Homeward Bound

There's no more wishing I was. Homeward bound that is. I'm sitting at our Brigade Air building waiting for my flight which is less than two hours away. Excitement is coursing through my body. This will probably be my last blog for the next two weeks or so. It's also kind of a race against time. I didn't get my computer fully charged, and the battery is slowly dying on me, so I'll try and make this quick.

Sitting in the Panther Air building back on Loyalty is quite a bit different for how the last week has gone for myself, and well my platoon. We've been in quite a pickle, and still in limbo. We moved all of our stuff from Loyalty, to our new base, a tiny, less built up base. We only get two hot meals a day at our new home, and the hours are a little more excruciating on us. We now have to do force protection. Which is not horrible, but it's certainly something we haven't had to do up to this point.

39% battery life.

The building we've now moved into, is not what you would consider something you could live in. It apparently used to be an old noodle making factory. However it appears to be more of a parking garage you would find in the slums of Mexico. The ramp up to our floor is uneven with concrete. The first floor, underneath us, is the Iraqi chow hall, and it's our shared motor pool garage. We have to share everything with the National Police. The second floor is ours, the third is National Police's, and the fourth floor is empty, other than the small amount of sniper screens that eerily hang in the ginormous windows of the once huge factory floor.

As you reach that fourth floor, there is a shaky set of stairs that seem to give under your feet, and wobbles just enough to give you an uneasy feeling. As you make your way up these steep steps, you find yourself in a somewhat disturbing and scary room. This room has two doors that lead out to the same level rooftop on each side of the building. The National Police won't go on this floor, and for good reason. It's was almost terrifying the first time I walked up these stairs and reached the fifth floor. The walls and ceilings are charred like most of the rest of the building. But on the 5th floor, the air seems denser, and stagnant.

Some years ago in this place, some Sunni Muslims were in some kind of squabble with a family of Shi'a Muslims who owned the noodle factory. They locked the family on that 5th floor, and set the building on fire. 13 adults burned up there, and one little girl. The girl is rumored, from the National Police to haunt that 5th floor. Don't you love this country? That's not even that strange of something to happen. Sad.

32% battery life.

I assumed guard shift at midnight on our first actual day at our new home. Walking up those steps in the dark, with the sniper screens blowing freely in the floor downstairs, along with the sounds that wind will often make when your mind is already running wild with ideas of ghosts and goblins. And so despite my combat load of ammunition, and large 6" knife I carry on my equipment, I was a little freaked out. As I peaked out of my OP at the door which I had walked out of, I could see nothing. The door was black, and held no light inside. It's amazing how when you can't see into somewhere, how many times you think you see something move.

6 hours later, the sun was up, and I was off shift, and relieved. I however was not the most afraid person on the roof. My buddy Jason, told me his heart was beating really fast, and he kept looking back out of his OP and towards the same door I had looked at a few times through the night. Our LT, big, walked around and made little girl voices to try and scare us all at the same time, so that probably didn't help Jason's case.

We went on patrol this morning again in our new area of operation, and it has only been our second patrol there since we took over a week ago. The area is a lot different than Beladiyat. It's more towards the desert, and not really like the city Beladiyat is. They have herds of Jamoose that walk to the river and canal that now border our new area. The roads are not traffic able by our bigger vehicles, and so we are back in our humvees again. It feels strange, to be going on leave that is. I feel the sense of guilt. I feel somehow like I'm turning my back on the guys in a time where everyone on the team needs to pull their weight, and help to get everything accomplished. At the same time, I'm also very excited, that in less than two days from now, I'll be home, sipping on a beer, and eating my favorite foods, that I've been longing to have.

50% of the deployment done.

"Carry the one douche bag" -Lt. Dan Nelson... YES we have a LT. DAN!