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This is a letter from our young friend, of the Maine National Guard, who is newly deployed to Iraq. I just thought I'd share it with you.

He is the son-in-law of a very good friend of ours

Ms.B

Hello All,

Here is the continuation from my prior e-mail explaining my experiences. Things are going pretty good here. Some people have been getting sick with what they call the Hagee Bug. It is like the flu back at home. It seems to last a few days. However, we have been told that it can get worse and last for a week to ten days with more severity.

When we walk to different places like the internet café or the phones, we need to have a battle buddy (another person) with us for safety reasons. This makes it difficult some times to do the things I want to do if no one else wants to do the same things. Then when we do get on the internet, if often goes down or is very slow, making it difficult to send messages, especially when your limited with the time you have on the internet.

I can’t remember where I left off last. So forgive me if I repeat myself. Let me tell you know about how life is here so far. The conditions are really not as bad as I expected. The food is good. And they feed us well. Three full course meals a day unless you have a duty outside of the camp in which you would eat an MRE. But they have many different things to eat. They have fast order type food, pasta and potatoes, and different choices of entrees. They have a salad bar as well, with drinks and deserts including ice cream. I never thought it would be like this. They have a civilian company catering to us with Philippine and Turkish civilians doing the cooking. They have come a long way in establishing this camp. They are currently building a new Gym and Theater.

Now as far as lodging, we are currently staying in connex containers (they are like the back of tractor trailer trucks that have been transformed into two person rooms. They have beds, a locker, lights and an air conditioner. Its pretty nice. Again not what I expected at all. However, once all of the people from the other unit we are replacing leaves, which is supposed to be soon, we will be moving into their buildings which are old run down buildings which Saddam used for his military. As you can imagine they are pretty cracked up and there are a lot of demolished buildings from the war. I am not looking forward to sleeping in those. Also, there is a place they call the bone yard which has hundreds of destroyed military and civilian vehicles (pretty interesting).

The unit we are replacing is from Alabama. They are some nice people. They have been very helpful in getting us settled in. They are very happy we are here so they can go home to see their families. Although I do not want to be here at all, it makes it more worth while when I see the smiles and anticipation of these guys getting to go home after being here for almost a year away from their families.

They call the locals “Hagees”. They say that this word means that they have made the trip to Meca and it shows respect to them. It is a compliment. These Hagees work on the camp and they have different jobs cleaning, maintaining equipment, as well as other services. Some of them come around our work area a lot and try to sell us watches or old dinars.

Just about every day there are explosions or gun fire on the outside of the camp. Some of these are local Saddam loyalists attacking the camp or military convoys that leave the camp and travel through the city. When they try to attack the camp, they are at a distance and on hit the perimeter. Our quarters are in the middle of the camp which is safer. There are also terrorists attacking the Iraqi police, Iraqi military, and Iraqi civilians. When you see a report of something happening here, you can bet that there were also several other instances throughout the country which the media did not cover because they did not know about it, they did not get there fast enough to get information, or they did not think it was significant enough to cover on the news. It is very unstable around here. However, do not fear because I have the power of God. I went out on my first convoy about a week ago. It was pretty freaky (an 80’s term). Civilians walking around with guns (AK 47’s). People driving like crazy. Broken down vehicles all along the side of the road. And sheep everywhere! Sheep herders walking their sheep across the road, feeding their sheep in the median. It’s a different world here, that‘s for sure. I can’t wait to get home.

Helicopters, jets and other aircraft are constantly flying overhead. They are our air security. I do feel a lot more confident with them above us. The Air Force gives everyone much more comfort.

Its very dry and dusty around here. All my stuff constantly gets full of dust even inside the connex. There is some vegetation here, but it is only because they just ended their two months of rainy season which is their winter. Now they will not get any more rain for about ten months and all this vegetation will dry up which means even more dust. I am constantly blowing my nose to clean it out (sorry for the details). However, surprisingly, my allergies are not bad except for being stuffed up.

We are right near the Tigris River, a famous body of water in the Bible. I just found out recently that we are near the city of Nineveh. This is the famous Bible city where God told Jonah the profit to go and preach to the people so that they may repent and be saved from destruction. It is only a few miles from here and I am hoping I can get there to see it some time. They also say that we are not far from where they found the famous Noah’s Ark, which is located in the mountains of Turkey somewhere. It would be nice to see that, but they do not let anyone go near there. There is a lot of history here and I hope to learn more. I am attending a bible study and we are concentrating on scripture that pertains to this area. It is very interesting.

The unit we are replacing built a nice chapel near our living area. I have been going to services every chance I get. They hold a variety of different services all day long on Sundays. I go to the 8:00am, 9:30, and 19:00 services on Sunday. I attend a Bible study at 19:00 on Tuesday nights at 19:00. There is a mid-week service on Wednesday nights at 19:00. Finally there is a Sing and Praise service at 19:00 on Saturday nights. This has helped me to focus on God rather than the problems around me. I have volunteered to help with some of the chapel services as well.

Well, that’s it for now. I will write some more later. Until then, may God bless you.

With Love in Christ,

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