A Sandy Christmas

Christmas has come and gone, and it is pretty much business as usual again. The cooks cooked us a great Christmas meal and alot of people were able to sleep in today, so it was a relaxing/ uneventful Christmas for most, which is a good thing.

Almost done with this inventory, but we are still a few items short. Hopefully this won't keep haunting me... but I will be out of here and on to C company in a few weeks. Now, it is just another waiting game...

First Tactical Mission

So, I am still taking the inventory for HHC. Thus far, I have completed JSS Sadr City, traveled to Camp Taji and inventoried everything there and now I am at JSS Ur. "Ur" the name of the area as well as the base itself, is also going to be my future home in February when I take over a platoon here. Since I was here for a couple of extra days, the commander decided to put me on a mission. This past morning, I commanded a Bradely fighting vehicle, which was a pretty cool experience for my first time doing a real mission. We were only part of the extraction part of the operation (meaning we picked up some guys finishing a door to door search and also provided the firepower necessary if something went wrong), but the maneuvering was fun. It was a simple task, but I finally got my feet wet. Very unerving moving around at night in such a huge vehicle, but the crew was experienced which din't make it too bad. You feel pretty badass moving around in that hunk of steel.

Tommorrow, I'm headed back to Taji where I will then head to "Old Mod" which is the second to last destination on my travels so far.

Tchuss!

My first task

So, I finally was given my first task at HHC: I am doing the 100% inventory of all the sensitive items (valuable equipment) within this company, which is composed of about 300 people, a crap load of vehicles, weapons, etc. Not exactly what I pictured myself doing in Iraq, but it is keeping me occupied for the next couple of weeks. All of the equipment is spread throughout the Brigade sector... so I will have to go to 2-3 bases in the Baghdad area to account for everything.

It is very tedious work, but someone has to do it each month apparently, and since I was the new guy, it was thrown on me. It will definitely kill some time before I get a platoon.

Not much going on in the area... a car bomb exploded a few miles down the road, one of our vehicles were blown up but no one was killed, and I think I suicide bomber tried to blow himself up at one of our checkpoints, but there was only one fatility... the bomber, haha.

Life at the JSS

JSS Sadr City is the name of the place I am at right now, don't think I mentioned that before. JSS is Joint Security Station, which is basically a much smaller version of a FOB or Forward operating base.

Life in the FOB is very different from life in the JSS. The buildings we are in is a former elementary school, taking up a few blocks of real estate. There are not many people here and the rooms are limited, so every one is really close together in the JSS. There are 6 other people in my room in the size of a small sized bedroom, so there is not much privacy. There is not much to do as far as recreation goes either. We have a computer and phone room, with 10 computers and a few phones, which during many hours of the day are filled up. We also have a small gym, which just got flooded out the other day along with 80% of the ground outside from the quick downpour that came the other day... and thats about it. It is not too bad, but it is difficult to keep yourself busy in your free time.

Not much going on as of yet. Waiting to get officially promoted by the Colonel (but I am already getting paid as a 1LT). I'm hungry...