The Sand Box

Welcome to Iraq. It has been 5 years since I was here last. Well not here as in this base, but here as in Iraq. It all looks the same. I am on a less built up airfield, but I believe it is a bigger airfield than last time. Last time I was at LSA Anaconda. There they have a theater where they show a few movies daily. A Olympic size swimming pool and a full size track. And what I believe is the biggest and best PX (Post Exchange) in Iraq. The downside of Anaconda was that they get attacked with rockets and mortars a lot. As in a few times a day at least. When I was there, the longest time we went without getting attacked was 17 hours. That sucked!

But that was then and this is now. Here we don’t have a pool. We don’t have a theater. We don’t even have a track to use for timed laps. And the PX here. Gee how can I put it. Ummm… I think I will go with crappy. Sure that is a good word. They really don’t have anything good in it. At least nothing that I use. But they do have pretty girls pink and purple thongs. WTF! There are a few extra local run shops in the PX area. There are a few electronic shops, a tobacco shop, a rug store, and an art store that sells pictures and paintings done by locals. And then of course they have the Barber and women’s hair salon. There is one really big difference from the last time that I was here. We have food choices other than the Chow Halls. There is a Burger King, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. Wow. And you all thought that we were suffering over here. The Taco Bell you can smell from about 2 miles away if you are down wind. I have tried it and it made me very sick. But I think it was more of the fact that it was the first food with grease in it since I left America. But it could have been the food. Most people say that it is very good. It did not taste bad, but you could tell you were not in America. I am going to try Burger King, and Pizza Hut later. I am allowing myself one bad for me meal a week. Next I guess will be Burger King, but not sure.

If you are not into paying for food then there are 3 Chow Halls or DEFACs that we can go to. But I will talk about them later.

And other than all that I have talked about here. Well it is still Iraq. Sand everywhere. Very little green at all. And what plants are green, you can’t really tell because of the large amount of sand and mud that is on everything.


And that ladies and gentleman is Iraq.



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