Birthday

As you may have heard, it was my birthday yesterday. I turned twenty-nine. Two Nine, every one. That may not surprise anyone but me. I don't know how I got to be this age. Strange age to be, by the way. Of course I don't feel any different, but there are now enough people in the world that consider me old to make me a little self-concious. Of course, an even greater number still consider this young, which is what I find kind of amusing.

At any rate, it was not the best birthday I've ever had. Nothing horrible happened, nothing like a traumatising childhood birthday experience anyway. I woke up early enough to finish packing my gear, shower and shave before breakfast at 6 am. I am in no way, have never been, and will never be, anything close to a "morning person". From there on it was one of those "hurry up and wait" days you only experience in the military and airports.

Our chopper flight from the boat inland was pushed back, then delayed…and then hurry up! planes are ready to go! Go! Go! Go! Then I sit in the chopper for about an hour trying to keep my lunch from coming up for an encore. Not fun. Once again, my MP3 player saved my sanity. After a hard landing, hauling a couple hundred pounds of gear into the hanger, it was straight to work until after dinner. By the time I found an open cot and layed down well after midnight, I was too tired to unpack my sleeping bag. Of course, it was on the bottom. So I spent the night in cammies, freezing in the desert, praying for sleep.

Welcome to Kuwait!

My first impression of this place leaves a lot to be desired. In an email to Kady I descibed it as "nothing visible worth fighting over." Just a lot of sand punctuated with rocks. As far as you can see. It's almost exactly like being at sea…except that the ocean changes from day to day so it's by far the more interesting of the two terrains. The base reminds me of what a frontier town in the wild west must have been like. Poor living conditions, cheap buildings thrown up every where, and everyone's armed to the teeth. It's been two days now and I haven't bothered with a shower. What's the point when I have to walk through a dust storm to get from the showers back to the tent? I still haven't figured out how to get the taste of dirt out of my mouth.

We're only going to be here for a couple more days at the very most. Then, we're going to bounce around to a couple other bases over the weekend before settling down somewhere in the general vicinity of the place you hear about in the news a lot. I have no idea what the conditions will be like there. I assume that it will be realitively safe, however. Safe from physical harm, anyway.

I also have no idea how long we're staying there. We could turn around after a few weeks and head back to the boat for the trip home. That's what I'm hoping and praying for. However, there's a remote possibility that we could be extended, in which case I could be over here for a minimum of six more months. It's a remote possibility, but if I've learned one thing here it's that "remote possibilities" have a scary way of becoming reality with absolutely zero warning.

I'm anxious to the point of being sick. I've lost all appetite recently and when I do eat I fight to get it down smoothly. It's that tightening of the throat exactly like when I eat something that made me sick once before….but it doesn't matter what I eat. Thanks to my Pops for sending those monster power bars. They're not appetizing, but they take care of the hunger pangs when I can't manage to get to breakfast in the morning.

I hope you are all doing well. I will do my best to keep this as updated as I can considering what a luxury internet access has become to me.