Boots On The Ground

Somewhere in Iraq

We're hunched over an antiquated Gateway computer is a dusty backwater of Iraq. The keyboard is clogged with dust and grime, so i now have something else to blame typos on. It was a relatively uneventful flight in a massive C-17 from Kuwait to Iraq, although the combat landing was a little stomach-churning. The soldiers in the plane cheered like kids on a rollercoaster with every g-force inducing maneuver the plane took as we approached BIAP (Baghdad International Airport). Once in Baghdad we started going our seperate ways, as teams sloughed away from the company. Our teams hopped on a couple of Chinook helicopters in the dead of night and headed South. Hauling all of our bags while in full armor really kicked my butt, and was NOT a lot of fun. Nevertheless, we're here. We're all just fine. Team Centaur is still not at our final destination quite yet, but we've hooked up with the team we're replacing, and hope to soon finally unpack and start doing the job we were all sent here to do.

Just a quick note on these bloody Internet cafes... They're simply awful, but they're all we've got right now. The connection is agonizingly slow, the keyboards are inevitably sticky (as mentioned above), they're HOT, and we're in very close quarters. The velcro on the arm of my uniform keeps catching on the velcro on the sleeve of the soldier sitting next to me, so I'm sitting on a broken chair at an uncomfortable angle to keep from snagging on the soldiers on either side of me. What fun...