coming home

Wow.. I am still amazed at the title. Coming home. We actually are and I can't believe it. This place has gotten so routine that to be leaving is surprising. Yesterday I realized that in 2 weeks I will be a student again. Since we have moved to Basra things have already started changing. There are no more missions, we officially turned over the reins to the 354th mp company a couple days ago and received our end of the deployment awards. I have spent the last 3 or 4 days playing xbox or watching movies with my friends while we wait for our flight. We're starting to prepare to leave though, got to clean weapons and repack to get out of here. Mom knows the majority of my dates for planning if you need to know talk to her (we developed our own little code ha. take that OPSEC)
We spent 6 months down at Camp Bucca before returning to Basra last week. It is crazy to be back with all of these people that I hadn't seen in so long. I catch myself seeing people I have already forgotten about. Makes me realize that 6 months from now I will.. finally be a sophomore, have just completed my first semester since fall of 2007, hopefully be contracted as a rotc cadet and not thinking about another deployment, and have forgotten about a lot of this place and these people. Obviously I won't be forgetting about the people who have made an impact or the people I have worked with/ enjoyed being with. I'll remember hooka nights, and late night movies and halo. I'll remember softball, basketball,and some missions. But I know I will have forgotten the weight of the gear, the feeling of driving a 68,000 lb vehicle, and the dumb things we put up with while we were here. Talking to Lee, it was easy to hate basic while you were there, but there is always that part that misses it after a while. I guess this is the same, I hated a lot of being here, never felt like I did anything worth giving up a year of my life, but I know I will miss some of it too.
Hopefully I can fit back into school and move on. I'll be 21 in a couple of months and my whole life is ahead of me. This was just a year, Jan 2009- Jan 2010, but a year that changed a lot.

So I felt like I was def. required to update my blog tonight with everything going on. I have decided to return to Auburn in the spring. It was a very quick decision over the last like.. 2 days or so. I feel that I do not stand even a decent chance of getting accepted to Texas A&M, even though I am interested in the school, due to just not enough hours for a strong transfer application. Transfer applications are due in March so I could still try to go next fall but I don't see how I could. I will be giving up some of my plans that I had for the next 6 months by returning to Auburn, but I am just ready to settle down. Hopefully I can come home during the summer and get some hours at the Lakeshore Foundation at that time. The biggest thing I am giving up is just time off. I am not allowed to say when I will be home but I will be missing some school unless things change. I am emailing my college and advisor to let them know that in advance but I am willing to fall behind a little bit instead of missing an entire semester. Hopefully things will work out and I won't miss much. As Mom and Dad know, because I have already started annoying them, my online searches now revolve around my new truck and some kind of housing for the spring. Kristi may have a roommate subleasing her room which would make me and Kristi roomies again! That would be convenient, if that doesn't happen then I will just get creative and come up with something. As for my truck, I found one in Atlanta that I really like and Carrie and Dad are both going to help me check that out. Hopefully things are falling in to place. Trying not to get too far ahead of myself because things can always change, especially when it comes to the Army and timing. They could decide tomorrow to send our replacements to Afghanistan and leave us here longer. There is just no way to know until I actually get back to the states and have my release from active duty in my hand. Just wanted to give a quick update for anyone seeing stuff on facebook or such and not knowing what was going on. Love you all

