New medical clinic

Well I've been kind of busy lately. We finally moved into the new medical clinic and are still unpacking and putting stuff away. It's a mess and a bit of a tight fit for both of us and all of our junk. Once we started plugging stuff in it became apparent just how poor a job the Iraqi construction guys did; we had outlets that didn't work, outlets with close to four hundred volts (seriously), ground wires backwards, short pieces of wire spliced in and there is no consistancy in the wiring colors. The electricians are going to have to go in and rewire it with us already in here.

I rode up to C-1 the other day also; they needed a rider and I needed to mail some packages so it worked out pretty well. The ride up got a little hairy when we came up on some road construction and had to slow.

As in most third world countries, the folks here drive all over the road- it’s not unusual to see a luxury car decide to pass, drive across the median into oncoming traffic and accelerate. So anyways, we come up to this paving project and some of the cars and trucks were coming at us. Given the increasing use of vehicles as bombing devices, the convoys are very leery of anyone who doesn’t look like they are going to move. The Iraqis know that they are supposed to pull off the road and let US convoys pass and they are not to come up on us fast or try to pass. Every convoy sports crew served weapons up top to deter this and usually it works out fine. This time we had a few decide to keep coming; the gunners tracked them with their weapons but didn’t open up on them. Nothing happened, but it was tense for a few seconds before the rest of the drivers smartly decided they’d wait on us.

That’s the first time I’ve been to C-1 in a while- things had changed a lot. They have yet more folks there and more buildings. They have a coffee shop now too where I got a frozen coffee drink after mailing my packages. I also picked up about $120 worth of thick cut ribeye steaks for us to throw on the grill.

The ride back got a little freaky when the convoy got strung out and we had some cars get in between us. We accelerated to close the gap and were waving folks out of the way- they all complied and pulled over but I thought we were going to get to ram one that didn’t appear to want to move initially. I guess when he looked in the rearview mirror and saw how close we were and how fast we were closing he decided it wasn’t a good day to die. One of the Humvees dropped back and was waving folks over with the barrel of his .50cal heavy machine gun.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and we made it back fine. I remember why I don’t volunteer to ride convoys too often.

I’m looking forward to getting out of here for a vacation, I need it and I’ve earned it. Oh well, more later, I’ve got to get back to unpacking.