IRAQ..............finally!

Finally.  Arrived in Iraq a little over a week ago.  Obviously not first class seats on the flight over from Kuwait J!  (It was so hot without any air circulation that I was happy to be sitting next to one of my corpsmen who happened to be fanning herself.  Needless to say, I “joined in.”).  We arrived safely, however, and were glad to leave the oppressive heat in Kuwait.  It is actually much cooler here at our base in Iraq- similar to Phoenix but it actually cools off at night (allowing for my nice cool runs at 0430 every morning). 

 

We had a few days with the outgoing group to complete our turnover and orient us to the base and our tent hospital and our jobs.  Despite the outgoing group not being very busy the last few months, we were fortunate to actually have a real patient during our turnover which allowed us to learn how things worked here with a real patient and how to “dispo” (come up with a final disposition) our patients.  The outgoing group was very glad that we are here now, allowing them to return to their families after a long separation. 

 

Our accommodations, although certainly spartan, ended up better than I thought.  Although we were packed 3 and 4 to a room initially during turnover with the outgoing hospital group, we got to go down to 2 per room for a few of the senior officers and leadership, and 3 per room for most others.  As a senior officer, I got two to a room.  My roommate is one of the other 0-5’s here, an orthopedic surgeon.  We live in a large tent, about 150 feet by 35 feet, surrounded by 12 foot concrete walls (“T–walls”). There is a corridor going down the middle with 10 “rooms” on each side.  The “rooms” are created with plywood and 2x4’s reaching about 7 feet high.  The floors are plywood covered in carpet.  Definitely better than I expected with air conditioning and outlets for all of us.  I have a semi-private “bedroom” (that I share with the A/C unit) and a small “living room” that is large enough to do my Yoga-X in.  We have shower “trailers” outside and porta johns.  Although porta johns are never nice and ours are very hot after about 0700, they are definitely the cleanest ones I have ever used (the contractors clean them and stock the TP twice a day).  Overall, much better than expected.

 

 

 

I got to enjoy Father’s Day at the gym, which is where I spend over a third of my waking moments.  They actually have two gyms, one is a weight gym and the other is cardio, with bikes, ellipticals, treadmills, spin bikes, and room for fitness classes (more on the last two in the next installment).

 

 

I also got to enjoy our 28^th Anniversary back home with family for a lovely dinner.  Well……… at least “Flat Brad” did J.  More on life at Q-West in the next installment.