Another Day

Ok, it's now official. On every Tuesday and Friday the chow hall will be serving lunch. So far it's only been hotdogs and hamburgers, but not too bad. The best thing about our chow hall is the fruit. I don't know where they get it or how they always manage to get fresh produce everyday, but it's great. I only wish they could get Georgia peaches instead of the California ones, BIG difference in taste.

I've been playing with the Google Earth program, I can almost see the window to Randy's apartment. I can actually see the little sidewalk in front that he walks on everyday to go to his car. He calculated out how far we are from one another; approximately 6,891.93 miles (give or take a few feet). Wow, that's far. Guess I can't swim that after all, oh well.


After work yesterday I came back to a sweltering hot tent, the air-conditioning wasn't working AGAIN. Every other day or so this happens, it's so annoying because no one else's air goes out, just ours. So I ended up hanging out at the PX for the 2 hours before chow. I talked politics and money with one of my buddies there. For a moment I almost felt like I was back at school again. I miss Agnes Scott College.

SPC Lauren Schreck

Dirty Water

Somehow I didn't find the time to write yesterday. I was busy playing with all my new toys. I got two packages the other day containing a new laptop, webcam, My Teddy-Bear(the other one died in the fire), pictures of my hubby, a camping lantern, and lots of other goodies. I'm feeling pretty darn good right now.


I met my current roommate while I was with the replacement company at Ft. Stewart. She got there about two weeks after I did. Her whole family came with her to drop her off, two vehicles full. They even brought the family dog, much to the amusement of the other soldiers there. She's a Charlie med who is on a month-long rotation here at FOB St. Michael's. I remember when they came in I only saw one of the three girls who came in for this month's rotation. She asked me where they could stay. We only had one room open at the time so two of them could stay in there. I said the one girl who was working night shift could sleep in my room with me since at the time I was working days. Much to my surprise, I saw the next day that it was the girl I had met in Stewart. She's been good company, a little messy, but great to talk with. She is politically conservative and I am politically liberal, but we get along. Too bad the rest of the country couldn't do that.

She's always telling me stories of what goes on over in the trauma center. A few days ago she went out on a humanitarian mission. They visited a few homes and distributed some medicines. She was treating this one little girl, trying to figure out what was wrong with her. After about ten minutes of relaying back and forth through interpreters, she discovered that she had been drinking sewage water from the streets. A week before that, she and a few other medics treated a little boy who had been shot in the foot. The boy looked about 8 years old, but they found out through the interpreter that he was actually 13. He didn't cry once while he was there. The medics treated the boy and found that he needed immediate surgery to save his foot. They made a call to Brigade to get him medivaced out to the hospital in Baghdad, but were told no. The boy had to go to the local hospital in Mahmudiyah, where he would probably loose his foot and possibly die from infection. His father was only concerned about his car that the patrol destroyed. The only question he ever asked was if he would be compensated for his vehicle.

A Muddy Day

I went over to the PX yesterday to pick up some more tea and remembered as I walked into the MWR building that they were closed. The NCOIC for the PX was up at Liberty restocking. It didn't take long for our soldiers here to practically empty out the place. Since I was already there at the MWR tent, I sat down with the other guys there to watch The Fantasic Four (we get all the movies before they are released to dvd and sometimes when they're still in the theater. But they are . But wouldn't you know it? Once the movie got up to the part that I hadn't seen yet (the other day I started it but the dvd was scratched too badly to finish it), the power went out and stayed out for over an hour. By the time it came back on, it was time for dinner. I ended up talking to two guys from Bravo Co. who were both heading out soon. One was coming back from the hospital in Baghdad and then to one of the other FOBs. The other guy was headed to Taji. They both started joking about how small their FOB was. The guy coming back from the hospital told me how he went 12 days without a shower when he first got here. At FOB Row, you get a shower every 3-4 days, but every time he went the shower was out of water, the generator was dead, or the pump was broken. He said after a while he just forgot about it until someone told him that the place was finally operational. Now they have 2 backup pumps and they get their water from our FOB.

Today is going pretty well. The removable spout we use to pour gas from the cans into the generator is missing. I'm not too sure how I will be able to fill it up without spilling half of the gasoline now. The generator's still full right now, so we have a little time to locate it before I have to get creative. Oh, today they served lunch for the first time ever. It was just hotdogs and hamburgers, but it was nice to have something to eat in the middle of the day besides MREs or jimmy deans. I'm not sure if this is a permanent thing or not, but I can hope.

