Christmas photos

So here are a bunch of photos from Christmas dinner. The next post is all photos too. They had some really interesting decorations...for starters I think this is meant to be a snowman in a makeshift snow globe. Your thoughts?


The tree. I decided that the presents under the tree are for decorative purposes only. They are still there and it is almost the new year.


Pastries!! I love food.


The "wine" station. Sparkling grape juice.


The Christmas penguin. It isn't Christmas without him.

I think this is suppose to be Rudolf because he is standing off to the side, but it is confusing because he doesn't have a red nose and he should be leading the way.

Santa and his reindeer.



Decorative cakes were all the rage this Christmas season.

Christmas photos cont.

These are more Christmas photos taken in the dinning hall. I had to split it into two posts because they would not all fit into one post.

The 155 Brigade Combat Team (BCT) patch in cake form. We had to work with these guys a lot, but not anymore. Their LNO keeps me entertained on the night shift. Mainly because he hates his life more than most people, and LT Duvall and I find great humor in that. But not in a bad way...in a good way...if that makes sense.


The 90th patch in cake form. Oh, and no we did not get to eat these cakes. They were for decorative purposes only.


The 13th ESC patch in cake form. We fall under these people...not a big fan of them



Watermelon face. Kind of reminds me of a Native American.



Santa!


A deer? Maybe a longhorn?



Sweet dragon. I wish I had this talent. I feel like it would be very useful.


Go U.S.A.


And God said "let their be light." Okay, maybe that isn't what this says, but close enough.



Watermelon stand. They really like their watermelon over here. They still serve it to eat and it doesn't taste like anything at this point. Just water.


Fairy princess Christmas theme.



Really creepy moving Santa. His arms waved, but they only moved at the elbows...it was weird.

This is rice. Not astro turf. So if you step on it it is very very slick and you might fall on your face. Like my one friend almost did.



Decorative stuff.


Butter sculptures.


This is decorated with frosting.


The family! I will go clockwise starting with me. Me, SFC McAllen, CH Hedlund, MAJ Herrick, PFC Hyun (way in the back) then other side of the table coming back SPC Rogers, SPC Newton, SPC Ruscin (battle buddy!), and CPT Simpson.

More rice stuff.

The nativity scene.


Cara and I being awesome.

Christmas time

Today is the big day. Christmas. Woot. I know that a lot of people feel bad for me cause I am stuck over here and not with family and friends back home...but today just feels like another day. If it wasn't for the ridiculous amount of decorations in the dinning halls and all the AFN commercials wishing me a happy holidays and thanking me for my service I wouldn't know that today was any different than say yesterday or the first day we got here. Well it has cooled off considerably and I did have yesterday off which was nice. So I guess today is a little different.

Honestly I don't feel all down and sad that I am over here for Christmas. I have never been a big fan of the holiday (thanks Dad a.k.a. Scrooge) for reasons I will not get into, so I don't mind being here. Thanksgiving was way more of a beat down than Christmas. Last Christmas I spent in Plano eating dinner with my brother and his best friend Neil and his family. It proved to be a fun evening, but the following week was a heck of a lot more fun.

I went to a friends lake house for four days with some of my closest friends and had the time of my life. I would give my right arm to go back to that lake house right now with those people, and eat ourselves into a food comma and attempt to play Wii while intoxicated. For the record I still remain unbeaten in Wii tennis. Apparently real tennis carries over to Wii tennis...who would have thought that 8 years of tennis lessons would still be helpful four years later.

This morning I made my friends take a "family" picture, and I felt like my mom when she attempts to get my brother, dad, and me in one place for a family photo. The picture would have been awesome except Cara had her eyes closed. So close. Hopefully one of my friends has a better picture.

All in all today was okay. Nothing to complain about (other than not being able to go to the gym), and I have to work tonight which means I get to read and watch more Scrubs.

I hope everyone back home is having a safe and fun Christmas. I know that a lot of my friends and family are experiencing a white Christmas, so have fun with that and get into an awesome snow ball fight for me.

Vehicles

So my friend Sam has a mom that works and at a before and after school care place and her class has adopted me and been sending me amazing care packages since I got here. The latest one was a Christmas package and a bunch of the cards had 5 things they would like to see if they came to Iraq. A lot of the kids put they would like to see a tank, gun, plane, or something of that nature. So I thought I would post on here what the vehicles look like that soldiers drive around in. I am not proficient on what all the different types are meant for and the specifics of each one. All I know is they look cool and they have saved 100's of lives because of the protection they provide troops. Also, they Army doesn't use tanks like they used to because they aren't practical. So on a convoy you don't see tanks escorting the cargo, you see these bad boys.












