Happy Labor Day / Big Mistake

Dear Reader,

Happy labor day. NOT! Haha, there's no Labor Day in Iraq. It was another 12-hour work day. Though, I suppose in a way it was still a celebrated holiday here, ableit unconventionally. In fact, it was probably one of my favorite days here so far. First, I woke up at 0630 to run, but I ended up going back to sleep until around 0930. When I got up and went outside to go to the shower CHU, I noticed it was not as hot as usual and although it was still blindingly bright, I also noticed a slightly dimmer tint. There were clouds! Yes, I saw my first clouds in Iraq today; it took two months. They were nice light wispy clouds as shown above. Second, I went to lunch and passed by a normal crappy looking lunch line with normal crappy cafeteria dry meat and stewy veggies. I didn't think much of it until suddenly I stumbled upon a carver! He was carving out massive slices of prime rib! It was not only the biggest prime rib I've ever eaten, but also the most delicious. I was very impressed. There was also a cake which said 'Happy Labor Day' and patriotic streamers strewn all over the ceiling. I think if I had seen the cake before the prime rib I would have been pissed, but since I saw it after the prime rib I thought it was a very happy labor day afterall!

The big mistake.

I posted the wrong address below and on facebook! I realized this after a facebook chat with a friend who was wondering why it was taking so long for a letter to arrive. I put that address up too early before I got my final address and never updated it! Agh, the blunder! the anguish! No worries though, I've still been getting some mail from Mom, the Army, and a few online orders. I'd love to get your letters and I'm sorry for the trouble. I know it takes me like a week to write a good letter and the thought of it never arriving makes such effort seem pointless. I updated the address below and the address on facebook. I'll put the correct address here again for good measure.

John Bradley
LSA 100, COB SPEICHER
APOAE 09393

Anyway, I hope you all had a terrific labor day, even if you didn't get prime rib.

Sincerely,

Veteran

Dear Reader,

So as of Saturday, I am officially a Veteran. This isn't exactly what I had in mind when as a small child I thought of one day being a veteran. I guess you normally wouldn't think of an Army war veteran as somebody who spends their day working at a computer and heading out to meetings. The only enemy fire I ever take is someone drilling me about my powerpoint slides-- and even that could be far worse in the safest US workplace. I suppose some people are relieved by this, but I have to confess I'm fairly dissappointed. It just seems that I could be doing the exact same thing I do here back home. Still, there is something cool about being deployed and I am still proud to be a veteran. It's good to know that although I'm not patrolling the streets of Baghdad, I'm still contributing my time and effort, albeit on powerpoint, word, and excel. Now I have a cool new medal to wear on my dress uniform and I can wear a combat patch beneath my right shoulder.

Floss and Foxes

Dear Reader,

It is very boring in the desert. It's so boring that everything else is interesting. I think it's so boring that its boringness itself even is sort of interesting. Here are some small things that have made life a little more interesting. After all, it's all a matter of perspective, so here's a shot:

Here's for my sister, I woke up early in the morning to go to the bathroom. On the way back, some desert foxes came out and were playing as I walked by. They hardly noticed me until I was right near them. I've also seen small lizards, birds, and bats. That's about all the wildlife out here, except for maybe some kind of scrubby bush once in a while. Rumor has it there's a tree somewhere on this base.

I got free floss in Kuwait and made it a habit to floss every night. Some of you may know that I've never been a good flosser. Well, one thing this place has done for me is get me into the habit of a nightly floss before brushing (always floss before brushing). However, worst part of the week was when I ran out of floss! Fortunately, I found another free floss box in a goodie package; it was the last one. Anyway, I'm pretty proud of my new accomplishment, and my new supply.

Another sad thing happened this last week; they kicked me off my desk! I now kind of float around from desk to desk, but at least I have my stapler... Supposedly we're building a new 'workstation' for me so I can run some kind of program. Supposedly some guy will come and act like a private tutor for this program. More on that to follow.

Updates: Mail's back up, please contine sending letters. Someone stole our portal potties (btw, 'portal' is the correct term because it explains their transforming abilities and how they temporarily take you to another world, like mini rocket ships). We're out of Gatorade nutrition shakes until Friday.

That's all for now.

New interest and theory.

Dear Reader,

I apologize for the suspense as I missed last week's post by an entire week and I am proving to neglect one of the fundamental ingredients for a blog that I mentioned in my first post. However, nobody has complained so I will continue to blog.

First an update: I don't live with the crabby civillians anymore, now I live with a crabby Aviaton captain. All of us who know Aviation captains know that they're crabby, especially my brother knows. Haha, just kidding I hope she won't kill me she's one of the nicest people in the world! Anyway, he's not a bad roommate and we have a lot of space with just the two of us and he doesn't mind my bike staying inside the CHU (hehe sorry inside joke).

Next updates: I called my mom yesterday and it was great. She's a wonderful person full of motherly wisdom and care. Family really is a special unit, even more special than special forces.

The supply guy brought Gatorade Nutrition shakes in vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate.

Mail is down until further notice so if you sent me something I don't know when I'll get it and if I sent you something it might take longer.

I'm listening to Alison Krauss. I normally don't but right now her music is so soothing I just have to keep listening.

I got blamed for blowing up the coffee maker, then I proved that I didn't, but then I got blamed for blowing up the new one and blowing a fuse. I've given up preparing coffee for those ungrateful SOBs.

I got my two new interpreters last week and they are great fun to hang out with. They're both grumpy old guys. One of them is like 70+ yrs old or something but he's always talking about getting out there where the action is and how he would push his special forces team guys because they were too weak to keep up with him. He has so many cool war stories and he speaks so many languages I've been losing sleep just to listen to him.

That's all the updates I have for now.

(Photo of Younes Mahmoud Iraqi soccer team captain after winning Asia cup in 2007 not taken by me)

Iraqi soccer is my latest and greatest interest. Though never having played it, I've always been a big fan of soccer. After my European study saga in 2007 and getting to experience some great teams play, their passionate fans' fanatic antics, and being immersed in the Real Madrid vs FC Barcelona rivalry in Spain, I learned how incredibly divisive or unifying a football team can be. No matter your religion, race, class, gender, or age, you all unite in the little Cerveceria (local pub) to support your team. On the other hand, woe be he who walks into the Cerveceria wearing the enemy's jersey. That's what's so great about National teams. Though living in one of the most torn countries on the planet right now, optimistic Americans believe Iraqis have a lot to celebrate: Successful elections, US withdrawal from major cities, greater trust and reliance on Iraq's own security forces. Despite any legislative, political, military or even social justice gains that may or may not have occurred within the country, I think this was by far the single most glorious day in Iraq since the US arrived and has done more to unify the country than all of our combined military and economic efforts: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/world/middleeast/30iraq.html.
The second single most glorious day was just a month ago on 10 July when the Iraqi team was allowed to play at home: http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/developing/news/newsid=1088925.html#erbil+enjoys+homecoming
I'm proud of our efforts to bring stability and security to Iraq. I track our successes and setbacks every day and I sincerely believe that we are making a positive difference. However nothing gets me more excited about Iraq than hearing updates about the Iraqi soccer team.
On a much more depressing note, the guy at the clothing shop in our little Iraqi Bazaar is all out of Iraqi national soccer jerseys and he doesn't know when he'll get any more. I'm going to keep asking him every time I see him.

Thanks for reading, I hope you're well.

Peace out.

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.