Silent Night

Christmas in Iraq is bearable as we are pressing into the home stretch. The many packages, cards and e-mails I have received certainly help immensely, I enjoy them all. I have left some of your packages to open until today so you will be receiving a personal thank you note shortly.

The day was routine for what we have been accomplishing lately. Churning out awards write ups for the many deserving Marines. Their professionalism, dedication and morale have been remarkable. My confidence in their ability to accomplish any feat assigned now has few bounds.

I spent my Christmas eve with the Marines. Took a turn serving up the 1830 chow from containers for those who can't get away from the site. Once they were all fed I caught a ride down to the chow hall for a Christmas eve feast of red beans and rice. Actually, it is one of my favorite meals. I had two bowls of ice cream as it is a traditional holiday celebration for me. The second bowl was a result of the CO and OPSO returning from pumping iron and catching me still eating. It was only polite to continue to eat with them. I had Dave drop me off up at the site as he was headed to the recreation center to make Christmas eve phone calls.

I had a few small gifts to prepare and some gear to pick up and was going to hoof it home. I played a couple Christmas carols on the guitar and dropped in on the Marines in operations to see how the night was going. They ended up talking me into sitting down as the Tactical Air Traffic Controller for a couple hours. The practice of bringing the uninitiated on to talk to airplanes is a tactic in fighting boredom. Talking on the radio to tactical aircraft with demands of protocol and brevity is much harder than it appears. I seemed ripe for the picking as it has been 20 years since I was the "master of air disaster."

I was well coached by Gunnery Sergeant Eppenbaugh, who is King of the gear, and his evil minion, Gunnery Sergeant Raymond. They coached me through all my transmissions with practice calls and written scripts. I managed to perform fairly well, and knock some of the rust off my aging skills. I believe I was able to successfully route several aircraft around potential mid-airs with Santa as that joker has no care for air route discipline. He's very haphazard in his flight path. The fighters get no radar returns as I believe he has upgraded his sleigh with stealth technology and magic. The only comment from the pilots was, "damn, that red light is bright."

In classic Marine Corp fashion, by this morning, my training session will have morphed into a combination of Daffy Duck and Porky Pig but that is the point of having me guest on the gear. It is all about the funny stories you can retell with extreme exaggeration. At crew change Gunny Epp was doing a fine impression of a 1st grader attempting to read from Shakespeare in describing my style and proficiency on the radios. It was a good time and made the evening pass quickly for all.

We get to sleep in for the holiday and I made it all the way to 1030 as it's quiet on the Iraqi front today. Looking forward to a decent line up for the noon feast and am headed that way momentarily.

Hope you are all having a very Merry Christmas and are enjoying the peace and happiness of the season. I look forward to joining you in a mere 37 days.

Vacation in Qatar

I got to spend some fun in the sun in Qatar. Rest and Relaxation. Free 5 or so day vacation. Hard to count the days really. We mustered at Al Asad at 1900 and flew out a few ours later. Stopped at another base to drop some folks off and then pressed on to Qatar and arrived at 0300. Customs, in briefing and finally into our "Bay" 12 person room by 0630. This is called day 0. It doesn't count toward your 4 day pass.
Woke up at 1000 feeling quite refreshed and went out to explore.
The buildings are big warehouses subdivided into "spaces". I think you could fit two tennis courts side by side in these buildings and they are over a 150 yards long. Huge. The USO building is a real treat. Computer area with fiber connection to the world so it's the fastest thing I've seen in terms of bandwidth in a long time. There is a big pillow room with video games and a movie area. Another movie area with couches. Briefing rooms. Green Beans coffee. Various little side rooms. A great facility to unwind in. We hang out here most of the time.
I went on a great tour of the inland sea. Basically a 4x4 trip over sand dunes to a secluded beach facility for a picnic. Quite fun. I'll draft up a post just to show that part.
A wide open stage area for live performances and lot's of tables and places to sit and watch or play cards or internet. The whole building is wireless which is nice. I didn't bring my laptop as I was traveling light.
There are three bars in the joint. These look like movie set buildings as they are like real bars but no ceiling. You just look up to the top of the warehouse. We get three beers per day. Which is more than enough quite frankly. I've been loopy every night and that is after just two normally.
The pool is great here. There is a real live Chili's adjoining which means I've eaten lunch there just about daily. The burgers are certified US GOOD!!! I couldn't tell I was away from home. They have a crankin' hot tub with jets and 105 degree water. What a relief.
The gym is 1st class. Of course it's not a Marine Base so no one uses it. I was in there at 1700 yesterday and it was me and 4 other people. There is a full service spa and I got a 1 hour massage for $40 with tip. It wasn't quite as good as home but hey, what is a bad massage.
The gym has a giant hitting cage for golf. I hit about 200 balls and thought I was ready for my golf outing. We had to muster at 0530...I thought golf was civilized. Nice drive through decent parts of Doha. Saw lots of interesting architecture. They aren't worried about urban sprawl out here. I've never seen so much construction. We didn't get to play the championship course but I didn't exactly need it. We arrived at 0730 for a 0800 tee time. Barely got 20 practice balls hit. No putting practice. In the end I ended up with a lot of balls in trouble and in the sand. Big shocker. A couple of those sand traps cost me two strokes. I shot a 51. Not bad for a guy who hasn't been on a course in months. Thoroughly enjoyed. It.
So this is day 4. We find out at 2100 when we fly out. If we are lucky it's tomorrow around noon. If we are unlucky it will be tonight at 2300. Place your bets.
In any event, it has been a great break. I think I really needed it. Been a bit edgy lately to say the least. Ready to charge into the last 45 days!!!

