I'll take my Iraq trailer over my Kuwait cot

From Nick Druecke at Camp Taji, Iraq, roughly 6,339 miles from home in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.

The best time here would have to be when you get down time. It's always a happy day when you're told just to stay in your room and wait for further instructions, but the instructions never come. That's usually a pretty rare occurrence.

Since we don't get days off, and we're here all year long (minus two weeks of mid-tour leave), stress levels can get pretty high. People you see every day begin to wear on you, tempers get short, and things begin to get murky all around. So days off are awesome.

The worst for me was Kuwait. It's like going on a long vacation, driving all day, and getting a flat tire ten miles away from Disneyland. The flight from Ft. Hood to Kuwait took just under 22 hours of flying, and when you get off the jet after a day of traveling the stress starts to hit. People are cranky, sweaty, and smelly from the jet, and we still have to in-process, and find out where our cots are located. You will be sleeping here for the remainder of your stay, which for us was a month long. It's only supposed to take a week or so.

You're exposed to a whole other world of weather and germs, so everybody gets sick at the same time. The entire company stays in a large tent, and your'e literally sleeping a foot away from a buddy on both sides (which is great for spreading germs). You have a shower trailer outside, and some Porta-Johns, and let me tell you that sitting in a Porta-John when it's 130 degrees isn't a pleasant experience. The chow hall is about half a mile walk away, and its hotter than hell outside.

Oh and don't forget the dust storms, if you've never been in one consider yourself lucky. It's like hurricane force winds, but instead of rain getting blown around it's sand, and it goes everywhere. EVERYWHERE! You literally can't see three feet in front of you, and I think there were four or five of them in the time we were there. Iraq isn't nearly that bad, at least once you get settled into your rooms. We were in surge housing for a while, which is pretty much the same thing as the tent in Kuwait. But hey, they don't pay soldiers to stay in hotels, they pay us to fight, and that's what we're doing here.
Live from Iraq, Nick

Nick Druecke on conditions in Iraq

Here's Part Two of our introductory post from Nick Druecke, who is spending the year at Camp Taji, Iraq, roughly 6,339 miles from his home in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.

I'll shorten up this thing and give you the skinny on conditions here in Iraq. The chow halls here are actually pretty good, from an all around aspect. You can eat whatever and how much of whatever you want, they serve different things every day. Sunday is soul food, Monday is Mongolian night, Tuesday is fish fry, I can’t honestly remember what the rest of them are. Especially since I’m on a pretty intense workout plan (gotta have a good diet!)

The rooms differ, 'important people' have larger ones than others, but honestly the rooms are glorified closets. Two men per, you get a bed, a nightstand and an armoire. The rooms have a small A/C unit which during the middle of the day cools the room down to a cool 95 degrees. Outside will be anywhere from 110-140 with a constant hot wind. The best way to simulate this is to preheat an oven to 150 degrees, and then use a hairdryer to blow the heat onto your face. There are a lot of dust storms here as well. You can’t even imagine what that is like unless you’ve been in one. Kuwait was worse though.

Down time is usually spent sleeping, as we run on a 24 hour schedule here, no days off...ever. Internet and phones are slow to boot and get knocked offline during the many dust storms. You see your coworkers (battle buddies) way more than you wish, and most things we joke about here would be either too gross, inhumane, or just plain immature for normal people. I have a sincere belief that the infantry is home of the oldest and most immature children on the planet. Everything is either a movie quote or a fart joke...and I laugh at all of them. However annoyed you get with your battle buddies, you will never forget them.

Years from now I imagine I will look back remember all of them, and then realize that I didn’t even know most of their first names. It’s funny who you trust your life to.


- Spc Druecke live from Iraq