Day 9 Iraq

I'm starting out this post with a little catch-up with what I've been doing since I left Phoenix just in case you were wondering what happened to Day 1 thru 8. I will tell you here briefly but maybe later I can expand my thoughts a little more. I left Phoenix on May 31st at 11:00am, flew on America to Chicago and landed about 5:00pm. Took off again on a non-stop flight at 7:00pm, by the way talked myself into Business Class on the first row, and I landed in Frankfurt at 10:30am. Went straight to the hotel, changed $ into monopoly money, went to the bar for several German beers that I have to say it was very GOOD! American beer is good but the Germans sure know how to do beer. Anyway I took off the next day at 1:15pm for a non-stop flight to Al Udeid, Qatar arriving at 10:30pm. Became the troop commander for about 50 people and was told to be back at the passenger terminal....tent...at 0730 the next morning. By the time I left the in-processing area it was 2:00am. 5 1/2 later I was back at the tent and at 11:50am we took off for Iraq. The flight was long, hot, cold boring but the neat part is we got hit with about 7 small arms bullets but no problems in our big heavy C-130. We landed in Iraq at 3:00 pm and I didn't get to bed until around 12:30am, then up at 7:00. And I've been going full speed ever since. Went to a meeting in Baghdad via helicopter on June 7th and was really amazed at how populated the city is and just how dirty the whole place is. But I got to see alot of gold at one of Saddam's Presidental Palaces. I will have to go to meeting at this place alot, usually every Tuesday, except for June 14th where I'll be in Kirkuk. But as far as today, I had some surgery to take out some sand fly that had worked it's way into my skin, probably from the bed. It hurts but it really will feel better after the incision heals and of course when they give me my purple heart. hehe