I’ve been too busy to write my own journals lately. It’s pretty crazy what goes on here sometimes. We got used to running the post office alright, but we’re still undermanned. Supporting a 25000 people post, and more mail coming in for people that aren’t here anymore, it’s crazy. 20 member platoon element can support 7000 people. But we barely have 20 working right now for 25000. Supposedly we’re getting more, but I’m not holding my breath for that one either. Operations get about 7 trucks everyday. I mean you’re talking about those big 18 wheelers with the CONEX on the back, filled with boxes. And you unload all of them into a little warehouse, and you’re expected to do that everyday. You work outside, in the CONEX, unloading the boxes because that’s all you’re allowed to do sometimes. And you sweat like you’ve never sweat before. The heat here can kill you. I drank 2 bottles of water in 30 minutes and still felt dehydrated. I don’t know, it’s an experience.
I joined the Army because my brother did, but I also joined for the adventure of it. For the experience that I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere else. Where else would you be EXPECTED to go everywhere with a rifle? And where else would you get to meet all these people? People all over the world that you wonder what kind of experiences you would have shared together if only they went to the same high school, same church, worked in the same place, went to the same clubs. There was a guy here named Baker. His first name was Courtney, but he never explained why. PFC Baker was put off into a MEDEVAC into Germany about 2 days ago for torn tendons or something in his ankles, but he was here in the warehouse for about 4-5 days. He was really awesome at doing the personation as Doctor Evil and Austin Powers. Just awesome. He liked to say ‘yeah, maybe’ and ‘yeah, baby, yeah!’ and he was really good at it, too. Well he was transportation a transportation guy. Funny fellow, 20 years of age, completed a year of college in the last 3 years because of basic and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
About that MEDEVAC. 1st of JUL was when we took over the post office. So after we closed at 7, we stayed there till 11, tidying things up, putting supplies into right places, basically became the housewife of the place. We rearranged the place for our own benefit, and it took all the manpower and time we had. Anyway, after all that hectic moving around was finished, we went back to the barracks to sleep. That was 1 AM. Well, I saw old PFC Baker standing outside with some of his buddies, having a chat. I thought he had already left for Camp Wolf, but he was still here. Said that the plane got delayed 4 hours, and he was about to leave. So I said my good byes, and asked sarcastically if I can go with them. And they said sure, just bring a kevlar. Thankfully, there was a corporal that didn’t have to go that day, so they crossed his name off the memorandum and put mine in there. So there I was, illegally in the humvee, tired as hell but excited too. And it was definitely worth everything. It really was. We were there, with his crutches, sitting sideways on the back of the humvees, holding his crutches like a rifle. And whenever a car would come by from the rear, we would hold it up, pretending to have it in our sights, ready to shoot if necessary. But of course nothing happened, it was just fun. He shared some more stories he had, of his transportation company. One day they were sitting on top of their trucks, because there was nowhere else to sleep and it was too hot inside. Started to drizzle a little, there in Iraq, and then and there, rifles started going off about 200 meters off. Flares shot up and 50 calibers shot off everything for about 5 minutes. Then a star cluster. THE PERIMETER HAS BEEN BREACHED! Everyone tensed up, thinking something’s going down. The longest 30 seconds of their lives later, everything in God’s breadth lit up the stary sky. Flares went up, two more star clusters, and tracers lit up the sky in every direction. Another 10 minutes later, the intense firefight came to a short stop. Few sporadic gunfires later, it was silent. Turns out that the MPs were lighting up some Iraqis, for one reason or another. Next morning, in the same location, they saw Iraqis marching in circles, humming this eerie theme that gave him the creeps. And he left soon thereafter, scared shitless. We carried his belongings into the airport, and we said our good byes. This was 4 AM, too late to go to Kuwait City, so we headed back.
During the illegal ride to Camp Wolf, I thought about a lot of things. I thought about how I’m going to try and get myself to Iraq one way or another, although I knew it wasn’t going to happen. But I wanted to be able to say I was there, I saw and smelled and felt things that not too many others have. It must have been all the mesmerizing lights in the highway. They light up all the highways with bright white street lights 50 feet above the ground, every 20 feet or so. It must cost them a grip of money, and then I realized how rich this country is, yet how primitive it is compared to America. I thought about school, about what I’m going to try to do when I go back, what to tell people and what not to tell people. How to try and confront the questions that I know I’m going to be faced with, and how to not answer them without looking like a jackass. I thought about my friends in Berkeley, Cerritos, Calgary, Belize… How suddenly I missed them all and how unfortunate it is for me to be stupid enough to not bring pictures just because I thought it would get me depressed even more. I watch some people taking out pictures and looking at them, and notice how jealous I become. I thought about who I should try to write first, and why, who means what to me. Then I thought about what to tell people if I should get caught going off to another camp without proper authorization that wouldn’t have been granted by a long shot. I thought about all the people I’ve met, and how to handle the next batch of people I meet. I need to be careful. I got attached to these phenomenal people, and now they’re leaving, often when I’m off at work. I sometimes barely remember their names, but I remember their faces, always. And it hurts, to get to know good people and have to let go, to have no control over anything. And I thought about God. What that means to me right now, and what I thought my mother would think it should mean. Then I went back to what I think it should mean to me at the moment. I was feeling down emotionally, but it still didn’t justify my need to aggressively pursue church. It became more of a luxury for me than an annoying entity, to tell you the truth, and it became harder and harder to go. And I haven’t since 2nd week of March. And I thought about all the Kuwaiti people out there, how they live, and how they actually live in this place and why.
