Greetings to you all,
I hope you are having a great Easter Season! Easter is one of my favorite times of the year ... Mainly because it is a 50 day celebration. For my part I have been having (forcing myself :-)) a dessert every Sat and Sun to celebrate the time. It is hard to engage the Easter of this year, but God is everywhere - especially in the Church community here and for that I am very thankful.
I thought that I would share a some of the little things that are part of every day living. While the safety situation is improving greatly for most Iraqis, we are still confined to the bases as our green uniforms are targets. Terrorism at its fundamental root makes no sense. It is a war of destruction and here in Iraq, the terrorists have readily shown themselves to be little more than thugs and common criminals. They only differ from the common criminal in their desire to kill. The good thing here is that the Iraqi's themselves have seen these groups for what they are and the Iraqi people are bringing them to justice and ridding them from their land. Until they are finished, we US citizens live in the in between times. I imagine 10 or 20 years from now that thousands of US citizens will come to Iraq to visits it incredible sites. Until then the in between time has some unique characteristics.
For the first one I do not have a picture. ... One of the things that most people look forward too is showering without wearing shower shoes. I have not showered without wearing something on my feet for coming on 5 months. My choice of shoe is blue swimming crocs. I tried sandals, but the crocs provide a little more support and easily drain. It is the shower shoe of choice. I have to admit that when I go home for R and R in six weeks, the showering without shower shoes is one of the things that I will greatly enjoy ... that and walking outside in the grass without any shoes (OR BOOTS)!
On this picture you can see the smoke, not from a bomb, but from the plant down the river. It puts out smoke all day long. Fortunately we only smell it when the wind is blowing in our direction. Of course there are other plants in the other directions so we are in the smoke stream a good 40 to 50% of the time. And when the smoke is not an issue, the sand storms can get you. We are entering sand storm season so we get them about once a week. A simple cloth over the face is enough to walk outside, but it means no running on those days - have to work inside on one of the machines in the gym.
This is my view everyday.
I miss them very much and am looking forward to seeing them in 6 weeks. We will finish up a few things with the new house (BTW we signed a contract today for the "old house") and then heading down to FL. The big event there will be a day of swimming with the dolphins (which was Sophie's idea) !
Lastly, I have a pictures of some bunkers and T-walls (the large cement walls) located at VBC. I would show you bunkers at the Embassy Complex(NEC), but there are limitations on taking pictures at the NEC. It is simply part of life here. We go in the bunkers when the terrorists are shooting mortars on the base. It is a very random event and they rarely hit anything but open ground and fortunately even more rarely injure or kill anyone. As things are improving and the Iraqi Security Forces is making real gains in disrupting the terrorists ... it has been a while since I had to go to a bunker. Thank God.
A times life here is a little surreal, but then war (even in its transition to civil authority) is not what life is all about - or at least for this Catholic.
I pray all is well with all of you.
Peace,
Chris Culver
