mr wright; i'm calling you out

i said i'd do it so here i am a doing it.
jeremy, you need to update your blog and/or website my man. and this is coming from someone who blogs maybe once a month and most of the time on boring subjects. your funny stories as only you can tell them are dearly missed. please return to our virtual storytelling forum and bless us once again with your words of wisdom.

water fight?

have you ever sleep walked? i don't think i've ever done that... but i've certainly done other things in my sleep. as long as i can remember i've done weird things in my sleep. things you'd think you'd need to be fully awake to do. i've changed the alarm clock to a later time before it ever goes off. this has at times proven to be disasterous, which is why i usually try to keep the alarm clock well out of arms reach. i've had conversations with people that i don't recall, most of the time though i just didn't want to get up yet and have the ability to say anything to make the person trying to wake me go away. you can ask andrea or my parents about that. none of that seemed all too impressive but recently i added a new skill to my list.

the other night i was dreaming that i was incredibley thirsty and really needed something to drink. in the dream i went to a store and bought a 7up, a gatorade and a bottle of water. but all three were warm and only made me thirstier. i was getting frustrated when i finally woke up. i was still pretty drowsy but i remembered there was a bottle of water on my side table that i'd had a couple drinks out of before bed. so i roll over to reach out for it and that's when i felt a rush of water hit my chest and run down onto the bed... along with my blanket and all my sheets. now i'm pretty sleepy still so i just sat there trying to figure out where water was coming from and didn't really try to stop it from continuing to pour out onto me. finally i realized i had the bottle of water from the side table tipped over on my chest. i pulled it off and went into cleanup mode. i hung the blanket in front of the heater, changed my shirt, used some extra towels to soak up the water on the floor and on my mattress and then tried to figure out what happened. the best i can tell, i managed to get the bottle of water from the side table and unscrewed the cap in my sleep before setting it down in the nook between my left arm and my torso. my hand wasn't gripping it when i woke up so who knows how long it had been there.
long story short... hydrate hydrate hydrate - oh and water bottles are the devil.


on a sidenote: i was looking for an interesting picture of a water bottle online and found this.













how cool is it to be able to go running and drink water off your wrists?!?

normandy: the beaches are stormed with soldiers, but where oh where is the water?

i was out of the "office" for most of january due to a big operation they had me at in the northern diyala river valley (you can google that). it was an operation designed to clear out al-aqaeda fighters from a major stronghold called the bread basket. they expected quite the fight and a lot of resistance but in the end... the battle went easier than anticipated. i think the bad guys over here know better than to take us on head to head. i can't go into real details of the operation but i will say from what i saw firsthand... many areas are much better off now. i realize there are many people out there that want to see the u.s. leave iraq, but i've seen how we are making a difference. the problem is that most people don't have patience and don't look at the bigger picture. i don't agree with when we invaded iraq... but now that we're here i do see us making strides (or more likely small steps forward). this bread basket area had been an al-aqaeda controlled region for some time. they were torturing and killing people based on their beliefs and their relationships with either us or the iraqi government. at the risk of sounding cheesy or cliche'... this is why we should be here. we have the power and ability to help someone out... and i think it's our responsibility to do so. i don't necessarily believe that's really why we're here, as politicians rarely go to war to help others... but i am seeing some possitive side effects of our being here. i was in a town called muqdadiyah where people had been afraid to go outside. but when we went there... markets were opening up and i even had the chance to play with some children. that's when you see what this country could be like... when you see children smiling and playing. i know... you're probably all saying "man, kevin sure go brainwashed over there." but i'm just telling you what i've experienced since being over here. ever soldier who returns from here will have had a different deployment and different stories and opinions from this war. i'm just one voice saying what i've seen.

now to a much less serious topic... what i'll miss about my time in diyala.

1-moondust that you sink up to your knees in.
2-sleeping in a tent with broken heaters and waking up seizuring like a mad man.
3-learning to sleep through artillery fire and strykers driving by.
4-eating hamburgers for every meal because it's the healthiest thing to eat.
5-convoying with a fuel truck and wondering how safe that is.
6-working in an office that was once a bathroom. that smelled nice!
7-riding in the back of a bradley tank.
8-eating iraqi cuisine at the mayor of muqdadiyah's office. everything was so good, just don't watch them prepare it!
9-watching an infantry soldier hand a stuffed bear to a shy little girl and seeing both of them smile.
10-seeing snow for the first and only time in iraq.