Monday, October 29, 2007

Hey all- Just thought I would do the bulk email thing another time - so... sorry. I hope you are all doing well in your respective geographic areas. For those of you don't know, I finally left for Iraq via Fort Campbell Kentucky and then Kuwait at the end of September. Leaving behind Riley, Sara, and Naomi for one overworked Amy to care for for the next year and a half or so by herself (she is so excited). Heading to Baghdad in a few days to work with the 86th Combat Support Hospital at a place called Ibn Sina Hospital in the Green Zone. If you are curious, they were the hospital that HBO did a documentary mini-series on a few years ago "Baghdad ER". Should be an interesting experience. Will mostly be taking care of US and coalition soldiers in the 2nd busiest trauma center in the world. Our patients also include Iraqi's (friends and foes) and some local nationals that the local hospitals cannot care for ( i.e. sick kids, things like that). Right now we are sitting in Kuwait, acclimating to the desert - and if you are wondering - it is a hot dry place with nothing here except sand, rocks and an occasional camel with a bedouin staring at us. There is literaly nothing to do, so luckily the USO is here and gives us some limited access to the internet and phones to call home on occaision. Tons of food (wednesday's are surf and turf with steak and alaskan king crab legs or lobster) and a really nice gym and rock wall. Go figure. It has been a bizarre experience thus far - literally everthing is trucked in on a daily basis - water, porta potties, fuel, food, KFC and Taco Bell, Panda Express, Charley's Steak and Potato Restaurant (really). And because of the contracting done, the servers at the dining hall and the workers almost everywhere are from all over the world so I was talking to an old man from Bangladesh as he was cleaning our showers and then discussed, what a veggie burger is with a 25 year old Fillipino. Very weird. We have no interaction with Kuwaitis, and in fact during the trip from the airport here, had to close the curtains on all the buses, so they would not notice us. Anyway, due to limited internet time, I will most likely continue on with mass emailing while I am here - please don't take it personally. I hope you are all doing well. My one political comment - Whether you support the war or not (I don't), we still need to support and take care of the kids that are over here risking there lives for us on a daily basis. Sorry, I had to say it. I attached only one picture of us ducking in a bunker during a report of a "suspicious package". As you can see we were all very worried... Take care of yourselves - if you are interested in the address to send a letter or anything - contact Amy. She will have it in about a week or so.

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