The ground just outside of the internet cafe' is slightly flooded, and by that I mean moist. They are dredging the small canal that runs through the middle of our FOB, so I'm thinking that is the cause of the muddy conditions around me. It's really weird to see mud in the desert. I'm actually waiting to see it rain here. I've been here since the middle of May and have yet to one rain drop. I'm told that it does in fact rain here, just not very often.

SPC Schreck

honeybun

They found my missing package yesterday, it was from my mom. It was great. I got colored markers, art supplies, loreal face lotion w/ sunscreen, some favorite t-shirts of mine, shampoos, chapstick, and candy. My little sister also sent me her teddy bear to keep me company. I was soooo excited to open the box that opened it up right there in the mailroom. It's great getting stuff from home. All the stuff inside smells like home and you can see how they arranged the stuff inside. I had pink tissue paper in my box, it was pretty. Dinner was ok last night. I had chicken strips and mashed potatoes. The real treat was when they brought out the honeybuns. Those suckers went fast. They were the big ones and they were really good. I haven't had a honeybun in forever. It was a nice treat.
Today was really quiet, we had a communications blackout for a while. Those aren't good. We have a commo blackout every time someone's gets hurt very badly or killed. They do that so the family of that soldier doesn't hear the terrible news third party and with the facts all messed up. I hate commo blackouts. I was a little worried, because I didn't know what had happened and if my friends were okay or not. Turns out that it wasn't anyone from our unit. Some guys from another unit in the 48th BDE got hit. I'm not too sure on the all the details, but I do know that it was pretty bad. I f***ing hate IEDs.
The power went out again today, but only for a few hours so it wasn't too bad. I think one of the Port O Potties by the internet cafe' is leaking. There is a big pool of stagnant blue liquid out behind the back door. One of the LT's sent someone to check it out. It looks really nasty, but there didn't seem to be a smell, so maybe the Poo truck just spilled some of the chemical stuff when they cleaned them. That's it for now.

SPC Schreck

July 4th

I finally got a hold of some pictures from our 4th of July events. The guys from the stress tent organized several competitions and a fireworks show. I got to go to a few of the events including the fireworks. These guys put on little events every now and then for our moral, I try to go to as many as I can. A few nights ago they had karaoke, I missed that. On the regular schedule is movie night and stand up comedy night. Besides the fun events, they also have classes like anger management, stress management, relaxation techniques & sleep tips, and tobacco cessation. And they are also there when soldiers just need to talk. It's really a great resource to have in a place like this. When you walk in their tent, it's like you have instants buddies. They are always ready to talk or just hang out and watch movies. These people are great. There were so many times that I felt just really alone here. I'm not originally part of the 108th, or even the 48th BDE, and I didn't go to NTC. In fact, I just got transfered to the 108th right before we left and didn't meet any of the guys til we were on the plane. So I didn't have any friends here. But when I arrived at St. Michael's, I saw one of their flyers and then ran into one of their SGT's at lunch. A few days later I found myself in their tent hanging out and feeling a whole lot better.
The events held include a cookie-eating contest, relay race, water balloon toss, three-legged race, tank bar throw, tug of war, marksmanship competition, weight lifting, and a kick-ass fire works display put on by our very own EOD team. A little story about the fireworks display.....They made the homemade fireworks out of water bottles filled with diesel fuel and strung together with detonation cord. They must of had several hundred bottles out in that field. They lined them up on this farmers' field just outside of the gate. They got creative and spelled out "108" with the bottles. But as they were setting them up, a rocket or mortar was fired at them. It missed them, but it was pretty scary for them. The fireworks turned out well, they were very loud. They also blew 21 cases of C4 as a kind of salute to us. It was great. There were about 20 or so guys all crowded around the gate to watch. A few even climbed on top of the conexs to get a better view but climbed down quickly when the entire thing shook from the blasts of the fireworks. It was definitely a memorable 4th of July.

Stop and smell the garbage.

