day off

Today I celebrated my first day off. I cannot tell you how much this day meant. I was able to take care of some errands and workout without being rushed. I wanted to go eat but the chow hall wasn’t going to be open till 5pm I couldn’t wait that long. Went by Taco Bell but, can you believe it, they were out of ALL hot sauces!! Only in a foreign country... I went to the pizza place and ordered a small pizza instead. It was pretty good, it was just nice to take my time to eat it since I knew I could sleep in. They had some movie playing on AFN with Justine Bateman, haha, that was a blast from the past. She still looked pretty good but definitely more adultish, still remember her from Family Ties, so long ago. This movie was so cheesy, something about her losing her memory and no one liked her before her memory loss, I don’t know, this movie was at least 14 yrs old, couldn’t they think of anything better to play? I honestly have watched very little t.v. since I got here, but seeing Justine Bateman wanted me to not watch any at all.
I went to bed at 5pm and woke up at 5am, but I actually tossed and turned from 3:30-500, still it was nice. I walked to the auditorium, it was still dark. I plugged in my video phone and called my wife. Wow, what a difference it makes from just calling on the phone. My little Jenna was so excited, she was jumping all around. It was great, we all talked for a good 45 minutes. I was in a very good mood after that, I then went to the MWR tent and downloaded pics to email and then work out. Man I can't wait to get my computer picture cord. After eating I went over to the chapel for the cultural tour. It was exciting to get off the base, there were a few people from the unit on the tour, including Mohr and tech sergeant Miles. There were about 20 of us that boarded on a old looking school bus and off we went. The road was horribly bumpy and honestly, the scenery wasn’t much different from the base, lots of concrete barricades and barbed wire. It’s weird, for about 10 minutes you are technically off the base, to the left of the road is the U.S bases and to the right is the new Iraqi Army bases, theirs looked a little rough.

We soon came to an area the included an unfinished (cranes) palace and square looking man-made lakes, but we soon stopped into an abandoned compound. The first part was an area that served as a dining facility for sadam’s army and firing range? Ya kindof weird the proximity with both. Across the street is what they call Flinstone village, it kind of looks like that area outside of Palm springs that has dinosaur and cave replicas. Word has it that Sadams daughters were trying to flee the country, Sadam begs the daughters to come back (all are married), once they come back he murders all the husbands. Now his grandkids do not have a father so to put them in his good graces he offers to build this flinstone village (his favorite cartoon). We didn’t have time to go there but we could see from a distance it had graffiti on it fake bedrock cave walls.
Anyways this compound had one of the last murals of sadam on it so we all took pictures. We then went over to the palace with the cranes and learned sadam was still constructing it when the war started. We saw all sorts of mortar damage , it was pretty tall as well, about 15 stories. With all the rubble it was like going into a 800 yr old ruin. It was then I realized my battery for my camera had died.
I was so p______ed!! It’s not like I had taken a lot of pictures since I was having issues downloading them, how could it die? I was in an annoyed mood the rest of the tour. We did go to the top of the palace and got a look at the skyline.
It was very clear, and of course the area is very flat. You could see the high rise buildings in the background, not really high like other cities but you could still see them from a distance. We were able to see a unfinished mosque, I guess when sadam was building it it was going to be the biggest mosque in the world. The problem is the biggest in the world is the one that is in Mecca, so the Muslim community higher ups basically told sadam to stop building it. We went to another building, it was the same schpeel except this was the party headquarters for sadam. We had a tour guide from the USO, rumor has it that while we were planning to invade March of 2003, instead of his party officials planning to counter-attack, they’re all watching the movie “pretty woman.” Idiots. I also learned more of the pure evil that was sadam husein. I guess he raped hundreds or teenagers during his reign, many of them virgins, which in Islamic law means by losing your virginity before marriage, that they would be pretty much put to death if done before marriage. He had an empty olympic sized swimming pool he always kept empty so he would tie people up and force them to dive head-first into the pool.
He had a viewing room above where he would watch these tortures. It made me pretty angry listening to all this, some of the guys on the tour were taking stupid pictures, kind of just mocking the whole thing. I don’ t know, there was just too much prior killing that went on that made me not want to stay long. How could a human being go so wrong? He started out as an innocent baby, a playful kid I’m sure, I believe god gave us the gift/curse of free-will, I just don’t get where it all went wrong where he started choosing all his evil deeds. Some might use information gained from this tour as justification for why the U.S. started the Iraq war. This man had to be eliminated from power, but I still feel we paid too much of a price to do it. 700 billion dollars, 4300 u.s. killed and 32,000 wounded, I’m sorry I can’t justify it for taking out one evil man. People can say he was in the same category as Hitler or Mussolini but they were invading countries, in 2003 sadm was not, so yes I believe we acted too quick. I know my thinking goes against the common military philosophy but oh well. Don’t get me wrong, I always felt we had justification to go into Afghanistan, but Iraq….?
Overall the tour was interesting but annoying about my camera. I was also a little disappointed because I thought we were going to visit some live palaces that we are currently occupying. I heard they were in another area not too far, maybe some day. Three plus hours of seeing blown apart palaces was more then enough. This whole area we are at is Camp victory, and Army base. I heard they have a big exchange and a few more eateries, even a bowling alley. But to come here you need to bring one other person and make sure your iba is with you in case we get attacked. It is still a war zone, despite things like taco bell and the bowling alley, trust me the gunshots in the background have been increasing and are a reminder. Anyways I got back, turned in laundry and since the chowhall was closed, I had to eat tacobell without hot-sauce. Brutal. Time for bed, my first day off was over, the highlight definitely talking to the family on the videophone, the picture quality being much better then skype. They recommend you volunteer for things on your day off, but I think my next day it is going to be free and clear.