Merry Christmas

Well Christmas has came and went. It was decent given that I am in Iraq. We did not do anything but it was still a good time. The night before we had a convoy come in with our mail and it came in after my guys went to bed so what I did was I put all of there package outside their Chu doors so when they came out in the morning they saw them. I did not have a tree to put them under so it worked just fine this way. The guys loved seeing this in the morning. After they opened their packages we sat around, drank coffee, and talked about family. It was a good time had by all. Then we had to go back to work. But it was a laid back day and given that we are all away from family I feel that we are all still in very good spirit.

Here is a picture that I took of all our packages outside our Chu's

This is a picture of one of our local national guards. He is a kick boxer and very short. All the Iraqis and short. He is a good guy, it is fun to talk with him.

Well I hope that all are having a good holiday season. Thanks for all those back home who have made this a more pleasant time for my wife. She misses me but the love shown to her by those at home has made this a more bearable experience for her. Thanks again.

MK48 Shooting

We got the opportunity to shoot the MK48 machine gun. This was the first time I had ever shot a machine gun standing up. The kick on this thing was pretty good. It was a good time. We have shot many other weapons but this is the first that I got a video of.

The Locals

Well I have been here a little over a week now. It has been busy but fun. I have gotten into a grove as to how things will be over the next while. We work with some locals and they wanted to do a BBQ for us. A little scary eatting new food but it was great. I love the bread.

An interesting BBQ grill they had. They would hand wrap the meat around a sword looking thing, then they put it onto a peice of wide flange. the coals are under it and they have a blower from and old car's A/C system to blow the coals. It was interesting to see this done.

And here we are enjoying.

This picture is for my Nicole, Kelly, Janis, and all you other Diet Coke drinkers. Everything here is in Arabic and I thought the can was neat.

And if it has anything bad in it and you don't read arabic then you will never know.

Pyro-Manic

For anyone that knows the Smith's we love to start fires. So when they said 50 gallons of bad gas, 5 old mattresses, and 2 thermite gernades I was all in.

Here we our t-minus 5 minutes. Tapp is happy to be ready to burn.

Here is my gernade that will start the inferno.

And let it burn.

It was getting a little hot and Tapp took a picture of me running to safety.

Movement to my new home in Iraq

Well I am now where I will call home for the next while. We got here a couple of days ago and it was quite the trip. It is nice however to be getting settled into what I will be doing over the rest of my tour. Unfortunately there is not much that I can say about what that is but I will say that I am very safe where I am and I will not be short of things to do. I was able to capture so good pictures of our helicoter trip.


Here is a small part of my team that I am in charge of prior to heading out.

Here is our helicotper coming into the landing zone. These things put off a lot of prop wind.

Our lead chopper flying over Iraq.

I believe that this is the Tigras River. This is one the main rivers flowing through Iraq.

I love this picture, a prop in the setting sun. I took this will one hand because I had to hold on, it was a bumpy ride. It was a good ride and it is good to be here. I would rather be home but that is just not an option now. I will post more when I can.

Kuwait is a Shit Hole

Well here I am in Kuwait. This place sucks. I am still racking my brain trying firgure out way anyone would live here. It is all sand here and the sand it so light that it relects the suns and makes it incredibly bright. But there is nothing out here. I call it the land of random because there is so much nothing out here and then in the middle of nowhere there is a random pile of junk. It is kind of funny.



You know how in Wyoming there are snow fences? Well here they have sand walls. These are to prevent the sand from blowing and drifting into the road. And as you can see behind the wall is a whole lot of nothing.

And like range cattle back home they have range camels. My only question is, "what do they eat?"

I have seen a lot of Mercedes with pieces of shit in them but never one that was acctually designed around carrying shit. All the "work" trucks around here are Mercedes built vehicles.

Tyson Doney from Preston, Idaho, he and I decided to run to the top of one of the sand walls. About half way up we sank into the sand pretty deep but we made it.

And guess who won? Not me but I made it look like it in the this picture. Ha.

Well Kuwait is no fun but it is all good because I leave "very soon" to go up North. Oh boy here I come.

Moving to Kuwait

Had to post this for my wife. Proof she is married to a super hero.

Well I have now moved to Kuwait. Let's just say it is not a place I would like to move to. It is flat, sandy, and hot. But the move started after I took leave for 4 days with my wife Nicole. We went to Nashville for those days. I would have posted pictures from that trip but I accedentally deleted them all. Oops. It was fun but it was not very much fun to say goodbye again. I miss Nicole like crazy.

This is a picture of us in Mississippi loading the trucks with all our gear to go to the airport. It is crazy how much stuff we have to take. Almost rediculous!

Here we are walking the flight line out to the plane. This plane was huge it has the second story and everything.

Here we all are in the back of the plane sleeping. It only took us 14 hours to get there with a stop in Germany to fill up.

And then we landed with the setting sun. When we were all done with get everything situated and I called Nicole it was about 4:00 am Kuwait time. I fell asleep and slept for a good 14 hours. It was awesome. And now I am all good living on Kuwait Time. We are 10 hours ahead right now so almost half way around the world. Well more to follow later.