I got off work yesterday and went over to the PX to look around. I guess I'm secretly longing to window shop at the mall again, because I find myself over there everyday even though I never really buy anything. I ran into a soldier from FOB Row who said that I had a package that was coming from there and should be here already. I wasn't expecting a package, but I was very excited because I haven't gotten anything from home yet. I go over to the mailroom and they informed me that somebody from HHC came and signed for it and that it was over in the Mayor's cell. So I walk across the now empty lot where the Chicken Factory used to be and headed into the Mayor's cell. They said they never received it and have no record of it. Turns out my roommate is the one who signs for the mail coming into HHC and she didn't see it. I go back to the mailroom and tell them what HHC said. He pulls out his record book and finds my name marked on the 22nd of June and that HHC signed for the package. So I am befuddled to what has actually happened to this package. I am also curious to who sent it. I hope this doesn't happen to the rest of my packages.
After my hour-long search for the mysterious package, I decided that it was too close to dinner time to get any sleep in so I sat down at the MWR tent and watched the end of the movie Final Destination 2. We had ribs at chow today, they were pretty good. Also had a nice conversation with my LT. He told me, "This is when you know things are bad...I was walking around Stryker the other day with my head down and I smelled food. I thought 'Man, that smells good.' And then I look up and see the garbage truck."
The power is out today, so I am sweating a river here in the internet cafe'. The computers and phones run on a separate generator that I monitor personally, so it's just the lights and air-conditioning that are out. When the power's out the place doesn't get too busy, everyone who is off has retreated to the few places that have the air-conditioning up and running. Hope the power comes back on soon, it's hotter in here than it is outside (there's no breeze). I got some more pictures from a few of my buddies, and I should post them up soon. Probably tomorrow.

That's it for now.

SPC Schreck
HHC 1-108th AR

Iced Tea (desert style)

Ingredients:

1 bottle of Abraaj bottled water (made in Kuwait, and imported to Iraq)
3 bags of Lipton tea (newly arrived at the PX)
25-35 bags of individual sugar packets (acquired from MRE's, chow hall, and Jimmy Dean packs)
1 bag of ice (acquired from ice truck behind chow hall)
1 mop bucket (for use as a cooler, found by the internet cafe')
1 scorching hot sun

Directions:

Open bottle of water and shove bags of tea into the small opening without tearing the bags. Replace lid and place bottle on ground anywhere, it doesn't really matter, everywhere is hot. Leave in sun for about 30 minutes. Add desired number of sugar packets. Place bottle in mop bucket and cover with ice. After 30 minutes of cooling, drink and enjoy.

I got to enjoy REAL sweet tea for the first time since leaving the states. There's just nothing like iced tea sweetened with sugar, lemon tea just doesn't cut it. It's a bit of a process to make, but soooo worth it. I have a coffee maker now so it's not quite as involved. It's funny how much the little things we enjoy can brighten a whole day.

Lobster, IED's, and Fire

After work yesterday I stopped by the MWR tent and watched Bewitched on the big screen tv. I haven't done that in a while. It was a good movie, but it was a Haji dvd so the picture was horrible and it skipped a lot. Oh, and we had an amazing dinner last night too. Once or twice a month they bring out the good stuff. We had lobster, crab legs, pork chops, and crab cakes. And they were all cooked right, hard to do in mass quantity cooking. They also had sodas at dinner (for all of 10 minutes at least), something that rarely happens. Usually we just have powered drinks and cranberry juice, I hate cranberry juice.
I still don't know much about what happened to those two guys I knew and the other ones who were hurt also, just stuff about the initial report. I hate f***ing IED's, they're so sneaky. This one you couldn't see at all. It's like your driving down the road and outta nowhere there's this huge explosion . There are several injuries, but it looks like everyone will be okay. But it's scary when stuff like that happens, everyone can feel it. Guys talk about it at chow and you can see that they're disturbed. One guy told me that how as he was leaving for a partol he almost freaked out because he was so scared. He'd already seen a whole bunch of messed up shit, and thought nothing else could get to him cause he'd seen so much already. But he got scared, it only lasted for a minute or too, but it got to him. It's not that these guys are fearless warriors, I know a lot of them and they get scared, but they keep doing their job no matter what. They aren't fearless warriors, they are courageous warriors.

Here's a few pictures of what's left of the Chicken Factory. They brought in some army engineers and are now in the process of tearing it down completely. I'm not sure what they're going to do with all the empty space but I'm sure they'll think of something.

