Sunday, December 12, 2004 1:31 AM
ryanseals
Greetings from Iraq
Hey everyone,
Greetings. I've been here for about three days now and I am settling in quite nicely. I have two roofs over my head, my own bed, and pretty much my own half of a room. Our base is on an old Iraqi Air Force base in the northern part of the country. Being that, I live inside of an old aircraft hangar, inside of a trailer made into a room, which are known as CHU's. I believe that stands for either Conex Housing Unit or Central Housing Unit. Life doesn't seem like it's going to be that bad here, but there is pretty much nothing here at all. We have a few local “hadji” shops where we can buy things from the locals, and a hadji restaurant as well. We have limited things in our PX which only gets restocked once a month. We have a couple of gyms and a couple of MWR facilites where we can use the phone or log onto the Internet.We are looking at getting the Internet installed in our building by January, so I should be able to get on the net anytime I want after that.
As far as the country goes, I have only been out and about once, and that was on the way here from Kirkuk. I must say I can't help but feel sorry for these people, especially the children. The children were so happy to see us, running along side our convoy waving and cheering at us. The adults just stared as we passed by, some with disgust, others with joy smiling and waving as well. But the reason I feel bad for them is because of all the filth here. The highways were lined with trash and it looked so gross. The gas stations in particular caught my eye. The ground was soaked with fuel and I have no clue how they ever got any of it in their cars. The people were lined up for miles to get gas, kind of reminicent of the gas shortage in the states in the 1970s.
Almost every place we passed looked like a slum and my heart felt for the children because they don't know a life any better. Hopefully though, in helping to get this country's new democratic government in place, those kids will know a better life than what they have now.
God Bless, and keep the children of Iraq in your prayers,
Ryan