Hero’s Highway

It’s been over a year since I left Joint Base Balad, Iraq.  So much has happened!  There are still 50,000 US Forces in Iraq, and the mission has been changed to simply supporting the Iraqi government, rather than an active combat role.   When I was on JBB, it was a US and Coalition Force base [...]

Back in Business Again

Thanks to all who have written in about the blog.  I appreciate all of your comments!  Well, almost all – A few potty mouthed hecklers have had their posts deleted, but these are by far the minority.  Hopefully you find this blog to be a useful reference about what life is really like at Joint [...]

A Tribute to the JBB USO

When you arrive in Iraq, you are far from home and in an unfamiliar environment.  Most of Joint Base Balad consists of warehouses or working buildings dedicated solely to the Army mission, and it’s not a friendly, welcoming, or comfortable place.   As shown in past posts, JBB has many other ways to compensate.  I’ve discussed [...]

Blogging in Iraq

There are a few more things that I’d like to say about the deployment to Iraq, so this blog will keep going for a few more months, maybe even longer.   The topic for today is blogging itself.  When I started this blog, it was for two reasons.  First, to keep my family and friends informed [...]

Back Home at Last

When I last posted, I was on the airplane flying from Fort Bliss, TX, back to March AFB in Riverside.  We got off the airplane on , Sept. 26, at about 8:30AM.  We walked off the plane, and were greeted by BG William Frink, as well as several other local army folks.  They had some [...]

At Fort Bliss (it was better in Iraq)

We just finished our time at Fort Bliss. But I wanted to put up a post discussing only Fort Bliss, so that you the reader will have a basic understanding of what de-mobilizing is like. Every reserve unit has a “Mob Station” from which it mobilizes and de-mobilizes.  The 304th Sustainment Brigade’s was Fort Bliss, [...]

The Road Home

Right now I am at Fort Bliss, Texas.   When you leave Iraq, you don’t just hop on a plane and go straight home.  You must follow a de-mobilization process, which is similar to (but much shorter than) the mobilization that you go through before getting to Iraq. The basic way to demobilize is to fly [...]

At Camp Virginia, Kuwait

My last day in Iraq was delayed for unknown reasons.  We finally flew out from Joint Base Balad to Kuwait on Sunday.   It was a strange last day.  The night before we left, there was a sudden, violent dust storm.  I was riding my bike, and ended up cycling right into a wall of strongly [...]

My Last Day in Iraq

I’m not sure when we are flying out of here, but it is very soon. When I first arrived here, one of the things I saw was this old “Wing Gate” of JBB, greeting arrivals here since the base was built by the Iraqis:   It’s the end of a year in Iraq. I’ve been [...]

The Old and the New Places to Eat

Construction workers have started to tear down my beloved old DFAC #2. At the start of the job, the scene looked like this:   If you look closely, you’ll see dozens of stickers people had put up on the entrance wall. This was a beloved DFAC, and I must have eaten breakfast here 250 times [...]