Six Months Completed

I'm going to start by apologizing for the months I skipped with no blog post. Next, I'm going to apologize because I didn't record any of what happened that might be of interest in the time in Iraq before I went on vacation, so I can only remember a few things. There really wasn't anything that interesting except for the rocket that landed nearby, but I'll get to that later.

In the week prior to leaving the base, I started going to the gym with Peter and/or Anjaz almost every day. It was real nice to actually be doing something active other than climbing T-walls (which can be fun). Working out at the gym consistently means that I might eventually be able to wear the form-fitting Under Armour shirt that I had bought out there. The shirt accentuated the size of my stomach and, unfortunately, I cannot hold my stomach in that long. ;) It's pretty obvious where I gained 15 lbs in that 6 months in Iraq. If you don't believe me, Adnan will vouch for the fact that I shouldn't wear that shirt just yet.

I've been so exhausted lately, it's been hard to recover memories that long ago (1-2 months ago), so I'll end this post here...


Oh, right, you are probably saying, "What about the rocket you mentioned?! What happened?!" The night before I left, I was just chillin' on my laptop in my room with a music channel playing on the TV when I thought I heard some alarm sound going off outside and a voice on the loudspeaker. I started thinking, "That's not the normal 'there will be a controlled detonation...' voice." As soon as I thought that, there was a loud explosion and my trailer shook. Now, this is something that is normal with a controlled detonation, except that this time wasn't a controlled detonation. I can usually tell the difference, but it definitely makes it easier when there's a voice on the loudspeaker urgently saying, "Incoming incoming incoming, take cover, take cover, incoming incoming!" which, upon immediately muting the TV, jumping up and going outside, I found out was what was being said over the loudspeaker. Apparently, the rocket landed in an office and blew a hole in the roof and one wall. Thankfully no one was there when it happened. I would make a guess that it was approximately 200-300 meters from our camp, or ~600-900 feet away. I could smell the smoke from the explosion.

Yes, there has been an increase in attacks from what I noticed in the past month, but I'm not worried. It's still not bad and the attackers still aren't very good at causing destruction.

Anyways, the next post will continue my adventure to this land called "America".