Thanksgiving

I am a bit late with the Thanksgiving post. Sorry! We had a brief the other day and our 1SG showed us this quote an just thought I'd share with the group. This was written by a soldier in 2005 I think..
As America wakes up this morning they will turn on the TV to see why we are fighting in these wars. Today is supposed to be a special day for our country, to celebrate why we are thankful and to gather family. For guys like myself, I will break bread with the men that I serve with here. We’ll play it off and pretend that we don’t care but deep down inside we all do. We all know what it’s like to be home and be with out families. That is not the case this year.
I am here now and I am thankful for being able to serve our great nation. The ability to serve is something that I wish all American’s could experience. What are you thankful for this year?
Although I am half a world away from my loved ones I have not forgotten what home means to me. Between the hustle and bustle of normal life I can see where people can forget what they are thankful for.
So when you break bread this afternoon, say your grace and appreciate the opportunity to be there with your family and loved ones. Don’t allow the bullshit that others are trying to do to spoil your day. Turn the news off and know that those who serve will take care of this mess.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Just thought it was kinda cool. My Thanksgiving was definitely one I will always remember. They went all out with the meals, I think they included anything they had ever heard Americans like. Let's just say if I told you what all they served you would think I am not actually in Iraq ha. It made me remember that not everybody deployed right now was in a position to have the kind of meal we had, or even to get the day off. I am sure most people in Afghanistan had a very different experience than we did here. So I am thankful to be where I am.
I was also thankful that we are experiencing these holidays at the end of the deployment. I can honestly call many of the people here family now. I cannot imagine how difficult the holidays would be at say the first month or two of a deployment. Things sure have changed here during the last couple of months. We have started realizing that our time together is coming to an end and most of us are not even from the same state. It will be difficult to see each other once this deployment ends. I have enjoyed the extra time we have spent hanging out recently, whether at the softball field or in front of the Xbox, ha.
After lunch we went and played some Xbox of course. What would you rather do on Thanksgiving than play Halo? We followed that up with another big dinner (same food from lunch ha), and then just hung out outside the rooms all night. Turned on some music, had a bunch of near-beer, and just hung out.
This may have been the most random Thanksgiving ever, but will def. be one I don't forget. It will also always be a memory for the Thanksgivings to come to remind me to appreciate the family time I get when I can get it. I missed being with the family, but I know this will come to an end soon. It is funny to think about because we are nearing the end of deployment and they are starting to talk to us about going home. I feel like I never thought these days would come. The whole deployment process I worried about what it would be like to get here. Talking about what to look forward to on the way home is just crazy. I hope everyone has a great day and that y'all can pull Auburn through today. I know we will have a large group of family at the game so I am looking to you to get the win. Do not fear though, I bought chips and dip, and some mountain dew and we will have our own Iron Bowl party here in Iraq. I love you all!

Sooo I am really hyper and decided I should update my blog. My roomies think I am hyper because I was eating M&Ms. My theory is that it is because I was able to talk to Mom and Dad both for like 20 minutes... And I could actually hear them! Ya'll don't even understand how nice good sound quality is until you lose it! I have also decided what I am getting everyone for Christmas which is fun. Even though it is a way off, and my Christmas is even farther off than that (sorry guys, not getting presents from me until I am home to give them!). But it is nice to know Christmas is right around the corner because it means going home is right around the corner! Wooh wooh.
We have a really light work week next week which is exciting as well. Even though it means the week will go by slower. We will get Thanksgiving off, Friday is maintenance day but we took our truck today so we won't really do anything that day, and Saturday is another off day! It's almost like a real weekend! Sounds like loootttsss of Halo 3 on the Xbox for us. (I'm actually getting pretty good, I can beat some of the guys and they do noootttt like losing to a chick on video games ha). It's cool though because all the xboxes here are connected so we end up playing teams with like 12-15 players total. Lots of army/ air force rivalry there ha.
Softball may be wrapping up soon. We have 3 more regular season games. We have to win 2 of the 3 to make it to the playoffs. Our star player hurt his back yesterday so he will be playing hurt tonight. Should make the game interesting.
Have I mentioned how super proud of my family I am recently? It's fun watching everyone grow up. You got the adults, like Carrie working off in the real world, doing some really cool things with her kids. Ashlyn is right behind her with her awesome internship at Southern Living (some very nice blogs that I have gotten to read). Kristi with Miss Auburn and starting to look at the real world now as a big bad junior. Kristen repping the Kappa Delts with lots of good times in college to come! (just do me a favor Kristen, don't be a 20 year old freshman like me ha.) I'm sad that I won't be around during Christmas to hear what everyone has been up to recently, I am sure there is a lot more cool stuff going on that I just don't know of. Thomas doing well with his tennis, wish I could have seen him play while I was on leave but I was very glad I got tosee him for a bit before the match! And of course Wesley with all of his big ideas about army men. I am just really proud of everyone and glad to be a part of this family!
Today is a good day. The weather here has finally decided to become fall (we're only a couple of months behind). Tonight at my softball game I will be wearing sweat pants and underarmor... I guess Hell has frozen over, atleast Iraq! Highs around the 70s with lows in the 50s. The days feel amazing though, just stinks when they start at 0600. You feel pretty dumb wearing a jacket in Iraq ha.
I love you all and hope everyone's day is as good as mine has been!

this picture ^^^ is horrible. But oh well, kinda shows you whats up.

