27 March 2008

Camp Fallujah, Anbar Province, Iraq

Greetings and salutations.  For those of you that are still checking in, thank you for the patience.  For those that are here for the first time, welcome.  For those of you that think instability in Iraq is better than stability, that chaos is better than order, that freedom is only good for those that are ready for it... welcome, too.  All I ask is that if you must spout off, be able to rationally defend your position.

Well, for those that are keeping track, this IS my fourth deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraq Freedom.  All four have been in the role of "Civil Affairs" which is means many things, but primarily serving as the interface between the military and the civilian populace.

I've actually been over here for about 50 days already (okay, exactly 50 days... but who's counting?).  In the past I've served at the battalion level as a team leader and at the regiment/brigade level as a detachment Executive Officer.  This time I am at the provincial level and am helping to get this place working again.

I will write more about what I'm doing later, but let me just give you this advice: if you ever happen to be getting raised by two loving electrical engineers, and they try to teach you fundamentals of electricity... LISTEN TO THEM!  You might just end up in a foreign country talking to real engineers about megawatts, kilovolts-amps, transformers and such someday... and if you didn't pay attention, you might just regret not having that knowledge now!