Christmas In Baghdad, Iraq

It's been a little while since I've blogged about Jed.  So, I thought I would post a few things that have happened over the last several weeks.  

He finally sent us a few more pictures, yay!

Jed in front of his military base in Baghdad.

As far as what Jed actually does there, most of it I have no idea because he usually can't tell me much.  I do know that he is in charge of a Quick Reaction Force.  They also conduct patrol and compliance missions as well.  Jed can't tell me what is coming up or what kinds of missions they'll be doing.  However, sometimes once a mission is completed he can tell me a little bit.  There are also sensitive items and places that he is not allowed to photograph so that is why he doesn't send very many pictures home or else he's just too busy to take them.

Patrol mission.

He and the other guys work 48 hours on, 48 hours off.  Well, Jed's supposed to have that time off, but he usually still goes into work to get things done.  Sometimes he can come back to his trailer (that's what their living quarters are) and skype us to say hello before he's gotta leave again.

We can usually talk to him once a day (sometimes even more), even though sometimes he can hardly stay awake....he sounds so exhausted from the lack of sleep or from doing missions during the middle of the night.

Rubbing his tired eyes:

He does alot of this too:

Today he told me he was doing a border patrol outside the base and got to shake hands with some Iraqi kids....no pictures though, dang.  He said he was too busy making sure he didn't get shot, so I guess it's ok then. :)  jk, sweetie. 

 He's told me his base has been rocketed a few times. *I actually had a few more details inserted right here, but Jed told me I needed to take them out, sorry you missed it.*  He asks me if I would rather not hear about any of this, I told him I always want to know.  So far nothing has made me terribly nervous except for when I haven't heard from him for awhile, that's when my imagination starts kicking in.  The Quick Reaction Force has been called out a few times already since he's been there but he can't tell me anything about those either.  :(  I look forward to reading his journal when he gets home.

He bought these headphones off an Iraqi.  The walls of the trailers are thin and you can hear conversations and music from the surrounding trailers. He bought the headphones to help keep his conversations private and it also drowns out any outside noises so he can hear us better.

 A guy gave Jed his TV, so here he is watching a show.

We sent Jed a Christmas package, which he of course wanted to open immediately instead of waiting until Christmas.  So he called us on skype so we could all watch him open his gifts.  The picture quality was pretty low this day...there must have been a lot of soldiers on the Internet during that time.

We included some of his favorite treats....laffy taffy.

and jerky.  My parents put some almond rocha and chocolate/caramel pretzels in there too...which he absolutely LOVED.

Aubrey willingly sacrificed her Pooh Bear and sent it to him.  (Jed gave her that Pooh when she was first born.)

We sent him a pillowcase that had a photo of the kids printed on it:

And a blanket with a photo collage of more family pictures:

Family photo book...he got a little choked up at this point. 

Picture of Jesus Christ per his request...

Love'n his jerky!

Here are a few other pictures Jed has sent:

Soldiers' living quarters - trailers protected by concrete slabs. A very attractive look, don't you think? 

One of their trucks in the "sandbag parking spaces."  The wood crosses are for a place to hang their personal equipment so they don't have to put them on the ground.  The building in the back is where the Philippino private contractors live.  Jed says that there are tons of private contractors from a variety of nationalities that live on base, including Iraqis:

It's the rainy season there right now, so it's pretty muddy.

Jed's room, he bought a few things like the rug to make it feel more comfortable:

He still gets to have his chips and salsa.

These next few pictures of Baghdad were taken from another soldier named Dee with whom I graduated high school with.  He serves in a different part of Baghdad, but I thought it would be fun to post some of his pics as well.

Behold, the city of Baghdad!

Yesterday the soldiers had to go through pepper spray and taser training. Each soldier got sprayed in the face and tased, I guess so they know what it's like.  Jed didn't have to do most of it since he's already been through it for police training.  He was pretty happy about that.

In summary, Jed is doing well and staying very busy.  Some days are good, some days are bad, some just stressful.  He often tells us how much he misses us and wishes he could hold us.  Back at home, we wish for the same thing as well.

Merry Christmas, hon, it won't be the same without you.