Live From Baghdad

My friend serving in Iraq sent this update just before Christmas...I haven't been checking my Comcast email or I would have posted it earlier:

Just wanted to say hello and tell everyone we have made it through the halfway point. It has been pretty much the same, lots of jets, lots of noise, lots of sand. The temperature is still in the 80’s. We have not had a lot of action here, though we keep our eyes open, it has been pretty quiet this month, possibly because we’re always switching our tactics up and trying to keep the enemy from establishing any patterns about our operations. One day the machine gun is at a gate, one day it isn’t. The next we have two teams of guys sweeping the highway, then we won’t for three days. Anything to keep them guessing. We were fortunate to have Robin Williams and John Elway here this month for about an hour. I can now say I have caught a pass from John Elway. He threw about 40 minitiaure footballs into the crowd and I managed to snag one of them. Lucky catch. Robin Williams advised me that I look like “the big boss”; I’m not really sure how to take that one. They were very nice guys to us. They were here and gone in about 60 minutes though. I have no info on departure dates yet, and may not for some time. We are on the down slide though, and we should be gone in early March, possibly sooner depending on schedules and flights, etc. We hve an after work party planned for after midnight on Christmas Eve, a secret santa type thing, where we drew one name to buy a gift for one person on the flight. I understand that several people have been to Spencers.com for gag gifts. This should be interesting. On that note, I’ll sign off by saying we are still well and doing pretty good. Have a Merry Christmas and a good season.