I have been wanting to make thispost for a while ( I actually just typed the stupid thing but it got deleted halfway through so now I am stuck redoing it!). On Thursday, while we were on mission, Craig through a water bottle at my truck and i almost caught it... with my nose. He was up above me so I could not see it until it landed. It wasn't too major, I ended with a busted nose and a couple of black eyes. He def. did not do it on purpose, and he felt really bad so I didn't want to get him in trouble (We had a couple of important people with us on mission that day). It will be awsome today though because our new Brigade is coming to talk with us and I will get to explain to a couple of Colonels why I have 2 black eyes ( I of course volunteered to miss the meeting so it would not come up, that got shut down really quickly).

Another exciting mission today, I got an IP thrown in jail. He was I guess, in a normalwork evironment it would be considered sexual harrassment. It wasn't anything major but I told my NCOs and they went to talk to the station commander. They consider it a major offense so he will be in jail for a couple of days, docked pay, and transferred to another station. They made like a formal apology to me and everything, including telling me I had the right to press charges with them and take him to Iraqi court. I just said they knew better what the punishment should be under their laws and that I trusted them to handle it. It was kinda crazy.

Softball has won our last 2 games so it looks like we're on a roll now. I am still workin on making the adjustment to a slowpitch swing, not working all that well for me!ha havea good day

I need to apologize for not doing a better job of keeping in touch with home since I have been back. Days are flying by right now. It has been great. We have 2 slowpitch softball teams playing in a league right now. So basically every night is either practice, one of my games, or the other team has a game. We are def. spending most nights out at the field. It has been a lot of fun, last night the other team played. We took a grill and some nearbeer (nonalcoholic beer) and tailgated for their game haha. So that is where I normally am during the hours that I would be able to call yall. That plus the fact that I have been having problems with my computer and headsets has made communication not easy. I will try and do better, I am going to buy a new headset today and hopefully that will fix the problem.
We are also running 4 missions a week. We are nearing the end of R&R for the whole company, there are probably only 4 or 5 more people in our platoon who are either currently gone or are leaving in the next week or two. That makes our "down day", which is really squad support, pretty much useless. The point of squad support is to help fill in for people who are on leave, right now there are only 2 people to fill in for. So it is easier to send us out on more missions. That also makes the days go faster, even if it more tiring haha.
I am no longer sick, thank goodness. I am also getting back to getting normal sleep. Last night I slept really well, I had to make myself get out of bed this morning ( and by morning I mean like.... 11) so I didn't sleep all day and keep myself from getting any sleep tonight. It is sad how much I look forward to sleep these days. I found a book series that I am really enjoying. I got it from another guy in the company who is passing me the books as he finishes them. I'm on book 5 (plus a prequel) of 11. That is not helping me sleep either ha. I may have a bit of trouble putting it down. He is on book 6 though so I may have to wait a bit to get the next one from him.
It is really starting to feel like we're almost done here. They have started taking some of our equipment and are talking about us sending gear back and stuff. Kinda crazy, but if things continue moving as quickly as they have for the 2 weeks I have been back, we will be out of here in no time.
I thought I was enrolled in some online classes starting yesterday, but some stupid things got in the way. I am pretty frustrated, especially since I now have the textbooks for the classes that I am not a part of. That's pretty much whats going on in my life these days, I will try and do better with the phone. I love yall!

Kuwait

I'm "stuck" in kuwait for the next couple days it seems. I use "stuck" because I am living here with the only obligation of meeting at 1000 to see if I leave that day. Which means lots of movies and sleep. Not too bad, I will miss our offday in Bucca now so when I get there we will be going full speed. I will probably get to miss one more mission too though so I am not complaining. I guess this makes me a horrible person/ teammate but ya know.. I am getting paid the same and although that bed isn't the most comfy I am not complaining about being here! I don't have my normal internet though so you prob won't hear from me until I get to Iraq. Love you
Katie