Update

Well just more fun and games here. We have been doing a lot of misc. training lately but we have been keeping busy. We are almost ready to pack everything up and head overseas. Tomorrow we are going out for a 6 day exercise. There we will combine all the training to this point into one exercise. It should be a good time.

Here we are bore sighting the scopes on our M4 rifles. This process makes it easier for us to zero in on the range when we shoot for live fire.

Just another sunset.

I thought that this was a good picture of the gunnery line in the setting sun.

Well more updates later. Right now it is passing the coming exercise and then waiting to head out.

There Are Some Nice Moments

While nothing will be the mountains of Idaho there are some great sunrises and sunsets here. Since I am usually up before the sun and not in bed until after the sun goes down I get to see them. The past few days we have been doing more of our gunnery movements. I have my truck and then I have been convoy commander as well. So it has been busy for me.

Once again SSG Dennis Shumway and I. I had my gunner take this picture from the top of my truck. I weight about 280 pounds in all my gear. I am getting used to wearing it. I usually weight 200 pounds so this is a bit of weight to shoulder. I can't wait to NOT wear it anymore.

SPC Owen Tapp shooting the 50 caliber machine gun in the morning sunrise. This morning was better than most because the night before there was a fire on the range. So the light rafraction off the fog and smoke make for a great sunrise.

Another picture here of the sunrise. I was trying to get a better photo but this was all I could get with my cheap camera. Like I said it is not the mountains of Idaho but it is nice.

Here is my Gun Truck Crew. SPC Casey Roberts, myself and SPC Owen Tapp.

Our "Classy" Living Conditions

Well we have all the good things in life here. Life just could not be better...let me tell you what.

Here you can see that we have the finest of coolers for ice cold water. And for coffee we have the finest the "lowest bidder to the military" has to offer, brewed fresh every morning. You might ask why is there no sugar and creamer around, with this coffee it is so good you don't need it.

Here you see that we have cozy living conditions. The bed feels like a hammock and the pillows are nice and soft. The roomy locker provides enough space for ones gear. Oh and I cannot fail to mention that it is an open area where 39 other soldiers live so I get to hear all of them snore at night! Can life get any better...I submit that it cannot.

AND THE FOOD. Oh my oh my is this great! Salad with dressing umm. Rice with something resembling brown gravy. And a slab of breaded veal. Top it off with a Styrofoam cup of Coke. And nothing better shows the manliness of a soldier like a piece of cake with pink frosting. This is just great. Who would turn this down?

I know this must look tempting to be a part of but it is a limited amount of people that get in on this action. Call your local recruiter to see if you have what it takes to live this glamorous life style. And if you are lucky you can have all this. Oh yeah and the best part is they can take you away from your family for an entire year.

If you couldn't tell....I AM NOT SERIOUS!!!

Camp Shelby, Mississippi

Well I have been in Camp Shelby, Mississippi for almost 3 weeks now. It has been quite an adjustment getting used to the heat and humidity. I also was given a small pox vaccination and I have a large sore on my arm from it. Too much fun.

The training has been ok; we have been shooting a lot bullets. It is early mornings and late nights. We have a bit of down time but it is spent talking with family, doing laundry, and clean weapons.

SSG Dennis Shumway and myself at the reflexive fire and room clearing range.

I got out the flag I was given for a little photo op.

Really nothing too much here. Just training before we head over in a little more than a month. I will work to post more pictures later.

Home for a few days

Well I have been home for a few days before I go to Mississippi. Nicole and I have been doing many things together before I leave. It has been great to spend time together. I sure will miss her.

Here we are at the Darryl Worrely concert in Boise. Darryl came to Boise just to put on a concert for the troops leaving to Iraq. It was a good time and it was great to see my wife after having been gone for three weeks.

Nicole made me this quilt while I was gone. I will take it to Iraq with me. This way I do not have to sleep in my sleeping bag for a year. She is so good to me.

I head out on the 21st of September for Mississippi. We will be there until the middle of November. I will post more progress on that when I get there.

Annual Training 2010

Well training in at Orchard Training Area for 3 weeks was not all that great but it could have been worse. The temperature wasn’t too bad and the living conditions were better than I am used to but we averaged about 4-6 hours of sleep per night. We were able to get a lot accomplished. We did weapons training, improvised explosive device training, among many other soldier tasks.

SSG Dennis Shumway, SSG Warren Smith, and SGT Russ Madsen.

After this training we are heading to Camp Shelby Mississippi for additional training prior to our deployment to Iraq. We leave for MS the latter part of September.

SSG Warren Smith SSG Matt Vanderen

The Orchard Training area is nothing special. It is flat, dusty and hot. I have spent a combined 6 months out in the OTA over the past 12 years of my military service. I learn to hate it more each time I go there.

SFC Paul Marley and SSG Warren Smith (Yes I am growing a mustache)



SPC Owen Tapp

Here we are getting ready to go out on a sustainment gunnery run. This is where we maintain our skills on operating the truck and weapon systems on the truck. It is pretty fun. Mounted on top is a .50 Caliber machine gun. We had a news crew ride with us on this run. He interviewed me and it was on the 10 o’clock news here in Idaho.