Al-Faw Palace tour

Yesterday I got to see another one of Saddam Hussein's palaces. This one is called the Al-Faw
Palace. You can read about it in the picture to the left. This was on a wall in the entrance. You can see the front of the palace below. Saddam was really into having things look good. It is now occupied by the headquarters unit that runs the troops here in Iraq. It is not the home of the 4 star General you see on TV but the #2 guy (3 Star General) is at this palace.




Here is the front entrance to the palace. It has 62 room, 26 bathrooms and is surrounded by water. The water is filled with fish. You can feed them and they go crazy.





Guarding the front of the palace are the Tongan Marines. These are Marines from the Kingdom of Tonga. You can read about it here---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga They only have 55 of them here in Iraq. Once I leave Iraq I will probably never see a Tongan Marine again. So I took a picture with one of them. It was 120 degrees / 114 degrees in the shade. There was a temperature guage near the gate that actually read those numbers.

TONGA!!

Here is the inside of the place. These are shots of the lobby

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Here I am reading my menu from Grumpy's in Saddam's Chair. I bet he never pictured I would be sitting there. Okay I never thought I would sitting here either.

my room now

So I was cleaning my room (like a do every week) and realized a few of you asked me what does my room look like now? Here are a few shots of my place now. I just sort of stood in my door and went around the room.

Here is my very pricey wardrobe. I have so many hats because I sweat so much and have to wash one each week. So I keep a few handy so I always have a dry one.

That is a stick man that I hang my clothes on each day. Of course a bunch of boots. Mary left me a crate thingy. Actually she left me two. You can see I keep my movies and books stacked up neatly. I need some more crates but I don't know where I would put them? My TV is on top of our Tuff Boxes. We ship stuff by boat in these boxes. So they take 60+ days to get to you. Mine got lost so it took 90 days for me to get it. Good thing I didn't need anything in it too badly.

Here is my bed. Yes, it still looks small to me. Finally there is the chair given to me by Mary. I use my hunting chair mainly but occasionally I sit in that one.

There you have it, my little slice of heaven. It is tiny, it gets dusty as hell but it is mine for another 12 months. "...but a room is not a house, and a house is not a home. <---Luther Vandrose moment."

Later

Grumpy's menu

You gotta love a sign that says deadly force authorized.So you have heard me talk/write about Grumpy's Restaurant in earlier posts. They are known for having these bright pink menus. My good friend Jim sent me one (in the package from Rosie and Tami). Here I am reading a Grumpy's menu in front of the sign on the way to work. I half expected to be shot taking the picture...ok just kidding, I was in no danger. I am sending it to Grumpy's in hopes of getting on the wall in the restaurant. It is a great place there in San Antonio. I tried to look as "kicked back" as possible. That is why I have the hat tilted back. Did I pull it off? I am going to go everywhere with that menu and make it like my own "Flat Fred." ...You will do most anything to pass the time...

Here is another picture of one of the false alarms. It was easily over 100 degrees and here we are outside again waiting to be let back in. Just passing time here in lovely, sunny Iraq.

Goodbye old friend.

This is one of my favorite pictures. Poor Bud had been dressed up in clothes by Brienne and her girlfriend when they were younger. Can you not see it on his face asking "why me?"

Well he died today. I wish I was home to help Bobbi and Brienne but they are tough ladies and they will do fine. I wasn't sure he would make it until my return. We've had him since February 1995, he was 3 months old. He slept at the foot of Brienne's bed almost immediately. He was nearly 14 yrs old when he died. The Vet said any Labs living past 12 years are happy dogs who want to stay around. He was a Great dog! I will really miss him.

More everyday stuff

This is the entrance to the hospital. The emergency doors are on the other side but this is the front door. Can't see it? It is behind the T walls. There is no sign just these t-walls. I want to get some hot pink paint and paint the walls. I would probably get found out. I guess as an officer i am supposed to be good. I will have to take some more pictures. I did not take alot this week. I was busy. We all had a tough week this week. We lost a Soldier in the unit. Everyone is still adjusting to it. I will write more about that later. For now enjoy the wall.

More pictures from my camera

Here is a photo of the T walls spray painted by some soldiers. It is ghetto living at it's finest. It has since been painted over. The Army is trying to be like Rudy Gulliani and fix the small crimes to prevent big crimes. Rudy did it in NY when he was mayor. It was funny to me so I took the picture. Whichever company is making these T walls is making a fortune. I dont know what they cost but there are thousands of them everywhere. I am happy they are there to keep any fragments from flying into our sleep areas and work areas. Makes me feel safer so I am all about that. It is in Spanish too. Speaking of which I am two lessons in on my Spanish. I will be able to order the best food in south Texas when I get back.

Here are some pictures of a typical sand storm here. I was walking to work 1 morning and looked back and saw this. I thought it was funny so I pulled out the camera. I swear if I get coal miner's lung or black lung disease I am going to know where I got it. Anyone know the Curahee rd significance? hint- Band of Brothers from HBO. See you came for entertainment and get a history lesson.


This is right in front of the dining facility or mess hall. Look at that sky. Who lives in this shit? I guess I do for the moment. I am watching Full Metal Jacket right now. Good view of Vietnam. "Hey G.I. you have girlfriend Vietnam?" " You know what pisses me off about these people? We try to help them and they shit all over us." <--these are lines from the movie. That last one is pretty close to true now too.

