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.

Thanksgiving Pictures

A picture of everyone at dinner.



Ice sculptures.




CH Hedlund and MAJ Herrick getting ready to serve the troops for Thanksgiving lunch.



The 90th commander ready to serve up some delicious food.



Very decorative Thanksgiving cakes.



A very interesting decoration...I really have no idea what it is. I think it is suppose to be a village. They used broccoli for trees, so creativity points are awarded.



A close up of the previous town scene.



A horn of plenty. That is the barrel of Cara's M16 in the picture.



An alligator made out of pineapple. I have no idea how this relates to Thanksgiving...but just go with it. It was an awesome food sculpture.




A water fountain.



Cara and me. Hi everyone.



A very cool watermelon. I have no idea who makes these things...but I wish I had this talent.



Delicious pastries.



Yummm. More pastries.



Turkey!!! Once again I have no idea who makes these things, but they have some serious talent.



Yes, this turkey is made out of cereal. Fruit loops. Awesome.



Next post: Cara's award ceremony pictures.

MIZ-ZOU

I know I said I would post Thanksgiving Day pictures next...and I will, but I wanted to make sure everyone is aware of Mizzou's victory over kansas. It was a great last second win by Mizzou and it definitely changed a bad day into a good one. Yesterday was not going to go down as a good day in my book, but then Mizzou sacked Todd Ressing (kansas quarterback) in the endzone for a touchback, which lead to Mizzou marching down the field and kicking the game winning field goal as time expired. Poor Ressing...same thing happened to him two years ago in this game. Hahaha. Sucker. Now my day will go down as a great one in my book.

You may be wondering why my day was not a good one until Mizzou won, and that had to do with a combination of lack of sleep (totally my own fault) and a terrible flag football game. I came home from work yesterday and couldn't fall asleep. I slept maybe a total of three hours not consecutively, because I went to an award ceremony for Cara. If you have ever had the privilege of being around me when I am sleep deprived you know how cranky I can get. Being on a plane with a crying baby is more fun than me on less than 8 hours of sleep.

At the game we were playing the team that beat us due to the poor officiating last week. So, we were all pumped and feeling like we could pull out a victory. Things were going okay until Cara got injured. She took a brutal hit in the first half and slammed her head on the ground, which resulted in her being taken off the field in an ambulance. Turns out she partially separated her shoulder. After she left it was downhill from there. Granted we were probably all a little distracted from the fact that we just saw our star player get carted off in an ambulance, but bottom line is we played like crap. Our defense was terrible and I blame myself. My head was not in the game due to lack of sleep, being cold, and not having Cara as my safety net in the backfield.

We couldn't make anything happen on offense either. They were beating us by three touchdowns and had the ball with less than 2 minutes left in the game. Instead of just running the clock out (like you should do) they kept playing like they wanted to score again. This resulted in one of our players breaking her nose. Last play of the game, they go for a pass and as one of our players is trying to rush the quarterback she gets head butted in the nose and both players hit the ground. Our player walks away with a broken nose. Needless to say I was pissed. This play never should have happened. They should have just run the ball and let the clock run out on us, but I guess they wanted to kick us while we were down so they tried to score again. Resulting in one broken nose and one of our best defensive players being out for our next game.

So, it was going to be a bad day for me. Then Mizzou won and I am happy again.

Rainy Day Pictures

The Iraqi sun. There was a nice cloud cover this day.



My port-a-poty hole. This passage way keeps me from having to walk outside the T-walls at night in my PJ's.




I go through my Port-a-Potty hole and walk along the T-wall back to my CHU, and on sunny days I like to lay out in this chair and catch a few rays (kidding).



I am not quite sure what this message is trying to say... any ideas would be appreciated.



The T-wall that I have to scale to get to the sidewalk so I can avoid the small pond outside the T-walls of my living area.



A parking lot that is now a parking lot of mud.



A nice close up of the mud. I bet this stuff would sell for lots if you marketed it as some sort of beauty product for facials.



Pond that is covering the walkway in the housing area that I live in.



See the sidewalk is covered in water and there is no way around it. If walk smoothly you can keep from soaking your socks when wearing running shoes...but you have to be very very careful.



More water.



More mud.



The container yard where trucks park...as you can see it is just mud. When all of this stuff dries it makes for great tire tracks, which causes driving to be a small adventure.



Most of the mud has dried up and is back to being sand. There are still some small ponds left, and I am confident that when they dry up it will rain the next day.

Thanksgiving day pictures will be posted next. Get excited.

Happy Thanksgiving

I cleaned the CHU yesterday. It was very dirty because of the rain. Lots and lots of mud that turned into dirt in the CHU. We had to wait a couple of days before we could clean it out, because every time we came into the CHU we just tracked in more mud. It has finally cleared up enough to make cleaning worthwhile. Of course the weather guy said that it is suppose to rain tomorrow afternoon...figures. I took our rug outside and tried to get some of the dirt out of it. It was filthy. We need a vacuum cleaner, but the ones they sell here are terrible and don't do anything.

Cara has a mission tonight, so I will be flying solo Thanksgiving Eve. It is always such a bummer when she is not around. Hopefully we have good weather tonight, so her mission will only take one night and not two. If it takes two then I will be all alone on Thanksgiving day. Well not all alone, because I will have my other friends to hang out with. But Cara and I have Friends watching plans, and I would hate to watch it without her. AFN (Armed Forces Network) is playing three hours of Friends Thanksgiving episodes on Thanksgiving day. This is going to be the highlight of my tour. Cara and I are very very very excited. For those of you who are not Friends fans (don't tell me if you don't like the show...I don't want to know) the Thanksgiving episodes are the best ones. So three hours of Friends Thanksgiving episodes = heaven.

