Finally back

Well I'm finally back. Don't know what I can say other than that was quite an experience. Felt like it would never end. We ended up spending 13 months over there. It's strange to be back, alot changes in a year. What a long a$$ plane ride to get home. It didn't feel real until we stepped off the plane in Hawaii and that Hawaiian breeze hit me in the face and that was just the best feeling in the world.

I added some new pics to my site. There are some cool pics from election day and whatnot. Check 'em out--->

http://jimdandy777770.tripod.com/oif/oif.html

It was kinda cool how the whole deployment played out. When we got there it was like the wild west. It's amazing how thin the line is between civilization and chaos. Anyway though, little by little things started to piece together until it all culminated with election day. The day after elections was literally the last time I went outside the wire. I mean you couldn't write a script any better than that. Talk about a climax. So obviously my platoon and I had a serious case of the jitters that day. Made it the whole year for the most part unscathed, and there we were the last time we'd ever go out into the city just so happened to be the most important day of the whole deployment.

The Iraqis shut down the city for elections. No traffic allowed at all except for cops and soldiers. I don't think there was a place anywhere in the city where you weren't within sight of two or three checkpoints. Nonetheless, there was electricity in the air and we were all nervous as hell. Early in the day nearly my whole company and a bunch of cops and Iraqi army were staging out of the same area. Weren't there for too long before the festivities kicked off and a 107 rocket landed about 100 meters to the west of us. Loud as all hell and shook the ground like crazy. A few minutes later another landed about the same distance but to the southwest then a little later one landed to the east well short about a few hundred meters away. If we weren't hyped yet, we were now. Later on we're staging out of an area near one of the polling sites, when shots rang out real damn close. My section leader and I had been sitting there bullsh1tting with each other. "Man those shots sounded real friggn close." "Yeah." More shots. "Are they shooting at us?" "I don't think so...." Zzzzeeeooooohhh....zzzeeeoooohhhh.....zeeeoooohh....a few rounds flew right over our heads, I mean you could feel them whiz by. It took us a while to figure out the situation but as it turned out they were just stray bullets from a couple of guys who were taking pot shots at the security guys at the polling site near us.

But other than that election day went smooth as hell. It was a day I'll never forget. It was really neat to be a part of it. Unless they needed us we were supposed to pretty much stay away from the polling sites but I convinced our LT to stop by a couple so I could go in and get pictures. I'm not a wishy washy type guy but it was moving. It kind of caught us as a surprise cuz the Iraqis got all dressed up to go vote which was kinda cool. Inside the polls it was real peaceful and solemn. Everybody was really quiet and there was just this feeling in the air that I would have a hard time to put into words. But after what I saw, I just don't think I can ever be apathetic about our elections over here ever again.

Anyway I'm tired, gotta get some sleep. Been back for a couple of weeks but my body clock is still messed up. We have to attend all these "reintegration" briefings hehe and then we'll get 30 days leave woohoo!