Counting down

For most of the northern hemisphere, March 20^th marked the first day of spring (or vernal equinox which means equal parts daylight and darkness).  It seems that in the last week the country of Iraq enjoyed only 5 days of spring-like weather, with temps in the 80’s and a nice breeze to move the haze of burning trash.  Yesterday and today the mercury climbed to almost 100 marking the early arrival of summer.  What the heck happened?  Why did they skip right over the 90 degree range?  Again, I hate commenting on the weather as I feel like it is a cop out from actually writing something of significance.  Sure, if we were suddenly buried under 6 inches of snow due to some freak blizzard in the middle of April, then that would be something to write about.  But normally it is sunny, it is hot, and it is not pleasant so it doesn’t warrant a full blog to talk about it.

 

Onto happier and arguably more interesting things...I’m closer to leaving.  Although I am looking forward to getting the heck out of here, I think the clock is conspiring against me.  And if it isn’t the dragging minutes keeping me from my date with freedom, it’s the chain of command throwing in some interesting pre-redeployment antics.  They moved me out of my trailer yesterday to make room for some newcomers (because they couldn't wait the whole week before I leave to move new folks in).  Since my room mate left with the first wave of departures a few days back, I found myself alone in the confines of the same four paper-thin steel walls I’ve stared at for most of the past year.  I celebrated this new found freedom from living in close proximity to someone by turning down the air conditioning and getting a good night’s sleep (in the absence of my chainsaw snoring buddy).  Actually, Ryan, a fellow IRR officer, was a pretty good room mate for the past year, even if he only had 9.5 fingers.  He started this whole process with me and Chris at Benning over 437 days ago and it was good to see he was fortunate to get on the early flight out of here to see his wife and kid in Alaska.  I thought highly of him and his efforts here, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t think about knocking him out and stealing his ID card for the early bird home.  And with Velcro nametapes, how could my diabolical plan fail?  I might have actually got away with it, but I believe that I lack the necessary physical qualities to pass for a 6 foot something round-eye.  Oh well. 

 

Since we had folks living in tents while they waited for trailers to empty out, I moved in with another captain in order to free up a full wet trailer for two female NCOs thereby ending my short time sans room mate.  I wasn’t too excited about packing up my stuff only to repack it when I leave in about a week, but I moved as instructed which gave me a good opportunity to take stock of all the gear I have.  Let me say that I’ve accumulated a lot of “stuff” since I’ve been here and if all goes well, it might be back in the states before I am.  Again I ask, why didn’t I just mail myself home?