Introductions

I have been contemplating for awhile whether or not I should start a blog about my experience being deployed with the US Army. OPSEC makes it difficult for me to go into detail about some things, but I want to keep family and friends aware of what's going on.

I am on my first deployment to Kuwait until Spring. My unit deploys on a quick rotation so I can expect to be back here probably in the Fall.

Compared to most deployments you can hardly call this a deployment. I have a soft warm bed to crawl into every night, large PX to do all of my shopping, a dining facility that serves excellent meals around the clock (that's right, open 24 hours!) and there's even Starbucks. What makes it feel like a deployment is being 7000 miles away from my 3 beautiful daughters and wonderful wife who is expecting our fourth.

I've been here for almost a week and I am finally starting to adjust to the deployed life. I have a 7 day workweek now with two days working half days. I can sleep through the night finally (thanks Melatonin) and I am starting to get a hang of where everything is here. I can't leave the Camp that I'm assigned to. We have direct orders to stay put, unless it's an escorted MWR trip to Kuwait City. I will definitely be signing up for that when it comes around again. This place is HUGE. Much bigger than where I'm assigned to stateside. There are multiple zones that are at least a square mile each and there's even have a bus service to cart us around the camp as we need to go to different places.

This time of the year the weather is very comfortable. It's in the 50s or 60s during the day and drops into the 40s at night. Reminds me of late April back in Minnesota...except the lack of trees, and grass, and snow, and the fact that I am in the middle of the desert....you get the idea. By the time I end my deployment it should be in the 110s during the day dropping to the low 90s at night. Weekly there are dust and sand storms. They can really make a day miserable, I had my first yesterday.

I'm sure everyone would like to know what it was like to get here. That will be the topic of my next update. Thanks for reading and I hope you find my story interesting.