Month 12 Day 12

Notebook entry

24 reports given

Journal entry

We were in river city all day, so communication with the outside world was down. 

I did my normal Friday routine in the morning.  Maj Davidson wasn't here, so I was able to use his truck to go to the chow hall afterward.  It was my first hot breakfast in weeks, and it was good.  After I got back Brian and I worked on putting all of our stuff into a box to mail home.  It is stupid how much stuff we were required to bring here but we didn't use.  Tarps, all kinds of extra warming layers, extra damn near everything it seems.  The Issued gear alone adds up to about 200lbs.  Multiply that by the number of guys going into and out of country per year (x>100,000), multiply that by the overage of 100 lbs, assume the cost of fuel from here to America is only $1 (a pipe dream I know), multiply that by the cost of fuel $4.00 (lets assume JP-8 costs as much as gas though it actually costs more) and you end up with a grand total of $40,000,000 just for hauling around shit that we don't need.  Here's the really stupid part.  This is completely avoidable, but the problem is again that everyone is an amature.  The 'experts' the commanders who told us to bring this crap had no idea what to expect of the weather in one of the most predictably dry and hot places on earth.  What does that say about their ability to predict what the enemy is going to do?

Anyway despite the annoyance that I would have to mail back stuff (it cost me $69) It was nice to hit that milestone.  We are almost out of here.  You can feel it in everyone. 

In the afternoon I cleaned my weapon.  I made some suggestions to Danny Vassar from RCT-8 who is planning the same crazy trip to Kabul that I did, and I watched Ray. I didn't check to see how long it was before I started it.  Jamie Fox was really fantastic in it.  I didn't have any idea how diverse Ray Charles was, there wasn't a song on there I hadn't heard before. The guy really was a genius.