Burger King's and swimming pools

I finally got some sleep last night. There were no fire missions to keep me up, but I had to skip dinner to get the interrupted sleep. I work a 12 hour shift from 0300 to 1500, so going to 1700 chow means taking a break during sleep. I would still have to get up though, because there are no showers open for females at the time I get off work, I have to wait til 1800 for that. They have the new showers up and running in the new tent area, but they don't have a separate shower for the females. We have a rotating schedule with the guys, 12 hours for us and 12 hours for them. The shower is rather pitiful with no benches and poor drainage. I walked in the shower and the entire floor was flooded and there was no where to put my cleans clothes to keep them dry. So I've been walking across the FOB to go to the old female shower, it has a bench. But I can't complain too much, because the other FOB, I think it was ROW, only has 2 showers total and they really suck. I've been told by a few guys over there that they only get to shower once every 3 days or so. I've very thankful to be at FOB St. Michael. We have a phone center, an internet center, and a PX. The other FOB's don't. They have a few DSN lines and a few computers, but not much. The conditions at all three FOBs isn't that great, but we knew we were going to a warzone from the beginning. It's funny though how things are portrayed by some of the media. We read newspapers and watched the news before we came out here, and it seemed different. Well, in a lot of places it is. Other places have chow halls that serve breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight chow. They have movie theatres, ice cream shops, coffee shops, several internet cafe's with webcams, basketball courts, swimming pools, stages for the concerts they have, Burger King, Popeyes, Subway, and huge PX's . They also live in 2-man trailers that have internet connections. We, on the other hand, live in 8 man tents (has air-conditioning though) and sleep on cots. It really isn't so bad where we are, it's just that this kind of difference in living conditions makes people a little irritable here. It's also a lot more dangerous here. We had a commo blackout yesterday, which means somebody got hurt. I was responsible for closing down all communication but I had no idea what had happened, only that it was probably bad. I found out today that one of my friends got hurt, and another guy I knew got hurt even worse. We've had casualties here before, but it wasn't anyone I really knew. It's really scary. I'll write more later, when I figure out what I want to say about this.

Out of the TOC

I changed jobs about a week ago, I was told that I didn't fit in at the TOC. Well, considering that I had never been trained for the job I think it was a wise decision for them to move me. Also, I was beginning to stress out way too much, the guys that work in there drive me crazy. Let's see, I was originally trained to be a petroleum supply specialist, but I have never done my job. But it's really okay. I wasn't that thrilled to drive 2500 gallon bombs down IED-filled roads everyday. After being transferred from he TOC, I found myself with the greatest job ever. I now oversee the phone and computer center @ the MWR trailer. Granted I am still located in a very dangerous area of Iraq which is nicknamed the "Triangle of Death," but at least I have a super sweet job. I am hoping to keep this position so I can complete some online classes and be able to talk to my hubby everyday. So far that's the best part of the job. I get to talk to my Randy everyday, it's great. They got ramen noodle cups in at the PX!! I've never been so excited over a cup of noodles before. But if you were here you would understand that it's a bit of a luxury. Today's been pretty good so far, the power hasn't gone out yet (knock on wood). I'll try to write up something tomorrow that's a little more interesting. That's if for now.

SPC Schreck
HHC 1-108th AR, 48th BDE
APO AE 09372

Camp Buering

While we were in Camp Buering, Kuwait doing some training and "hurry up and waiting" we got a camel's welcome at the firing range. This entire herd belonged to one guy who was leading these animals right by our line of fire. We were told that these guys do this all the time. They come to our ranges to pick up the brass we leave behind and sell it. It was a nice distraction from the unbearable heat of that day. I think it got up to like 120 that day, it was really hot. But as you can tell from the picture, Camp Buering is in the middle of one big-ass desert. Kuwait city was supposed to be close by, but I never made it out that way. The camp wasn't too bad, if you were permanent party that is. A whole bunch of soldiers just pass through this camp on their way to Iraq. The transient soldiers sleep in the several tents they have there with about 50 men per tent. There were only 3 females in my unit so I ended up sharing a tent with 50 other guys much to the dissapproval of my husband. While our sleeping and bathing quarters weren't all that nice, we did have access to some other great stuff. Burger King, Subway, Baskin Robbins, a coffee shop, a px, and a killer chow hall. We spent about a week and a half there doing some training, but mostly just sleeping and calling home. Oh, and we also got to watch the premire of Star Wars episode III. All in all, it was a good experience there. We were introduced to our very first sandstorm and also to camel spiders. Our training also introduced us to some of the locals and we were able to observe some of their unique customs. Our training with them included conducting vehicle searches and searches of persons. My contribution to the training exercise included the search of females as this culture forbid men to touch their women much less look at them. Life is much different now that Camp Buering is far behind us. Sandstorms are the norm as are searches. We have detainees every few days. There are no such things as Burger King or Subway or Baskin Robbins, though we do have a px now. Our chow hall does not serve midnight chow or even lunch for that matter. But life is still good, because we're still standing. We're out there everyday fighting for our country, no matter if we believe it's a just war or not. That's not our job. Our job is to be soldiers.

