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Shopping Anyone

We could not spend all day at the Sheraton Hotel, so we hailed a taxi and headed over to the four story mall. The place was enormous! Here I am standing just outside the entrance. In the foyer, there was a huge rock formation with a waterfall and palm trees. In the heat of the desert, people could go ice skating at the skating rink if they wanted. The majority of the stores were closed due to Ramadan (the Islamic holy month), so we mostly window shopped. 11/23/03

The Fun Could Not Last Forever

The four-day R&R trip to Qatar could not last forever. In fact, it could only last 96 hours. We had a lot of fun over the course of those four days of freedom. No uniform or helmet to wear, no weapon to carry around, and best of all no responsibilities. It was great! Here you see us making our way back onto another C-130 transport plane. 11/24/03

Their Gym

So after we came back from R&R, I went to our gym for a quick workout and immediately missed the assets they had down in Qatar. This is a picture of the gym in Qatar. Yes, that is an Orange Julius in the back. 11/25/03

Our Gym

Need I say anything else about their gym vs. our gym? We acquired most of this equipment from an abandoned Iraqi gym when we first arrived and luckily a lot of soldiers brought some of their own for us to use. 11/26/03

Happy Thanksgiving

When we walked through the door of the mess hall today, we stepped as far away from Iraq as we could be. They went all out and decorated the entire place in various themes to include a San Francisco trolley car, St. Louis arch, New Orleans jazz district, and a New York City skyline. From left to right, Specialist (SPC) Lynn McGill (an intelligence analyst), Sergeant (SGT) Reyes Sanchez (an operations non-commissioned officer), Staff Sergeant Promotable (SSG(P)) Rob Dirk (the intelligence officer), and me, Captain (CPT) John Tucker (an operations/intelligence officer). Tomorrow's picture will include the menu! 11/27/03

The Menu

The mess hall put on an outstanding spread of food! There was more to choose from than you could imagine. The major items included: hand carved turkey, hand carved roast beef, sliced beef, baked chicken quarters, shrimp Creole, shrimp cocktail, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, green beans, at least half a dozen salads, and dinner rolls. The desserts are too numerous to mention but did include pumpkin and pecan pie! 11/28/03

Third Of Five Days

On average, Iraq has five rainy and gloomy days during the month of November. This was taken on the third gloomy day we had. For two days leading up to Thanksgiving, we had over 48 hours of bad weather. It rained off and on, was overcast, and the visibility was so low that our helicopters could not fly. Then miraculously, it cleared up on the afternoon of Thanksgiving. 11/29/03