Date: Monday, November 3, 2008, 6:03 PM

Here it is another cool night at 02:30 in Basrah Iraq. Things are quiet here now and the weather is turning wet and cool. Sometimes it is down right chilly at night. We have broken out the coats and stocking caps. I am still working at night but hopefully I will be moved to days soon so I can start getting some more training to be progressed.

So far we have been fairly busy but occasionally there are some very slow nights with little to do. Which means the acft are up or we don't have the parts. I hesitate to tell this but one of the recent examples of waiting for parts was my fault. I was up on the tail putting something back together and the head of one of the small bolts broke off as I was torqueing it down. As our luck would have it there was none to be had in country, it had to be ordered from the states. They have been doing what is called a controlled exchange between acft with one of these bolts. One certain acft needed to be flown so they take a bolt from another acft then when that one needs to fly they exchange back again. All documented on paper and everything. Quite the ordeal. Well we finally got 10 of those small bolts after about almost 2 weeks. These are now known as cliffs' bolts. We have the only 9 extra in Iraq and believe me, they are going to be secured really tight.

All in all things are very safe here at this time. We have a new dining facility and there nare a couple other new buildings going up that are rumored to be a PX and maybe a commissary, we'll see. Sounds like a lot of work considering we may be out of here by 2011. As of late there has been some road improvements being done on the gravel roads in camp. At times it has been quite disruptive for those of us that sleep during the day, but hey, what’cha gonna do?

If I had my family to go back to every night this would be the ultimate. I really enjoy this. Sometimes I wonder why I didn't do this sooner. But if I had I wouldn't be here at this very important time in history. I just wonder what the next 4 years hold for us as a country. I can see me getting called to go somewhere else sooner or later. It's just the way things look to be going in the world. I hope and pray that if I go again that my family will get through it ok. They seem to be doing good now. I am blessed with being married to a very strong, smart and capable woman. She is truly amazing.

  With that little bit of bragging I will close this now. I hope this finds you all well.

SGT B