Day Two: Fort Bliss

Greetings from beautiful Fort Bliss, Texas. Please forgive both the sarcasm and the irony, this place is neither beautiful nor blissful. But so far everything is going just fine. I've been here for two days now and I think I'm starting to fall back into the Army routine. Wednesday night and early Thursday morning I had to say my last goodbyes. It wasn't any fun. I miss my friends and family already, and I hope they are doing okay. When I left for basic training a few years ago my friends and family were sad, but it was different. There is a big difference between my mother crying because she's going to miss me and crying because she's afraid. The latter was tortuous for us both.
Our first day here we moved in to our new home. We sleep in a giant tent which holds a few hundred soldiers. It comes complete with electricity and five giant air conditioning units. All in all, not a bad place to live. Today we received our new issue. In other words, the army gave us a large bag full of new crap they think we're going to need when we get to Iraq. I think they just enjoy needlessly adding to the already ridiculous weight of my ruck sack. Getting our new gear took about 8 hours. Most of that time we sat around in a bus waiting. That is something we have and will do often. You often hear the phrase "hurry up and wait," in the Army. I remember it well from basic training and shouldn't have too much trouble mastering it once again. Some interesting things about this place are the various ways in which they try to get us use to daily life in Iraq. Three times a day they play traditional Muslim prayer chants over the loud speaker. It's actually very soothing. It reminds me of the opening scene in the movie Black Hawk Down. Also, every now and then a woman's voice sounds on the speaker repeating "American's go home." People in Middle Eastern garb frequently wonder around the camp and are often stopped at check points. This is all done in a attempt to familiarize us with common sights and sounds.
I hoped to be posting more often, but the internet cafe here is crowded most of the time and they won't let us use our personal laptops to get online. I'll do the best I can though, and am planning on buy a T-Mobile Air Card which should enable me to get online using my laptop from anywhere within the US. If anyone is interested in my address drop me an email and I'll send it on over. I'll talk to you all soon. Also, as soon as I figure out my internet situation, I'll be posting all kinds of pictures that I've been taking. Check back.