War in Iraq, a Soldier's View

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03-May-03 3:18 PM

Well 4 days past 180 and still no word about anything. That’s not completely true the Major says that there’s a list being made up of all the people that are going home and now that the combat arms are gone the support is next. And it’s supposed to be first in first out. But there’s still the very good chance that we’ll be overlooked until the last troops are pulling out, so if things go good then we’re out of here mid to late may, if things go bad then were here till the end of June.

Being here has gotten so tedious, we don’t do any actual work and were doing more crap details more and more. The MKIT that we were getting hot meals from got pulled back so they moved our KP duties to the MP’s MKIT. But the food there is worse and you have to put all your gear on to eat so nobody goes there. We tried to get Slocum to tell the Major that if were not eating there we shouldn’t have to do KP but nothing came of it.

The last few days have been horrible for bug bites we’re all covered in them now, but Gibson has it the worst. You’d think he has the measles by looking at him. I’ve never itched so bad, it sucks that there’s no bug repellant or hydrocortisone to keep the itching down. Even the aid station is no help; all they got is Benedril for allergic reactions.

The last few days have been the most depressing of all, it seems that the lower enlisted are anxious to get out but the NCOs are content to just sit here as long as they have to. It pisses me of the have people that don’t represent my views standing up for me. If it’s up to them we’ll be the last ones to leave here. Today a lot of effort is being spent getting things ready for some Colonels coming tomorrow, we have to make it look we’re hard at work even though most of us have been sitting on our asses for the last three weeks and others, like me, have been sitting on our asses doing nothing the whole deployment. Patterson was joking that we all need to go sun tanning tomorrow so the Colonels see that we have nothing to do, I don’t want to suntan but if the Colonels comes anywhere near me he’ll see that I have nothing to do. I don’t care what anybody says I’m not going to pretend to do things when there’s nothing for us to do out here. It’s that whole army mentality I hate where people think they have to appear busy at all times, doing useless work even when there’s nothing else to do is still a waste of time.

My sister told me about all the new movies coming out back home, I wish so much I could just go see one if I wanted. Matrix 2 sounds great but just the freedom of going to the store and renting a movie sounds great now.

I’m listening to DoCo right now and it’s getting me in the mood to watch Japanimation again. I love watching weird movies late at night with my sister, I keep reading on the net about new anime that I’ve never seen but I always thought about renting. When I get home I’m going to have to buy “Spirited Away” and “Princess Monoke” and rent, Nausicca, Bubble Gum Crises, and the Macross Series.

This place is such a dump it torture being surrounded by the landscape here. I’m sitting in a concrete and brick building that is littered with dirt rocks and straw; the flies are bothering me and the gnats are biting. But out across the road the field is full of reeds swaying in the breeze. Across the field the concrete buildings of the locals lie in the shade under the palm trees. There's nobody about because it’s so much cooler inside out of the afternoon heat. The sky is bright blue with just a few wispy clouds down near the horizon. Obviously no storms are due for the next few days.

Last night I noticed that the locals had their lights on again. I wondered why they had been off all the time we were here, first I thought that it might have had something to do with the religious holiday a week ago but that didn’t make sense so then I though that they might have had them off for fear of being bombed like the British and Germans in WW2 but that didn’t make sense either because they had to realize that the war was over and they were safe with us so close, then I remembered that the power has been out all across Iraq and they must have finally gotten the local power plant running again. Good for them but now the stars at night are dimmer. That’s kind of representative of how things are going right now; the Iraqi people are getting happier that they have more freedom now but us soldiers are getting more depressed because were losing ours.