We’ve are now technically about two months into our deployment, but we’ve only been in Baghdad since Jan 15.  The time has been flying by. It’s still hard for me to believe I’m in Baghdad. I use to hear about this place on the news constantly, but it never even crossed my mind that one day I’d be here in an Army Combat Uniform. And I really never imagined that I’d be driving around the streets of the International Zone after only being out of AIT, advanced individual training, for seven months. It’s all very surreal.

When we arrived here in Baghdad on the 15th after our short flight from Kuwait, we basically hit the groud running. We dropped off our bags into our transitional sleeping tents, slept for about 2 and a half hours and then headed to work. Since then we’ve been going full speed ahead. Recently, we all moved into our CHUs, containerized housing units. Sounds inviting huh? They’re actually not that bad. It’s a two-man (or woman) trailer with twin beds, wall lockers and little metal night stands. It felt good to unpack our many duffel bags we’d been living out of for what felt like forever.

Not far from our CHUs there are many local shops to browse around in. Most of them sell rugs, jewelry, hookahs, journals, cheap bootleg DVDs and about a million other things. We’ve discovered a cafe that sells Iraqi tea for a dollar and will let you smoke hookah for only three bucks. Lee, Thurston, SGT Leech, SGT Miller and I usually go and play dominoes or Uno. It’s a nice place to unwind after a long day at work.

So far my feelings about this deployment are nothing but positive. My job has been going great. I’ve met media from all over the world. My living arrangements aren’t bad at all. I bought a tv to watch movies and play my Wii on. So things are good.

Hopefully, this time continues to fly by. I do miss my family and friends but I know that this too shall pass. Please continue to keep all of us in your thoughts and prayers, and before you know it we’ll all be back home safely.

(MODERATOR’S NOTE:  You can read more about hookah at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookah.  Although the site says you can smoke different things, the soldiers of the 314th are smoking only herbal fruits or tobacco.)