Here is my M16. No it does not have a name, and no I will not name it. And yes that is duct tape holding on my ammo pouch. I had the option of spending 15 dollars on an ammo pouch attachment or using SFC McAllen's free duct tape. The decision wasn't that hard.

Tornadoes

I made the comment on my facebook profile status:

What do tornadoes and mortars have in common? When you see or hear one you want to go outside and look instead of take cover.

I guess I should explain why I said this. Sometime last week we were hit by a serious mortar attack. Six of them in one morning and two of them actually went off. Usually they hit and don't explode, but apparently this day the bad guys found some that still worked.

Well two of them hit really close to my CHU and I ran outside to see what was going on. Okay the story goes like this. SFC McAllen had just dropped me off at my CHU after work and we were standing around talking and we hear this really loud explosion and at the same time say "what the heck was that?" (I am trying to keep it PG). And then 5 seconds later the CRAM (a big anit-missile thing that doesn't always work...like in this instance) goes off and we decide that we want to go see what the heck just happened. Oh, and there was no siren to fore warn us of this incoming fire.

We run outside and at about this time we hear the CRAM go off again and then 5 seconds later hear another loud explosion and this time we see smoke from the explosion. It was probably 200 yards away maybe more. At this time we both realize what we have done...running outside instead of taking cover. We look around and notice that numerous other people are doing the same thing. It doesn't make it safe or smart, but it means that curiosity is dangerous. That is why it killed the cat.

There were four more attacks before noon. Two were shot down and two more landed somewhere and didn't go off. I slept through it all.

Another day...

Another day and nothing much has changed. I still go to work everyday except Wednesdays and I still do not do a whole heck of a lot at work. I have a generally boring job, but I am getting paid and I like the people I work with. Which means I am better off than a lot of people.

This week I have finished reading the Godfather and then watching the first movie. The movie did a very good job in staying true to the book. Everything that happens in the movie happens in the book, but just in a different order. I have not watched the Godfather II or III, so I will let you know if the movies start to get carried away and doing things differently. The book was great though, and if you get the chance you should read it.

I have watched more of The Office with Cara and we are almost done with season 3. We took a brief intermission to watch Four Christmases, and that was a fantastic movie. My co-worker LT Duvall bought me seasons 1 thru 8 of Scrubs from the Iraqi mart here and so I now have that to look forward to at work. I love that show.

We have played a couple football games since I last updated this blog and we won them all. We are on a three game win streak, and one of those wins includes a huge upset over the number one team in the league that was undefeated. The Cowboys got their inspiration from us. It's been a lot of fun playing QB, but I do miss playing defense. No one has gotten injured either (Cara has somewhat stayed on her feet in all of our games). We play the DC Divas (the team we may or may not have started a fight against) again in about a week and a half....I have no idea why they are letting us play again. I would cancel the game if I was running the league, but I guess someone wants to see some action.

I have faith that we won't start anymore fights though. We have learned our lesson, and were able to beat the undefeated team because we didn't let them get inside our heads with all their smack talk and illegal contact.

Only two more shopping days until Christmas. I need to get to the store. Just kidding. No Christmas presents from me this year. Sorry if anyone was expecting something from me. Apparently it takes about a month to get a letter from Iraq, so I can only imagine how long a package would take. I plan on getting my group of friends together and taking some sort of Christmas picture over here and I will of course post it.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and stays safe. Eat an extra slice of pumpkin pie for me, because the pie over here...not so good.

Coffee

Today has been a weird day for me in that I am more miserable than usual. I can usually keep my spirits pretty high, but today I just want to sulk in my own misery. I don't know why I feel this way, maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I cannot put my finger on what it is that is making today suck...but I have two ideas and they are:

1.) I am not a morning person
2.) I get annoyed with stupid questions and/or comments

It takes me a good hour before I like to interact with others, and that has caused some problems for me in the sense that I have to interact with people almost immediately after waking up and I think this contributes to my unpleasant mood. Side note: Cara does not annoy me when I wake up... she leaves me alone when I wake up (she has picked up on my "non-morning person" personality).

