Working through this

Hi everyone! I know that no one has even seen this site yet, but it seemed like the thing to say.

I'm still trying to get down with this blogging stuff. It's hard for me to get to the site through the network here, and when I try to go straight to it I'm blocked by the network Spetnazis. Oh well, I'll just have to get a little more creative and figure the stuff out. A family member showed me how to do this who is much more Internet savvy than I am. Anyway...now I think I'm getting it. That brings a smile to my face.

Weather here is hot, but hey, it's actually not too bad. It was 100 degrees this morning by 0800, but it felt okay. The humidity was down. A week ago the heat was just insane, and hey--I'm not one of the superheroes who leave the camp and go on dismount patrols in this weather. Those guys are the badasses. I just have a desk job in a climate controlled environment. It has been sunny almost every day we've been here, with a few days of just intense haze from the humidity and the dust (like in the pic below) . I'm getting a great tan on my neck and ears; unfortunately the rest of my body is as white as foot powder.

I have seen on the web that there's a lot of commotion about this soldier who was blogging for The New Republic. Yeah--it's amazing how the Weekly Standard got the scoop that this guy was supposedly stretching the truth or lying altogether. I haven't been outside the walls, but I've been around long enough to know that just about anything is possible here. Running over dogs with a Bradley? Playing with body parts of skeletons? Tasteless, absolutely, but that doesn't make it false. People in horrific situations come up with coping mechanisms when they get subjected to this stuff day after day. Just ask any cop or paramedic--you make light of some pretty disgusting stuff to try and keep it away and not have to think about it.

Anyway, I hope for the kid's sake he was being truthful and that it all comes out in the wash. But again, the chickenhawks on the Right always seem to be able to smell a fishy war story without ever having served in the military themselves.

That's probably why they disbelieve and why they try so hard to debunk stuff like that. They have no earthly idea what being in a war zone is like. When they do come here, if they leave BIAP at all, they go to the IZ (International Zone, a.k.a., the Green Zone) and nowhere else. I could probably walk around Baghdad like John McCain if I had a rifle company escorting me and an attack helicopter company flying overhead. The fact remains that for all the "progress" this surge is supposed to be making the security situation for American military personnel is unchanged. And oh, by the way, the Iraqis still do without power for at least 18 hours a day. Americans would go batsh** if that happened to them. Look how societal norms broke down in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I really feel for the Iraqi people, who have suffered almost non-stop since 1979. It's no wonder that they cling to family and tribe identities when the government has been an instrument of oppression for so long. There are two generations of Iraqis that are growing up not even knowing what a government for the people is like AT ALL.

Okay, time to get back to work here. It's now 1440 here, so it's 0640 on the East Coast, where they are undergoing a "heat wave," as I understand. Well, I hope it all cools off for you. Talk to you later. Liberally yours,

Pat