Well,

We are having the 101 division band play here at the hospital tomorrow night. We are doing it outside on a flatbed truck with a BBQ! I'll try to post pictures.

It was a little warmer than usual today. It was so hot that I was all sweaty from walking to dinner. For dinner I had ham, rice, carrots, and jell-o with oranges in it! Yummy!

For lunch I had a steak sandwich with Swiss cheese, tomato, lettuce, and ranch dressing!

I wish there was more to say, but it is mostly ground hog day here every day! I can’t wait to go to Busch Gardens when I am home, and to go eat Pizza somewhere! I really miss Pizza! Good Pizza, with Pepsi. Pizza always goes good with Pepsi at a pizza restaurant.

Sorry it has been awhile since my last posting, but I have been busy doing many things. First, I had a Danish TV reporter embedded with us for about a week. His focus of his story was the low mortality rates that we have here. During his stay, I was able to get him and I on a patrol to a small town called Hammān al ‘Alil. It is the supposed home of Ali Babba. How true is this, I am not sure. However, all the children there were proud of the myth!

Our trip involved a Stryker convoy that was fun, excited and HOT! The temperatures here are averaging around the 100 degree mark daily now. Once we got into town, we hooked up with the Iraqi Army that had secured the clinic the night before. We brought all sorts of supplies to hold a walkin clinic day there. We saw a variety of ailments from normal sniffles to birth defects and war injuries.

It was so nice to see children running around, playing and making jokes. At the hospital where I work, I only see children that are victims of the war here. Out in the countryside, I see children doing what children do best. It was a welcome relief for me. I am convinced that every Iraqi boy can say in good English: “Please sir, football.” Every boy wants a soccer ball.

Rural Iraq is completely different than the cities. They are poor, but not living in slums that you would see in the cities. There is also a lot of inbreeding. Iraqi society is mostly tribal, and people marry in their tribes. You end up with people marring their cousins and such. This results in high number of birth defects. Some might argue with this, but this is my observation of one trip to one village.

Here is a photo of me winning the hearts and minds of some young boys convinced that I have some soccer balls!

Now I sit here...

Well,
It's a nice Subday evening. I just had my T-bone steak, potatoes, mushrooms and gatorade dinner, and now I am enjoying a Blondie cigar under some Camo netting. I took half the day off today to relax, and charge the batteries (to quote wedding crashers, which has become my new anthem on life).

A good friend here had to leave early to PCS for a school, and he relinquished Command to another officer. Let's just say there is a lot of growing pains in the forecast for that new Commander and Company.

My garden is growing well. The pumpkin and watermellon plants are growing really well. I stared a bunch of peppers today. They should sprout here in the next three days.

Toby, I have a soldier here who knows Floyd songs better than you or I. She gave me a copy of the Wall since my CD is back at Lee.

It is official, I am on the down hill side of this deployment. I am so excited. My leave splits up this half too, which means after leave, it is only a short little sprint to the finish.

I want to say congrats to my cousin on their upcoming addition to their family. I want to say hi to Luke, and tell him that we need to go surfing again. I also want to thank Laura for sending me the JC Ehitney catalog that started me spending all that hard earned deployment money on the Jeep. Smooches!

That's it for now.

I'm hurt!

I'm not whining or anything, but I hurt my hand playing vollyball. I slammed my left thumb into something. At first they put a cast on my hand, but I couldn't do much work. Now I have a splint on it and it will be on for about 6-8 weeks. Sucks.