Long Days and Sleepless Nights ...

We heard from the lad yesterday. He seemed to be in good spirits, but tired. That seems to be the name of the game these days. He said that they are doing up to 15 hour patrols on a regular basis. Since he is on the night side and starts his shift at 1800 hrs, sleep (at least at night) has been at a premium. The lack of sleep means that staying awake behind the wheel in the "wee hours" is tough. More than once he has been awakened by a team member while on patrol. That would be bad if Kyle was just one of the guys in the Humvee. It is significantly worse as he is the driver. He mentioned that some truck teams, not his of course, have been known to find a quiet place out of the view of Choppers and F-16's to catch a few Z-z-z-z-z-z's.

He mentioned that the nights are REALLY cold - in the 30's. Trundling about at night means that he is spending lots of his work hours in the "freezer." As a hedge against the cold, he said that he had heard of truck teams using an incendiary grenade as fire starter for a palm tree. Whatever it takes ;-)

There has been a change in eating policy as well. It used to be that they were allowed to put in for "meals to go" when they took these extended patrols. That was THEN. NOW they are not allowed to receive the "meals to go" (probably because the motor pool got tired of cleaning up the messes in the Humvee's). Fifteen hours without food means that everyone on his team is losing weight. Lets see now ... sleep deprivation ... food deprivation ... don't we have a name for that?

He now has a new roommate. His former roommate was not his favorite person in the platoon. But that individual took leave stateside and when he came back, he found Josh M. sleeping in his bunk. H-m-m-m-m-m ... Kyle is loving it. Josh has been Kyle's close friend since Kyle was stationed in Colorado.

A little sad news ... Kyle had received several AT&T phone cards (like a couple thousand minutes worth). He was set! Then he went to the phone bank the other day only to discover that the AT&T phones had been removed. Can you believe it? He did mention how grateful he is to his church family and extended family for remembering him as he serves in Iraq. He has been showered with love!