Home again

Eli called us last night about 9:00 PM. He had just returned from Baghdad and was reporting in safe and sound. As Jan and I were getting into bed I made the comment that she should sleep well, knowing that her boys are home. She kind of put me in my place when she noted "They're not home, they're in Iraq."
Many of you are on Eli's mailing list so you got an email this morning. Even for Eli, he feels home because he has Seth with him. You have to enoy the small things and take confort where you can. Just like this blog is my therapy, writing is Eli's. He's always been a prolific writer and going in we knew we would get details.
Here is Eli's email for those of you who haven't seen it:

Dear friends and family,

Seth and I have now been at Al Asad Air Base in the Anbar Province of Iraq for a little over two weeks....where does the time go? Talking about time, I just returned several hours ago from a four day mission to Baghdad, and I did a lot of thinking about time. April 12th, 2007 is a date that sticks out in my mind, and tomorrow will be exactly 6 months from that date. Why April 12th? That is the day I got the phone call that I was deploying to Iraq, and for half a year now this deployment has been at either the back or forefront of my mind. Seth said it best when he said that a deployment reaches far beyond the actual dates you are gone. It affects you before you deploy; knowing in the back of your mind that the day when you leave home is fast approaching. It also affects you when you return as you need time to get readjusted to a regular lifestyle. Also, tomorrow will be 14 months that I have been married to my wonderful and amazing wife, Katy! One more time issue, in exactly one week from today, Seth and I will have been on this deploment for exactly four months.....a third of the way towards coming home!

As I mentioned I just returned from spending four days in Baghdad. I went on a convoy security mission supporting KBR (a civilian contracting agency getting rich over here) trucks that were taking supplies to Baghdad. On the way into Baghdad we drove past Fallujah and out the window we saw a group of about 10-12 college aged Iraqis dressed up walking down the street. They were smiling and laughing and paid the heavily armed American convoy they were walking beside very little attention. We, of course, paid them a lot of attention as our gunners followed their every move through their night scopes. A little while later we were forced to stop at an intersection to let another coalition convoy pass, and from where we were stopped our gunner spotted what looked like a restaraunt. I leaned up from my seat to take a look (you can't see much from my seat in the back) and sure enough there was a little neon sign with arabic writing and we could peer into a little restaraunt and see people sitting around enjoying food together. These two scenes seemed very normal to me, and I don't know why I found that strange. Maybe because I was literally only several feet from these scenes in a heavily armored security vehicle equipped with an automatic grenade launcher and a .50 cal machine gun, I was carrying an M-4, 9 mil, and a kinfe and wearing body armor? Seemed a little odd to me that there I was, and there they were paying no attention to us at all. An interpreter we worked with at Mississippi had told us that we will run into Iraqis who act as though we are invisible and will pay us no attention. She said they will just go on with their day to day lifes because that is the only way they stay sane...by acting normal. She also reminded us that we (America) have been in her country for over four years now, so people have to act normal because heavily armed convoys are the norm.

The weather is still up in the upper 90s and low 100s over here, but it is slowly cooling down. The evenings and mornings are pleasant. We actually had a thunder storm the other day....thunder, lightning, heavy rain, the whole shabang! This morning at 3:30 am as I was carrying my things back to my room it was drizzling rain and about 70 degrees outside, I closed my eyes and pretended it was fall weather in Virginia I was experiencing. It almost worked until my boot got stuck in wet sand! As I got close to my room I could not have been more happy to be returning to....home? Our buddies over here do not allow one another to refer to anything over here as home, but for me and for the next eight months, my little "can" as it is referred to, is home. When I got to my can I was very happy to see Seth had returned from his mission where he was out for five days supporting marine engineers. I miss Seth when we are apart because he is what helps make our can home. My #1 roommate is Katy but since Seth and I did room together for most of our life he is a pretty good substitute.

I hope everyone is doing well. Seth and I were woken up this morning by our squad leader pounding on our door telling us to get all our mail out of their can because it was taking up too much room.....so, thank you to all who have sent letters and packages, they are greatly appreciated! Take care and continue to stay in touch.

Love,
Eli