Welcome to "Mortaritaville"

For those of you who have never been to war...or to a military base in a combat zone....there are little things that we get accustomed to after a few days. First thing you notice...the noise. It is always loud here. We are near the airfield, so all day long aircraft are taking off and landing. Sometimes you hear it at night and it sounds like its landing square on your roof. Now I know it loud near civilian airports, but rarely do F-16s (which break the sound barrier) land at Albany International. Around here.....all the time. The next thing you notice is the constant security to get in and out of everywhere you go. If you lose your ID...well that sucks. You can't go into the mess hall...in to the gym....to the PX...the movies....nothing. And we carry our weapons with live ammo with us everywhere we go...including the shower. We do this for a reason of course...because there are attacks on us almost everyday. The attacks come from outside the wire...and usually miss. Sometimes they don't. The favorite weapons of the insurgents around here is the mortar. In the early months of the war, so many mortars hit inside the wire that it was called "Mortaritaville". The name stuck. Since we have been here...we have been hit...many times. For reasons of OPSEC, I can't say how many. There are security procedures in place to keep us safe (which I will also not detail) and almost all the time, they work. But you never can be too sure. We have to fight everyday to make sure our soldiers do not get complacent. We have to remain vigilant. Its for this little bit of inconvenience that the Army feels a need to give us $225 dollars extra a month. That's what we call combat pay...Or in the Army's language...."Imminent Danger Pay." Whatever you call it....$225 per month is peanuts to put yourself on the line the way some of these guys do. But really...What is a life worth anyways? I don't think you could ever give enough to someone who was truly reluctant to go to Iraq. And most of the soldiers that come here, don't come here for the $225. I include myself in that. I didn't come here for the money. And if they took the $225 away...I would still have volunteered. The things I have learned and will learn are worth the risk. The experiences alone...worth the inconvenience. So even though they call it "Mortaritaville"...this place is still 1000 times better then what the average Iraqi is going through. Most of them live in fear every moment...every day. This holy season (Ramadan) will not be what most of them hope it will be...prayful, peaceful, joyful. It will be bloody, and violent and deadly for many. That makes me sad. I pray that they will experience the same joy I get when I spend the holidays with my friends and family. In the meantime, I will wear my kevlar and vest everywhere I go...just in case some insurgent wins the lottery and I am on the receiving end of it. Haha. Peace.