Al Udeid

I'm so annoyed, I can't download any pictures because I have the wrong chip, and none of the rec computers allow us to you USB ports to download stuff. All of this security stuff. Oh ya, I'm in AlUdeid Qatar, what a crazy few days! The plane ride sucked to Shannon Ireland, very uncomfortable. the thing I didn't take into consideration was that everyone on the plane had two to three carryons.
We were only in Shannon for an hour and a half, from what I saw it looked very green and beautiful. in the hour and a half we were there, people were scrambling for the guiness at the bar, it was funny it's 9 flipping thirty in the morning. Even when I did drink I never liked guiness, tasted too much like molasses. The second flight was much better, I knocked out for about four hours.
When we were about to land I noticed the light patterns were all different on the ground, yep we are landing on some different turf for sure. We land and that's when it got crazy. We had to check in, sign in, listen to briefings, watch videos on how the body armor works, then we started getting issued everything. It reminded me of bootcamp and the first day of two a days for football-football for when we are getting our armor reminded me of fitting on our shoulder pads, but the shoulder pads were much lighter. I gotta admit I was struggling, My brain was totally fried from the jet lag and they were barking out orders, sign this, fill this, rush, rush, rush. I was very slow, Mike Abeto told me I had to speed it up, normally I would've gotten defensive but he was right. Time to put my A game on, but when your jet lagged, nothings working quite right. We then had to wait 40 minutes for a bus to take us to get our linens, then they throw us in a tent and we find a rack. Like I said, a lot of this reminded me of bootcamp but when you've done it before, it's not as bad as what other people may think.


I woke up at 830 and went outside. People have told me of the brightness before and they aren't joking. the sun here is intense, totally flat, no sense of direction, tents and other buildings that are tan with no other distinguishable features. I'm in "the sandbox". The Dining facility, or D fac, is pretty good, open 24 hrs a day, a wide variety of food. Every type of drink you can imagine, all in cans, no fountain types. I am starting my water thing, oh man the temptation is crazy. It's all free and I can't touch it. I really think water only will help me lose weight. Very few people have guts here. So what is the purpose of Al Udeid? It is a transit station, that is, everyone gets sent there, gets their armor and weapons, and then gets shipped to their location. It's a safe base, Qatar is a Muslim state, but they are our friends, and are one of the richest countries in the world. We pay them a lot of money to use their bases. It is also used for a morale location. Troops from all over the region get three day passes to de-program. there is a pool here, and they get a ration of three beers a day, plus computers, phones, ggod food, and the exchange. To us air force pikes, it seems like another day at the office, but to soldiers outside of the wire that have had no showers, getting shot at, stressed to the max, Al Udeid is heaven. I had to walk to the main exchange to get a cord adapter, 10 minute walk there, man I got so sunburned on my face. I gonna go, I could write more about it but what's the point? Were leaving tomorrow to our true destination, but this was a good barometer on how a lot of Sather will be set up. Once I can get some pictures downloaded, this will all seem more interesting