I work the night shift, so when I wake up at 1800 everyone is ready to go to "dinner" (this word is in bunny ears because the word dinner is subjective, for me it is breakfast and I think it is unfair to label meals in such black and white terms), so Cara and I head to the dinning hall to eat with our group of friends. It is during this time that I usually encounter the stupid questions/comments. People see my cup of coffee at "dinner" and ask the question "coffee for dinner? I could never do that I would be awake all night." When they say this, they have this tone... like what they are really thinking is 'what are you trying to stay up all night to play video games and watch TV like some immature middle schooler on Christmas vacation.' It's
annoying. Or people see my bowl of cereal and make the remark with dripping sarcasm "wow, don't get too full on your bowl of cereal for dinner."

These people annoy me. Why do these people annoy me...because their comments and questions are stupid. I always politely respond with "I work the night shift." And this usually causes a response of "ohhh, okay well that explains why you are drinking coffee and eating cereal. Sorry you have that shift it must really stink." Or something along those lines.

What I am really thinking in my head is: "You're right drinking coffee would keep me up all night and lucky for me that is my intention because this happens to be breakfast time. Not dinner. Breakfast. I guess no one informed you that war is a 24 hour sort of thing. That means someone has to be up to make sure things go smoothly during the night, and I happen to be one of those people. You must be shocked to learn that not all soldiers work 8 to 5. And as for the cereal, well what did you eat for breakfast? Indian food? I didn't think so. Annnddd, just so you know it doesn't stink working the night shift, because there are less people (like you) to distract me from
doing my job and I am on the same time schedule as all my friends and family back home which makes talking to them a lot easier."

See, I am not a morning person. I am aware that people that make these small talk sort of comments are not aware of the fact that they are maybe the 100th person to ask me this question...and they also don't realize how little I like talking to people after just waking up. I know this seems like a harsh response and my parents are probably embarrassed that I would write such sarcastic and negative things. I have been told that at times I am a little too sarcastic and I have acquired the nickname Negative Nancy for a reason. My mom says I get my sarcasm from my dad and my dad says I get my pessimism from my mom. Clearly the stork is to blame.

Moral of the story: If you see me drinking coffee at odd hours don't question it. There is a method to my madness, so just leave me alone.

Ta da...

I feel like I should post something because it has been a good four days since my last post. Fortunately nothing has changed over here and so I can only talk about flag football and working out. Those are the only two things that keep me motivated over here.

We lost our football game on Thursday. I was quarterback again, and I was definitely off my game. My throws were behind the receivers and I didn't put enough power behind some of them so they just floated in the air forever. We beat the team the last time we played them 7 to 6, but this time we lost 25 to 13 I think.

We avoided fighting, so I think the game was a success. Oh, I don't think I informed you guys about the fight. In the previous game (the one before the Thursday game) the 90th may or may not have gotten into a fight with the other team. I didn't start it...why would you think I would start a fight? I am a lover not a fighter.

The 90th did kind of start it, but we were provoked! I know I know that isn't an excuse. I did not throw any punches or have anything to do with it. I was taking a knee because I had gotten my face slammed by the back of SFC Mcallen's head. That is what started the fight.

SFC Mcallen got run over by a defensive player (for the umpteenth time) and as she was falling to the ground she grabbed a hold of the defensive's player's jersey and brought her down with her. The girl clearly did not like this and got up and tried to start beating up SFC McAllen. Much to her surprise one of our players on the field happens to be a cop in real life, so it only took a second for "cop mode" to kick in and the girl was restrained. It didn't matter though, by this time both benches were cleared and everyone was on the field.

They still let us finish the game though...I have no idea why. I would have ended it. We won the game. The team was terrible. That added to my frustration with the 90th for getting into a fight with a team that was so athletically inferior to us.

My face is fine. As some of you know my face heals surprisingly fast and therefore I lack the capability of getting a black eye. Some would consider this a blessing...but if you ever played rugby you would know that this is truly a curse.

I don't think I will be playing quarterback anymore, because our starting one should be over her thumb injury by our next game.

What else...I got a package from Caroline. Great food selection. Tell Jake thanks for the card, and I will be home shortly to save him from having to live with you and Kayanne. Poor guy.

I also got three packages from Mrs. La Fata. Also, great food selection. Cara and I have our work cut out for us with eating all this food, but don't worry we are up for the challenge. People are always impressed at the amount of food we can put away.

Oh, and Jamie you are amazing. See's toffee...I was not expecting that. Cara told me that I eat the fanciest candy of anyone she knows. I think it was meant as a compliment. I have just had the privilege of eating lots and lots of different candy throughout my life. I need to go to the dentist.

Look below.

I posted pictures of Cara's award ceremony, and they are below the "Contractors" post. So scroll down and enjoy.

Contractors

I know I said that my next post would be pictures of Cara's promotion ceremony...but posting pictures takes a really long time, and I don't have time to wait for all the pictures to download tonight. So, I am going to get on my soap box about contractors.

