Intro to Monkeyface

So Natalie and I wanted to set up this blog so that we could talk about our experiences during this next deployment. The last deployment I was single, and Natalie had no clue who in the hell I was. Also, I have a lot more great friends now then I did back then so e-mailing updates isn't quite as easy either. And now that digital photos are all the rave (the last deployment utilized 35mm for the most part) we can also post photos of all the fun we're having (thereby justifying the expense of the "indestructible" camera I got for Christmas.

For those who are first learning of this news of my next vacation, starting in May I'll be spending 2.5 months doing training before actually finally getting to the Middle East. Hopefully I'll be back home and enjoying my 90 days until I have to go back to work (thank you USEERA) by April 2010. I don't plan to divulge too many specific details of my plans and my happenings here as the blog is public, and don't intend to divulge many names, if any. But I'll do my best to keep you all quite informed enough that I'm hoping you'll find it quite interesting still. And for those who have trouble with the English language, I'll post some photos along the way as well.

For starters, this post has just a few photos from the first deployment (thank you Steve for transfering all these to digits way back in the day - you rock!)

This is a photo of our "home" at our home base in Baghdad. It wasn't too shabby, but not as nice as it looks either - and no, you can't swim in the lake.

This is a photo of a handfull of tents at a base in Kuwait on fire. No, it's not a cool story, as best anyone can tell it was an errant cigarette. No, not my base - so I slept fine that next night.

Our makeshift grill at Balad - and a whole cow leg. Tip, you kind of have to cook it for a while, eat a few inches down, cook, repeat. Hard to cook it all the way though in one day.

On R&R in Qatar, this is how I spent most of my time trying to water Ski - though I was on my feet for about 60 seconds at one point.

Three of us from my unit on R&R in Qatar. The only legal beer we had that side of the International Dateline.

Some crappy little town in the middle of nowhere - OK, you're right, that's pretty much the whole country. I think we were working on getting them a well or something.

One of the nicer accomodations while we were on a mission. This time in Mosul. At least there was a roof, windows, and the AC worked about 60% of the time, so it took the edge off at night.