What is normal?

I've been watching "Band of Brothers" on DVD lately (one of my birthday presents). In one of the later episodes, there is a scene where hot showers are brought in to these men who have just come off the line after defending Bastogne and taking the town of Foy. As I was taking my nice hot shower this morning (like I do every morning), it occurred to me that I need to clarify what's "normal" around here.

I live on one of the largest military complexes in Iraq; it is actually a bunch of smaller bases all grouped together. There are four PXs I can think of (a large one near where I live and three smaller satellite shops) plus a Cinnabon, a Pizza Hut, a Taco Bell, a Popeye's Chicken, a Subway, a Burger King, and a Green Bean's Coffee (all of the food places are in trailers) scattered around. I am a relatively senior officer so I have a room to myself and share a bathroom with one other senior officer. I have wireless internet in my room. I work in a headquarters for a large unit and we have reasonably significant facilities. On major installations like this one junior folks have roommates and have to walk to a trailer with showers and toilets. So, even among those who live on this complex, I have things pretty well.

I say all of this to contrast with what many Soldiers here in Iraq in outlying posts live with day in and day out for 15 months. The outlying posts are small. Some have running toilets but many only have porta-potties or old fashioned burn toilets (the waste is burned in a 55 gal drum with diesel fuel). Food is prepared off site and brought in large plastic containers. As they are small, they are shelled and attacked more often than the major installations. There are no PXs, no specialty shops, no a lot of things. The Soldiers there run constant patrols and only rotate back to the larger installations a few days every couple of weeks or so. Also, the base they rotate back to still probably doesn't have all of the amenities of my installation. I think a conversation I overheard in the PX just down the road from my HQ sums it up pretty well. One dusty, skinny Specialist (E-4) while looking at the rack of fishing poles in the corner said to his buddy, "What the hell are these guys doing here that they have time to fish?!"

So, while I appreciate all of you who read my blog to get a glimpse of life here in Iraq, I feel obligated to tell the full story for all of us here as best I can. I think I read in Stars and Stripes that there are about 160,000 of us here right now. I would guess there are about 160,000 stories to tell about life here. Thank you for taking the time to read about one of them.

Cheers, Pearl