We are now a little more than half way through this deployment. Gary's time in Iraq is almost half way over. I expect him to be back in the states by the beginning of May. He'll go back to North Carolina for a while, but I'm still not sure if it will be for a week or two or it could be for a month or two. They haven't told us for sure, and even if they had, I've learned that with the Marine Corps nothing is for sure until it actually happens. They constantly tell you one thing and then do another, so whatever they say I don't believe until it happens. For now the story is that he's only supposed to be in North Carolina a couple weeks and then will finish the last part of it at Camp Williams where he can stay at home and commute back and forth. If he's going to be in North Carolina for a while I'll probably go out there again to see him, but since I had to change his flights four times when he came home on his leave in Sept. I'm definitely not making any solid plans until the last minute. This first picture is of Gary's whole company (Charlie Company).
Since Gary won't be able to post anything on the blog, I took some of the things he's told me through letters or over the phone and typed up something to post using his descriptions and the pictures he sent to illustrate. Then I had him read through it and add details, so this posting is a joint effort.
Gary has been keeping pretty busy. He says he tries to go to church on Sunday when he can, but other than that days are all the same to him. It's hard for him to keep track what day of the week it is because it is all the same and he doesn't have a lot of spare time. There are computers on base he can use to get on the internet, but he rarely gets on the internet, and if he does it isn't for long. If he wants to use the internet with his laptop (so we can use the web cams and instant messaging) he has to pay $5 per hour. Since he doesn't have time for that we haven't used the web cams since he left North Carolina. I've been checking his e-mail for him and usually send it to him through motomail or read it to him. Letters and packages have been taking two weeks to get back and forth, so I've relied on motomail and phone calls. The motomail has been really nice to get messages to him quickly, I just can't get messages back very fast. Gary is only supposed to call once a week and has a 30 minute time limit per call. Lately it's been more like twice a week, and I usually keep him longer than 30 minutes. Our communication is so limited, it has been frustrating, but we make it work for us.
Gary has learned a lot about the Iraqi people. They are not soldiers or very militant. It isn't in their character as a people. He's spent some time around their interpreter and has had a chance to talk to him and learn more about the area and the difference between the Sunni & Shiites & Muslims in general. Here are a couple pictures of them on their convoys.
He says when the sun goes down it gets really dark. When he's at the vehicle check points working with the Iraqi Police they are out in the middle of nowhere and it gets so dark that his night vision goggles don't work very well. He's noticed there aren't usually any clouds in the sky, so at night he can see the stars really well and he says it's really pretty. During the day the clear blue sky is pretty as well, but he says when you look back down to the horizon you see ugly brown, dirty, dingy gray color.
With no clouds it makes the nights colder and days hotter. When Gary first got to Iraq the temperatures averaged 90-100 and would cool down to the 80's at night. It was hot and it was already past the summer months. Now the high is around 50 if he's lucky and the low's dip down to the high 20's and low 30's. Mornings are very cold now. Gary says the gunners bundle up like the kid in "A Christmas Story" because they have to ride up in the turrets of the truck. They've had a few missions that have required them to move at night and he says it can be miserably cold. Most of the pictures he's sent me the scenery looks all the same, just like in this picture.
This is one of the few pictures I've seen with greenery and palm trees.
Gary says the food there is pretty good for the most part. For Thanksgiving he ended up not going on a convoy that most everyone else went on because someone was using his vehicle. That left him on base with four other guys for a few days. It was his idea for them to go to the big, main chow hall and eat Thanksgiving dinner together. He said there was a ton of food--turkey, ham, prime rib, stuffing, and all the other usual Thanksgiving food. He said the prime rib there is really good. They feed him steak quite often and he says it isn't very good so when he gets back he's not eating steak anymore. I'll be lucky if that lasts a day. He'll be back to sneaking steak in the shopping cart again while I'm not looking the first time he goes grocery shopping with me.
