Howdy all - Back in Ramadi

Tomorrow will be my one month anniversary here in Iraq. Its seems as though very little has been accomplished in this time frame. However, I am beginning to understand why things seem to take infinitely longer to come to fruition. Everyone here, with the exception of myself is totally incompetent. Ok, maybe there is a war going on and the majority of the infrastructure lies in ruin, but you would still think a 100 kilometers could be regularly traversed in less than three days. In other words, one of the most time consuming activities in the region is travel. My solution from this point forward - travel as little as possible. To date I have spent approximately a week (five work days) waiting on flights, etc. This was to travel to Ramadi (approximately 100 kilometers), back to Baghdad, and back to Ramadi. Of course travel is almost strictly limited to helicopter flights (Marine Corps, Army/Catfish Air, and Dept. of State or RSO). The vast majority of these take place at night (remember there are bad-guys/girls out there), so when you do finally get on a flight, you don't even get the benefit of the view - just the feeling of being snatched from the ground and whisked away in the dark, while the rotors pound through the disposable hearing protection...In the next entry I'll cover a visit to the DFAC (chow hall).

Much love and respect,
Cip