Loss

This has been a hard week for me both Ken Obi and Mahi Mahi are on their way home leaving me as the only guy still in Fallujah. This place is crazy it's like an emotional intensifier. Whatever emotion you feel for someone or something gets intensified becasue you don't have any reasonable way to get away from that thought (or sometimes that person).

Mahi Mahi and I were talking about this, Iraq isn't for the weak. You have to be of strong mental character to handle this place, and not so much handling it here but when you get back and how you deal with people who don't experience this. It's hard to explain but, I know that I am different know than I used to be.

When Shen left I wasn't saddened it was a marking point but, I wasn't saddened but, it was a few nights ago and Mahi Mahi and I were just sitting around working and he says to me 'I'm gonna miss you man.' and I was like "I'm going to miss you too man."

There is something that is special about hetrosexual man-love. It seems more real but, if you have lived in the conditions that we were subject to it becomes natural. You need someone here to bond with it keeps you sane. But, unlike others that I have worked with we actaully became close and he is someone that I would consider a friend. I don't know how the real world will change that when I get back and we meet up again but, while he was here it was real enough. Under shelling you tend to learn a lot about a man and his goals.

Then a night or two after that Ken and I had to say our goodbyes. This is a man that has been through the real shit with me when this wasn't the lovely paradise you all read about in the papers. He was with me when the Marines tried to stick with me treason and he is the guy that taught me how to eek a living out of this god-awful meager existence. It's like saying goodbye to your parents and it was emotional, not terms of endearment emottional but, it was. People leaving is a bittersweet experience, you are happy that they are leaving and part of you wishes it was you (the person leaving coincendenatlly never feels that way) but, when you leave you you are concerned for the people you leave behind. I'll tell people there are only two types of people in Iraq casulities and survivors of casulities.

Congratulations Survivors.

Living Hell.

We have been without power here on and off for the last two days. Can you imagine being in roughly 130°/54° temp with no AC. I have never felt so awful, on top of that it's humid so it mind numbling hot and you are sweating what moisture you can afford like a pig. On top of the blistering sandstorms that have literally destroyed my sinuses, there is nothing you can do to get away from it.

This is just crazy.

How can it be hot, dry, and humid all at the same time.

Plesant Suprise.

Well yesterday I was in the office doing really pretty much nothing. But you know how sometimes you get in the flow of doing nothing and that's all you want to do. Well that's where I was. Then the TACPhone rang (tactical phone), that means only one thing. Something is broken, the TACPhone is only for military traffic only (in theory) I wasn't really in the mood to move or do anything so after I spat a few profanites at the phone I picked it up to see what was wrong and immediately I knew the voice. It was my old college roomate Spellmore, talk about a plesant surprise. That really made my day, I have been getting progressively disillusioned about my role here so it was nice to I knew he was in country but, I didn't know where or what he was doing. But we talked for a while and caught up one some old times and basically let each other know what we could do for one another (this place lives on the barter system). I plan on taking a trip around his way in the future to see how he is doing.

It's funny we found the worst place in the world to have a reunion.