The truck he drives has mine rollers attached to the front of the truck. They meet frequently with the military and civilian contractors who perform maintenance and upgrades to the rollers. He says they run them pretty hard so they take them in every couple weeks to get something fixed or upgraded. Sometimes the upgrades and repairs only get halfway done because parts are on order. He thinks it is pretty funny when the truck comes back with duct tape wrapped around one of the main pins to hold it together.
They have a couple dogs that patrol with them sometimes. One of the dogs and the dog handler ride in the back of Gary's truck when they go out. Gary becomes security for the dog and the handler when they get out to search or investigate something. It is fun for him to work with the dogs and it broadens the things they can do. All the guys love having the dog with them too. The dog never wants for attention. There is always a Marine willing to sit and pet the dog. The dogs seem to really like going out too. Sometimes a game of Frisbee gets started and it drives the dogs nuts to see the Frisbee flying around. Now Gary wants to get Josh a German Sheppard when he gets home since he's been working with one out there.
To fortify and add extra security to the compound he is staying at there are big bins lined with burlap and heavy cardboard then filled with dirt and encased in chain link to keep the shape. These are the walls you see in the pictures of them playing a little baseball.
He really misses home, and is looking forward to coming home soon. Time seems to go by quicker for him out there, than it does for me at home. He is in a constant routine of finding out when the next mission is, preparing for and working up to it, then debrief, fix the trucks up, and prep for the next mission.
I picked out new carpet and got it laid in our downstairs living room. This was to replace what was damaged when my fridge broke and leaked into the basement. I thought picking out new carpet would be fun, but it really wasn't. I've never picked out carpet before so I had no idea what to look for, and I am very indecisive. The samples all look so different when you look at them in different light or turn them different ways. Josh isn't much of a shopper either, but he enjoyed running all over the carpet stores and climbing on top of all the rolls of carpet. I liked how it turned out, so hopefully Gary will too.
I also got a new kitchen floor put in to replace what was damaged because of the water mess. This was really easy to pick out because I liked what we had before. Gary liked it too so I got something pretty close to what we had before. So far I like this better than what we had before. The water damage warped some shelves in the food storage area, so they built me new ones. They have replaced the drywall that was damaged, and fixed a light fixture that shorted out because of the water. I just have to have them adjust that a little and I think they'll be done with the repairs. I've almost got everything put back together now the way it was before the water mess happened.
Josh likes to do everything Mom does. He's seen me use the eye lash curler, so he decided to try it too. I took the makeup away before he put it on so I wouldn't get into trouble with his Dad. Josh sees me cuddle up under a blanket all the time, so now he does it too. The other day I was sitting on the floor and he put a pillow behind me, got the blanket and his books and brought them to me because he loves to read stories with the blanket and pillow.
Melissa was doing a little studying for finals, so Josh decided he'd better do some reading too. He loves to climb on Melissa. In case I haven't mentioned it before, Melissa (my younger sister) moved in with me at the beginning of the semester. She's finishing up her teaching degree at 
One night Melissa and I had a little fun tearing out the divider in my front room entry way. I wanted to replace the ugly vinyl in my entry way, and thought I may as well make it match the new kitchen floor. Gary and I had talked about pulling that divider thing down, so Melissa and I were trying to figure out how to do it. She picked up a hammer and experimented a little. Then I took the hammer and started banging away. Before we knew it we'd ripped it out.
I had never actually used a skill saw before, but power tools are always fun to use. So I borrowed it from my cousin who lives a block away and Melissa kept the camera handy since working with power tools always makes things more interesting. I managed to get by without losing any fingers or toes or anything else. Now we've just got some patching to do.
This is what the room looked like after we tore that thing down. It makes the room look so much bigger and really opens it up a lot. I like it so much better. Gary really isn't going to recognize the house inside or out by the time he gets back.
I managed to get the Christmas decorations up. I still have a couple things that I intended to hang up but still haven't gotten around to it. I didn't even finish putting away Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations until a couple days ago. This calendar was the first thing I put up though, and each day I let Josh pull something out of one of the pockets and put up. We had a calendar like this when I was a kid and we always fought over who got to put up the baby Jesus on the 24