Groundhog Day

So everyday is groundhog day. Same old shit. Same food. Same rountine. Same stupid stuff. Same annoying rules. Same mundane songs on the radio. Same mind-numbing commericals on the TV. Same retarded people. Everything is redundant and you wonder when are you going to crawl out of this hole.
Am I ever going to get my point across? Will common sense finally seep into these mofo's heads? Is my food going to taste good today? How many days do I have left? What news does my Horoscope bring today? What does beer taste like?
Then finally the new crew comes in. And there IS a light at the end of the tunnel. And something that I never expect to happen. I get a tug on my heart and OH My God! I'm gonna miss this place. WTF?! I can't stand this place. I can't stand my supervisors hideous cackle. I can't stand exceedingly sarcastic Barnacle Bill's comments. I can't stand the constant corrections of Anal Adams. Loud mouth Carter has made a place into my heart? I can't stand how time consuming my job was. What is wrong with me? This place has crawled under my skin and grown on me.
The struggles and frustrations I experienced has helped me to grow, and now I see the blessing incognito. And I can't help to think how fucked up life is. But I can trully appreciate it in all it's glory. It is amazing. It really is. I don't want to go through it again but I wouldn't change any of it. As much as it has affected me, as much as I might look back and reminisce, I am so ready to close this chapter of my life. I'm ready to move on to the next adventure. I'm ready for a drink!

It's been a while.....

....And I've learned to become delusional in order to save my sanity. I pretend that I am in a place where people have common sense and that things aren't really that bad. I live in what I call the Tracie Bubble. Nothing makes me mad and I'm not really annoyed by those anal retentive pricks that walk around this base with a stick up their arse. And I am a happy little girl frolicking in the forrest and picking flowers. La la la.
Any ways I like my protective happy state. So alot has gone on since I've visited this site. I have gotten promoted to First Class Petty Officer. I have earned an Expeditionary Warfare pin.
I went and saw Chris on the other side of this country. Everyone at my command was having a hissy fit about it, but it was so good to see one of my friends who is almost like family to me. I was only out there for a day but it was so worth it to travel on the freezing helicopters to see him. Where he is in a more desolate place than I am, but the people seem so much more laid back. I would much rather live where he lives where people aren't stupid than deal with the BS over here.
Let's see, I got a ticket on base here for driving 42 in a 30 MPH zone. The road is a straight away road and you could go 65 MHP and still drive safely. When the cop pulled me over and asked me if I knew why he pulled me over, I replied, I don't know maybe because I was drinking and driving. He didn't seem to think I was funny, but let me off with a warning.
It snowed here in Baghdad. I was suprised to wake up one morning and the snow flakes are falling on my face. It gets down to 30 degrees and it seems that my feet are always frozen. It rained a few times and all the dust turns to mud. LOL, I tried to get the mud off my shoes by clicking my feet together and the mud flew up onto my face.
I was able to take a ride on the General's bird a week ago. That was cool. I was able to fly out of a secret helio pad and pretend I was apart of the secret service.
Lastly, my reliefs have finally come. I will be training them up and they will be running the show. I am one happy girl right now. The end is nearly here and I will be flying away to paradise.

And the Saga Continues......

Sometimes the best and worst part of your job is the people. I've been learning alot how to deal with people, from all sorts of life. I've been learning alot about how to assert myself and not let people walk all over me. I've also learned alot about how to see the good, the bad, and the ugly side of people. The military gives you many opportunities to experience this very challenging aspect of life. It's the main reason I named this website Desert Drama.

As like my last trip to Iraq, I dealt with more drama than I had my whole high school experience. I feel like I deal with more 90210 drama than war drama over here. In some ways I'm glad that is the worst of it, but other ways it's kinda embarrassing to admit that I've been involved or been in middle of something that seems so childish. But when you stick so many people from so many different backgrounds and make them work together, eat together, and live together, it's no wonder that things get stupider than MTV's The Real World. At least we don't have cameras constantly in our face and having our reality dictated by what a producer thinks will bring in the most ratings.

