On the Road Again, Locked and Loaded

Incomplete Sword Structures? - Kuwait City

Everytime we go out, we must be armed and ready to fight to the death. The chances of getting attacked are slim, however, it is being complacent which causes lives to be lost. Going off post makes the time go a lot faster. Being able to see the locals, buildings and barren desert is fascinating. It is no fun being trapped on base. I don't think it is psychologically healthy either. But going out every once in a while helps to relieve stress. Today, I got to see the effects of three days of rain from two weeks ago. Small patches of grass and bushes seem to be blooming which makes a breathtaking desert landscape. I forgot to take my camera on this trip, but I'll bring one next time. After visiting sites around this country, it is obvious to me, that the United States is a huge and powerful force. Helicopters patrolling the air resemble a bunch of black bees swarming over the skies... hundreds of thousands of tanks, humvees, armed men and women, coalition forces, and crablegs. I'm very impressed at the magnitude of our huge and powerful fighting force. No wonder why Saddam was crushed in a matter of weeks. It looks like we are here to stay until the job of strengthining Iraq gets finished.

Getting Treated like Cattle

I would just like to say, that life here sucks. You're just a number. And that everyone here is expendable. But once you figure that out, you'll be just fine.

Lately, we have been told to move once again. I had the privilege to move from a bottom rack to a top rack. My new bunk mate is an O-4. In layman's terms, he is an officer, perhaps a full fledged doctor or nurse. Really strange that they put us together. All the guys around me are very high ranking and somewhat boring to talk to. There's just some freedoms that I don't have the liberty of doing anymore, like bitching and complaining about work to let out all my anger and frustrations. I have to find someplace else to do it. When I change clothes, I do it in the middle of the hallway now (very visible, high traffic). No more privacy. Because, with a bottom rack, I could put up a privacy curtain and have five square feet of changing space. Nope, not anymore! Wow, a real morale killer. Another thing keeping me and everybody else sane. I bend over and say, "Thank you very much sir, may I have another." My motivation to perform well at my job and saving the government hundreds of thousands of dollars has diminished almost completely. I'm just hoping that something good will come out at the end of this tour.

Mission Essential

Kuwaiti Tents in the Desert

Lately, in my job, I've been using the words "Mission Essential" a lot. Everything I do, is critical to our mission in Kuwait. Medical maintenance is key to having exceptional medical care. Because the saying goes, "The medical staff is only as good as their equipment." Anyways, me and the BMET team are doing a lot here to keep this place and outlying clinics running. And it feels good to know that I've fixed something that costs a half a million dollars. That is what I've been trained to do. Hopefully, they don't keep me out here because of that.

Tonight, Jcid and I experienced some really crazy freeways in Kuwait. People freely cross the freeways and lanes don't seem to matter to them. We almost died because some idiot fool was driving full speed on the wrong side of the road!!! Luckily, Jcid didn't panic and steered us into the merger. I feel asleep in the back of the truck and when I woke up, Chief was messing around saying that "J stuck a gun in your mouth." I didn't find that too amusing. Because were were carrying 9mm pistols on our side. Once again, I got to see blown out villages and old Iraqi bone-yards from the first gulf war. Spooky reminisces of history in this area haunt even the most modern of times. My butt still hurts from all the bumpy roads and potholes. The truck we were driving, I swear, doesn't have any shocks in the back. It seems to have a straight solid axle in the rear making my ass feel every rock and bump in the road. The things I have to do for the mission!

Walking on the Moon

Stepping Foot on Kuwaiti Desert

When I first stepped foot in Kuwait, it was like walking on another planet. There was sand and little pebbles of rock everywhere. People's cars were dirty and sandy, it was just a shock and it took some time to get used to it. At first, it was miserable. Nothing was clean and sand got everywhere. I could stand it. Well, aren't you glad you're not here?

Road Signs in Arabic

Road Sign to Ali Sabah Al Salem

After seeing signs like these, what does sloppy handwriting look like in Arabic?

Mass Casualty

My morning started off by passing out gas-masks to staff at the hospital. Watching people struggle with the straps and messing up their hair was quite humorous. It made the time go by faster here in this barren wasteland. After a few hours of doing that pointless job, I got called back to repair an electrocardiogram machine. It is a machine which records and prints out heart rhythms while respiratory techs make the patient walk the treadmill. After that got fixed, we received word that a bus flipped over and that several helos were headed our way. Me and Jcid ran to the back and announced the alarm. "Mass Cal, Mass Cal, this is not a drill!!!" Everybody dropped what they were doing and opened up the conix box filled with stretchers and donkey carts. We got runners to run over to the barracks to recall all the hospital staff. A few corpsman put on helmets and ran after the gurney and lined them up ready to receive patients. There was word that there was to be 14 patients total. I helped carry the patients to the treatment center. Unfortunately for the patients, this was a fun evolution. It gave us a sense of pride and purpose here in Kuwait. Too bad it wasn't a drill.

