Deployment to Sather AB, Iraq - 4

15Jan09

Well, hello all! This is my first blog since getting into country. We are in Iraq now and Sather (pronounced "Say ther) AB, at Baghdad International Airport. Lets break it down what this base is like: Its...a shithole. Period. I could end the blog now and you'd have a pretty good idea what its like here. But I won't because that wouldn't be any fun at all!

We arrived several days ago to wet, cold, dark weather like you see in movies. It was the middle of the day about 3 days after leaving the US. We had a stop over in Al Udeid AB in Qatar, stayed overnight, and flew into Iraq on military transport. If you've never ridden military air, its great! Shoulder to shoulder, hot, cold, you wear full body armor which weighs more than you do, on seats made of webbed canvas. Yes, thats military air! No in flight movie, no meals, and a bucket behind a curtain to do your "thing" in.

For all the misconceptions out there, this is not a tropical paradise, its not hot and humid. Its cold at night. VERY cold! It rains occasionally right now. Its Iraq's winter, so thats what we get. Its muddy, like peanut butter. It tracks everywhere. We live in a tent, at least for now. There are 6 of us as medical here (medics and nurses) and we are in the same tent. Its not bad, we know each other and get along well. We'll be making it quite the party zone here in about a week! It will be more like a church party, really. We can't drink here in country and humans of the opposite sex aren't alowed in our tent, so we live in mutual uncertainty as to what anything "fun" is, besides we have been working alot. THAT's fun! (Sarcasm enclosed).

Our work is a clinic setting/minor hospital. We can handle ER situations and trauma, we just don't get any of that very often thank God. For those of you who know what I had gone through on past deployments, you know I have seen my share. Also, being the ONLY person here with pediatric experience, including amongst the docs, I get to handle all children's cases we'll see here. Those would be the children of the Iraqi's who are working here at Sather and surrounding bases, Camp liberty, Camp Victory, Camp Cropper, Slayer, etc. Its okay because I like kids. They don't whine as much as adults. I will also be taking on a Humanitarian mission for the next six months. I will go see the kids in the surrounding places and do well child visits, immunizations, wound care, etc. Basically, doing our part to make them healthier and happier. I can't wait to get that started! I'll send more as we get to work on that.

Okay, so this is what I mean by "shithole". We are nearby the embassy and green zone, where all the bigwigs are. We get visits from the likes of the vice president elect, Joe Biden, who visited a few days ago. Yet, this place is muddy, looks like a construction site and a dump collided with each other and blew up, stinks like hell when they burn the trash nearby, is noisy, and right now wet and cold. This isn't the place that Time or God forgot. Its the place they remembered over drinks and decided to have a damn sense of humor with! And it was only freakin funny to them! This part of Iraq is the sinkhole of despair that you get lost in when you dream on really good drugs. Its ugly.

Fortunately, the folks we are here with are cool. Kinda. The outgoing folks we are replacing are great. kinda. In short, they have been helpful, great to us and are nice folks. But they need to go. The LtCol chief nurse decides to call medic meetings right after roll call every morning to kill us with powerpoint presentations on this and that, etc. For myself and another medic, who work 49+ hours straight and still have a full day to go (this, while we complete the changeover from their folks to ours) who the hell needs another breifing we don't care about. Fact is, the first hour off the plane these folks wanted to tell us about this and how we are going to do this, and these are their ideas for this and that. We just got here! Give us 4 seconds to curl into a ball in the corner and scream! The other simple fact is: it ain't gonna be the way they think it is going to be. Its our ship now and we are going to run it how we want. Period. So, after a few deployments where these events occur, you learn what to listen to and what to tune out. Its like...10% to 90%.

They lost our checked luggage on the way here. We spent until last night with only one uniform and very few other clothes and necessities. 8 of us had about 3 bags each. How do you lose about 30 bags all on a pallet and if you HAVE that pallet sitting in front of you and NOT on the plane where it should be, how do you SEE that pallet and not wonder for a second if maybe that pallet should BE somewhere or on its way to somewhere? What the hell! Wouldn't you start to lose sleep eventually about this pallet of luggage, people's lives, sitting on the concrete next to where a plane just took off? I'd start getting an idea that something isn't right but Im just sayin....

Well folks, I am sure there is more I could say here but I gotta run. Please keep checking back for more fun and excitement and feel free to follow this blog and I will try to get back to it as often as possible. Hope you are all well and healthy. Thank you for the love and prayers! God Bless!