See what happens when I don't write ...

... the Padres loose. It pains me to write about the Padres loosing and I'm get quite tired of these one run affairs.


The much anticipated cleaning effort was about as fun as chicken pox. From this event, I received my first battle wound - a splinter. And let me tell you, it was the most painful splinter that I have ever had. I just couldn't get it out of my thumb. It was pretty much a nightmare. The corpsman, who was on scene for such a dynamic event, was able to respond with a quickness never seen before and remove the splinter. Upon further review, it was probably was a thorn. Fun times.


I've included some pictures for everyone - I think that they aren't quite fair and seem a little bit more dramatic than they are in person. The one to the left was taken from inside a school classroom of one of the places that we cleaned up. As you can see - Iraqi children aren't any different than children around the world. They seemed generally excited - I'm not so sure that passing out school supplies and soccer balls had anything to do with it!




The next in sequence was taken of the building adjacent to the school house - you don't see any portion of the school in this picture. The school was just remodeled and is quite nice. In the middle of the picture you will see the blast impression from a previous engagement and the associated incendiary damage. Most homes are built with an outer wall - cinder blocks with some plaster-like coating. You'll also notice the constantina wire along the base of the wall in the lower right hand corner. The problem with c-wire is that all the trash gets caught and then the hooded idiots place IEDs in there.

A package this afternoon arrived from the Moody's and what was it you might ask? MONSTERS! As a write this affair, I am drinking my face off and loving every minute. Seriously, ya'll have got to try these things ... they make coffee irrelevant. Thank you very much!