We've had some boring days and some busy days lately...today was one of the boring ones. Seth and I just found out that we could bring our personal laptops to the MWR computer room, so I thought I would make the trek and send you some pictures. Yesterday, Sunday, Seth and I went with a group from our Company to visit a part of the base that, according to myth, was a location mentioned in the bible. The place is called "Abraham's Oasis" and there is a plaque there that gives a history of the area and of Al Asad Air Base. The inscription on the plaque is written in both English and Arabic, and a section of it reads, "According to Arab legend, Abraham, the patriarch of the Hebrew Bible, the Qur'an, and other Islamic writings visited the Oasis at Al Asad on his journey from Ur to Haran (Gen 11:31; Stories of the prophets...) According to legend he stopped at the oasis, drank from its water, and bathed himself. He and his family camped here for a short time before moving on to Haran."
There is a lot more, but I was typing all that while reading it off of some pictures I took of the plaque, and that was getting tiring. It was a cool experience and fun to get some of the history of the base. The base was built in 1985 by Yugoslavian contractors. We also got to see some of the old base and the bobmed barracks and Iraqi fighter jets. I took pictures, but this e-mail can only fit two pics on it. We also hiked around the area of the Oasis, which is full of a variety of date trees, which resemble palm trees. The other thing we walked to was a mass grave, erected for civillians and military during the Iran/Iraq conflict. We spent about two hours on this tour and then went to the Gospel service on base...a service that is very stereotypical gospel, lots of yelling "can I get a witness?" and "can I get an amen?" and very upbeat music. Seth and I love it! We then enjoyed some pizza at pizza hut and spent the evening getting some things together for our platoon party on Tuesday, which we have the Chuville MWR rented for.
It won't be long now until we are home, and it is hard to believe. The end is in sight, and it seems close, but at the same time it still seems far away. Its been over a year now since this deployment became a big distraction to our lives, and we've been gone for close to 10 months now, so what little time we have left when considering all that seems like no time at all. Seth and I are both glad we had this experience and proud of the fact we served our country, but boy oh boy are we ready to get this behind us and be with our family! We always joke that we make good soldiers, but we make even better civillians. I hope you all are doing well and we will see you soon!
Love you all!
Eli
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