Thanksgiving in Kuwait
Lately, we’ve been hearing that our CONEX containers are somewhat lost here in Iraq. Nobody can tell us exactly where they are located. Rumor has it that someone in the division we are falling under decided that anything that was earmarked for his division should go forward. Unfortunately, they didn’t bother telling us where exactly they went. Apparently, they are somewhere in the Baghdad area. Unfortunately, there are several yards in that area they could be. Not good.
A friend of mine and I bought some prayer rugs the other day. They are small rugs, about 2-foot wide by 4-foot long, quite colorful, and they were only $5. We use them to put next to our cots so our bare feet don’t always have to be on the often sandy, dirty wooden floor of the tent. However, at least one of our tent mates has determined that anything that comes close to the Muslim religion is bad and mocks the rugs constantly. This is the same guy who was giving me a load of crap about reading the Koran. As one of my additional duties is going to be Civil Affairs, I was doing it to better understand the people I would be dealing with. He saw it as me trying to convert to Islam. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to tell him that no, I’m still a Christian. I couldn’t convert to Islam anyway since they’ve got too many rules against things I enjoy doing - like having a beer once in awhile.
We had our last little bit of training on the 22nd, and we now have several days of boredom to look forward to before our flight north. There’s only so much to see and do here in the camp, and you get tired of just spending money to keep occupied. Besides, there’s little here I want to buy, anything we buy we have to carry, and we have only so much room in our bags.
Speaking of spending money, Christmas is coming up, and I really don’t know what I’m going to do for that. We don’t even have a good mailing address yet, so I am reluctant to give out any kind of mailing address for myself. Plus, there’s damned little here I would want to buy for people back home. The mini-PX has some Christmas cards, but they’ve already been picked through pretty thoroughly. My other option is to buy online and have it shipped, which I’ll probably have to do.
Thanksgiving was yesterday, and that was pretty unique. First, I almost forgot it was Thanksgiving, right up to the point where I saw the holiday meal sign in the chow hall. Then, we had Thanksgiving dinner with about 500 of our closest friends in that big old chow hall, served by Pakistani dudes who don’t even know what Thanksgiving is. Wow, if Thanksgiving was that good, I can only imagine what Christmas will be like!
Back to the training…unfortunately, every time we’ve gotten a new instructor, we’ve been told how to do things a little differently. We’re working on building our own SOP for some of the new tactics, techniques and procedures we’ve been taught. Actually, there’s very little reason most of what we’ve been taught can’t also be practiced back in Phoenix after all this is over with - no matter what kind of unit we end up as.
We’ve been talking to the company that runs internal security at this base, and they’re called CSA. Think it means something like Combat Support…something or other. Anyway, nearly all their employees are ex-military and the starting pay is $70,000 a year, plus $1,000 a month living expenses (tax-free). Ex-military coming in with senior NCO or officer ranks will probably be higher. I’m told that most people just live off of the $1,000 a month and bank the rest. On top of that, you get a free apartment, 5-weeks of paid vacation, you can bring your family over to live with you in Kuwait, and your kids can be schooled in the American schools here for free. Not bad, considering Kuwait is very westernized (no veils required for the ladies) and there haven’t been any significant attacks on U.S. personnel here. Might be something to consider if the Army decides to give me the boot at my 20-year mark. I know several of the people retiring after this deployment are thinking about it.
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