July in Iraq

I cannot believe it is already July! Except for the heat, that is. In two days, I will have been gone for 5 months. That sounds awesome at first, but then when I think that I am still not even half way done, its a bit of a bummer. However, once July is over I will only have three full months before I get to go home for R&R (hopefully). Once I get back from R&R, it will be into December, and then we'll start packing it up in January (hopefully). It's really hot here. Imagine that! Most days are around 115 degrees, sometimes it gets up to 120 and sometimes it doesn't even reach 110. The A/C in my room isn't very good and it only gets cool at night but I do have A/C, so I'm not complaining. The nights get down into the 80s but it feels much cooler than that.

I am sure that some of you are wondering what I am doing over here now that the June 30th security agreement has passed. Well, right now, I am doing nothing. For the first few days after the ne agreement, we are just laying low. The Iraqis are celebrating and we don't want to get in their way. We are worried that these days would be a prime time for the bad guys to attack us. The reason for this is that most people don't understand the full concept of the agreement. Everyone just hears that Coalition Forces are pulling out of the cities. They don't hear that "the cities" doesn't mean every city in Iraq. This only includes the major urban areas. Our area of operations is a rural district just north of Baghdad. Because the Iraqi government classifies it as a rural "Kada," we are not required to leave the area. When we show up in town after all the Iraqis are celebrating our absence, it might cause some problems.

Although, we are still remaining in our city, things will be different. The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are now in the lead. Supposedly, we are here now for support only. Before, we would plan all of our missions and then tell the Iraqi Police or the National Police that we need some of them to ride along with us in order to qualify as a Joint Patrol. Now, we are supposed to let the Iraqis be in charge and only go out with them when they request our presence. The only problem with this is that they are lazy and they are corrupt. If we didn't pressure them to patrol or give them ideas of things they can do, they would do nothing. Now, just because they don't ask us to go on patrols doesn't mean we're not going to do anything. We will still attend the Nahia (city council) Meetings in town. We will still drive around and give out Micro Grants to small businesses. We will still work with engineers and city planners to fix their sewage, water, and trash problems. Most importanty, we will still do whatever it takes to protect ourselves.

I was looking through my camera to see what kind of pictures I could post. Let me tell you, its pretty dissapointing and boring. Here are a few pictures that show just a few of the things I do.

I go to Compact Water Treatment Units to figure out what the problems are and how we can get help get drinking water into the city


I buy things to support my troop like safes, refrigerators, weight machines, and TVs with OMA funds with a very annoying thing called FOO money that is more of a pain than it is worth


I take pictures of CF emplaced solar lights in town so we can get a contract for maintenance on them


And of course, I attend tons and tons of BORING meetings. This guy on the left is most likely saying "Mista..baby." As in, "please, we need money for the baby."



Around July 15th, I will finally be headed over to 1-82 Field Artillery Battalion. There, I will most likely be a Platoon Leader. Right now I am only responsible for 3 soldiers. When I become a PL, I will have around 30 soldiers. I don't have a clue what it will be like there or what I will be doing. I promise I will let you know in an update when I get there.

Too long!

Well well well, guess who has been slacking when it comes to blogging? That's right ME. At least this time I have a good excuse. I am finally busy! Now some of you might think that it would be nice to have absolutely nothing to do, but I am here to squash that rumor. Okay, so occasionally it is nice to do nothing, but since Nathan left in February I have been dreaming of being so busy the days just fly by and the next thing you know its time for Nathan's R&R. Since I haven't been sitting around doing nothing I imagine you want to know exactly what I have been up to.
To kick things off Maria and I planned a little goodbye outing with the boys to downtown Seattle. There is this Children's Museum that Maria had been wanting to go to but she didn't want to go alone. So we decided that it would be a lot of fun to take the boys to the museum and since Tanner absolutely loves buses we thought it would be so much fun to take the bus. The night before I planned out our bus routes and Maria handled the kid logistics. The bus ride out there was great Tanner had so much fun and Davis was tired but in a good mood. Tanner and I got to hang out and visit most of the cool sections of the museum while Maria and Davis hung out in the baby area. Tanner got to be a bus driver, a construction worker, and a fire fighter.

He also got to visit Japan, Africa, and the Philippines. It was a lot of fun. After the museum we ate lunch under the Space Needle and Tanner let us know that he wanted to ride to the top.

The bus ride home was a little more eventful. The first bus was fine and while we waited to transfer buses Tanner had a lot of fun jumping on and off of a platform in front of a tall office building.

The ride home was about an hour and Davis almost lasted the whole way. I have to give it to him he was pretty tired and missed his morning nap. He was a trooper.

After our little trip I started work on June 8th. I have been anxiously awaiting fire season since, well since Nathan left. It feels so good to have a job again and to do something productive with my life. I do however miss the days where I could spend five hours on Skype with Nathan. Work has been good so far, we have stayed busy training and responding to fires. I personally have been on five fires and three false alarms. They predict that this season could be pretty bad once things dry out, but then again they say that every year. As things pick up I will keep you posted with pictures and all that jazz, until then have a fun safe summer.