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.