Road Trip

The past week has been busy. On Wednesday myself and my boss and another paralegal flew down south to visit one of our subordinate units down in southern Iraq. I was a little anxious of flying after the tragedy of last week end, but I knew that the guys down there needed some of our help so I just said a little prayer and brought all my lucky religious medals. The first flight we took was a funny looking plane called a "Sherpa" which looks alot like a box kite with wings. We landed and spent the day and night at Camp Adder (near Talil). It was interesting to experience a different camp. On the first day, I had lunch with a group of Romanian soldiers. The Camp itself is "owned" by the Polish. By owned I mean controlled. At any rate it was a much smaller camp with fewer amenities, but they had something we really envied: peace and quiet. Ha ha. You see, where I am is Camp Anaconda. Which is really big and noisy. It is a air force base as well as a army camp so there is constant noise related to aircraft (helos) and planes taking off at all hours). The worst is the F-16s that seem to be taking off from your hooch and landing in your yard. Think the "city". Camp Adder on the other had...is like the suburbs. More relaxed...quieter. Few take offs and landings. Everyone there seems to be much more relaxed. On Friday, we left Adder trip to visit other elements of the company that were located in "the country". These were tiny FOBS(forward operating bases) that were even more relaxed then Adder. We flew medivacs Blackhawks to each of those locations. We flew extremely low. On the trip we saw a lot of different landscapes. We saw deserts and swamps. The swamps looked like the everglades. Very interesting. And of course we saw camels. Lots and lots of camels. It was along day. We got back late and then left to come back home the next day. Overall it was a fun trip and it made the week go by fast. As I was flying back home I couldn't help but think about what all my friends were doing the last few days back in Albany. I am sure they were doing the usual stuff...working...preparing for the next Zuzu's show...drinking some wine. Living their lives. Well...I was flying all over Iraq. How's that for something different? I will post some pics of the trip soon. In the meantime, I am counting down the days until I come home. 14 days and a wake up. I can't wait.