No Time

It's 10:25 and I have to get up in five hours. Unfortunately I only have 30 minutes on this computer and it's slow as hell and blogger is even slower. If I wanted to stay busy this year then I came to the right place. I'm doubting whether or not I will have time to do anything besides sleep, eat, and go on missions. Oh well, I didn't come over here for the cuisine. The past two days have been spent working manual labor in the motor pool changing the track shoes on our platoon's Bradley's. You know, you would think since we aren't on patrol cycle these last few days that I would have a nice relaxing evening in my home that is a box. Not a chance. Today, as I was on here in the midst of an email to my wife I here my name yelled and to hurry and get out to the Humvees. What do you know, another mission. The same thing happened last night, which I don't have the time to bore you with. Let's concentrate on the one this evening, it's almost as comical as the one last night. So there is an important piece of communications equipment that is unaccounted for and no one knows where it is. The one place that everyone thinks it's at is the river, meaning the Tigris. There is a bridge there and I'm assuming other bridges that cross this great river that is an EPA nightmare. We radio the bridge asking if they have it and if they will look for it. They radio back saying they don't have it, but they looked anyway. So it's time to go out and see for ourselves. This isn't a matter of just jumping in a car and riding out there, you have to get an entire convoy ready for Armorgeddon(sp) to go out there. It's kind of a security thing, since there are asshole terrorists that want to kill us crazy Americans. So I run to my box, grab a Mountain Dew and a snack, stick in some nicotine saturated dip and Im ready to roll. We gear up and load up and I get in my perch atop the humvee with my trusty .50 cal. We're driving like madmen down the center of the road breaking every traffic law known to those of you back home, but which don't seem to exist in this land, certainly not for us. Speeding and weaving in and out of traffic, dodging guys riding donkeys, and shepherds herding their sheep along the road. I notice three different soccer games going on on my way out there, one of which the two teams had pastel color jerseys that looked cool against the setting sun. People walking all along the road, every vehicle from every decade crowd the road, and Iraqi Army guys posted along the route with AK's thrown over their shoulders. I even passed a truck with a sheep in the back that was BAAAAAAHING away like he knew he might become dinner tonight. Right when we pull up to the bridge, before we even get out, someone comes over the radio and tells us that someone out there has the piece of equipment back in their room. Imagine that. Dodging IED's for nothing. My platoon Sgt. is pissed and cussing up a storm. I'm to busy laughing and hoping we get back soon so I don't miss chow for a second night in a row. As soon as we get there we're heading back with nothing to show for our trip, except an adrenaline fueled highspeed ride with caffeine and nicotine coursing through my veins. Hey, at least I made it back for some greasy fried chicken cooked by some Pakistani's. Nothing like home cookin' from the Pakistani's.

I'm going out again twice tomorrow and in a couple of days I'm going on a really fun mission that might actually turn out to be bad for the terrorists. Loving life here in Iraq amid all it's craziness. I will try to post more often, but please know that time is limited and computers slow. Take care and thanks for the emails.