4 Mar 09 - Last Supper

Morning today is my last day at Ft Lewis. Sometime tomorrow I will be heading for greener pastures (Let me reword that to the sand box). Before I head across the ocean I wanted to share some pictures with you.

This picture is of the multi purpose Army Latrine in my office building. The reason why it's multi purpose is that Men and women both use the bathroom. Because of deployment rule 38 us guys do not have to put the seats down when we are done. Meaning we will have to be retrained when we get home. We have a two sided sign on the door that we flip over if it's occupied by males or females.

This picture is of the Logistics office suite (Suite sounds better cubicle farm). You can tell that the office doubles as a museum to house the outdated furniture that we have. Although talk on the street is that the furniture is original from when this building was built many, many years ago. Again we are thankful we are not in tents.

This is a picture of our "Red Bull Chapel". The church is a meeting place, and is used for all religious services. Of course there are other churches on base. This one is used primarily for the 34th ID chaplains. The last few nights activities there have been everything from Suicide prevention, meetings, financial counseling, letter writing classes, and church services.

This picture is from the second floor of our office building looking towards our barracks and mess hall area. The black fence is used during the exercise to replicate soldiers going on and off the FOB (Forward Operating Base). If the exercise was under way you would go through a check point to get on and off the base. To include personnel searches and vehicle inspections.

This is a picture of Mt Rainier in the distance. Because of the weather here you can only see the mountain on certain days. By road it's at least an hour to an hour and a half to get there. Keep in mind Mt Rainier is an active volcano. Tour guides will tell you it will blow any time in the next two weeks to 200 years. For some unknown reason I sleep well knowing that.

The next picture is one of me in one of my proudest moments so far. Unfortunately it may be the first of many for me. Last night the guys leaving on Friday were given an opportunity to go out for supper. By out for supper I mean to go to town. For all of us it was our first time off since the units arrival on the 13 Feb 09. We (Dave Crotteau, Chuck Madden, Cory Walock, Dennis Thoma, Dale Towle, Cheryl Townsend) went for pizza. Afterwards we went to Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream. Talk about party animals! Our time off went quickly, we were off base by 1830 (6:30 PM) and returned to the office by 2130 (9:30 PM). It was our last opportunity to go out and enjoy our freedom.


While out we went to Home Depot and bought some stress releases (Foam Pipe covers 4 feet long). The stress reducers are used to release tension by squaring off with the guy who you have an issue with. It's all done in the name of fun and it really works. Its our version of jousting. Anyway I hauled off and whupped one of my guys who was challenging me. Half way through my swing my feet came out from under me and down I went in the mud. Most of the guys who witnessed my sudden fall were doubled over laughing. In fact one or two of them might have even snorted? Lucky for me Chief Townsend had her camera ready when I walked in. I'm sure it was due to legal actions if I had been hurt.

I also wanted to provide a little language lesson for you in case you ever half to ask someone from Iraq the following questions:

What direction? ib-ay iteejaah?
Stop! ogaf!
Drop your weapon! Thib slaaHak!
Do you need medical attention? treed musaa'ada Tibeeya?

These are just a few of the phrase we had to learn. Trust me it's not as easy as it looks. I will resume postings when I get to the desert. Until then keep me, my soldiers, and their families in your prayers.