The Midnight Hour

I made it to Fallujah. We took the most boring helo ride I’ve ever had (and I’ve had a few) from TQ late late night. I’ve never seen a helo taxi down a runway, but I did last night. When I arrived at the airfield my boss and his senior enlisted Marine were there to meet me. They had locked on lodging for me and my guys and had keys waiting for us. They drove us in HMMWVs back to the main part of Camp Fallujah. We stopped at our work area (called an Operational Control Element, OCE) to drop off gear and rifles. I got a quick and dirty tour and got moved into my room. I live in a trailer park (feels just like home). There are three rooms to a trailer. Myself and a roommate share a room. The room is about 10 feet by 10 feet in area. It’s not spacious, but it’s room enough for two racks, a table, a nightstand, and 2 clothing secretaries. When we procure a TV we can splice into the AAFES TV network with regular cable. American TV networks give programming to AAFES to show to us in country. You can view news, sports, and a variety of other things. There are also no commericals (it’s free), so the dead space is replaced with weird military public service announcements like “keep your barracks clean” and “don’t rape women.”

Our OCE is nice, compared to what I expected. There is plenty of computers, rifle racks, gear racks, and a 42″ plasma screen where we view the weekly movie on Saturday night (operations continue during that time, of course). The chow hall is nice, as is the PX, and shower facilities.

The best part is that my team is already at work. We will absolutely be gainfully employed during this deployment, this I know. I have to go to a meeting now.