So why is it that the one day that I try to be responsible and finally update my blog the internet wants to be bad? Oh well I will type it all out and then hopefully be able to post shortly. I am super sorry it has taken me so long to write something. I wish I even had a good excuse. It’s kinda nice though because you can look through the dates on the blog and see that when I was making the most posts was when I was extremely bored. Atleast I’m not bored anymore! Here’s what is going on.
We are staying busy but we also have a good amount of downtime. I go on missions between 4 and 5 times a week. Saturday is a guaranteed off day for everyone, Friday is maintenance day to work on our trucks (it is the holy day here so we leave them alone). Other than those two days any day can be a mission. Each squad has 3 or 4 missions a week. But on the days your squad does not have a mission you are still working somehow. People have to work in the TOC (headquarters basically, I don’t really know what it stands for?) and people have to help fill in other squads. I am very happy that we get leave, I can’t wait to go home on mine and see all of you wonderful people, but I can’t wait until leave is over. Filling in with other squads really isn’t that much fun. It’s nice to see new areas and see different things ( I got to see a herd of camels today when I went out with 3rd squad. They were the first camels I had seen since we left Kuwait back in March), but we all prefer to go with our own squads. The other part that makes it difficult is having people fill in for my squad. Right now we have 5 people on leave out of 12. We have 1 guy who can’t go out on mission because he cut his hand and had to get stitches. So every day that we go on mission only half of the people are actually from our squad. The other half are fill-ins. And they do a good job, not complaining about that but it will be easier to do the mission once we get back to the routine of knowing who is where and who is responsible for what and all that kind of stuff.
Our missions normally last around half a day depending on when we start it. So we do have a couple of hours of downtime in the afternoon before we all get busy again. This is normally movie or naptime.. ok its normally nap time ha. We have a meeting at 1700, after that its normally chow followed by the gym. They have a nice MWR here so we spend some nights in there watching movies or playing video games.
I really can’t complain much about time. The rest of our company is still not doing anything. Our Battalion Commander actually sent our Commander an email telling him that we are doing a great job as the only platoon in the entire Task Force conducting ptt. That’s pretty big, the Task Force has probably 6 or 7 ( that’s completely a guess, could be more) companies, each company has 3 platoons, and we are the only ones still working with the Iraqi Police.
I miss everyone back home a lot. I’m happy to be here because time is moving by much faster. We have been at Bucca for almost 3 weeks now and it has been a lot better than the time we spent at Basrah. It is almost August which means almost a month until September. That’s really exciting, I should be home in less than a month and a half (hopefully I got early September. I should know a date in about 2 weeks). I love you all lots

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been around for a bit. I'm having computer troubles, gotta get a new charger and I'm too lazy to go do it right now. I'm using a computer in a lab right now. just makes it a lil more difficult to get in touch with everyone. were staying very busy right now, working 6 days a week. Just wanted to give a quick update, dont have too much time. i love you all, i will be able to get my computer fixed and such by friday or sat so should be able to get in contact with more of you then. love you
katie

Hey family! The main point of this post is to inform you of the mail situation here. We are going to continue to get mail at the last address I gave in Camp Basra (mom has this). Once a week someone from our company will bring mail down to us and once a week someone from here will go to Camp Basra to pick up the mail. Obviously expect delays due to this process but it will make it to me eventually!
We're pretty much setup and ready to go here. We got our trucks worked on some more today, tomorrow will be an off day which is pretty exciting and then we will start missions again after that. I plan to head over to the Education Center tomorrow to see what kind of resources I have down here for college classes. I finished the two I started in May. I had to do a lot of the work early because of how much we were moved around but it is 6 more hours! I am now almost a sophomore. Ha... to think I should be a junior and I don't even have the credit to be a sophomore. Oh well, the way to make God laugh is to tell him our plans right?
Ha, I think some good will come from this deployment. It isn't quite what I was looking for when I found out I was coming. I had planned on being able to adamantly say the Iraqi's need our help and it's a good thing we 're here. While I believe that once was the case I don't think it still is. However the recent increase in violence in the cities may be a sign they still need our help and just don't want to admit it. I guess only time will tell. Either way, this is the place God wanted me at this time, right? I just have to learn what I need to learn from being here and come back home soon. Hope everything is well back home, much love.
Katie

I wanted to let everyone know we made it to Camp Bucca safely. We are very excited to be here, living conditions are better than they were at Basra. We are still in tents but they are insulated and huge. We start working tomorrow which is exciting, we have all been very tired of being bored. Should start going on missions soon hopefully. I'll update more as things change. The most exciting part of being here..... I have wireless internet again wooh wooh!

sooo for my sisters and parents i hope everyone remembers where we were this time one year ago. the glorious ft. leonard wood. its funny how much things can change in just one year. last year i woke up all bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to graduate and get on back home. today july 3rd marks the 6 month mark from the day i left home. i woke up nooottt so bright eyed and bushy tailed for another day in this lovely place.
i went back to the gym tonight for the first night in a while. its always funny to me, if i haven't been going to the gym then i dread going but once i go im dying to keep going. i have a lot of work to do between preparing for a pt test and trying to lose some weight so i def. need to keep up going. it just seems so much easier to eat better and be healthier when im working out too. good ole endorphines ha
i love everyone, have a very happy 4th. enjoy some ribs for me