Merry Christmas and Welcome To My Trailer

This is the first blog from my very own trailer in Baghdad Iraq. I got my internet connection up and running on Christmas eve for a few hours and it has been down ever since. As it turns out the Cat 5 cable I told you about in the last blog was an old one I didn't know was there. "How in that monumentally large trailer could you have missed such an object" you say. Well, I mentioned in an earlier blog that my room mate was leaving because of some back problems he was having. Well, he had just tucked it away behind a box he had. When he left it was just sitting there so I assumed it was new. It wasn't. So I stopped by the dudes room that's putting all this fancy stuff together. I said, "Hey dude", really I just asked him when I could expect the internet to be up and running. He told me it already was. I asked when I could expect a cable. You know the old adage be careful what you ask for. Well, he hands me a bulk roll of Cat 5 cable. I had really meant when could I expect the other end of this cable to be sticking through the wall in my trailer. Oh well. I stuck one end through the hole in his floor and started unwinding cable until I got to my trailer. Then, as if by an act of God, a guy comes out of nowhere and asks if I need the ends of the cable crimped. On the surface this may not sound odd but you have to consider the situation. The entire network of cable, and when I say network I mean completely unorganized strands of cable running across the desert floor from room to room, had been set up a few weeks before. Also, It's about 1:00 in the morning. But here is this guy with the special crimping tool and a pocket full of the little ends that go on the cable. Have I wowed you with my command of all these technical terms? So, I get the cable hooked up and a few hours later I'm up and running on the internet. We tried all night and into the next morning to get the web cam to work between me and my wife (who is at my parents right now) to no avail. I'm not really sure what's wrong, but that's a problem for a different blog. Anyway, that was the last time the internet worked in my room until now. For some reason it's been down since early Christmas morning. Contrary to early touting the connection is slow as molasses in January. But, it's still an internet connection in my room in the middle of the desert, in the middle of a war. I don't have much I can complain about. As far as wars go I'm pretty comfortable. I almost feel ashamed when I think of the guys from the World Wars or Vietnam or Korea. You guys had it much worse.

So, after that meaningless paragraph how would you like to hear about my Christmas. Christmas fell on a Saturday which is, on the schedule anyway, my day off. As it turned out it was my first day off since I've been here that was actually a day off. I got off at midnight Christmas eve and fiddled with the internet like I explained in the first paragraph. I ended up going to bed about 7:00 a.m. Christmas morning. I slept until about 3:30 p.m. and then woke up to go to the Haji shop to buy some phone cards for my cell phone. When I opened the door it was pouring rain. It doesn't rain that often in Iraq but when it does it's miserable. Picture that fine dusty black dirt that's really fine and gets into every crack and orifice of your body. Now put a couple of inches of water on top of that for as far as you can see and mix it up really good. Now drive really big trucks and tanks all over it. Then live in it. Oh well, I thought, it's Christmas and I wanted to buy some phone cards so I could talk to my family. I tried to buy them on Christmas eve but it was Friday, the Holy Day here. All the Haji shops were closed. Well, I walked to the entire other side of camp in the ankle deep mud to find the shop closed. No phone cards today. There are two ways I talk to my family. Usually at the phone center with a calling card because it's cheaper, or on the cell phone with a pre paid card. The phone centers are 16-19 cents per minute depending on what card you have, and the cell phones which are supposed to be 35 cents a minute are really 50 cents a minute. Truth and time are two thing in Iraq that don't really hold to the same standard we have in America. However, you don't have to walk far to use the cell phone, and you don't have to wait in line. I did have a couple of regular phone cards because a friend of our sent me $100.00 to buy phone cards for Christmas. I can't believe how much people are helping us out through this. Thanks for the phone cards.

It was about 4:30 now and I was near the tents where the PX is so I walked around in there for a while to get out of the rain and kill a little bit of time before chow. Chow was supposed to be at 5:00 so I showed up at 5:00 to find a huge line and a sign saying it would start at 5:30 Well, it actually said it would start at 1730 but we'll just say 5:30. So I stood in the freezing rain for 30 minutes. It would have taken that long to walk back to my room so I figured what the heck, I'd stick it out. The Army really went all out to make it feel like Christmas that day. There were white silk cloths on all the chairs with red sashes wrapped around them. They had a gingerbread village set up in the middle of the chow hall. There were probably 10 little buildings and they were each two or three feet tall and decorated with all kinds of cookies and candy. They had a jazz band made up of a group of soldiers playing Christmas Songs. And the lights were all off and they had candles everywhere. It was really nice. They had an old man with a white beard and a Santa suit set up with a nice chair and a backdrop so you could get your picture with Santa. The officers were serving the food and it was great. I had honey backed ham, stuffing, green beans, and something else I can't remember but I remember it was really good. It wasn't until this point that I started to feel sad. Up until then it was just another day in the desert. This whole thing has just been a matter of waking up and doing what I had to do and then going back to bed. But seeing all of this made me really miss my family tremendously. When I walked into the chow hall it was like I was really missing home. Everything was so nice and Christmasy but I couldn't stay there. I ate as fast as I could and got out of there. I had to fight back the tears the whole time I was eating. It came as a complete surprise. I wasn't sad going into the chow hall, but seeing all the Christmas stuff really did it for me. I think you go to a place mentally here where you can deal with all the stuff going on and that place has nothing to do with home or the things you're used to in your real life. I never really thought about it until those two realities collided. I just knew I needed to get out of there as quickly as possible. There's nothing more pitiful than a man wearing body armor carrying a loaded M-16 crying. I wanted to stay and listen to the band but I couldn't. So I made my way back through the mud to the phone center.

I ended up in the longest phone line I've ever been in. Usually they don't have anyone monitoring the phone center but it seems to run fairly quickly. On Christmas they had someone there that would let you talk for 30 minutes. (which I found out during my conversation). I never talk that long anyway. We usually talk for 15 to 20 minutes. So 30 minutes sounded like a long time. I also figured it would take forever because the line was so long. It ended up running faster than normal. I guess most people talk longer than 30 minutes on the regular non Christmas days. Anyway, I talked for 30 minutes and when they tapped me on the shoulder I got up and went out to the end of the line and waited to talk another 30 minutes. It was good to talk to everyone. My wife and kids are at my parents house for Christmas. My brother and sisters live in the same area so they could all get together. It sounded like they were having a good time. In real life I live where it doesn't snow, so my kids don't really get to see snow. Their Grandparents live where it does snow. It sounds like they're having a blast. They built snowmen and went and looked at Christmas lights. I'm sure the opened about a billion presents. You know how Grandparents are with Grandchildren. Some of my wife's friends surprised her a mailed a bunch of presents to my parents house for her. I know she was surprised on Christmas and I know it really meant a lot to her that they took the time and thought to do that.

So that brings me up until now. Not much going on with regular life here. We've all been a little more on edge since the attack in Mosul. Death is an ever present thing here in Iraq. I feel so terribly bad for all the families that get calls or a visit saying their son or daughter, or husband or wife has been killed. I hope you can find God's peace in all of this.

Anyway, that's what's going on here. Sorry for the negative tone of the last blog, I shouldn't have said some of the things I said. This place really gets to you sometimes and I should have waited a day before I posted that. I apologize. Everything always seems a lot better the next day.

Next blog I'll share the list of the twelve days of Christmas my wife and friends put together for me. Now that I can get on the internet I'll try to post more frequently. I've missed dong it, it gives me an outlet to release some stuff. Thanks for reading and feel free to pass the address on to anyone you'd like. I love to get comments (hint hint).