I want to make it clear that I have very little background knowledge when it comes to the purpose of the contractors that are over here, so I speak only on what I perceive and my own thoughts about the subject of contractors.

I am stationed at JBB, which is the largest base in all of Iraq. There are well over 20,000 people on this post and not all of them are military personnel. There are lots of contractors over here and I do not know the exact job listing of contractors but I know that there are people working at AAFESS (the store), in the barber shop, at the 13th (the headquarters bldg where I work), in the guard towers (Ugandan military), they work as mechanics, in the DFAC serving food, and I am sure they work at about 100 other jobs that I don't know about and don't want to list. I know that not all of these people are Americans too. There are lots of Iraqis that work here on base cleaning, doing construction, and serving food in the DFAC. There are also Filipinos that work in the barber/beauty shop cutting hair and giving massages. I am lead to believe that these people are probably not making a lot of money and they are providing a service that the Army doesn't train soldiers on.

Well, that isn't entirely true. The Army has cooks, but they have contracted this service out and that is why there are Iraqis serving our food. Which leads nicely into my qualm with contractors.

The military seems to have contracted out everything (I might be slightly over-exaggerating this...but once again this is what I perceive to be true). There are contractors everywhere we look, and it is really annoying. I am fairly confident that the Americans that are over here are making at least four or five times as much money as I make and they are doing a job that I am fairly confident that someone in the Army could do. Like I said, I don't know why the military contracts stuff out...I am sure there is a legitimate reason for it. However, these contractors make me feel like crap.

They get to walk around in civilian clothes, they have their own CHU, some of them have a CHU with a bathroom, lots of them have their own vehicle, and most importantly they are getting paid more money than me. Their lives are just as in danger-ed as mine...an IDF attack doesn't discriminate against who it is going to hurt. Yet, the military is paying them six figures to be over here. Well the military pays KBR (or some other business) who then pays the contractors. I am fairly confident that there are enough smart and capable soldiers to do the jobs that these contractors provide. The military would just have to provide us the training to do so, and I am guessing the military could probably save some money.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a soldier because of the paycheck. I signed up for other more honorable reasons, but it makes me feel pretty worthless when I know the military is paying an American citizen six figures to be over here because they are risking their lives to be in a war zone. Where as the military pays me an extra 250 bucks a month called hazardous duty pay. The more I think about it the more beat down I get over the whole situation.

Cara's Award

I know that Cara probably doesn't want me to post these pictures because she doesn't want all the attention, but she can deal with it. I know her mom and dad want to see the pictures so I am doing it for them...not her.

I took these photos at the award ceremony when Cara received an ARCOM (Army Commendation Medal). The reason I am not standing in formation with everyone else is that I was wearing my PT uniform and didn't want to look out of place. It was 1 in the afternoon and I was suppose to be asleep, and that is why I didn't dress up for the occasion in my ACU's. Also, I was taking photos so I was allowed to stand off to the side.

Cara received the ARCOM for her actions during the helicopter crash where she helped ensure the safety and lives of the crew. She claims that she doesn't deserve an award because she was just doing her job. If you ever meet her, don't listen to her if she says ridiculous things like that. She deserves the ARCOM and honestly she deserves a lot more than an ARCOM, but I won't get into that argument right now. With out further ado, here are the pictures. Enjoy.


Before the awards ceremony. She looks so excited.


The officers that came out to support the occasion. There is a lot of brass in this picture.


LTC Hildibrant pinning the medal on Cara.


Shaking the commander's hand after being pinned. Not the Brigade commander, but a different commander...just go with it.


A picture with the certificate.


Cara standing in front of everyone after she received the award.


A group shot of everyone who was at the occasion. Everyone is giving Cara a round of applause after being pinned. That is her standing in the front by herself.


At first he tried to get out of giving her a hug, but then he decided to be a good friend and give her a real hug. It reminded me of my brother and I when we were little and our parents told us to apologize to each other. The first apology was never legit, but then you get scolded so the second one is meaningful.


SSG Merkley giving her a handshake.


And CPT White giving her some love.


SFC Henrinksen and his awesome mustache came out for the occasion. Congrats to him for winning second place in the nasty stache November contest.



A handshake from LT Sandion. He works closely with the medics.


A hug from CPT Simpson. She also works closely with the medics.


That's my uncle . SGM Watson. He is congratulating the recipient (i.e. Cara).


That's right, the man himself came out for the occasion. That man being the big kahuna COL Spry.