Some of the Kuwaiti people here are remarkable. I went to a shop once, and bought about 9 bucks worth of merchandise. I felt bad for the guy so I gave him a dollar. He gets up from the seat he was resting from, picks up a key ring, and says to me, ‘this 2 dollar, take.’ How about the guy at the Bazaar? I keep mixing the name with Bakaraa Market from Black Hawk Down, but this Bazaar market was where they were selling a lot of illegal stuff and some interesting Kuwaiti gifts and what not. I asked this guy what it cost, and he said 15. I must have looked sad or something. I said my thanks and was about to take off when he says wait, and reaches his hand out. I shake his hands, and he whispers ‘for you, 13.’ Or how about that one guy that cleans the bathrooms? In one of my midnight visits there, he was there, sitting on a crate, looking into the sky, perplexed by American air power, I suppose, because he asks me quite nervously, ‘that plane, American, what it called?’ I can hear it and I know it’s a C-17, not a C-130 because it’s not propellers, and not a commercial airliner because Kuwaitis cannot fly over American air space that close to the camp. He says his thanks, and repeats to himself, ‘C-17, C-17.’
It sucks here. You barely get enough sleep, and the heat just wears you out. You spend your energy in the cold, but you burn off energy even faster in the heat that we’re in. Just walking to and from the place we work is about .75 miles off, if not an entire mile. And we work outside unloading/loading trucks with boxes and bags anyway. So this heat is taking its toll. I thought Ft. Jackson was bad. And it was, because most of July and August, it was above 100. But it was almost rarely over 110, like it is over here. And it’s only about to get hotter. I haven’t seen a cloud in the sky, and I probably never will. I heard it rained here once, in Feburary. They said it was ok, except with the wind and the sand, your clothes got muddy real quick. But that only happened twice.
The sandstorms are pretty bad. It happens everyday, whether you like it or not. They get into your ears, your teeth, and sometimes you just gotta use your fingernails, there is no choice. They block the view real bad sometimes. I always watched the news and heard about the accidents that happen. Helicopters crashed, trucks collided. I always thought they were the stupidest people in the world. How can you just crash into another truck in a convoy, in the middle of nowhere, in the sand? You could have swerved million different places and lived. But now that I’m here, I know. It’s hot, you got sand stuck in your throats, and you can barely open your eyes because of all the sand getting into every part of your body and the sun that never stops shining so brightly. Sometimes you can barely make out the person in front of you. Sometimes you can’t. And in vehicles and helicopters, I know it must be worse.
Showers are another 3-4 minute walk away. They basically have 4 shower rooms to support 10000 people, and each room or ‘tent’ has 10 cocoon like places where you enter, close the curtain, and barely have enough space to bring your elbow up. The water’s always hot, and it’s never sprouting enough for you to be satisfied. Then there’s the line to the showers. Sometimes there’s such a long line people just give up. Some people wake up in the middle of the night just to go and shower. What I don’t understand is, why do they have just as many tents for females when we outnumber them about 10 to 1 here? It’s getting congested, and something should be done. In a way I wish they didn’t have the curtains and the cocoons to enter. If they just had like 4 poles in the tents, then we could fit more people in there just to shower. But I suppose it’s because of all the high ranking people that reside here.
The restrooms are just as far away. They all smell like shit, and I try to hold in as long as I can before I go, just to make sure I won’t have to get up again and walk so far just to piss. And I think I’m getting better at holding my breadth for a short while. See when you go in, you breath in as much air as you can. And when you get in, you keep making your lung think that it’s getting air by pushing your chest in but not actually breathing air in or out. I’ve heard of bathrooms here but haven’t been to just yet. Kuwaitis apparently shit and shower in the same place. You shit into this hole in the middle of the floor, and in the same place you shower. And the hole is just big enough for your foot to fit in. Great…
We’re supposed to leave on December. And since 1st and 2nd’s been here since April even thoug the’ve been activated the same time we have, they leave in the beginning of November. It’s crazy. We will probably spend my birthday, Xmas, and maybe even New Year’s here, but seems like I’ll be back in time for school in the spring. Hopefully. But I would only give my kidney for that one chance to go to Baghdad, or to another Iraqi city. I want to see people’s faces, and know what it’s like to liberate a country. I want to see what it’s like to be shot at. It’s a strange thought, but I’ve wondered what it’s like. To see RPGs flying everywhere, to see tracers light up the sky, knowing that someone has probably died.