first day and morning in baghdad

I first want to include a picture from my hotel room in Kuwait. Subsequent to the taking of this picture, I was informed this is actually a graveyard located in the middle of Kuwait City. There is apparently another 50 year moratorium on the development of this land, so it remains as it is seen here:



After some concern about my colleagues’ (Matt Drane and Chris Stewart) inbound flight being delayed, they made our connecting flight in Kuwait and we all arrived safely in Baghdad last night.

The flight in was not as eventful as I thought it might be…aside from some strange banking and variations in speed, it was a pretty straightforward landing, albeit all exterior and interior lights on the plane were turned off. Though I have to wonder, if someone had something powerful and sophisticated enough to take a plane down, would it matter if the lights were on?

Upon arrival in Baghdad, we were met by our logistics partner and were on our way to our temporary lodging for the night. The first thing that struck me while driving through the area surrounding the airport is the sheer immensity and size of the installations we have here. For a temporary base of operations, the installation looks awfully permanent and massive. And these are just first impressions; I haven’t even made it over the the IZ yet. I was told the first time I see the installations from a helicopter will be the first time I really can appreciate the total size of all of this.

We stopped by the PX which was also surprisingly large in both size and scope. The options available, while limited in choice of brands, were still as plentiful as Target. Anything from 50” flat screen Sony TVs and Xboxes to clothes to toiletries to junk food were available. I got a power converter, Matt bought some clothes and necessities as his luggage didn’t make the transfer from the flight in Kuwait and we headed over to the mess hall for a late night meal. All that was open at the mess hall was the sandwich bar, but I can tell already that the options available for food during the day are going to be plentiful and based on what we ate last night, it should be tasty. My initial thoughts from a year ago when I applied for this assignment of MREs 3 times a day are nowhere near the reality of the situation.

This morning we awoke to the faint sound of machine gun fire in the distance. Not enough to be frightening, but enough to remind me that we are most definitely not in Kansas anymore.

By the end of the day, we will make our way over to the IZ and I should become acquainted with my permanent housing for the next 6 months. I am really looking forward to starting to move around and seeing what this place looks like in the daylight…