It's been a few days(have I used that title before)

So not a lot has happened in the past few days but remarkably the week flew by. Te most interesting thing I had to deal with was an Iraqi Police chief who wanted to know the status of some weapons that were turned over to the Americans between 2 and 4 years ago. The conversation was very interesting to say the least. My interpreter has a very thick accent and as interpreters go isn’t the best of the lot. So the Police chief wants me to tell him that we received the weapons which I am not going to do since odn’t have any thing saying we do. In all likely hood those weapons were turned over to the American forces but the likelihood of finding the paperwork is close to zero especially after 4 years in the case of the one. He went on to try and make me feel bad and say that one of his officers would be punished if I didn’t provide documentation. Those of you that know me may or may not know that as soon as someone try to threaten me or leverage something against me, well you might as forget about me bending whatever rules I may be bound by. There are grey areas that we all learn to work in but as soon as someone force me there or tries to, things suddenly become black and white.

Not much else is going on. Iraq is pretty quiet for the most part. You have your spots of violence and what not but then again so does the US, ours just isn’t to the same degree.

I had to confiscate a polaris from a group of people that work for me. I guess they were going 42km in a 15km zone and the polish MPs stopped them and gave them a ticket. Not a real ticket but one that lets you know you were wrong. A copy of these tickets goes to my boss who wasn’t to happy. In all honesty I don’t feel bad at all for taking the Polaris from them. They had been warned a couple of times and now they have to pay the price and walk.

The last couple days have been pretty dusty so it has only gotten up to about 99 degrees or so. I was asked to give an update on the plants. Well I haven’t attempted to grow the corn as of yet. The daisies that Dade sent me sprouted just fine but the heat nailed them. I am now attempting marigolds. I am trying to keep them inside and then let them catch the morning sun and take them inside for the afternoon. We will see how that works out. The 3 plants that mom and dad sent me initially are all dead except for the one. It lives inside with me and I try to open my window to give it some sun but I’m afraid I will kill it to if I put it outside. These plants don’t die from lack of water they die from the heat. We kept them pretty well watered but the heat just kicks their butts.

On another note the 11 of us are anxiously awaiting information about our mission in Afghanistan. We know we will be working with the Polish again that is why we are moving. They are leaving here and moving all of their troops to Afghanistan. We will be going to camp that isn’t as well developed as what it is here and we will be at about 7000 ft above sea level. It looks like my deployment will be full of sand and snow. Don’t know who I made mad enough to make me spend my summer in Iraq and my Winter in Afghanistan. My thermometer will make the trip with me that’s for sure.

I will keep every one as up to date as possible on my move but as usual I probably won’t be to detailed.

Later,

Brent