Holy Smokes! Wait not smoke, DUST! RUN!

Dear Reader,

There is so much to write about this time but so little time to write it! I have to be in the gym in eight minutes or else! You see there was this dust storm, and it was ridiculous. I wore huge goggles and covered my nose with my shirt whenever I ventured out into the mayhem.

Here are a few lessons I learned about how to react when you are in a dust storm:

10. Make sure you have clean filters on your AC.
9. Do not do your laundry during a dust storm.
8. Do not get diarhea and run out to a portal potty that has been baking all day in the 120 degree f. dust storm and spend 20 minutes working up a sweat in there and thinking you couldn't be more miserable to open the door and receive a massive GUST of DUST to the FACE!
7. Keep an air duster on your desk for your computer.
6. Don't leave your opened yoghurt in direct fire of the AC vent.
5. Do not take your camera outside to take pictures of the dust storm.
4. Tragically, it's time to shave off your dustache. Don't worry it'll be back soon!
3. Do not panic, (or get too excited), when you see the bright orange sky because it's not a dream that you're on mars, it's just a dust storm.
2. Just because your eyes hurt and you can only see three feet in front of you still keep them open in order to avoid obstacles lying on the ground covered in dust.
1. If your bathroom is in another building, do not take a shower during a dust storm.
I hope this helps for next time a dust storm comes your way.

(Photo of a compound very similar looking to mine with a similar looking dust storm rolling in not taken by me-- my dust storm had more orange)

Now for the long awaited Bradley Beer Tracker:
This is even a bit old, I probably owe them over 100 by now.

Iraq

Dear Reader,

Last night was Iraqi BBQ night!!! It was a blast! The Iraqis who live in our compound made us all sorts of delicious Iraqi dishes to try. I ate soooo much that I felt like I was going to explode. Then when I did squats later in the evening, I felt as if I would squat the Iraqi food right out of me! We had some tasty flat bread, chicken, beef, and goat. There was a variety of vegetable dishes too, and rice with a yummy vegetable sauce. After we had eaten our fill x2, they served us some delicious tea that was so sweet it went down like syrup. My favorite was the orange drink which was served in a can but had real orange pieces in it. It was DELISH.

(Photo of goat by Iraqi election poster not taken by me)

One of the Iraqis had a football (soccer) jersey on and I decided that I'm going to try to get an Iraqi National team jersey. Let me know if you want one and I'll see what kind of deal I can swing.

Things are getting exciting here. I was finally able to finagle a pistol and a sweet old worn brown leather holster to carry it in. My mustache is finally beginning to fill in and people no longer ask me if I'm trying to grow one because they can now see without a doubt that it is there. The combination of my sweet holster, pistol, mustache, and my uniform being without rank and patches, makes me feel like I really know my way around in the Army. I think I can fool people that I'm not a 2LT now, except when I do something naive and stupid. Next post I'll put up the "bradley beer tracker." It's an excel sheet that tracks how many beers I owe the captains for making rookie mistakes.

peace out

Arrived at last!

Dear Reader,

I finally made it to my new home! I had a nice flight from Ft. Campbell, to somewhere in Germany, to Kuwait. I wasn't supposed to stop at Kuwait but we ended up there anyway and got stranded there for a few days due to dust storms. It wasn't bad; I got lots of sleep and ate some McDonalds. The best part about Kuwait was that in the middle of nowhere in the dusty desert there was a Hip Hop Urban Clothing Shop. Unfortunately I didn't make it inside since I would only dare to leave my air conditioned tent at night after it had closed. I like to leave at least one cool thing incomplete when I leave a new place so that I'll have a good reason to come back. So, hiphop urban shop is the stop for next time I drop by kuwait, yo.

My new place is cool except for there are civillians living in my CHU! (Combat Housing Unit, aka Crappy House for Us; it's a little trailer unit with AC). Here's kind of how it went:
I get my key and go to my CHU, open the door and:
Me (upon noticing that the CHU is already inhabited): Hello?
Civillian: Who are you?
(we exchange introductions)
Me: This is the CHU they assigned me to
Civillian: Weall, that's weard cause we'ave been here for... well since... well forever!
Me: woh! so I guess you're pretty much settled in then.
Civillian: yeah, you can have that bunk there (points to crappy cot-like bunk in cramped little corner). But we're pretty cool here. See that microwave? That's mine, I bought it. But you can use it I guess.

So that's my cool generous neighbor in a nutshell. They actually aren't too bad, but I'm not sure how I'm going to get my locker or mini-table from them since they've used them to create little forts for themselves inside the open CHU.

Ok, post is long I have one last thing... Address!!!
Please write and send gifts to:

John Bradley
LSA 100, COB SPEICHER
APOAE 09393

Also, send me your address and I'll mail YOU!!!

Peace out.

Please Enjoy The Desert

Dear Reader,

I followed my friend Abby's lead to start up a blog. Blogs require 2 things: care, and insight. If I lack any of these two ingredients please inform me and I will terminate the blog immediately. I will preemptively confess that I may lack care at some points in my blogging career but that's just because I don't know my time constraints yet so give me a chance before I have to terminate. Thanks.

I named this blog 'Please Enjoy the Desert' because I am like a Bedouin (for now). That is, I live in a tent in the desert and I eat kiwis for dessert after almost every meal. I'm growing a mustache, which I've had to lobby for, and I decided I'm going to try to avoid pork (but I ate some today). It's fun for novelty's sake but other than that it is probably the least ideal place to live. In the world. It averages 120 degrees F daily and you can't even enjoy the sun because it is covered by dust-- that covers everything. I will try to have a photo of the dust posted, but I am not allowed to take one from here so you may have to wait for the dust photo. My blog is getting long already so I will write about more interesting things later. I just wanted to talk about the title for a little bit; I think it's clever.