Where rocking horse people eat marshmellow pies,

OK, so these are butter people

...on a river...

Yes, that is the Taj Mahal. A famous Pilgrim landmark that they built soon after landing.

Lucy in the Sky with Thanksgiving

Picture yourself in a boat...
OK, not the Mayflower but a blue boat made out of gelatin.
The day started out with the normal routine. Up at 0600, to get the war started.

The usual mail, briefings and mayhem. Then began the festivities.

At 1030 Dave raised and objection to the lack of holiday routine. It just so happened that I had some boxes from good neihbors (Beth and Rusty Hall) with real live Pepperidge Farm cheese and beef sticks in them. Dave, never misses an opportunity for protein to build his body further, and Captain McKinney is a Sausage and Cheese addict. There isn't a twelve step program for him yet. I just like to eat so we broke it out and set to eating. It was a total highlight. For that 30 minutes it was the holidays.
The CO arrived at 1100 and announced that the Thanksgiving meal was being served from 1100-1500 so get on board. At this point Dave could not even hear because the food had backed up into his auditory canals. The CO rushed off unhappy that he had missed the opening bell. Eating was out of the question for me for at least a couple hours. Dave vowed he'd never eat again. McKinney promptly forgot he had eaten anything and rushed off to try and get to the line before the CO. I wasn't there but I'm told that the line stretched all the way to Syria.

By the time I recovered my appetite it was 1430. I headed off to dinner alone.
Dave ate so much he blew off the meal altogether. I think he must have had good intel about the stuffing. He spent Thanksgiving afternoon doing martial arts training. Nothing like intense pain, a vulcan death grip, and 2,000 situps to kill a holiday.

When I arrived there was only smoked Hawaiian Turkey left! I had never heard of this and there is a good reason it's not popular on the main land. When you grow up as spoiled as I am by incredible Mothers, Step-Mothers, Mother's you adopted and friend's mothers you find it hard to eat anything but the very best on this most special of days. So instant mashed potatoes, and powdered dressing that will not leave the shape of the scooper is just going to set you off a bit. I'll spin this that, I'm thankful for all the good food I've had in the past.

The next highlight were the decorations. Look, the staff at the chow hall really gave it their all. They put in a lot of effort. Being largely composed of foreign nationals from India, the Phillipines, Indonesia, etc, and wonderful and good people at heart, they did their very best to make us feel at home. Their home. We had a Hawaiian themed Thanksgiving. Nothing quite like an exotic smorgasboard when you are 7,000 miles from home and missing it terribly. (More blog photos to follow)

In order to salvage my meal I had a large bowl of ice cream. Another great thing to be thankful for. All of our ice cream is Baskin Robbins. OK, so we only get 4 flavors but hey, war is hell. I went with vanilla just to punish myself. If Dave was suffering then I should at least make an effort.

On this odd Thanksgiving I was thankful that this will hopefully be my last Thanksgiving OCONUS. I was thankful that there are so many good and wonderful people back in the states having an awesome thanksgiving. And most of all, I was thankful that in a mere 66 days I would be joining those awesome people.