Sunday Surf and Turf

Sunday is a good day around the desert of Fallujah, as it marks an rather tasty meal of seafood and steak. Tonight I feasted on lobster tails, crab balls, and shrimp. I even took it up a notch and had some ice cream. You'll be proud to note that it was only the fourth time since I arrived in country that I broke down and had some dessert. Yes, it was good.

The day was also marked with the arrival of two packages. The first being from the Coronado Woods' filled w/ movies, candy, and a copy of the San Diego Paper. The paper was a very nice touch - got to read some local accounts of the Padres. I liked the editorial by Nick Capedo discussing whether or not the fences should be moved closer to home plate at Petco. I understand both sides 1) move them in and create more offense 2) keep them where they are and loose some of the advantage for the pitchers. If I were given a vote, I'd say that we should keep them where they are. The argument against me will be that we will never be able to attract a big name slugger. I say that is bull crap b/c we won't pay an established slugger a 100 million plus (similar to Soriano or Carlos Lee) and that is why we won't have a big home run guy. Moving the fences in just negates our pitching advantages ... Enough on the Padres. I seem to be in a Padres bender the last few days. The second package (not second in effort and thought) was a box of books from Aunt KC in North Carolina - from the Moody side of the family. It was pretty funny, I opened the package and standing next to me was a PFC (E2) and he saw the Lord of the Rings books and jumped all over them. Additionally, there were several fishing magazines and they were gobbled up in a heart beat. My unit is based out of North Carolina and there was another LCpl (E3) who is the self-proclaimed fisherman of the millennium (he fishes the local lake on Camp every night) and he was thrilled to finally have something worth reading. It was the classic scene where you had one Marine chastising the other for being a sci-fi geek and the other calling him a redneck fool. It made me laugh. Thank you both for the care packages. You wouldn't believe what a giant positive impact mail has on morale. It means a lot to all of us here.

To answer Duane's question ... I don't avoid email all together now, this is just a far more effective use of my time. Who wants to get a generic email addressed to a large group of people. It almost feels as though I'm giving a speech. I'll save email to serve answering direct questions of things of a more personal nature. This blog creates a forum to talk about the generalities of the day. On a selfish layer it affords me an opportunity to diary this year. Hopefully, I'll be able to look back and remember specific events; vice, the general haze that surrounds a deployment. I am sure that all of can think of long periods of time where we can't conceptualize what we actually did. This is my charge - to remember this unique time. I mean how often does some random SWO get to walk around in a desert urban combat environment. I just wish that I could have a little more security on this site so that I could detail the classified events. It it not like we have a SIPR network that I can tap into back in the states. Enough on that.

I managed to exceed my goal of doing very little today. All the routine reports have been put to rest and now are sitting in another email account. I think by all accounts our endeavours last week have been ruled a success. I suspect that some news has actually leaked out on some of our efforts. Further, I am sure that they all are far from the truth - but we'll take the good with the bad. Things are happening out here and I am sure that ya'll would be pleased with the tangible and measurable effects. The end state is in mind and we are all well aware that the clock is ticking - the enemy knows this all too well. I sound like one of those cheesy military commercials. I am brain washed. It is going to be hard to go back to a ship after all of this. For Matt, I still have no thoughts or desires of getting a USMC tattoo!

The shining light for today is that some of the gents that I came to the desert with are starting to rotate out on leave. It is exciting to think that my ticket will be up soon. Two weeks back in the states hardly seems like enough; however, sometimes you have to take what you can get. T Tom - I can make a wedding from half a planet away ... MD/MS an exam or two ... give me a break! Yes, I'm calling you out and yes, there will be more ...