yes the stash is alive!

the molest-stash is growing in great...ive decided to grow one simply out of bordom. i swear to god its the most horrible stash ive ever seen in my life. but im going to continue to grow it untill i cant take it anymore. life here is good. im down to 163 pounds now due to all the sweating while on patrol. starting to get a little ripped haha i dont mean to toot my own horn but beep beep! either that or im just stupid skinny. passing the bordom here with lots of movies and magazines. im in the process of plastering my walls with surfing posters. well all is good here and im just waiting on the next patrol. ill post some more pics soon. take care all!

update in sadr city

hi all! i hope all is well back in the states...here is pretty good but its starting to get really hot! weve been doing patrols in the heat of the day which is about 115 degrees give or take. lots of kids everywhere...i dont know how they can stand the heat. the 60- 70 pounds of gear i wear is starting to take a toll on my back. but things will be better...better life through modern pharmacuticals! i just got done watching the new indiana jones movie....i was dissapointed. whats up with steven speilburg and aliens! damn give it a rest! well life is damn hot here and things are quiet...heres some pics from our patrols

bored to death

nothings happening here lately. hardly any gunshots anymore, one might think thats a good thing but i tend to think of the calm before the storm. we havent gone out in 3 days now. all weve been doing is pulling guard while they put up this fucking wall. if i see another concrete barrier in the next 15 months ill just randomly start shooting...really i wont but ill be upset to say the least. i was pulling guard yesterday and got to hang out with a iraqi army special forces soldier. it was pretty interesting to find out what kind of training their getting. we had an arabic lesson for about 3 hours... that is one hard ass language to learn. For the most part i havent really done much except read and listen to music. i watched a movie called battle for haditha which won all sorts of awards and it was the biggest piece of shit ive ever seen. it really showed the military in a horrible light. the haditha incident was horrible but its almost like they made the marines sound like blood thirsty killers in this movie...i had to turn it off. the down time makes me think alot about home and the people i left behind. Ryan and Robby and Nate.my mom and all my friends who have been there for me through alot of shit. i feel like im missing out on alot. i cant believe ill be gone for over a year. it already seems so long since ive seen them. Ryan's my best friend and i hardly talk to him...its horrible. hes not to much into the whole internet thing so its rare that i get to talk to him as much as i should. All my friends keep sending positive vibes my way and i cant thank them enough for that. i guess when im away and have down time i think about home too much. i just gotta get back into the things that eat up my time. But on a positive side i had a good dinner finally and i actually got to drink a monster that was room temp...it didnt matter, for that few minutes i was in heaven. I also got my first letter from my grandma. She writes me every week. i look forward to her letters. time to go read "lone survivior" Its a book about a navy seal and how his entire team died...its a good read if yu ever pic it up...im just rambling now. bye all

Another adventure into Sadr City

We went on a 3 hour patrol today and knocked on some doors. meet alot of people in this horribly crowded city. The strange thing was every single person we passed had a smile of their face and waved and greeted us. As i walked past the run down neighborhoods i saw so many children smiling and waving. it really hits you hard. a couple other guys and myself handed out some candy to the little kids. As i walked past a small child and waved he got scared and hid behind his father. The father explained to me that it was the most contact the child had with an American thus far. Almost the entire city was very welcoming of us. Then we walked down another street and the children stopped following us and ran back...they wouldnt go down that street. People were no longer in the streets and it turned into a ghost town very quickly. The block was only a few hundred meters but all your sences turn on high. you remember your not in a country where everyone likes you...there are people that want to kill you. Its a very sobering feeling. smiles on the guys immeadiatly turned into gritted teeth. We all prepared for hell to unleash...but nothing happened. Those children told us alot just by not walking with us anymore. this country is filled with so much good but no one ever hears about it. This country is also filled with a hell of alot of bad too. you just gotta learn to roll with the punches...
On a much lighter note, Its my moms birthday today! Happy B-day mom! ive miss 2 birthdays of hers now. I feel horrinble about it but i dont have much choice in the matter. i hope you have a great day and know that im thinking of ya
Good bye for now all

