rose our spirits greatly to get some good chow in us. basically we drove around all day with ...
Nawroz - Kurdish New Year
March 21 is a day for celebrating the Kurdish New Year or the first day of spring. It celebrates the death of an evil king in 617 b.c. The king had a birth defect of two snakes growing out of his shoulders that needed children's brains for ...
Lots of Ranting today
... like a cop with a desk job. Let's see, recent activity, well, as I'm sure everyone is aware, on the 15th, Iraq voted on the members of it's first freely elected parliament. All early indications are that turnout was beyond most expectations. The ...
Why we are here
Today, we were out on our normal patrol when an Iraqi man approached us to tell us that he had information about insurgent activity! Obviosly this was a most welcome event for us, as we up until now have made no contacts of our own to help us find the ...
Extreme Home Makeover: Iraq Edition
Today, was a very busy day, 80 guys that have no idea hat they are doing with power tools and 2 that do trying to take a group of shacks and turn them into an operational headquarters. Quite hillarious. The place was a mess before, trees down in the ...
Happy Thanksgiving and some
... touch as much as missions allow. thanks go out to everyone for all of the generous packages I've recieved in the last few days, (6 in the last 3 days!) the children of Iraq (at least those that I see) will be helped greatly by everyone's ...
Big Updates!
Well, I'm back, I've been back for a while, I'm OK, I was just getting used to the rhythm again, getting back into the swing of things. I know I'm a terrible person, that there are people who are solely dependant on this site for information on how I'm ...
Re-Enlistment, at last!
I appoligise for the incredibly long delay since I've posted last, just nothing big going on (yeah right) anyway, at least this time I have some big news to report. Well, at long last, I have been able to do my reenlistment. I've signed up for another ...
A big night
last night we noticed a large group of people acting suspiciously along the side of the road about a half a click out, after watching them for a while, we noticed that some of them had weapons. We continued watching their actions, and we realized that ...
The MotherLoad
Today, we hit the motherload! 2nd Platoon's informant gave them the location of a huge chache of weapons and explosives, so much that it took us all day to find all of it and dig it up, after 8 hours of sweeping the area, we were still finding stuff when ...
Baghdad Saturday
... when tourists could actually visit and explore this rich civilization. The Babylon was an important local venue for Iraq politics, hosting national and international conferences by such groups as the Iraq Unity Alliance (IUA), a credible effort to ...
Irbil
... shown around the town by a young guide, and noticing the presence of heavy security which was ever present in all places in Iraq. We drank the sacred water and witnessed a pair of local children being blessed in a spiritual ritual. Irbil itself wasn't ...
Kurdistan for Western Women
Erbil, Kurdistan has been a very interesting place to work this year. Erbil is changing by the minute. Everyday there is a new mall or shopping center opening. Just this week the largest shopping mall in the mid-east is scheduled to ...
In Iraq...
... office and asked me what i do and why i am going to iraq, blah blah. This whole process took 2 hours and sucked. Northern Iraq is called Kurdistan and is autonomous of regular Arab Iraq (where bagdad and all the US soldiers are). It is very safe and ...
I'm sorry for the delay.... again
Well, here we are again, another long delay between updates. Oh well, let's see here, news... I'm getting integrated pretty well into the Aid Station routine, there's alot of doing nothing. Which means of course that I should have updated this thing ...
In the capital of Kurdistan
... were Iraqi christians from Bagdad and they knew english so we had some interesting discussions about the war and the state of Iraq. They said that even though Saddam was not a great guy, someone with his hardline politics is necessary to govern the ...
Baghdad October 2011
... was a gruesome land war in which half a million Iraqis and Iranians died, leaving both countries in debt from which Iraq never recovered, devastating their economy, wiping out their middle class and pushing Saddam into a tyrant’s regime. The ...
*Yawn*
When we were briefed about the mission today, we were all stoked, we were finally going into the imfamous Zidan Market, an area that hadn't seen a coalition patrol in almost 4 months! then we got more details, and began to realize what exactly what we ...
Mail Call
Today was the first day that I this deployment that I got to feel the wonderful joy that all soldiers feel when they come back to thier bunk after working all day and seeing mail waiting for them! Yay! It's great to have a hard copy picture to hang on ...
Finaly on a plane
Well, after two entire days of waiting for a plane, I finally have a flight out of this hellhole. I was originally scheduled for a flight yesterday morning. and now I'm finally on my way to Kuwait for leave! Expect a big update while I'm home with ...
Welcome to Baghdad
... Jordan. The shuttle does not run every day. Jordan has been a crossroads for centuries, a kingdom caught between Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria, "a terribly unenviable geographical position" according to one source. Its history goes back ...
Medic On A Hot Tin Roof
... from a cave, on mars, with little oxygen, and less light. That man's delusions continue to amuse me, he still thinks he is the legal president of Iraq. Whatever, I guess some people can't be helped. That's all I've got for now, I'll write again ...
First large city in Dohuk...
Decide not to stay in Dhoka and finally figured out a way to get to another city without having to hire a private taxi. Just ask for the local garage! So there they wait till they pile in four of us into a cab and then drive off. The driver was like 80 ...
Thanks to everyone
today during patrol we came upon a house which made me incredibly thankfull that everyone has been so generous with the medicine and clothes for the children, several children under the age of 2, most of which were in dirty clothes, and one who's crib ...
I'm Here, Safe and Sound
well, I'm here! after an extra day in Kuwait due to a canceled flight, I have made it to Camp Stryker, just a stone's throw fro the Airport in Baghdad, we're doing well, and starting to get settled, however, they're telling us that we're moving into ...
another day, another $.50
Well, today, I ran a 10k Road race, I did fairly well, finished in 48:53, good enough for a t-shirt. next step is the BolderBolder (sp) Baghdad annex next week, I'm shooting for under 45. so the real question is... who's going to run the one in Boulder? ...
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas everyone, I hope Santa was good to everyone. My platoon got lucky, and we just happened to be on our maintenance cycle for the last three days, so we got Christmas eve through tomorrow off! All in all, we had an uneventful Christmas, ...
Food for thought
... were 35 murders in the month of January. That's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war-torn country of Iraq. When some claim that President Bush shouldn't have started this war, state the following: a. FDR led us into World War ...
A busy day
I'll start (again) by apologizing on how long it's been since the last time I've posted. Between the gap between sectors, the boring missions where we sat around for 8 hours and came back, before we started our new sector, and the long hours and night ...
I really am alive, I've just been busy
I'm ok, really, I've just been busy and sick, so when I'm not on mission, I've been sleeping as much as possible. Thankfully, I'm getting over it now, and we came in early tonight. Unfortunatley, I forgot my PSP, so I don't have any pictures to upload, ...