Some of the problems I dealt with, but not limited to, having to fight for my job to get done, banging heads with my roommate, reverse racism, being the lowest person on the tottem pole, jealousy, empty threats and intimidation factors, hipocrasy, the constant lack of common sense, disrespect, and dealing with others emtions especially because of the high rate of sexual frustrations.
One of my friends asked me if people seem to change who they are when they come over here. I told him no, I think it's more of people allowing themselves to explore aspects of themselves that for whatever reason they felt like they couldn't. I think the actions they display here is in them and it's in them even if they were in the US but there are factors that stop them. For example, we're in a country and we are away from everyone and everything that we know. Any daily responsiblities that we have back at home, we are exempt from while we are in country. The ratio of guys to girls is like 20:1. Then you get these older married women who want to explore. Their husbands won't know, they don't have to make sure their kids are taken care of, they don't have to live up to the reputation of everyone they love, they are free to do what they want. Maybe they've never had the college experience, maybe they've never had an abundance of guys checking them out, maybe they've never had so many good looking guys check them out, maybe their marriage is on the rocks, maybe they want it to be on the rocks so they can have an excuse, whatever the case maybe they feel like they have a get out of jail free card that expires when they leave here. And they take advantage. They become whores so to speak.
Do I judge them? Not really. I'm not in their shoes, I don't know the exact reason they do the things they do out here. In one aspect I think it's stupid because now they've created all this baggage and they're going to take it home and they're marriage is ruined. (But then I think their marriage is ruined in the first place because they feel they have to run ramped in Baghdad.) Another aspect I think it's stupid because they are trying to fill the holes in their lives and they pick guys where all they want to do is have someone to screw and the pickings are slim so the guys will say whatever the girl wants to hear until it's time for them to leave and the girls are dumped and crying their eyes out because they thought this guy was in love with them. But then I look at another aspect and I think it's great that they get this opportunity because maybe they'll learn something about themselves and not let these stupid guys dictate the way they feel.
It's funny to see how the drama unfolds here in the desert. The things I've seen, the shit I've been apart of, the emotions that fly, the shaddiness people seem to want to pull over other peoples eyes is so damn entertaining. The Real World should come over here and take some footage.

Day 194

The weather has cooled down from it's 140+ F degrees. The thermometer wouldn't read passed that and it was sitting in the heat all day. It gets down to the 40's at night and up in the 80's during the day. It rained one day so far. But soon enough it will be raining everyday and then the dust turns to mud.
Since the surge has been instated, the attacks by the enemy has been cut down by 70%. Not only do I get to see this through statistics but also through my job too. The less that my robots get blown up, the less that the IED's are being planted in the roads. Life is peaceful for the most part, but every now and then you're shaken with reality when a mortar hits. Most of the time they attack in the morning, but sometimes you'll hear one at night.
I'm up to 182 confirmed kills and counting. Those pesky house flies and mosquitos didn't know what was coming to them. I taught them never to bug anyone again.
I've been making plans to break out of baghdad. The monotony is getting to me. Day in and day out. I've been gathering together a team. It should be a surefire plan. I'm grabbing an intel person and a Macgyver person. I've got the ammo and the robots. What can go wrong? Let's put the Ft. Jackson training to test. Who's with me?

I wanna go back, I wanna go back to the good life.

So lately I've been thinking about what it's going to be like when I get home. I underwent alot of changes while I've been here. Some things I'd like to keep doing when I get back, like walking everywhere and I'm sure there's some other positive things that I'd like to incorporate. But there are many things that I'll be delighted to be done with when I'm gone. Like carrying a weapon everywhere. I know it's bad ass, but I really would rather not do it. Another thing is working through weekends. When did I ever become a workaholic? Maybe I confused myself, I know I used to be an alcoholic, so now I replaced one holic with another? That can't be healthy. And speaking of alcohol, I know I'm going to quit being sober all the time. Life used to be much more engaging, when I drank.
I'm also going to start looking like a girl when I get back to the states. It's been great waking up in the morning and not having to worry about what I'm going to wear, because well there's really only one style I can pick from. You can wear exercise gear in your off time here, but you must wear a reflective belt. Even if everything else is reflective, you must wear the belt. I for one like the belt. I can be seen at night, and not be worried about getting ran over by vehicles going 20 miles per hour.
And that's another thing, I've gotten used to reading speed limits in both metric and American.
The highest speed limit on base is 30 miles per hour. I will be like grandma driving down the highway going 40 MPH, because anything faster than that I'm not used to. In California, you have to go at least 80 MPH just to keep up with everyone.
When I go to the store in the states I might actually find what I'm looking for. Instead of like here where you go into the exchange and it has alot of crap, just nothing that you're looking for. I'm looking forward to sitting down at a nice restaurant and pick food that sounds appealing and it is. Or I'll just go to the local Mexican joint and order a California burrito. Or calamari tacos from South Beach. Yeah I miss that.

