The mighty C-17I made it to Iraq on Sunday 04 October 2009 after having spent a week in Kuwait. The training in Kuwait at the Udari range was not as bad as I had anticipated. Basically, I slept on a floor in a classroom for two nights, ate a bunch of MRE's, and fired my M9 pistol again. In my opinion this training was redundant to the training we already did in South Carolina.
The folks who trained us in Kuwait were part of a civilian outfit called MPRI http://www.mpri.com/esite/. Of all the shooting I have done this far, I felt that this training was particularly unsafe. Shells from the shooters next to me were landing on my body and they are hot as hell. However, thankfully I did not flail about when one of these shells landed on me or else the burly instructor who played both Rugby and Football would have been only too happy to form tackle me to keep his range safe.
I flew from Kuwait to Iraq on an Air Force plane called a C-17 as can be seen on the picture above. We descended into Iraq via a military style landing. This type of landing consits of a sharp descent onto the landing pad. The descent was steep and fast, but definitely not nearly as bad as I heard from others who have deployed.
This week in Iraq has consited of training for the most part, and I have done no real work. Currently, I am staying in a Chu (mobile home unit) in Freedom Village located on William Wallace road. As you can tell from the names of various landmarks the freedom theme ring bellows throughout this base. My current mobile home unit is some primo real estate for these parts. I am near the bathroom, gym, and cafeteria or the big three as I like to call them.
On Tuesday I visited Saddam's old palace here on Camp Victory Base. The palace is called Al Faw palace, and is immense, but gaudy not like the European palaces of old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Faw_Palace Currently, the US forces and at one point the coalition of the willing occupy the palace. It is in this palace where all the Generals and military brass make their daily decisions. In January of this year no longer will MNF-I own this building, but rather just the Americans which will be called United States Forces Iraq or (USFI). As I walked through the palace, I thought that Saddam must be having a coniption fit at the thought of the American forces setting up shop in one of his old palaces. In the palace also hangs a 100 yard United State's flag which is draped against the wall.
The palace also hosts a throne that Yasser Affarat gave Saddam as a gift. Fortunately, the throne is not off limits to the troops and I sat myself down in the chair, and wondered how many times Saddam sat in this particular throne. Interestingly, one of the arabic terms written on the throne reads, "Jerusalem is ours."
The footlift is for Saddam gassing the Kurds..
The main boss of TF-134 works in Uday'sold quarters about a quarter of a mile from the Al Faw palace. Although not as large as the main palace I certainly would not turn my nose up at the digs. One of the highlights for the new attorneys is going up on the roof and getting to see the entire Victory base complex. You can also hit golf balls from atop Saddam's dead lads roofs into the pond. .
