Lovely Camp Buerhing, Kuwait

Hey everyone, sorry it has been a while. I'm here in Baghdad now but wanted to catch you up on my adventures thus far. Going to skip Georgia and get to the really exciting stuff. What life was like at exciting Camp Buerhing, Kuwait. I'll start at the end and then work my way through it. Everywhere you go on base the buildings are protected by what are called "Jersey Barriers". They are like giant highway dividers, and of course everywhere soldiers go they like to leave their mark. These are 1/82 cavs markings.

Had to be fair and enclude everyone. Here is for the ATC's at work.
This one is for the task force in whole. If you look at each of the small flags on the side, they represent our different units attached. This includes one unit if from Nebraska.

Go Ducks!

A bunch of the following pictures are of the base and what it looks like. Life here was pretty routine. We called it "Ground Hogs Day" Nothing much changes from day to day, just keep spinning on the wheel. It is not a bad life but it gets old quickly. So where to start the tour?

How about in our living quarters. Be it ever so humble, theres no place like home. Yes, this was my living space. These are huge tents as you will see and hold 75 soldiers. I can attest to that. On the recuriting poster it never said anything about privacy. They were air conditioned and for that we are very thankful. It would have been bad if not for the fact that we were only there for about 2 weeks. My rack is the one on the right with some clothes hanging up.

I did have good room mates though. Pictured below is Will. He is the MSC officer for the platoon. He handles all of the admin stuff, thank goodness. He is good at it and deserves a pat on the back for the work he does. Other room mates were a little more strange and you had to watch them all the time or your stuff would disapear.

Don't worry Captain is ok, just a little bit of counseling and he'll be fine. This is john, he was on the other side. He works as the squadron S1, which means he takes care of all the personnel issues such as pay and promotions. I try to stay on John's good side.

Going clockwise: The back door to our aid station, USO, movie theater. Spent a lot of time in the first and not enough in the other two.

This is the inside of the USO, it was pretty nice. You could get a free 20 minute phone call. Watch a movie or TV. Use the internet or play video games. They also had a book reading station where they would video you reading to your kids, or just talking and mail the DVD and book home for you. It was wonderful to do so. I so much hope that other people get a chance to do it. Caitlin and Luke I hope you enjoy your book.

The next couple of pics show some of the inside of our clinic. Oregon shared the place with a unit out of Florida. Waiting area shown below, and below that is our trauma room. Pretty much just like the one at St. charles. Yea, right.

This was the back side of the post chapel. Never made it inside, clinic was always during morning service and too far to walk in the evening. Would have been more interested had Shane be teaching. I'll make sure to get there while in Baghdad. Notice the tub, it is the for baptisims.

Can't forget the defac. You go in there 3 times a day to kill some time and stay out of the sand storm or you tent. Food was pretty good and there is Baskin Robins ice cream for lunch and dinner.

Life deployed is very strange in some aspect. You go along doing your job, fixing soldiers so that they can defend our freedoms and return home to there families and then......

You see a Starbucks behind hesco's.

Oh by the way KFC and Baskin Robins are just across the street.

On that thought I'll leave you with a wonderful sunset during a sand storm. It is about 7pm.

Take care and I'll write again soon. Next installment "Lost in Kuwait city"

Kuwait

I'm here. It's a little weird and a little like being on another planet. Outside is very hazy, hot and bright. You can't see more than a mile away it seems because of all the sand in the air. But, you go inside one of the many buildings and you are blasted with air conditioning, TV's, more food than you can eat and almost the atmosphere of being at a resort. I'm in the USO right now with the bank of computers, playstations and movies playing all around me, and it's crowded. There's a band playing next door in just a few minutes.
There is always a brown haze to the sky from the sand storms. We got here just after they had a weeks worth. Still trying to catch up on sleep and get into a routine. Getting our final training before we move on to our area of operation. My guys start showing up tomorrow. It will be great to see them and get ready to go.
Just saw the picture of Chris and the kids from the 4th and it reinforces why I'm here, to protect my family and country. I miss them so! Still don't have my computer on the net, so no pics yet but soon, been taking some from the base and will continue to do so.

Soon long for now, I'll write soon
mike