I love the smell of mortar fire in the morning...

So I was sleeping this morning when out of no where, at about 4:30 in the morning, I was awoken to a loud “BOOM.” I bolted straight up and looked around… the blast couldn’t have been more than ¾ of a mile away... about 3 seconds later, I heard a “BOOM BOOMBOOM!” 3 more blasts, each louder than the last. My heart was pounding out of my chest… when I managed to get my wits about me, I remembered the Email that I had received the night prior. The Email was talking about controlled detonations that the base would be doing at random times on various days throughout the week. The reason that they were doing these detonations is considered sensative information and cant be discussed here... :(


Anyways, my room mate looked absolutely terrified. With the look on his face, my knowledge of what was actually going on, and –this is where it gets good- the fact that I knew that Frazee (my room mate) had left early and had most likely not read the email… afforded me the opportunity to play a little Practical joke. Lol.

So I look over to Frazee after the last blast and yelled, “Were taking fire! Get ur Shit on! Gear! Gun! Go!” haha he was out of bed in .5 seconds and had his IBA (Individual body armor (I think)) and his Kevlar helmet along with his M-16 at port arms and was out the door all in the matter of about 20 seconds. It was hilarious. The funniest part was that he was all geared out.. but he was wearing Pajama bottoms and a PT shirt underneath his armor. It looked ridiculous.

So I let him stand outside for about 2 mins then I got up and told him what was really going on and we both just lost it. I told him how hilarious he looked and I took a picture (which I will upload later) and then he proceeded to Judo chop me in the neck and then went back to bed ‘till he had to get up. That’s how my morning went. Absolutely freaking hilarious.

Josh

Day 22

Well it’s now day 22 in Iraq. I’ve really been meaning to start this sooner than later but as it is right now, I work from 6 am to about 9 pm every day… that’s Monday to Monday ha-ha. I’ve been working since… well… since I got off the plane. Oh well its not that I have much else to do. My trailer is nice and the food at the DFAC (Dining Facility, Army Contracted affectionately referred to as the Chow hall) is pretty good. I’ve got a running theory that the meals are on a two week rotation lol. I’ll confirm this one in a few months. But yeah they have a nice selection of food, its pretty sweet. We had a huge meal for Thanksgiving last week which eased the pain of not being with loved ones. ‘Meh’, I’ve gotten used to being separated from the ones that I love, so I imagine that it’s not as hard on me as it is for others.

So I was playing around with excel this morning and I made a running counter program… I punched in when I got here and when I’m leaving and here are the stats:

As of 2:12:57 PM, 3 December 2006, I’ve been here:

3.1 Weeks
22 Days
518 hours
31,093 Minutes
1,865,577 Seconds
And I’m 5.9% complete with my trip here
I will give up a total of 4.13% of my life here in Iraq in service of this “glorious” ( lol) war.

Not bad id say.. its seems to have gone by really fast but the worst part about my calculator is the next section that I added lol, that’s the “how much time I have left” part heres what I came up with:

As of 2:12:57 PM, 3 December 2006, I’ve got this much time left:

11 Months
49.1 Weeks
343 Days
8,214 hours
494,507 Minutes
29,670,423 Seconds
And I’ve got 94.1% of my trip left haha

Kinda depressing if ya look at it from that perspective. Oh wells… my boss just got on my ass cause I spent more than 5 mins away from my work computer… I gotta run… ttyl yall

Josh

P.S. I love ya Lenell :P