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I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but there's a tribute page for Josh located here if you'd care to leave him a message of support, encouragement, or humor:
http://www.projo.com/cgi-bin/extra/terror/tribute/view.cgi?id=3938
Josh called me over the weekend. He said that he volunteered last week to help a unit pass out stuff to kids in a school. He said it was chaotic but fun. They gave out shoes, clothes, and soccer balls to the kids who ranged in age from 2 to 12 years old. The kids LOVED getting soccer balls. Josh described one girl who took FOREVER to decide which pair of shoes she wanted and tried on a bunch of them. Josh thought it was funny considering all the other kids were just taking anything they could get their hands on - whether it fit them or not.
Josh won't have much time to do stuff like that later, but was glad he had a chance to visit the kids at the school. He'll have to spend more time in his office once the rest of his unit arrives in a few weeks. Although it makes me nervous, I'm glad he's been able to get out and experience a variety of things before he gets too busy. The usual frustrations aside (i.e. missing home, etc.), Josh seems to be in relatively high spirits and good health. If you have messages for him, feel free to let me know and I will be sure to pass them on.
So far, Josh has been able to contact me regularly via email from Iraq. All seems to be going well, relatively speaking. He ate at an italian restaurant on base this weekend and was even able to call me! He managed to send me some photos the other day and I wanted to share them:
Josh in Kuwait, standing next to a sign placed there by his former unit (he used to serve with the 1st Cav Division a few years ago - I've blurred the background for security reasons):
Josh on the C-130 (large plane that took him to Iraq):
(Note that most future photos I get from Josh may be blurred or rendered to make them safe to share with friends and family.)
I almost forgot! Josh sent this message from the polar bear, Stone Cold:
The temperature here is quite bearable for the humans - it is February, after all. I am still having trouble, though. If you thought it was amazing that a male polar bear could eat 160lbs of food in a single meal, you should see how much water we drink when you put us in the desert! All of the soldiers usually carry around a 1.5 liter water bottle and when they go outside the base they have a 3-liter "Camel-bak" that we drink from. I think I may have to start pulling around one of these 500-gallon "water buffalo" trailers.
I enjoyed the flight in to Iraq. I'm grateful that CPT Simer was able to convince the loadmaster on the C-130 that I didn't need to be strapped down to a pallet. What was most fun is that we were blacked out for most of the flight. Some of the soldiers on board got a little dizzy because of this, and because the C-130 made a few hard turns that you would never see a commercial jetliner do. But I enjoyed it.
That's all for now. Oh - someone please write to my division back home and tell them not to issue the other bears any additional cold weather gear. I will never need to wear that polar fleece, and when I tried to eat it, it tasted terrible!
(In case you are wondering about this polar bear, you can find out more about him here: Almost ready to go)
Josh is in Iraq now. He caught a ride on a C-130. He can't tell me which base yet, but says it's a quieter part of Iraq. He's living in a trailer and will have a roommate once the rest of the Brigade arrives at the end of this month or early next month. Luckily, he thinks his roommate will be one of his friends - a fellow officer from his unit. All in all, Josh sounds optimistic and as you can probably tell, he hasn't lost his sense of humor. He has granted me permission to share this information from his email today. Enjoy:
Everyone from the brigade we're replacing has been very friendly - they're all quite happy to see me, for some reason.
We flew in by C-130 from Ali Al-Salem airbase in Kuwait. When I was last here, in 2000, Ali Al-Salem was a Kuwaiti air force base with a large US presence. Now the US presence overwhelms the Kuwaitis. Ali Al-Salem is an absolutely dismal place as air force bases go, which means it's still a hell of a lot better than most Army bases. There's also a lot of different units, forces, and countries represented there. At one point we passed by an Australian supply depot. They had stuff on shelves inside tents, and a bunch of stuff stacked on pallets outside. I couldn't tell what was in the boxes, but I joked that it was all Vegemite. After all, they have several hundred soldiers in Iraq - they must go through a lot of Vegemite. "Aw, crickey! An IED!" I can just see Steve Irwin picking up an IED and saying, "Isn't she GORGEOUS! Look at 'er! Don't worry, little girl. I'm not here t o hurt you - whoa!" and then the IED explodes, miraculously leaving him unharmed except for scratches and soot all over. "Whew! You really have to be careful with those things, I tell you!"
Cut to Terri Irwin... "While Steve is out there picking up IEDs, I stay here on the FOB and organize the supplies. Hey, guys! Put that back! Ramadi only gets FIVE cases of Vegemite!"
During my brief time in Kuwait, I went to a couple of different camps and got to see a wide range of units: a MEU, an armored brigade, various USAF units, and even a Navy construction battalion ("Seabees") that was way too far inland. I watched some Seabees prepare a new trailer park at one camp. They were setting out concrete blocks for the trailers to rest on. One day, they surveyed the site, and staked it off. Two days later, one of the four sides had string running between the stakes. (it was about 60 meters on a side). The next day, another of the four sides had string. On day five, they laid one row of about 20 cinderblocks. The next day, another row. All told, they probably put in 20 minutes of work a day on this. Now, I'm going to assume that this was not their main effort and that they probably just had a small crew working on it in what little time they had to spare from more important tasks. This is becaus e I know the Seabees have not fallen that far from their glory days in WW2 when they could turn jungle into a fully operational airbase in a matter of days. Of course, they were only making Marine airstrips. If they had been constructing air force bases, they would have spent the first week just digging the pool and arranging the beach chairs, then another week building and furnishing the dining facility, another week on the BX, and then might have gotten started on the runways after a month or so.
By the way, it's a lot easier to make an airstrip or a road in the desert than in the jungle, especially if you can get by with a dirt road or airstrip. Matter of fact, in a lot of places in Kuwait, the only difference between the road and the desert on either side is that there are no potholes in the desert. So why don't you just leave the road and drive the desert? Because it's so easy to get lost once you get off the road - you can't navigate when the only recognizable terrain features move every time there's a strong wind!
I got two VERY short emails this week confirming that Josh has indeed arrived in Kuwait (or wherever it is exactly he's supposed to be in the Middle East this week). He should be going to Iraq sometime this month, but I have no idea when.
No phone calls yet, but I suspect that once Josh gets to his base in Iraq, he might be able to call me. We shall see!