Comic Relief

Yesterday was pretty eventful. I had to fly out and do my job again. While me and my coworkers were waiting for our helicopter to land, some other helicopters land and about 12 people walk off of the heliopad. In the midst of the people in the crowd, I see a midget. I started thinking "What is a midget doing here?" You'd think I'd be used to seeing weird stuff around here, but then life likes to throw a midget in the mix and then you look like a dog that has heard a weird sound. I then started thinking. There had been flyers hanging up around base about 2 comedians coming into town and putting on a USO tour. One of them being a midget, Brad Williams, and Carlos Mencia. I found out later that the midget is a regular on the Mencia show. The show was hallirious. It was great to laugh that much in an hour and a half show. I'm sorry Steven, I know how you feel about comedians that steal other peoples jokes, but I'll have you know that I watched it out of desperation to escape the everyday mundane life that I have over here. And I'll have you know that I didn't have to pay for the show. I just had to wait in line for an hour and half in the freezing cold. But I was one of the few who were able to sit down in a seat and not have to be standing the whole time. Don't you judge me.
This is the second comedic show that I have seen here. The first one I saw was back in July with Dave Attell and Scott Kennedy. That was another hallirious show. That has been about it with who I have seen at a USO tour here in Iraq. I did happen to see the Red Skin Cheerleaders on the Helio pad a couple of weeks ago. They were wearing white, in the desert. It was irritating me. The dirt and sand get into everything around here and these stupid cheerleaders walk around in their white clothes getting them all dirty. I don't know I guess I have a pet peeve about keeping things from looking dingy and then running around in the dirtiest place on earth. It's like telling a kid that he can't have fun at Chucky Cheese and expecting him to just sit there and listen to you. It's a tedious battle that you're never going to win. Stupid Cheerleaders!
That's my little bit on comedy. I know. I'm not going to start a career in it. I just like to pretend every once in a while that I'm funny.

The Job

I have one of the most exciting jobs I ever had. I support the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams, which in lamen terms is the bomb squad of the navy. My command supports a number of teams spread out across Iraq. My two main jobs are to transport robots and maintain the armory.
The robots are pretty exciting. The job requires me to fly in helicopters and transport robots to different bases. The different teams will notify me when one of their robots breaks down or gets blown up. Then I swap their bad one with a good one. I take it back to the repair facility and get it fixed so it can be ready for the next team who needs it. The importance of this job is to ensure that the teams have robots that are fully working at all time so they don't need to put on a bomb suit and walk down the lines to disarm Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). My favorite part of the job is getting away from the desk and flying for a few hours. Riding on helicopters is like riding on a roller coaster, but for a longer period of time. Plus I don't have to wait in line for hours to get on the ride.
My second job is to maintain the armory. Basically I'm incharge of issuing out weapons and ammo, reporting the status of the weapons to my higher chain of command, and setting up range times at the shooting range. It's not as involved as the robots, but still an important job.
My regular job in the navy is an electronics technician, so I'm not used to doing jobs like this, but I love to learn new things. It really beats sitting behind a desk all day, pushing paper and finding stuff to do to fill my time.
A collateral job that I have volunteered to to do out here is Mail Petty Officer (Mail PO). It's fun to be able to act like Santa Clause everyday. I go to the post office and bring back all the care packages for everyone at my command.
Then if anyone who's ever been in the military knows that your job doesn't just end there, especially being low on the totem pole like I am. There's other various jobs that we get tasked with, whether it's helping another department out or doing janitorial duties. It's the part of the job that sucks but is a necessary evil.