It's For Real
I am posting a letter that came from a Marine with whom I work. I have deleted certain information, like their specific location, for obvious reasons. I just thought it was interesting and wanted to share. If you're any kind of a praying or meditative person, please include Brian's name.
P.S. I hate war.
Letter (written approx 2/12/03, received 2/28/03) abridged for family and friend consumption : )
Hello xxxxx,
I am writing you from the giant sandbox of XXX. I’ve been here for about two days now, and I finally have some time to write. XXX is a very odd place. The country is completely and utterly flat; no hills whatsoever. Everywhere you look there is desert. We arrived at XXX at 2 in the morning on Sunday [2/9/03]. The minute we got off the plane, we were loaded onto busses that had drapes completely covering the windows. They told us to keep the drapes closed and not look out the windows because they were warned about potential terrorist activity against us. We took a 3-hour bus ride from the XXX to Camp XXX out in the desert of XXX. Camp XXX is XXX miles from the border of XXX and about XXX miles from XXX. I don’t think reality has set in for me yet. I haven’t completely grasped the concept that I’m over here. One day I’m home, sleeping in my nice warm bed, and the next day I’m sleeping on the hard and uncomfortable ground in my yucky sleeping bag, with my cold, uncomfortable rifle as my sleeping partner.
While we are here, we have to wear our Kevlar (helmets) and flack jackets the whole time. Apparently there were a couple of incidents with people on motorcycles driving by and taking pot shots at our camp. We have to wear our gear just to be safe. We have to have our gas masks strapped to our leg the whole time as a means of precaution in case of a gas attack. We’ve already done a couple of gas attack drills to help us prepare in case of the real thing. The bad part about that is that they don’t bother telling us it is a drill until afterwards, so everyone is scared. The other night at about midnight, fire watch came running in yelling “Fire, fire!” We all jumped up and put our gear on as fast as we could and ran outside. They did an accountability formation and then told us that it was just a drill. It turns out that bulk fuel was simulating an accidental fire and the alert and evacuation of the camp. We were all a bit upset that they got us up at that hour for just a drill. The upside to that is that we will be better prepared when and if something does actually happen.
Our days are kept pretty busy doing maintenance on the vehicles and making sure they will be up and running when the war starts. We are also organizing the motor pool so that it will run efficiently, and filling up a lot of sandbags to use for cover. We are also going to sandbag our trucks to give us added protection while on the road. On the flight over to XXX I wrote you a letter. Everyone who wrote letters on that flight gave them to the flight attendants because they said they’d mail them off for us free of charge that following Monday when they got back into the states. I hope that you received my card and letter before Valentine’s Day.
People around here are constantly speculating about how long we’ll end up being out here. The general feeling is that it will be anywhere from 3 to 6 months based on tidbits of information that we occasionally receive, but of course nobody knows. I would prefer to be here as little as possible, but unfortunately it is not up to me. You probably know more about the situation of this war than we do. We get absolutely no information on what is going on. We have no access to newspapers, the internet or TV news. Right now we live in our own little world, separated from the rest of the world, waiting for the war to start.
If I could just call it would be much better, but I’ll have to settle for snail mail. Apparently it will take about one week for a letter to get to you and two weeks or more for a letter to get to me. Please don’t let that discourage anyone from writing.
Now that we are finally out here, time seems to be going by faster. Hopefully things will pick up in the next few weeks and I can come home to you in no time.
Missing you dearly,
Brian
I am posting a letter that came from a Marine with whom I work. I have deleted certain information, like their specific location, for obvious reasons. I just thought it was interesting and wanted to share. If you're any kind of a praying or meditative person, please include Brian's name.
P.S. I hate war.
Letter (written approx 2/12/03, received 2/28/03) abridged for family and friend consumption : )
Hello xxxxx,
I am writing you from the giant sandbox of XXX. I’ve been here for about two days now, and I finally have some time to write. XXX is a very odd place. The country is completely and utterly flat; no hills whatsoever. Everywhere you look there is desert. We arrived at XXX at 2 in the morning on Sunday [2/9/03]. The minute we got off the plane, we were loaded onto busses that had drapes completely covering the windows. They told us to keep the drapes closed and not look out the windows because they were warned about potential terrorist activity against us. We took a 3-hour bus ride from the XXX to Camp XXX out in the desert of XXX. Camp XXX is XXX miles from the border of XXX and about XXX miles from XXX. I don’t think reality has set in for me yet. I haven’t completely grasped the concept that I’m over here. One day I’m home, sleeping in my nice warm bed, and the next day I’m sleeping on the hard and uncomfortable ground in my yucky sleeping bag, with my cold, uncomfortable rifle as my sleeping partner.
While we are here, we have to wear our Kevlar (helmets) and flack jackets the whole time. Apparently there were a couple of incidents with people on motorcycles driving by and taking pot shots at our camp. We have to wear our gear just to be safe. We have to have our gas masks strapped to our leg the whole time as a means of precaution in case of a gas attack. We’ve already done a couple of gas attack drills to help us prepare in case of the real thing. The bad part about that is that they don’t bother telling us it is a drill until afterwards, so everyone is scared. The other night at about midnight, fire watch came running in yelling “Fire, fire!” We all jumped up and put our gear on as fast as we could and ran outside. They did an accountability formation and then told us that it was just a drill. It turns out that bulk fuel was simulating an accidental fire and the alert and evacuation of the camp. We were all a bit upset that they got us up at that hour for just a drill. The upside to that is that we will be better prepared when and if something does actually happen.
Our days are kept pretty busy doing maintenance on the vehicles and making sure they will be up and running when the war starts. We are also organizing the motor pool so that it will run efficiently, and filling up a lot of sandbags to use for cover. We are also going to sandbag our trucks to give us added protection while on the road. On the flight over to XXX I wrote you a letter. Everyone who wrote letters on that flight gave them to the flight attendants because they said they’d mail them off for us free of charge that following Monday when they got back into the states. I hope that you received my card and letter before Valentine’s Day.
People around here are constantly speculating about how long we’ll end up being out here. The general feeling is that it will be anywhere from 3 to 6 months based on tidbits of information that we occasionally receive, but of course nobody knows. I would prefer to be here as little as possible, but unfortunately it is not up to me. You probably know more about the situation of this war than we do. We get absolutely no information on what is going on. We have no access to newspapers, the internet or TV news. Right now we live in our own little world, separated from the rest of the world, waiting for the war to start.
If I could just call it would be much better, but I’ll have to settle for snail mail. Apparently it will take about one week for a letter to get to you and two weeks or more for a letter to get to me. Please don’t let that discourage anyone from writing.
Now that we are finally out here, time seems to be going by faster. Hopefully things will pick up in the next few weeks and I can come home to you in no time.
Missing you dearly,
Brian
posted by Heather at 9:44 AM
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