24

My first day here in Kuwait has not been to bad. I mean really, how do you complain when you are sitting in my air conditioned tent, on my bunk, drinking a Starbucks Iced Carmel Machiatto? Really, I bought it at the Starbucks next to the PX. Paid the same as I did in DC, about $3. Camp Arifjan (AJ) has it all, PX, pool, Starbucks, Pizza Hut. All the comforts of home. Yes I am living in a tent. Yes I have to walk about 300 yards to the latrine/shower. Yes it is about 115 degrees here by 1 PM. All true, but when you realize how hard, I mean really hard those guys up in Iraq have it, this is the lap of luxury.

The section I will be working in wanted to give us some time to acclimate to the climate as well as jet lag so we had yesterday and this morning off. We start in-processing this afternoon. Yesterday, I tooled around post a bit, bought some stuff at the PX. IM'd Emily. Watched "Letters form Iwo Jima" at the MWR tent. Unpacked some stuff and went to sleep. The highlight was definitely the movie.

If you haven't seen "Letters from Iwo Jima" yet, I recommend it. It may be my situation, but I found it a great commentary on war. The movie is half of Clint Eastwoods' effort to illustrate the fact that wars are fought by people on both sides that believe in their cause, and believe they are doing the right thing. People, regular people who have families and want better for the next generation The other half of the effort is "Flags of our Fathers". Letters tells the story form the Japanese side, Flags from the American side. I haven't seen Flags yet, but I hope to soon. The MWR tent is open 24/7 and you can borrow DVD's if they aren't showing anything you like. Let me tell you. Blockbuster got nothing on these dude's, they have all kinds of movies.

Today I woke up about 0400. IM'd Emily, you will find that I do that a lot ;) Then I went and did PT. I stretched a lot, because I haven't done PT in a while, then went for a slow run on the treadmill for about 30 minutes. Headed over to the DFAC for breakfast. Man, I need to be careful over there. They have a ton of food, and it is all pretty good. This morning I had Scrambled eggs, sausage and french toast. Orange/pineapple juice, and coffee. A banana and a plum rounded out the feast. I stayed away from the rest of it because I just know I could eat myself into a stuper. Anyhow, chow is pretty good. There isn't much you cant get. They even have the neat little tubes of Crystal Light for bottled water! Good stuff, because water in the quantity we drink it gets pretty bland!

So I'll be hanging around the tent until after lunch. Going to try to limit lunch to a burger and fries, as opposed to 2 burgers, fries, pie, coleslaw, potato salad, cookies, and an ice cream sandwich which was yesterday's lunch!