Service

I wanted to do a small dedication to my grandfather who recently passed away.
I am sad that I cannot be there for my family as they grieve and it makes it
even more difficult to be here! My grandfather was a retired Lieutenant Colonel
in the US Army and I am proud to have had him pin me at my commissioning ceremony.
I can only hope that I made him proud with my service to our country.

Things are going alright here. This area has been getting more and more
hostile so that has been a bit on everyones minds!

Our Iraqi counterparts were here but they have gone on leave so we will wait
about another 5 days until they return. I am looking forward to working with
them even though I know it will be a pretty big challenge. Every time I go to
meet with any of the Iraqi's my interpreters have to remind me to be very serious,
almost angry because that is how Iraqi women interact with Iraqi men. As you can imagine this
is a very tough task for me!!

I have pictures I want to put on so I will update again very soon......
Missing Everyone and hope everyone is well!
Love Mickey

loving the animals....

little baby piglet.....


Piggy in the bird cage.....





The easter bunny......



Ok it is time for another update.....
Things are going alright here, Easter was actually nice!
I played Easter bunny and put candy out for all the
people on my team and then they had an Easter dinner at the
DFAC (Dining Facility) complete with non-alcoholic sparkling
grape juice!! Can you beat that! I am settling in well enough.
I definitely have the drinking from the fire hose effect going
on with all the information for my personnel job and our
Iraqi counterparts have not even arrived yet......
I have found a bunch of people to do short runs with,
so I run 2 times a day. They also got in 2 new treadmills!! BUT
of course one is already broken......it may have been the guy who was
running on it in his dress shoes!!
We have lost our pet dog goldie (or red, he has multiple names depending
on who you ask) but we did acquire a wild piglet for like two days until the Colonel made
us get rid of it! I am adding some pics of the piglet and of the General (the cat)!!
Hope everyone is well!! Thanks for the correspondence!! It is great to hear
from everyone......dont worry I will write back : )

traumatized.....

I guess I knew that there was a good chance that I might have to fire
my weapon while deployed here in Iraq!!
I just wasn't expecting that I would have to use it in self defense
against a pack of wild dogs while running.......
AND from this point on I will never
A. Run without my weapon (I have run with it every time so far)
B. Run by myself
C. Trust the dogs that live on this compound (not that I did before)
Here is how it went down....
We got back kinda late from a convoy and I couldn't find
anyone to run with.....
I went to one of my team mates and asked him if
he thought I would be OK running by myself.....
he said "yes, just make sure you have your 9M (which I did)
and maybe you should wear this reflective PT belt" I put on the
belt and was on my way. I was hauling butt around a 5K loop that
I had done about a dozen times when I came upon a pack of about
7 dogs in front of me......I continued forward yelling and stomping my feet at them
but they continued toward me. The lead dog got within about 3 feet of me
when I decided there wasn't going to be an easy way out of this......
I couldn't continue forward and I couldn't turn around and run! I moved to the side
of the road and tried to find a rock or something to throw at them, I couldn't find anything......
SO I took off my camel back and pulled out my 9......
When I cocked it to chamber a round the dogs backed off a little
but then they started towards me again. Behind them I could hear more dogs
approaching......
SO I fired a round into the ground right next to the dogs!
I wasn't trying to kill the dogs I was just trying to keep them from attacking me!
After I fired the round the dogs took off and at the same time an Iraqi soldier came out of the guard tower
and chased them off further.
I turned around and ran back with my 9M in my hand the entire time.......
I walked into our barracks and two of my team mates were standing in the hall....
they saw me white faced holding my 9 in my hand and were like " Oh No What Happened??"!!

Since my fun with the dogs I have now found a bunch of new running buddies and
I usually run with several different people in one day cause no one really runs more then 3 miles.
I get a little nervous when we come up on the barking dogs but they don't come too close when
there is a group of us.
Just another fun adventure in Iraq.....I am sure there will be more for me to share!!
In the mean time I have actually been having a good time getting to know our
interpreters and learning about their culture. I am the interpreter manager so it
is also a bit my job the know what is going on with them. They have also been feeding me
really yummy Iraqi food and good chi too!
I hope everyone is well......I seriously love getting the emails.....from everyone!
Much LOVE Mickey

waiting.....

So we are waiting for our Iraqi unit to come back from their initial training south of here. It will be exciting when they actually arrive because we will have daily interaction as advisors to their unit. In the mean time we have been settling in after spending a lot of time with the outgoing team. It was great to hang out with new faces and have people to run with. They left three days ago and we are on our own now which is a bit scary (not really!) The past few days we have been getting into our new rooms ready and doing some serious spring cleaning. It is very dusty here. Actually that is the interesting part about Iraq (especially northern Iraq) It is not sandy at all. When most Americans think of Iraq they think of sand and camels like the pictures I put up of Kuwait but it is not like that at all. There is grass here and quite a bit of water, at least right now there is because the summer heat has not actually hit yet! Where I live we have a little American compound that is right in the middle of an Iraqi Army compound. When I go out running I stay inside the Iraqi compound BUT I am required to carry my 9M with me whenever I leave the gates of the US compound. Which means that I go running with my 9M.....it has been an interesting obstacle that I am learning to overcome. Of course there are a lot of things that I am adapting to but the worst is missing family and friends. I don't think that I will ever get used to not being able to call when I just need to say hello......

On that note I am still VERY VERY lucky, we have it much better then a lot of the soldiers that were here before me did. 

I hope that everyone is well and please feel free to just drop me an email and say HELLO. It helps! (mickeyld@yahoo.com in case you don't have it)

Oh yeah the pics are of the donkey's that live here! They are awesome and they LOVE to eat those honey buns!!