some pics of oblivion

heres some random pics of sadr city and a few i found of our trip into baghdad

and i like to snort gunpowder before i go into battle haha

a view of carnage

went to a different district today... farther into the city. we took contact a couple of times in the morning and again in the afternoon. I had to start an I.V. on my driver because of heat exaustion but hes all good. About 30 min later a morter landed so close it blew all the windows out of the building we were in. Needless to say that got my attention. luckly no one was hurt the entire day. Things went very smooth and the shooters in the towers went through about 700 rounds of ammo today. The interesting thing is this happened to be a location where iraqi police control, as we were running from point to point and had full body armor on, the Iraqi police were just standing out there in t-shirts and pants like they had been through it a thousand times. why would one live in a country where it becomes so common place to hear gunshots and explosions that you simply dont care anymore. I dont react that strongly to gunfire or explosions because i expect it...im here to experience that but i dont live here. And i could never raise a family here. As for those who might read this and stress out becuase they dont want to hear it or their scared well its important that you know what were all going through out here. i think its important that you hear truth instead of just listening to the news. so long for now... ive got some pictures comming very soon of a destroyed neighborhood...it looks like dresden

the children of iraq

if you could take the worst enviroment imaginable and add heat, famine, bugs, malaria, poverty beyond anything you could imagine, add a shit load of trash and human shit everywhere and you have the slums of Sadr City... now imagine small children running and waving. smiles on their faces even in the worst possible living conditions. that hit me pretty hard. I guess i didnt know I had a soft spot for kids that much. The adolecents just try to sell you shit but the little kids brighten your day when your wearing 60 pounds of gear, sweating your ass off and havent showered in 4 days. its the little things i guess.

pics from Sadr City

heres some pics from the last 2 days

out here in sadr city

things are pretty good... with the exception of being in the most dangerous city in the world right now haha. (damn i have a horrible sence of humor) things are good we got mail today! thanks mom the ear plugs fit great. thanks for all the little odds and ends they will come in handy. our living space its crazy close right now. Bons and I are practically cuddling. i pulled guard last night for 3 hours and watch 5 IED's go off and lots of gun fire. its a crazy city... the internet is really slow tonight ill try to jump on in the morning and upload some more

proud of my friend

Im so very proud of my best friend Robby Hagar. He just graduated from his fire acadmey. He went through hell for 13 weeks and endured it with great honor. Robby is one of the best people I know and im so glad I have friends like him back home. One of the very few that i call my brothers. I love ya buddy and congrats. Im so sorry i couldnt be there.

small update

I havent really been doing much lately, except making sure my guys are all good. i had to take my interpreter to the aid station because he had a pretty bad infection in his finger. so i got to watch and assist with the surgery of opening his finger and clearing out all the infection. it was pretty interesting. Then later in the night i got to remove a finger nail from one of my SGT's fingers. Injecting the finger to numb it and cutting the fingernail away from the nail bed. just glad it wasnt my finger. Things have been pretty relaxed here for the most part. just trying to keep busy and working out mostly. finally the internet is back up so i have my mode of commo back! we keep hearing outgoing mortars throughout the night but outgoing is a hell of alot better then incomming haha. i was able to talk to some of my friends earlier and they were all going to see Iron Man. bummed me out. im missing out on all sorts of cool stuff back home. just crossing my fingers for the new alkaline trio album to come out so it can be sent to me...its the little things haha. yesterday i was able to talk to our interpreter for alittle bit, it was facinating to find out the way he lived while under sadams regime. He said he wanted a better life for his family and he wanted to make a difference. maybe in some aspects were not so different after all... in a world where were forced to believe that this country is filled with such horrible people, its nice to find common ground. i love you guys and ill be talking to you very soon...love ya

decimating some time

things here have been pretty borring. were all just waiting on the word to go. clean weapon,work out, eat, reorginize medical supplies, eat again, watch movies, and clean weapon some more. pretty dull life right now. weve been in communications black out for a few days due to the dust storms... but all is well. heres a few pics from the last few days of me pretty much just goofing off