Good Times

I get to meet a wide variety of people here. It is always fun to see how different people are and how different the cultures are. Needless to say that are not sure how to take me (as is the same with most of the people that know me anyway). Most of the Iraqis love us here and they want to be like us. The try to do what we do and wear what we wear. They always say, "I love America, America good." Of coarse so hate us and I hope to never meet those ones.

Here is one of my interpretors (terps) try to fix a radio. I don't think he knew what the heck he was doing but it was fun to watch him try. He is a great guy. It is so funning to tease him because he does not understand sarcasm at all so he gets confused easy.

Now this guy. He is the "American Lover." He dresses up in anything American, mostly uniforms. We call him Rambo because he usually wears a bandanna, either a green one or here has a American Flag one also. It is so fun to talk to him. He will also do anything you say. When the Iraqi Army guys come around we tell him to give them kidney shots and he does it every time. What can I say simple humor for simple people. The IA guys don't find it funny but oh well. They are good humored about it. We do it because it is funny that if we told Rambo to jump off a cliff he would probably do it.

Bye.

A Workout Like None Other

My team and I participated in a physical training event today with some "elite" people. It was very difficult but very fun. It is not like the normal Army PT Test it was something a little more. This is what it consisted of:
2 mile run
21 95# cleen and press
10 Body weight flat bench (200# for me)
2000 meter row (on a row machine)
21 reverse grip pullups
21 dips
Incline run 12% grade @ 8.0 mph (20 sec on and 10 sec rest for 4 minutes) this one was horrible
10 vertile handstand pushups
10 Body weight dead lifts (200# for me)
95# tire flip (end over end) for 35 meters

It was crazy. I finished at around the average time of 52 minutes 4 seconds. I have never sweet so much in my life. At one point my heart rate was at 172 bpm for over 5 minutes. This a none stop event and break times is counted in the total time. It was fun, I cannot wait to do it again.

Iraqi Food and Other Activities

Well the new year is here and life is the same. We have been busy with building projects among other things. We were invited to lunch with the Iraqi Army for New Years Day. It was OK. They just have a different taste for things. They stacked the food on us and I didn't have the gut to finish it all. The bread is the best part of the meal.


Here is the food that we received. It looks worse than it tastes. Nicole could never do this as picky as she is about food.

Tapp and I enjoying the food. Tapp was already sick when we sat down; so he was not enjoying anything except for the bread.

This is Chris and I, Chris is my interpretor. We work together a lot. Chris is not his real name. I started calling him Chris because I could say his real name when I first got here. So I started calling him this and it stuck. He hates the name but oh well.

The team that I work with found out that I knew how to weld so they got me a welder and have been having me weld a bunch of things that needed repair. It has been fun. We have also been doing a lot of carpentry work and electrical work around the FOB. It is a nice break from the others things that I have going on.

Well I hope that all reading this had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. All is going well here. Take care, Warren

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.