Loved Ones

I got married a little over a month before I deployed. That really seems to be the hardest part of this thing. Quite a few guys over here are recently married or have recently had new babies. It's really hard to be away from those we love. I can't count the number of times that I wish I was back home in his arms. It's what's keeping me going. Knowing that I have someone wonderful and supportive to come home to makes each day here a little easier. I love you Randy!

SPC Schreck
HHC 1-108th AR, 48th BDE

Welcome to FOB St. Michaels

I thought I would tell a story about my first few days here. FOB St. Michaels is small, very small. In fact, you could walk from one end to the other in about five minutes as a nice stroll. Anyways, I arrived here a few months ago from a convoy out of Camp Striker. This was my first time outside of the wire and I don't have to tell you that I was very nervous. I kept thinking about all the IED's I had heard about from other soldiers and hoping that my vehicle wouldn't be the one to blow up. I had big reasons to worry too. I was riding in a 2500 gallon fuel truck filled to the brim with jet fuel, so I considered myself a likely target. All along the way we saw children by the road. Some were giving up thumbs up while many others held out their hands and begged for candy and MRE's. We drove by some very poor villages, it was heart-wrenching at times to see the places where some of these people live. I feel lucky to have the life that I do. We also saw craters of former IED blasts and several ruins of exploded cars. I was slightly more nervous at their sight. But I made it to the FOB without a scratch. As soon as I saw the place I knew what a crappy location that my unit had been assigned to. But it was small and easy to get around and there were never any crowds or lines for the phones. So I thought that it might not be so bad. And it really hasn't been that bad, it just took a little while to get used to the conditions. I still hate the Port O Potties though. It was my first day and I was informed by my SGT Major that I would be changing jobs and working in the TOC as an RTO. I was pretty excited, thought it would be a good job for me. I never thought about the stresses that come with relaying the type of communications we dealt with. Every time you hear the reports come over the radio, you could hear the silence in the room. Everyone was waiting for a casualty report, silently praying that none of our guys were hurt. Over the last few months we've had several injuries but no deaths. Our entire Brigade has only lost one guy and that unfortunately was due to an accident. It was a rough beginning for me and for all the other soldiers here. But we're doing a really good job out here so far. We've caught a lot of insurgents and really established our presence well here. Everyday gets a little better here, but it still really sucks. I long for more than 2 meals a day and for a real toilet. It would also be nice to not have to live in a tent any more, but it's still better than the Chicken Factory. We were all supposed to move into a hollowed out former Chicken Factory that was partitioned off with sheets of plywood. Unfortunately, as we were starting to move some groups into the Factory, it caught on fire and burned to the ground with all of our belongings in it. So I guess I can't complain too much about the tents. Well I guess that's enough for now.

New Blog

Not sure what exactly to post. Hmmmm....Well, let's start off with introductions. I'm SPC Schreck and I am stationed here in Iraq for the next year. I joined the Army National Guard just after highschool and was going to college when I got called up in April. I didn't go to the National Training Center in California with the rest of my unit as I was a part of the replacement company attached to the unit due to lack of personnel. That seems to be the problem lately in the army, a shortage of people. I can definitely say that it is true for my unit here. I've haven't seen too much here yet, not as much as my fellow soldiers at least. Though, I've heard stuff to last a lifetime already. I worked as an RTO for a few months and I've heard too many things that I wish I hadn't. I can say that the media news cannot compare to what is actually happening here. I will continue to write in more detail in the following posts.

SPC Schreck
HHC 1-108th AR, 48th BDE