Back in the room and decided to take a picture of my refrigerator. It looks sad but remember all our meals are made in the dining facility so there is no need for me to have alot of food in the room. See the Mason jar? That is some home made hot sauce given to me by the Bacon family from SATX. It is so good. I plan to pour a little out for each meal and take it to the mess hall for my food. I will probably use a specimen cup from the hospital since it has to fit in my pocket.

Just call me Kreskin - predicted this.

So, as I predicted earlier we lost that female soldier from my office. She got in trouble again. Can you say, "Caught with man in bed?" They punished her and she walked out of the Commander's office into the Emergency Room to say she had nothing to live for. These were the magic words which got her a 1st class ticket out of here. It will be better I believe around the office. She is probably in Germany drinking a beer as I type. Actually, I know exactly where she is but what do you care. It is a sad comment on the 20 yr olds of today. Well time for me to take a snooze. I decided to take off today to recharge my batteries...no not code for playing with the pig (smile)...I really just need to forget Iraq for a little bit. It was a good week. I will get in a long work out session and watch a movie or two. later for now.

Place Patch my ass

Well as I predicted the patch ceremony was one of the weirdest things I have every seen. I should have taken pictures but I was in amazement trying to take it all in. 5 piece band, like 15 chairs (filled by 3 people from the unit), a big unit formation, speaker, podium, formal programs…etc. All for putting a patch on your right sleeve. I am just reminded once again why they should never let doctors be commanders of units. In most units you simple buy the patch and put it on as I said in the other post. The Command given by our pomp and circumstance boss was, “Place Patch.” There is no command to do this. It was funnier than hell to hear him say it. He gave a speech and everything. What he did not see was…”HE WAS TALKING TO US!!” there were no others there. All the others were probably thinking, “you want us to come to what type of ceremony? Yeah, right!” The band was there and you could see them laughing at how crazy this was. From what I hear, the unit I am assigned to had a patching ceremony previously when they switched units affiliations (left shoulder patch). They practiced for 3 hours to have him say, “Remove Patch” and then “Attach Patch” I honestly believe I would have cried laughing so hard at this guy. Give me strength to not open my mouth like I usually do.

1 YEAR TO GO!!!!

That's right!! Today means I have 365 days until I am home for good. Okay 364 but who's counting? There is a Microsoft excel program someone put together for us that you put in your arrival day and your departure day and it figures out the number of days, weeks, minutes, and seconds left. They call it the "donut of misery." It is called that because as it figures your days left it also begins to color in a circle. It is fun to look at and always know where you are in the pain. We are having a "patch" ceremony this morning. Let me tell you how silly this is...we are going to get in a formation (everyone line up in equal rows), a band will play, and someone will get on a microphone system and give commands "Put on Patch." I can't tell you how silly this is going to be. We will look like fools but our Commander wants to do this. These are our combat patches. When you are in combat for over 30 days you get to wear a unit patch on your right sleeve or arm. When you see Army guys walking around in uniforms with patches on their right sleeves they have been in combat. Anyway I hope I don't laugh out loud at the stupiditys of the ceremony.
Something that was fun - I got to actually see Bobbi and two of my great friends (Tami and Lisa) on a video teleconference yesterday. Bobbi is officially the Occupational Therapy Consultant or was officially sworn in and this organization called "Freedom Calls" (http://www.freedomcalls.org/) arranged for me to view the ceremony. That was really alot of fun. I have been using Skype to talk to her and others but unless you have a webcam you don't get to see who you are talking to. So we have not seen each other since May. My Mom and Dad have a webcam so I get to see them when I talk to them. Well time for me to run. The ceremony is at 7:30 (which is 2 hours from now). I can't believe we are going to be doing this? Too sad.

what I did this week.

I managed to get around alittle bit this week. Here are some of the photos.

<---I was walking home again and saw some strange vehicle I have never seen before. It is sort of a tank-like, scooper thingy. See the big scooper on top? It helps dig up bombs? I found out it is an MRAP too just another model. Lots of room in this one. Maybe I can take you all for a ride?



We have a new fire alarm system in the hospital that has optical sensors. The dust from being here in Iraq managed to set it off 4 times this week. So I get to go outside in the heat and sand every time it goes off. It is a pain in the ass but you learn that anything that is a diversion from ground hog day can be fun. The firemen all have to dress in their suits and come in with axes everytime. This is a picture of me with John and Lou. We share the same trailer it is just divided into 3 sections. Not sure who was the PhD candidate that decided to buy an optical sensor in the desert but hey it amuses me.



So these next photos are kinda fun to look at. We had 2 Soldiers and 1 Officer get promoted on 1 AUG. They wanted to get promoted someplace unique. So they chose 1 of the bombed out palaces of Saddam Hussein (sp?). This palace is called the "Victory Over America" palace. He was built it before the war kicked off. He had some propaganda going saying he beat the US during Desert Storm. He built palaces and had murals of the Iraqis pushing the US back. This was one of the palaces.

This time when we invaded we bombed this one. It is still standing and apparently structurally sound enough for us to do a tour and promotion ceremony in it. It was fun to see. It was hot as hell, as it always is and dusty and we had unsure footing but what a good place to say you were promoted in. To give you an idea of how big this place is; this palace is 1 million square feet. The main lobby is the size of a football field. Literally - 100 yards long and 55 wide. Saddam definitely did things big. Okay I blew off working out this morning. Just felt like sleeping in and here I am updating the BLOG. I need to get my fat ass to the gym later today. I will use it as my excuse to leave early.