Whew- what a journey

Greetings All,

I am writing from Kandahar, Afghanistan, where we just met up with the other band (from Robins, AFB) to do a NATO ceremony. We combined to make a ceremonial band and then I was able to sit in and play with their jazz combo for the after ceremony in the Kandahar Int'l Airport- every participating NATO member as well as Afghans were there and it was very cool. We are off tomorrow for our next location.

Since my last message, we played a show up at a FOB in northern Iraq called Q-West,- a very remote but appreciative army audience. We got there in the dark of night- a completely blacked out base that just suffered a casualty. They treated us great and I even had a TV in my room. We then flew down to Tallil in southern Iraq where the temperature was 120+ the whole time. The next day, we convoyed up to a very small FOB that has never received entertainment- another great crowd. More on the convoy later.

We played a gig at Camp Adder and then Ali Air Base before returning to our "home" of Al Udeid to await a flight over to our present location. The flight here was absolutely miserable... we boarded a fully packed C-130 in the middle of the night and sat in the plane for 2 hours- sweating to the point of pure saturation- think south Louisiana multiplied by ten. Al Udeid is on the gulf and wow, can it get humid. We landed here, ate, rehearsed, and then showered before heading to the gig.

Back to the convoy- the soldiers that took us up there were true professionals and took pride in getting us there safely. We loaded our gear on a truck with an armored cab and then assumed our seats in up-armored humvee gun trucks- I road in the front vehicle, full body armor, helmet, loaded weapon, etc and a gunner on top with a 50 caliber machine gun. It was surreal going outside the wire and heading up past Bedouins, old Iraqi gun emplacements, burnt out vehicles from previous IED's, and a few stray donkeys and dogs. Sitting in that humvee was the hottest I've ever been- only competing with last night's/this morning's flight.

The return convoy was less hot, being early in the morning, and again, the soldiers were true professionals, fast drivers, and confident in their ability to get oncoming vehicles to yield the road. So, things to have done in life I really didn't want to do- riding in a convoy in Iraq...check.

Our gigs at Camp Adder was good, but our gig at Ali AB was awesome- a fantastic crowd!

This place (Kandahar) smells awful, but has mountains and cooler evenings. We took a picture in the site of the Taliban's last stand- a room where 90 or so were holed up until a U.S. J-DAM came through the roof. None of this registers while you are here... hopefully on my return I can reflect.

A great opportunity while at Tallil was visiting the ancient city of Ur, the Ziggerat (sp), and Abraham's (THE Abraham) home. An amazing place- I am not exactly a bible scholar, but was able to appreciate the ancient ruins, history, and the caretaker's stories despite the heat and dust. I'll send out pics when I return.

There's more to all of the stories above but finding internet access is tough, not to mention internet allowing blog posts.

I'm doing well- just trying to sleep whenever I can and beat this stomach bug that has been troubling me.

More adventures in our future- I'll write when I can.

By the way- congrats to Vince and Holly on the wedding- Tracy forwarded me the pics and Holly, you looked beautiful! Go guitar hero!

Catch you later, everyone-

J-

Still at Mortaritaville

Greetings everyone,

Here's one advantage to Iraq- plenty of hot water in the shower. Cold water is such a novelty that you'd walk an extra mile to find the cooler that actually chills the water down to a refreshing temperature. Speaking of, I wish I wore a pedometer for this trip- we are logging the miles!!!

We are in the airlift shuffle right now- waiting for a flight to our next locale. We were supposed to be there by now and if that were the case, I could tell you where I am... well, you know where I am now... but you know what I mean!

Our new billet is right next to the flight line. This place is incredibly busy, as the fighters that leave her patrol Baghdad and beyond and the airlifters are ever present as this is a huge logistics location. Sleep was not happening last night.

I'll have pics to show everyone when I return, but loading and unloading gear into trucks and vans is a daunting process, but not as difficult as palletizing (placing it on the pallet that loads directly into the aircraft) our gear onto a pallet on the back of a truck. We had a bunch of TCNs trying to help but it made it more difficult, bless their hearts. We did this in total darkness last night without a hitch. Getting gear correctly palletized is important, for the loadmasters of the aircraft can refuse to take a pallet on board if they deem it incorrectly loaded. This means we could theoretically get on our plane and fly away without our gear!

By the way, if I haven't yet explained TCNs, they are third country nationals that do most of the jobs the military doesn't- cleaning, etc. They are not Iraqis but mostly from Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Nepal, and the Philippines.

As far as "coalition of the willing" partners, many of the internal control points (places they check your weapons and id's before entering buildings) on this base are guarded by Ugandan soldiers- men and women. These soldiers are very thorough yet very nice and have absolutely striking features. I tried to get my picture taken last night with a Ugandan soldier, but she was too shy and said she cannot have her picture taken while on post. Most are multilingual, they seem to work very long hours, and their uniforms are always immaculate.

By the way, despite the bad haircut, my morale meter rates around an 8 or 9. While the novelty of being here has worn off, it's still exciting to experience these things, both good and bad. As we waited to gain entry into our gig site the other day, we watched gunners load their weapons in their Humvee turrets and head out on patrol outside the wire. The images of soldiers awaiting evacuation to Germany and those soldiers heading out on patrol keeps it all in perspective and makes me realize how lucky I am to have the opportunity to teach and play music for a living- even here in Iraq.

Best wishes to all and I hope to be able to update you all from points beyond Balad.

J-

Water, Wildlife, and Wake-Ups

Greetings,

As I sit in this myspace-user-frenzy of a computer lab (Balad is one of the only bases in the war that allows myspace (Air Force bases, that is). I'm the only person at Balad not using myspace), I'll try and reflect on some interesting tidbits of information.

There's water everywhere- all in one liter bottles. The water is from the Tigris and is purified locally and shipped over to us here at the base.

The wildlife I've witnessed so far doesn't include the famed camel spiders or scorpions, but instead cute lizards on the walls at night, hungry mice, giant scampering ants, dive bombing pigeons, and finches born in the wrong place (makes you think how lucky the finches in America are... or all of us, for that matter).

This base is Saddam-era- it was taken over during the war and therefore has a lot of the existing infrastructure. There are dozens upon dozens of bunkers and hardened hangars, boulevards and buildings that look like they're from a movie set, a mosque closed to Americans, and among other things, a movie theater.

In other news, for whatever reason, we were awoken in the night with the news we need to move billets. After completing this task, we had breakfast, set up and played a gig at a DFAC, found some nice KBR guys to hook us up with an 8 hour turn-around on laundry, and then set up for our big gig tonight.

The TCN just informed me my time is up so I am off. Hopefully I'll be able to continue these updates in the future- we're on the move again real soon.

Take care!

J-