There is a half marathon in January, and Cara and I decided to run in it. We figure we have nothing else to do, and why not accomplish a half marathon while we are over here. I ran 5 miles last night at the gym, on the treadmill, with no ipod (I forgot it). It was the longest 5 miles of my life. We can't run in races with an ipod because it is against post policy, but during the 10 miler I had Cara to entertain me. When I don't have something to distract me from the fact that I am running I get very bored and like to quit early. I managed to stick it out last night though. I think running 5 miles without an ipod on a treadmill was more of an accomplishment than the 10 miler.

I hope this post finds everyone warm, happy, and full of food on Thanksgiving day. It is by far the best holiday of the year in my opinion. A whole day dedicated to nothing but food, being thankful, football, and family. Not to mention it is also the Texas vs. Texas A&M football game, which is really why Thanksgiving is a national holiday. This yeah will mark the 63rd year of the game being played on Thanksgiving day. Obviously, Thanksgiving didn't even become popular until this game was moved to Thanksgiving day.

The only thing that can top the Texas v. Texas A&M game is...you guessed it, Mizzou vs. kU on Saturday.

Back to Thanksgiving. Thanks for all the Thanksgiving day emails. I am thankful for all the support from my family and friends. You guys are quite amazing, and I don't know what I did to deserve having you guys in my life...but thanks for everything you guys have done for me.

Things I miss about home

I am getting to the point in the deployment where I don't want to be here anymore. I am hesitant to write about my utter distaste for this place, because I don't want any of you to worry about me. I am fine. That doesn't change the fact that this place is starting to wear on me.

Maybe it's the cold. Either way I have been compiling a list of things that I miss about home. Of course my friends and family are on the top of the list, but I miss the little things too.

I am sick of having to walk to the shower. It is cold here, so walking to the shower in your flip flops and shorts is miserable. There is mud and small ponds everywhere, so we have to scale the T-walls just to get out of our living area and remain clean. Today there was no water in the first shower trailer we went to. You can imagine how annoying it is to get ready for your shower and when you go to turn on the water nothing happens. Then the second trailer had two other people in there that wanted to listen to their music. I find this extremely annoying. I always have. People that like to listen to their music in public places. I always wonder about the thought process of these type of people. Do they think that I want to listen to their music? Cause I don't. Do they think they have good taste in music? Because according to my opinion they don't. Would they find it annoying if I brought in my radio and listened to my music over theirs? I would hope they wouldn't find this annoying. Because that would be hypocritical. I know that you might be thinking 'Anna, that isn't very nice.' Eh. When you spend your whole life (this isn't me being over-dramatic) having to listen to music you don't like because other people assume that you want to listen to their music, you get annoyed.

I miss food. Walking to the dinning hall to eat is no longer fun. It was never fun to begin with. The meals are on a 21 day rotation (it feels like a 7 day rotation), so it feels like I am offered the same food every other day. I have started to eat less than I do at home, and this has probably contributed to my weight loss. So I guess it isn't all bad.

I am over the Port-a-Potties, and with those comes the smell. Iraq smells like a toilet. They clean the Port-A-Potties twice a day, so at least they are kept up. However, there are people that like to go in there and smoke while going to the bathroom, which leaves a pleasant odor of shit and smoke. And if that wasn't bad enough, apparently some of the males around here can't hit the huge urinal, so there tends to be piss on the floor. Awesome.

I miss the gym back home. Mizzou Rec. Never thought I would say that. Mizzou Rec is a five star gym compared to this place. Also, Mizzou Rec was clean and organized and people generally used proper gym etiquette. This is not always true here. There is not enough cardio equipment, free weights, and the weight machines they have are pretty bad. I have been way too spoiled for the past four years.

And finally, reliable electricity. The power went out for three hours the other morning. The first time the power ever went out over here it scared the crap out of me. I was dead asleep and woke up confused and scared. When the power goes out it becomes eerily quite, it feels like the calm before a storm. Usually it comes back on within 20 or 30 minutes, but the other day I sat waiting for the TV to turn back only for it to turn back on for 5 minutes before going back out for another two hours. Even more awesome.

Rainy Season

Iraq has a rainy season and it is happening as we speak. It last through February I believe, and I already want it to be over. I have to ford a small pond to get to the bathroom, and our shoes are covered in mud which means our CHU is close to being covered in mud. The other problem with the rainy season is that it is no longer warm outside, so it is cold and rainy. The only good that comes from cold and rainy is hot cider and warm fires, and I don't have either one of those over here so clearly I am not a fan of this season.

I think the rain has finally stopped from the most recent storm. It started Tuesday morning and rained through Wednesday night. There is so much standing water that one of the ponds that formed had what appeared to be waves on it. I also have to scale the T-Walls in order to avoid the ponds that have formed around my CHU. I will take a picture of this action so you can put a visual to what I have to go through to get out of my CHU.

Not to mention I had to buy another pair of running shoes, because you are not allowed in the gym with muddy shoes. I could walk to the gym in my boots, but then I would look ridiculous, and I needed new running shoes anyway. I just didn't want to be forced into buying them because of an Army policy.

The only good thing about the rainy season is the lightening. It really is impressive, and one of the 90th soldiers has a great picture of the lightening from a storm a couple weeks ago.

In response to Uncle Dale's question about what food to send...well peanut butter and graham crackers are a favorite of ours. Chocolate is also greatly missed. Like chocolate covered raisins...we both agree that chocolate covered raisins are the best candy. Trail mix, dried fruit, and nuts are also food that we go through way too quickly. We workout at night and then go back to the CHU and eat a second meal consisting of whatever people send us in care packages.