So long Kuwait

Well my stay in Kuwait has come to pass. My main tasks there were to get acclimated to the time change and weather, plus fire my weapon to insure that it still works. Tasks related to my Army job was to get system administrative privileges, baseline some computers for the Kuwait network, set up a phone line and make sure my Commander could log into his computer and make calls from his phone – mission was accomplished.

In Kuwait we had to take combat showers because all water has to be shipped into Camp Buehring and each soldier is allowed 15 gallons of water per day. Here is how a combat shower works, you turn the water on, get wet, shut water off, lather up with soap, turn water on, rinse off, your done, get out – next!

While I was turning in my paperwork to get network access for my soldiers, I made small talk with one of the civilian Techs that works there and asked how much money he made, and he goes, “I am one of the lower paid guys year and my salary is $110K per year.” Not a bad gig, they do the same thing that I will be doing over the next 10 months. They are all contracted through ITT.

The day we need to go fire our weapons we had to get up at 0330. We left at 0400, drove an hour out into the desert to a range. While we were in route to the range we were briefed that we need to be careful not to shoot any camels as they kind of free-range out where we are going. If we were to shoot one, there is more paperwork involved with that incident verse a soldier getting shot. Apparently all these “organizations” have to come out and declare the value of the camel. In case you are interested, brown or black camels go for $8k a piece and white camels go for $100k a piece, why do you think white camels go for so much? If interested, send an email and I will tell you.

16AUG there was a “Victory in the Pacific” 5k race that a bunch of us Red Bulls participated in and wouldn’t you know that we had runners place in all the age categories(See the pictures) . I took 2nd in my age group with a 19:22 time and Grupe took third place. This was the start of my Medal collection… I am going to try and run all the 5k races, they usually have them on Holidays over here. We’ll see how many medals and T-shirts I can collect!

On 18AUG, a group of us decided to go and get haircuts. I can honestly say that the barber cut every single one, see this entries picture. I think I got finagled into this as the others did not get as close of a cut as I did, or it could be the fact that my hair is just not as thick as it used to be. We were all supposed to get a “high-fade” as seen in the pictures. We had a good time and good laugh watching everyone’s reaction to getting all their hair chopped off, I think It hurt me the worse as I am very protective of the hair I have. Now we will let the hair grow in and start growing mustaches, should be fun! The 18th of AUG is also the anniversary of my commissioning; I have been a commissioned officer for 6 years now.

I had heard rumors of a SPA on post, so I sent out to investigate and low and behold, I did find one, so I got myself a massage, 30 minutes for $21 bucks from a nice Filipino lady. The entire SPA is run by Filipinos, the do manicures, pedicures, and haircuts too. I think the massage also helped me beat the Kuwaiti krud. The entire base is powered by diesel generators, so it is loud, dirty and the air is just yucky. I run outside, about 40 miles a week and I am breathing in all that crap…so this is why I treated myself to a massage to help work all the toxins out of my body. After my massage, I stopped at Starbucks (yes, they are everywhere) for a caramel frappuccino.

On 23AUG I entered a CARDIO-STREND competition which consisted of the following events: 100 floors on the Stair-stepper, 5 miles on the Elliptical and 2 miles on the treadmill. I came in third place, but not without controversy. There was no doubt Grupe had first place wrapped up with his astonishing performance on the elliptical, 5 miles in 15 minutes. Second place was a surprise as I thought I had it in the bag, but out of nowhere Bibeau snuck by me and stole away the silver. Apparently the trick to the elliptical was keeping it on level one and just push through it, I on the other hand had mine set on level seven, and took 30 minutes to go 5 miles... cost me the gold. So to insure Bibeau’s silver, he says to me, “let’s run the two miles on treadmills next to each other.” I was like sure…later to find out he knew he had beat me by 10 minutes on the elliptical so all he needed to do was stay within 10minutes of me on the 2 mile. The order of the medal presentation went Bronze, Silver, and Gold; when I did not place, I knew something was wrong. After the presentations were complete, I went to the judges and demanding a recount, I mean a re-add of the times…and sure enough, I at least came in third, stripping SFC Saladin of his medal! It was all good and we had fun!

The next day Grupe and I decided to run a 12 miler as it would be our last run in Kuwait. This is my longest run since I ran the Twin Cities marathon back in 2001. I felt pretty good, so afterwards I treated myself one more time to a massage, actually I got the full package, a foot spa, manicure and 30 minute massage from Melvy, boy did I sleep well that evening. The next day I got up, finished packing and left for Iraq later that day on a C130 flying high, very hot and super sweaty, miserable hour and half flight.

As always, enjoy the pictures.