Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Baghdad Iraq! It's currently about 6 in the evening Christmas day here. Today we had some steady rain that dampened spirits a bit.

My unit had a Christmas Eve party yesturday evening. Since I'm the unit's only cook currently in the area I got the happy job of barbacuing about a 100 lbs of assorted animals. We had jumbo hot-dogs, hamburgers, ribs, chicken breast and whole chickens that we grilled up. Things started with a strikkle at about 3:30 in the afternoon. People started showing up and munching on the chips, cookies and snacks that were laid out. At about 4:30 the brickets were nice and white and ready to get cookin'. Unfortunately, I was just handed these items when it was time to cook them. And wasn't given any chance to prepare in advance. So everything is like frozen solid. You don't want to be cooking meat that's frozen solid. But I didn't have much of a choice. We had a small microwave that wasn't going to be able to be of much help. We didn't have any sinks to run hot water of it for any length of time, nor did we have very much the time. I was afraid if we didn't get something ready quick that our hungry troops might wanna take a bit out of me. So once the brickets were ready I decided to put some hot dogs and hamburgers on cause I could make a large quanity of those pretty quickly. I opened the 18-pack of ultrajumbo hotdogs and found them to be encased in a block of ice. So ran to the microwave and did what I could to defrost them. So I popped those on one of the grills and them put some ribs and steaks on the other grill. At about 6:30 people were getting kind of full and we played games and mingled until about 7:30. Then came time for the gift exchange. All the gifts were passed out and then we went around the room and opened them individually and showed everyone what we had gotten. There's a really funny story here. If you get a chance ask me to tell it to you. My secret Santa got me book on learning arabic and a Koran. I tell you the Koran was at the top of my christmas list. Wow how'd they know?

Christmas morning I got up early as normal at about 4am. Then I headed over to the MCI phone trailer what was offering free calls for the holidays. And I made some holiday calls till about 7 then headed to breakfast. The Dinning Facility I normally go to was closed in preparation for the christmas lunch and dinner. So I hiked over to one of my other favorites and halfway through the meal they evacuated the place and searched the place and personal presumably for any threats. Security has really been taken up a couple of knotches since that suicide bomber struck up north in Mosul. I have to admit as I sat in the Dinning facility at the Christmas lunch celebration I did briefly feel a sense of vulnerability and insecurity. I thought it's be a great target to strike a crowed Dinning Facility as soldiers celebrate Christmas. But I didn't let myself dwell on that. I just reminded myself of the extensive security checkes that I had to pass through to get in and all the extra measures that they were taking.

In addition to being Christmas it was also the Sabbath today. This is now the forth week of holding a Sabbath Morning SDA service. We had five in attendence this morning up from our average of three. That shows that the word is getting out and some of the SDA's are coming out of the woodwork. Chaplain Cuzzins leads out and he and I are becoming fast friends. We've spent a number of afternoons talking and fellowshiping together, it's been great to get to know him.

There are many exciting developments with my unit here. We are winding down our deployment. Our replacements are here, they arrived on thursday. And this week we'll teach them the ropes and get them connected with our contacts around the area. I'll post a few more updates this week and give some more details.

I gotta fly. Merry Christmas!

Robin Williams & Company

Hello All it's another cold day in sunny Iraq. There's not much of anything new around here. I'm still working up in the motorpool and carry on those day to day tasks that I've talked about at lenght in the past.

But I wanted to mention an event that took place yesturday, that was pretty cool. Take a minute to watch the news clip (entitled, "Robin Williams Entertains In Iraq" under the Video subgroup 25 Sec.) and skim the article at the following link then I'll talk about my experience there.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1103048661448_98457861/?hub=Entertainment#

Now if you look at some of the other articles on this from Fox News and CNN and so on you'll notice that it's dark behind them that's cause that's the show from the day before that was somewhere else. Only the pictures from the day are from here at Camp Liberty (Video Says "Camp Victory" That's the old name it was changed about a month ago.)

The event took place down at the PX which is one of the biggest in theater. It's only a short walk from my trailer area. They have a good sized wooden stage set up down there where people come and perform. The last person we had was Wayne Newton. He didn't interest me much so I didn't go down there. Anyway I got there at about 9:00 am to get a good seat. And already the line was a block long to get autographs. I decided that getting a good seat was more important than getting an autograph. So I took a good seat in the second row in the middle. It was a good thing I did that too cause autographs weren't down till after the show. So all those people in line not only missed out on some good seats but also pretty much wasted their time there since the signings took place on the other side of the couryard. To get the crowd warmed up there was a 1st Cav Band (1st Cav is the main Active Army Division on post). It was a group of 1st Cav soldiers that had started a rock band. They were surprisingly good.

As they were performing four helicoptors flew overhead. Now helicoptors flying over are quite common. But these four sort of flew around the crowd and dipped a bit as they did then landed behind the PX. Once again that's not unusual since the landing pad is behind the PX where hundreds of helicoptors take off and land daily. Anyway shortly thereafter while the band was still performing there began to be a comotion to the left of the stage. And reportors began to line up and then a small crowd emerged. A tall man with four stars, who was preceded by tactically dressed bodyguards with high power weapons was the first person that I was able to pick out. And the name tag on his uniform confirmed that this was General Richard Meyers (www.dtic.mil/jcs/core/chairman.html) Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff. Leading the way in was another soldier with two stars on his uniform, this was General Chilarhi who heads up the 1st Cav. He confidently stroled onto stage and took the microphone. He welcomed us and introduced the Chairman who came up and thanked us on behalf of america. Then he introduced Leeann Tweeden (www.leeanntweeden.masefx.com/) who is a supermodel she was the MC of the program. Let me tell you the soldiers where quite dazzled with this stunningly beautiful woman, and she wore a an incredible outfit to compliment her body well. Then John Elway (johnelway.com) came up and talked about how much he supports all of us and so on. He signed a bunch of footballs and threw them out into the crowd. And he launched a few that I was sure would come back to earth in Iran somewhere. Then next up was comedian Blake Clark (http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hc&id=1800169810&cf=mm) . He stared in Waterboy (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0120484/) as "Farmer Fran." and he was a riot. He had us rolling in our seats. Additionally he was a Platoon Sgt. a Lt. in Vietnam and so he shared with us some of his experiences. Most of the news articles that I read on this even didn't even mention his name. I'm not sure why, but he was there and put on a great show. Then it was time for the master. In fact when the first announced this event the commander didn't say that General Meyers was going to down at the PX. And the others were also a happy surprise that iced the cake. The legend Robin Williams was the superstar in our midst and he lived up to his reputation. I don't need to provide a link to help to clue you in on his identity. He was able to take the common things around us such as a bottle of water and use it to make us laugh to tears. He entertained us for about half an hour then it was time for autographs. I didn't stick around for that part.

This event was wonderful and I'm so glad that it was brought to us here. They don't come hear cause they need to make a few bucks. These stars watch the same news that the rest of us do. They hear about the suicide bombings and roadside deaths due to homemade bombs and all the danger. And they stick there necks out to come here to Baghdad Iraq. To come to our PX that doesn't even have a paved parking lot. To come and personally tell us soldiers that our work is meaningful, our sacrifices appreciated and their pride in us strong. Speaking for myself I can say that it mean't a lot to me.