Iraq Continued

Well, the honeymoon is over. I am now fully immersed in work and up to my eyeballs in trying to figure everything out. It has been a week of ups and downs with some really good points and some fairly blah points, but let’s start from the first of the week.

Monday started out nicely with news that we were able to get to a couple of the other locations where we have Seabees. We (Senior Chief Dyer and myself) headed to the air terminal in hopes of good weather. We were only Space-A, but made it on the flight. We were flying in an Army Helicopter that was making the rounds of a bunch of locations, but ours was the first stop. It was a quick flight and uneventful, but still enjoyable. It is always nice to see things from the air and get a chance to see some of the countryside. It was really nice to see some of the young kids waving to us as we flew over them

There was some great work being done out there. The troops are motivated, showing some great initiative, and really making a name for Seabees. We have both Active and Reserve guys, but you would not know the difference by looking at them. They are fully integrated and teaching each other their strengths. It is very impressive to see them work side by side towards the same mission. We stayed there one night and then it off to another location the next morning. It was another helo ride and some more nice desert views. At my next location, I was able to see some really neat things. We had lunch in one of Sadaam’s old palaces and even saw the palace he was building as a celebration to beating us in Desert Storm. Needless to say it was still “Under Construction”. The highlight of the week was going to dinner with some Turkish contractors. It was such a neat experience to meet some of the people that are working in Iraq and hear what they had to say. The food was wonderful and the conversation even better.

Things were not nearly as good back at “home”. We had someone do something stupid that could have cost people their lives. People just don’t think some times. It was probably funning at the time, but really could have endangered lives. Then to make it worse, I get a nice stomach infection that made the rest of the week pretty miserable. I lost my appetite (even for the nice bland food that we have) and felt achy all over. It finally passed after two days and things are on the upswing.

Well I am checking out some other sites this week so it should be another good week. Also my boss is heading out of town so I should have some more time to get things in line. Still feeling overwhelmed, but doing the best that I can.