Wednesday, May 23, 2007

No Fobbit Here

Incomplete Soviet Power plant, 2/10th Mtn, Patrol Base Dragon. photo by S. Chamberlain
Wednesday, May 23, 2007 1:52 PM (9:52 pm Baghdad time)
Mom,

I do get all of your e-mails. Actually I haven't checked my e-mail in a while, so they tend to build up, but hopefully tonight I will get to read them all. I have an early mission tomorrow morning, so I can't spend too much time on here.

My schedule is very different from before. Pretty much 5-6 days a week are spent outside the wire on missions. They could last from 4 or 6 hours, up to 14-16 hours, I even had one mission last week out over night at a patrol base, about 36 hours of work. Then when we're back on the FOB I only have one real priority, maintenance of my equipment. There are always little admin things, and one planning meeting a week, but the rest of the time is spent working out, sleeping, eating, or watching DVD's. Some days I might only get 3-4 hours of sleep in between missions, while other days I will get 12 hours. It all depends. It certainly has made the last two weeks go by faster. Hopefully the next 6 months go just as fast.

The FOB I live on now is very different. There are a lot more people, and most of them never leave the FOB, we call them Fobbits. Guys like me are supposed to resent them. Most of my guys do, since we leave the wire every day, seeing the "real Iraq", while for them this is pretty much 9-5....

Under armor shirts would be great if that’s what you guys want to do.

Care packages are still great. So far it looks like all my guys get nice care packages, but I'm still getting to know them. Snack foods are definitely a plus, because of our mission schedules we usually only get one meal a day in the chow hall, sometimes none. So without care packages we would eat MRE's on missions, instead we vegg on the numerous snacks in our care packages.

Well, more later.

Love,
Sam

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