Kuwait

I can honestly say I liked this country much better when it was all on fire, at least the oil smoke blocked out the sun , it is too goddamn hot here. We were given the first 2 days here off to acclimatize and get our heads sorted out from the jet lag. It was a nice break for us and gave us some time to wander around the base a little more to find out what all was here. It gets light here around 0400 in the morning and it is not too hot around that time. It starts to get really hot around 1000 or so. And to be honest the heat is rough but would not be so bad if it were not for the evil winds of death. Usually between 1100 and 1600 the wind blows in from the desert usually around 30-40mph and it is like being in a blast furnace. You would think it would be nice to have a breeze or even some wind to cool you down but all it is is hot air blowing that is filled with sand. Seriously it is like having someone chase you down with a giant hair dryer and a sandblaster, absolutely miserable. I would like to now apologize to all the ants I have burned with a magnifying glass in my lifetime, Karma is a bitch. The chow halls here are absolutely insane, I see now how some people that deploy gain weight. There are 4 meals each day, breakfast, lunch , dinner, and midnight meal. The food is awesome which I am happy about. What pisses me off is that the chow halls here are also run by civilians and are 20x better than the ones back home. It annoys me because over here all the workers are Philipino, Indian and Pakistani and they do a much better job than the civilian American workers do in the states. My point being that it is a sad state of affairs when foreign nationals care more about their jobs and how they do them then Americans do back home in relation to feeding US troops.

The internet here absolutely sucks ass. It is all wireless and there are so many people trying to use it that it is almost impossible to log in. To top it off you have to pay for it which I think is a goddamn crime personally. I did get an awesome haircut here though, the guy shaved my head, massaged my scalp, powdered my scalp and gave me a 3 minute neck massage all for 6 bucks, pretty cool. The latrines here are all Port-a-Potties which is not too bad except when you use them in the afternoon then they are like shit saunas. Also when the wind is blowing in the afternoons you most defiantly do not want to be downwind of them. We also have shower trailers which are pretty nice considering we are in the middle of the desert. Basically they look like trailer homes and inside you have about 15 individual shower stalls and benches that run down the middle with sinks on one wall with mirrors. That is one thing I have come to miss is mirrors, sometimes it is just the small things.

Our first bit of training started on the 3rd day and consisted of a 3 day MRAP ( Mine Resistant Ambush Protection ) drivers training. I was really excited to be getting this training at first as we had been looking forward to it for some time. These are the vehicles that we are supposed to have once we get to Iraq. I say at first because very quickly during the class we all realized it was a big piece of crap. I call it the MCRAP. I am not going to go into too many details of it for OPSEC ( operational Security ) reasons. But I will say it is absolutely the most uncomfortable vehicle I have ever had the displeasure of riding in. I actually think that when I get back I may write every congressman I can get a hold of and let them know that some one pulled the wool over their eyes on this purchase ( a whopping $500,000.00 per vehicle ). For you folks back home paying taxes you should be pissed. The first day was all death by power point classes, the second day was supposed to be preventive maintained classes in the motor pool than some driving. The weather did not cooperate of course , the wind was extremely high and cut visibility down to next to nothing so instead we went back to the classroom for more classes then took the written test . So the third day consisted of all driving , 15 hours worth. We had 5 guys per truck and everyone had to have a turn driving through various obstacle courses and with different equipment. It was a grueling day sitting in the back of those things for so long. By late afternoon all the trucks were pretty much out of gas so we had to head back to base. Initially we were told that we were done but then they decided that we absolutely had to drive at night to get our certificates. I thought that they wanted us to drive with blackout lights ( special lights on all military vehicles for driving at night ) or night vision, but no, it was just so we could drive with headlights, absolutely retarded. Got back around 2100 got our certificates and promptly escaped back to the barracks before they could come up with anything else completely stupid.

On our 5th day here, Thursday the 6h we went to an IED class which was actually fairly informative. I hate to say it but you have to give it to the insurgents for creativity sometimes, that’s all I am going to say on that issue. Then Harbin and I had to go to the airfield to practice loading and unloading Blackhawk helicopters as flying in them is part of our job. We did that for a couple hours then headed off to afternoon chow. Around 1300 we had a really cool class on foreign weapons. How to take them apart and put them together and how to fire them. Did not have much else to do the rest of the day. Friday morning was really cool, we got to do a Blackhawk insertion on a mock up village. It was all very exciting although I must say that running with all that equipment in the desert sucks a lot more than doing it in Washington state, just saying. Saturday we had some more mandatory briefings and Sunday we had to do the MRAP rollover training, which did not seem to be too bad for most people in it but I was in the gunner position and it was not fun at all.

I actually had to look at my calendar to figure out what days we did what as I have no sense of time anymore, days of the week have no meaning at all these days. Everyone here is absolutely ready to get the hell out of Kuwait and get to Iraq. One of the main reasons we want to get there is we are all absolutely tired of living out of our bags. We have been living out of duffel bags and rucksacks for three long months so far.

Spent our last two days in Kuwait lounging around waiting for a flight out which was nice and relaxing but also a bit annoying as we all are absolutely ready to get the hell out of Kuwait. Our escape from Kuwait turned into a complete nightmare and that will be the subject of my next post.

One thing I would like to add. If you were ever in the mind to donate money to an organization let me suggest the USO. Those folks do an outstanding job supporting and helping us soldiers out.