176sq Feet of Home

As some of you know, I live in a CHU. But what most of you don’t know is
what a CHU exactly is. Simply put, it was once one of those large shipping
containers you see on a train. But the nice people at some company somewhere
added some windows, a door, lights, a floor and what seems to be about an
inch of insulation. Then somewhere along the line it was painted a nice
desert tan and an AC unit added for good measure and “ta’daa”, we have a
“Container Housing Unit”. One good thing about these CHU’s are that we can
set them up how ever we like. Some guys get pretty carried away, building
all sorts of stuff. Andrade (My roommate and fellow 3rd platoon gunner) and
I really have built a pretty nice little set up here. I can tell that none
of you still really have any idea what I am talking about. So what I have
done for you all is snap a few photos of my humble digs over here. So
hopefully this will give you all a little better idea of this life I live
over here. If you have any more questions about these fine living conditions
let me know and I would be happy to answer them

Where I Have Been

So 2006 was a crazy year. But 2006 was also one of the best years of my life. So much happened there’s no way I could even put it all out here in words. To make this easy on me and to not consume your entire day with past tales of my life in 2006, I will give you a few key points from the past twelve months.

January - Started out with a bang. Tristan, Matt, Ashlee, Blake, and AJ all came down for a hell of a time. We all went down for New Years on 6th St. in Austin and it was a great time. It was the first time for most of them to come down and visit even though I had been in Texas for nearly a year. I use to have so really incriminating photos of AJ but luckily for him there were lost. All and all it was a great way to kick off the New Year.

February – Not a whole lot of stuff happened this month. I got promoted to the rank of Sergeant which was a really proud moment for me. I had only been in the Army 30 months and moved up pretty quickly. I guess when you are this good it’s easy. I also got my Gunner slot, which is pretty cool. I enjoy gunning and I like being in a leadership position as well. As bad as it is sometimes I really do enjoy being in the Army. I am good at it.

March – I spent a few weeks at the Army’s “Warrior Leaders Course” and it was a total waste of time. I really could go on for quite some time about how truly worthless this course has become but no one would really care. The end result is that 80% of the course curriculum is out dated and deals with an extremely small percentage of what is actually done as an NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer). I did graduate on the Commandants list which is pretty hard to do. But like I said before when you are this good it’s easy. And that’s enough about that.

April – This was a good month. Why you might ask. Holly and I went to Houston for what was planned to be nice relaxing weekend away. What she didn’t know is that I had a ring in my pocket and was just trying to build up the nerve to “pop the question”. After wandering all over the city that night I finally asked her. And she thought it was a joke. Yeah, talk about a blow to the ego. But once she finally realized that I was for real she answered with a “yes”. Which was the answer I was going for, so I must say that I was pretty happy about it. So yeah April was a great month.

May – I was at JRTC down at Ft. Polk, Louisiana. It was an interesting experience. We did our thing and got the hell out of there. You can really only spend so much time in that place. And well, that’s about all for the month of May.

June – June was a great month. In June Holly and I bought our first house. It was really rough at first but with the help of our parents and one extremely hard working weekend we started to make our house a home. A really nice home too. Holly and I also adopted our first child, Lola. Lola is a Chihuahua, Corgi, Kangaroo mix

July – I really can’t think of anything that went on in July.

August – Yeah I got nothing.

September – I think all I did was get ready for this little vacation in the sand. The very last days of September were great though. Holly and I had all our friends and family over for one last weekend together. It was great; I couldn’t have imagined a better weekend with everyone. It was a great way to get to say goodbye to everyone.

October – Welcome to Kuwait. Kuwait is the worst place I have ever been in my young life. Even worse than Iraq. I hated that place. We landed there on the 1st and on the 17th we finally made our way up here. Here is a little place known as Samarra. Good old Samarra, Iraq. It’s not the roughest place in country but the area around here is not safe by any means. During my first patrol in sector we got hit by an IED. This would be some foreshadowing on things to come for sure.

November – This was our first full month in country. It was a rough month for the battalion as well. The battalion lost two soldiers to a suicide VBIED. (Vehicle based improvised explosive device) That was the first memorial service I had ever been to and hopefully it will be the last. Once again, our platoon was hit with another IED but once again we made it through just fine.

December – Yep, just another month over here. And once again we got hit with another IED. But no serious damage to the trucks and we kept on keeping on. Christmas over here was just another day. It wasn’t the first time I had spent the Holidays overseas and sadly it probably won’t be the last. I also turned 23 years old, I’m getting old this is scary.

So that should bring you all up to speed with the doings of the past year. There really was a whole lot more, but a year is a long time and I have a pretty sorry memory so things start to slip after a while. So yeah now everyone should be on the same page we can start this little show.

My name is Jake and I am in Iraq, this is what goes on in my life. Hope you enjoy.

The Intro

So, as you all can tell is has been quite sometime since I have posted on here. But this year it is one of my New Years resolutions to start posting on here again. Mainly it is another way to let all my friends and family out there in on a little more of my life here in Iraq. So I guess I kinda give you all a quick little refresher on what all has exactly gone on in 2006 and bring you up to speed on my current situation here in Iraq.
For those of you who don’t know how this blog thing works it quite easy. I post on here for you all to read. Kind of like the emails I have been sending out, but this way you don’t have to forward them on to everyone and so on. It is also a lot easier to post on here and this also gives total strangers wasting time at home or work something to read. That’s right anyone can read this. Therefore, I won’t be using anyone’s last names, address’s or anything that could cause trouble. Since I am also here in Iraq I also won’t be posting any sort of specifics about missions, my unit or anything that could possibly endanger anyone else over here. I will save all those details once we get back. There is also a fun little feature that allows you all to comment on here. That way you can let me know just how awful of an idea this truly is and that I really need to proof read these post better so I can fix my errors and actually make these somewhat understandable. One last thing is that it is much easier to post pictures. Then all you have to do is “right click” on them and save them to your shine of me. See, this will be fun for all ages and a lot more aesthetically pleasing than an email. But don’t worry I will still send emails out as well.
Enjoy!