oh yeah, I'm in Iraq

We had our out-brief yesterday and I'm glad it's over. Last night we got to our housing at around 10 pm. Just as I was falling asleep I heard and felt a blast. The walls are so thin in my trailer that I called my coworker neighbor through the wall to ask if he had heard the same thing. He said yes and we both ran to our respective front doors. All four of my team members and I met up on our front stoops nervously laughing and verifying what we heard. We don't know if it was a controlled detonation or not, but it was a bit jarring. You know, it's pretty nice here on base, I mean, the facilities are not all nice and there is mud everywhere, but there are a lot of things that DO NOT make you feel like you're in a war zone. Last night was really the first time while here that I had been reminded. Oh, that and then this morning we saw a chopper landing at the MEDEVAC pad...that most likely meant a critical injury was either arriving or leaving...that was another reminder. Third, today we were driving near the gate and a HMMV in front of us pulled to the right and then did a u-turn right in front of us. The CPT had to slam on his breaks. At that moment we could all see inside the rear window of the HMMV. There was a local with a dirty white cloth blindfold on with his hands obviously tied behind his back. The HMMV had just driven onto base and obviously passed the turn to get to the detainment facility. That was really kind of surprising and creepy. Not creepy in a scary way, but creepy to think that this guy was a detainee....why, for what, for doing something awful? That's what's creepy, to think about what he could have done to warrant him being detained. In another vein...maybe he didn't do anything at all and will just be questioned. In any case, in the last 24 hours I've been reminded, albeit in a subtle way, but still.

This evening we are scheduled to take a chopper to our next base. It will be my first time on a rotary wing aircraft. I'm kind of excited.