In Country ... Week One

We finally got a phone call after 9 days of silence. It was terrific to say the least. As it turns out, he has been at the FOB he told us about for a week. It seems that there was supposed to be a company of US troops that were to replace the coalition troops from another country currently at that sight. In fact, there is a full brigade of US troops at the FOB, meaning that it is REALLY crowded. Kyle said that they are packed into their living quarters like sardines and living out of their Ruck sacks. His words were, "This is going to be a LONG year."

Because their are so many soldiers, there is little to do. He talked with some soldiers who have been there for nearly a year who have been on a total of ONE mission. On that one mission, however, they did encounter some combatants who placed a sticky bomb to the side of their MRAP. The damage was negligible, but the stories were vivid.

Since there is so little word to do, Kyle said that the average day consists of eating, PT, eating, working out at the gym, eating and then sleeping. He did say, however, that he is getting bigger and stronger. He said that, since it is such a small FOB, they are responsible for EVERYTHING, including burning their own waste (no, I'm not talking about trash). There were some things about military service I would have been fine NOT knowing.

Someone in our congregation asked me the other day if their are laundry facilities. We got the answer today ... YES. It consists of a bucket, some powder soap and a sand hill outside for a dryer. He did say, though, that the D-Fac is AMAZING!

The FOB is equipped with all the necessities for combat: A running track, volleyball court, soccer/football field, gym, video games, computers and phone system. He mentioned that the communications (computer and phone) are really poor and VERY crowded. It is over a 30 min. wait for a phone and you are limited to a 30 min. call. They can also have a 30 min time slot on the computer, but it took 30 minutes for the chat screen to load on facebook, so he has determined that he won't be doing a lot of e-mail.

I'll write more of his trip to Iraq in the next post ...