Memorial Day surrounded by Our Nations Heros

So today was Memorial Day. And even though it was a work day here on Camp Victory it was definitely a special day. Surrounded by the men and women of our armed forces, so far from home and families it really hits home what today is all about. For all of us here will return home and see our families in time, but today is for honoring those who made that ultimate sacrifice and the families who won't ever see those loved ones again.

It reminds me of a statement that one of my Facebook friends posted recently, that so astutely describes the situation...
"A Soldier/Sailor/Marine/Airman is someone, who at one point in their life wrote a blank check made payable to the United States of America for an amount up to, and including, their life. That is an honor, and there are way too many people in this country today who no longer understand that fact."

This holds so true that it cannot be denied. And today is the day to remember that and say... "Thank you"...

From Camp Victory, Iraq
Kurt Gruber... OUT

Day off touring….

 

Today was my day off.  After sleeping until around 1130 I woke up, watched a little TV and headed over to the DFAC at about 1230.  By total coincidence I ran into Robert in the DFAC and after lunch he took me around for kind of a tour of some of the stuff around here. 

We headed toward Camp Slayer, with a couple different missions in mind.  Mainly looking at the sights, but secondly to check out where Crossfit Slayer’s gym is for future reference.   There are some pretty interesting sights around here, and a lot of them are in the Camp Slayer portion of the complex. 

There are two palaces one which is finished, one that is not.  The Perfume Palace is reportedly where Saddam kept his “harem”.  The Victory over America and Iran Palace is a bit further down the road.  It is ironically not finished.  There are giant construction cranes around it, which apparently our “French Allies” would like us to pay for or ship back to them, as they were “lost” when we deposed the dictator for whom they were building the palace. 

One of the things that amazes me the most going around this complex is all the water.  It is pretty obvious in day to day dealings that we are in the middle of the desert, but the complex is scattered with many man-made lakes.  Apparently Saddam’s version of Islam states that a sin created on a lake or body of water does not extend outside of that body of water.  For that reason all of the palaces are surrounded by water and there are little buildings that are in the middle of the lakes around which have horrific stories from their past.

More to come later.

From Camp Victory Iraq…. Signing off…

In a world of T Walls, everyone is a midget

Well another couple days have passed and I am starting to get into the swing of things around here. One of the crazy things is that you can never see anything. The reason for that is the rows and rows of T Walls.. there must be millions of them. When we get done here we should bring them all home. There are definitely enough to reach from the Gulf to the Pacific and make one helluva boarder wall. Each CHU is totally surrounded by T Walls, which takes about 32 of them.. When you figure out that there are couple thousand CHUs that gets to be a big number, and that is just in the living areas.

It has been pretty uneventful here, which I guess is good, since this is still officially a war zone. You hear some weapon fire in the distance every now and then, but it always comes from the same direction and I think that is the range. I pretty much have my CHU set up in a way that I will be able to live with for a while.

From Camp Victory, Iraq.. Signing out..

CHU Life

Well a few months ago I introduced a lot of you to CLU living... Well in Iraq instead of CLU's the billeting is in CHU's.... No clue what it stands for.. :)

CHU's are actually not bad at all.. Compared to a CLU they are downright luxurious... If I had to describe a CHU I would say take a 30ish foot mobile home, subdivide it into 3 living quarters and there you go... Way better than the cut in half conex container...

We departed Bahrain today after 3 lovely days of laying around my hotel room doing absolutely nothing and arrived in Baghdad at approximately 1330. By 1430 we were on Camp Victory and I had been shown my CHU. 2 of the 3 footlockers I had shipped ahead were already in there, the third was at DHL waiting to be picked up. Moved in a fridge and some other stuff that Brennham (the guy I am replacing) left behind for me and began to unpack.

I got mostly done unpacking, I will finish tomorrow... gonna go buy a 37" 1080p LCD at the PX tomorrow and need to pick up a desk to put it on as well as something to sit on other than my bed....

Anyway, more to come from lovely Camp Victory Iraq, this is your roving computer geek.... Signing off.

Up Up and Away

The fact that I was going to be basically moving to Iraq for the next 9-21 months really didn't sink in until I was packing my bags last night.... I tend to be pretty OCD so I always feel like I am forgetting something. That feeling is stressful when you will be gone a week, but when you know you won't be home for 5-6 months it is a whole new level of stress..

I think I am ready, I think everything is squared away.. I know I couldn't do this if Anne wasn't here to be my safety net to send me anything that I might have forgot and take care of all my business at home for me. I will miss everyone, saying bye to the sarge is always hard...

I will keep y'all up to date via this blog and facebook...

Cheers,
Kurt

Djibouti Cheetah Refugee -- worth the wait

So I finally got to visit the Cheetah refuge on Friday and I have to say it was quite awesome. The fact that I am in Africa didn't really sink in totally until I got there. Getting off camp and to this refuge was something that really opened my eyes and I am glad that I got a chance to do it.

We left camp about 1530 and headed to the refuge which is about half was between the camp and the Somalian border on the road to Somalia. As we got a bit of ways outside of camp it was amazing how much the desert on the Horn of Africa looks like the desert out by Horizon City in El Paso.. :)

The refuge itself is about 75 acres of desert that is fenced in to keep the animals, most of whom were rescued from overcrowded zoos in Europe and have never lived in the wild, from getting out where they aren't prepared to survive.

The first of the animals we saw was a Caracal. The Caracal is a small carnivorous cat that looks a lot like a lynx.

Next we got to see the Cheetahs, of which there are six at the refuge. Most of the cheetahs are captured at the port where people are trying to illegally export them. There are four male and two female Cheetahs, one of the females is the first Cheetah to ever reproduce in captivity. The highlight of the Cheetahs was definitely Oliyah (no clue on the spelling). He was raised as a cup by the French Foreign Legionnaires here and would wrestle with them when he was young, so he is very friendly towards humans. He came over to us and wanted us to pet him, which we were able to do since we had a small group. It was amazing, he even mouthed my hand a little bit and licked me.

After the Cheetahs we went over to the "expansion" area that is the newest part of the refuge. It is about 40 acres that they have fenced in for the larger herbivores. There were 5 ostriches, one of which followed us around the whole time we were there. We wandered over and found a couple of the wild asses and as we left that area the juvenile Oryx came to us wanting to play. It was important to send him away, as he doesn't realize he has 3 foot long horns on his head and wants to play. When I pushed him away he understood and just started walking with us until we came to where the adult Oryx were. The adults aren't it's parents but have taken over raising it since it came to the refuge.

We wandered a bit more and found the Zebra. He was quite awesome and came right up to me to pet him. He was just like a horse with stripes. He was pretty happy to get some attention.

On the way out we saw the pair of Hyena's that they have and a lot of the gazzelles that were settling down for the night as the sun was starting to set. I never realized how small gazelles are. They are about the size of a medium sized dog and weigh about 60-80 pounds max.

I have a ton of pics that I will make available once I get home and have a decent internet connection.

BTW I go home tomorrow. I am so happy and ready for my time here to be over.

13 days and a wake up

So the time has crawled here in Djibouti.. it has been one long groundhog day... The joke is "It's always Monday in Djibouti". Gladly it is drawing to a close. As of today I have 13 days left in the desert on the Horn of Africa.

It was pretty hot today, they actually changed the flag from green to yellow for the first time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_Bulb_Globe_Temperature

Did I mention I am ready to be out of here. The men and women of CJTF HOA have earned my respect in a serious way, because this place is not somewhere I would want to spend any serious time..

Looking forward to seeing everyone and I miss y'all.