Kuwait Mini Bazaar

Mini Bazaar in Kuwait

Inside of one of the "lucky" bases in Kuwait, they have a mini-bazaar next to the PX/BX exchange. They also have a street vendor who sales schwarmas which is a marinated meat with salad and tomatoes wrapped in pita bread. Very delicious. They cut their meat off a giant rotating meat k-bob kinda like how they do it in Mexico. Inside the bazaar, there is gold, rugs, souveniers, pirated movies, electronics, etc. No porn or alcohol. (sorry guys, that stuff is illegal in Kuwait) Here, you can bargain down and haggle on the prices just like they would do out in town. Really neat! And the cost is very reasonable!

Rain in the Desert

Well this morning, it rained. Because of this, we got calls like crazy in the maintenance department. "Our Power went out, AHHHH!" Well, we called the Seabees and they came and took a look at the problem. They turned on the backup generators and nothing... Nothing seemed to work. Well, I showed up and read the start up instructions. "Open lid and flip the circuit breaker (CB1)." I flipped the switch and the power came back on! Yep. That made my day. Me finally getting to do what I was paid to do, troubleshoot.

Well, anyways, when it rains in the desert, it is kinda nice. The sand gets packed down so walking on it, is like walking on a huge pan of brownies. The ground closely resembles brown sugar. I haven't seen much mud except on paved road ways. But the sand clumps together nicely.

Good bye EMF Dallas! Chat with the Bus Driver

My Bunk with obnoxious Bedsheets

Finally, those reservists are leaving. EMF Dallas has been running the show at this hospital before we got here and before them, it was EMF Portsmouth. Now, it is EMF Kuwait - Camp Pendleton Detachment. This new crew of people are a good team. A good number of us actually volunteered to be here and are motivated while a few were "volun-told" to be here. But most of all, we are a good bunch of people who know what we are doing. It has been said that we are the greatest and the best Navy Medicine has to offer. The doctors, nurses, corpsman and ancillary staff were hand selected from 21 different commands from around the globe and put into one hospital. This has never been done before. I'm glad to be a part of this historic evolution and informing the world of what we are all about.

Yesterday, for fun, I chatted with a bus driver who drives a shuttle bus which rotates around the base here at Camp Arifjan. The guy is from Bangladash. (spelling?) I have no idea where that is located, but anyways, he told me that he was from Pakistan. He told me how lazy Pakistani people were and that they like to work one day and get two days off. Hehe, what a work ethic! I had asked him if he liked his job and he told me that, of course, he didn't. He was doing it for the money. He traveled all the way to Kuwait for money! Wow. He is also had a girl friend and plans on moving back to his country. I had told him about my family history and that my parents were refugees from the Vietnam war and had settled in the states ever since. He acknowledged and told me that the situation in Vietnam and Iraq were the same, except that Iraq has oil and Vietnam has rice. So True. So True...

Fair and Equal Treatment for All

Camels in the Desert

This is one of those places that I can experience genuine fair and equal treatment for everyone. When we are out here, no matter what RANK, race or sex, everyone here gets the shaft. Including our entire chain of command (O-6 and down)... Just like everyone else, they sleep in tents and exercise the "buddy system" just like everyone else. Probably because we are Navy on an Army base. But everyplace I've been to, higher ups get treated like royalty which, sometimes, makes me sick. Well, my group finally moved out of the tents and are now squished into a birthing area which is somewhat similar to what we had in bootcamp. It is a downgrade from the tents, that's for sure. A lot less space and privacy. Instead of 14 to a tent, it is now 100+ to a room which means we have to be less flexible with lights and sound because we encounter more day sleepers. But an advantage is that I don't have to walk so far to take a shower or go to work. Work is only 5 minutes away now instead of the 25 minute bus ride. Yeah!

Being away from my wife, Socorro, is kinda depressing. But being with all these other people who are also seperated from their families make it even more depressing. Once, I saw someone break down and cry. It's killing me. I can't wait to get out of this hell hole. Good thing it's only a 6 month deployment. I don't know if I can do it for a year like the EMF Dallas guys. The extra money isn't worth it to me. The MWR here, I can honestly say is sufficient. There's not much more you can do to the community centers which easily get overcrowded. Getting access to the internet takes an hour or two. There just isn't anywhere else to go and nowhere to spend money for things you want. The military store (PX/BX) mostly sells necessities and Army stuff. Not much of a selection of anything else. I find it humorous to see everyone have the same ugly colors of bedsheets. Today, I bought the most obnoxious looking bedsheets and draped my bottom rack with it. Hehe.

