1 month down 11 Months to Go

Greetings from Ramadi, Iraq. Well today is officially the one month mark, only 11 more to go. This first month has been pretty busy, The team and I spent almost two weeks in Kuwait going through more classes and training, then a week at Taji, where we did some more death by power point classes. It was nice to be at Taji though. I got a chance to see how much it had changed since 2003-2004. My old building is still there complete with the howitzer that we decorated for Christmas 03. After Taji we spent a couple of days at Marine Expeditionary Force II headquarters in Fallujah doing some familiarity training on how the Marines do things, since we will be under the Marines the whole time we are here, basically what I learned is that is the same difference between American English and British English, we are saying the same thing we just have different words for it. Finally about a week ago we arrived at Ramadi where we were greeted with open arms by the guys we were to replace.

Things are going well here as I figure out what my role in advising the Iraqi's is going to be. I am the G-1 advisor, which means that I make sure the Iraqis pay the soldiers on time, keep accountability of their soldiers, get them promoted when they are supposed to and that that assign their soldiers in accordance with their Unit Manning Roster. Pretty simple things in the US Army, but a whole different ball game when it comes to the Iraqis. I'll go it more details in later blogs.

The pictures show me, yes that's me with the bald head and mustache, enjoying a typical Iraqi feast at one of our subordinate battalions on the celebration of the birthday of the Iraqi Army. the guy next to me is our team medic Doc Colon and the guy with the clear glasses is our team intel officer Maj VanAlstine. The food is not too bad and I haven't gotten sick yet, so I'm still eating it. Two of the pictures show you what my half of my room looks like. It is about 8x8 and most of the stuff in it was either made by guy before me or I bought it from him as he was leaving. The other picture is of the snow that we had the other morning. Rumor has it that is the first time that it has snowed in this area in over 40 years. The last picture is of the outside of our team house.

Right now life is pretty good in Ramadi, so for those of you who have been asking what I need the short answer is nothing, but thanks for the thought. Soon though we are going to move out to an extremely remote location in Western Iraq and I'll probably need some things then. Until then keep me in your thoughts and prayers and check back regularly as I will try to update the blog about every two weeks or so.