Boredom is Setting In

After arriving in Kuwait, the life here is repetitious. Get up early, 3 s's (shower, shit and shave) put on uniform, get on bus, eat breakfast and go to work. Work. work. work. work. work. Eat lunch, work some more. Go home. Do laundry or hang out in rec-center and check e-mails. Same thing over and over and it gets boring really quick. The bad thing is, is that I say busy because these things are time consuming, yet free time only comes while I'm doing things like "waiting for the bus" or riding the bus to work which makes other things hard to accomplish such as reading a book. Backpacks aren't allowed in dining facilities and if you bring one, there's no place to put it. The Army is known to blow up backpacks sitting outside the dining facility. Also, you aren't allowed to overstuff your pockets with stuff as I do mine. I always carry my prescription goggles and digital camera. Not much room for anything else. I try to take my time writing letters, but it is difficult since the only time is at night. The lights go out at about 10 pm. Sounds like a bunch of complaining... I know. Everything can be solved with just being able to carry a backpack.

Riding on Kuwaiti Freeway

Camels in the back of a truck

There are some unusual things to see while driving on the freeway. This country has colorful buildings and mosques (spelling?). People here don't usually obey the posted speed limit which is about 120 km/h. Since gas is so cheap, people drive their SUVs with the pedal to the floor. Because of this, there are a lot of broken down vehicles and roll over vehicles on the side of the road awaiting to be junked.

Touring Expeditionary Medical Facility Kuwait

Today, I did a lot of moving metal containers around trying to find equipment. I'm getting the ball rolling on the database ULLS-G program. I really want to get a database started here. Right now, we are running a spreadsheet program (excel), but we don't have a set schedule for preventative maintenance. It kinda sucks and I'm going to fix it. There are also talks of shutting this "tent" hospital down and relocating. After walking around and doing my tour, I see that it is extremely crowded. In the front, they do triage and there is different departments in different tents. Without releasing classified information, I can say that there is admin, x-ray, pharmacy, lab, supply, or, anesthesia, respiratory, cardiovascular, wards (number of them is secret), and emergancy room. Walking around there is tight, some people describe it as being like a submarine or ship where we have to get out of someone's way to have somebody else walk past us. The ceilings are low between tents like it was built by a midget. Anyways, it looks like the corpsman get a lot of hands on experience in emergancy care. Today, I saw them practicing litter carrying.

Last night, I went running (caugh, caugh). And I went to the gym to kill the monotomy of work. I discovered a stash of things that people mail out to us. We call it "Wal-Mart" where people donate essentials such as toothbrushes, razors, Slim Jims, candy and other things. It is really cool. Well anyway my time on the net is running out.

Training to be a Killer

I am now a "marksman" at the M16 and the 9mm. I am now able to wear both service ribbons. I am a lousy shot with the M16, but a "killer" with the 9mm. Hehe!

I also got to escort some third country nationals onto the camp. Almost all the employees here are either, Indian, Philipino or Pakistan. Kuwaities are pretty wealthy and don't work any hard jobs. It makes me wonder who is serving in their military.

Tonight, I had crablegs, pizza, baskin robbins, and corn on the cob. The food here is the best! I can't complain, especially since it is free. There is also a laundry service that washes your clothes for free too. I plan on taking advantage of that as soon as I can. Today has been a pretty good day so far.

The living conditions aren't that great. There is 14 of us (E-5s and E-6s) sharing a tent. It is dusty and the air conditioner runs all day. When the lights go out, it is pitch dark and when i use my flash light, it lights up the entire tent... hehe. I have one of those bright LED flashlights, it works a little too well. The Army makes us use the "battle buddy" system and we have to wake someone up in the middle of the night so we can walk to the porta-johns. The showers are almost a quarter mile away. It sucks because when I walk back to my tent, I am dusty and sandy again.

Also, if anyone would like to send me or the people of EMF Kuwait a letter or mail, let me know so I can forward the mailing address. Other than that, I'm going to take a nap after this exhausting day.

Arriving Camp Arifjan

Helo Landing

Tents

It it dusty. Real dusty and dirty and sandy everywhere. Even this keyboard that I am typing on. I can't stand it. I just washed my clothes and it is still a bit sandy. Well anyways, right now, I'm missing my digital camera. It sucks not being able to record some images of my adventures here. Today, I got to remove some patients from a landing helicopter (training). And I also got to put out chemical fires with fire extinguishers. It was really cool. The food here is ridiculously unlimited. The messhall is loaded up with almost everything and there is also a Baskin Robbins where an (Indian man) scoops up your icecream. It is best food I've ever had in the military. Well, I gotta go and I'll keep it posted.