Some Good News

We had a general surgeon come talk to us from Bagdad. He is a trauma surgeon, actually from the Navy. He reported that all over the country, the amount of trauma is down from a year ago. So not just here, but other places, like Tikrit, Al Asad, and even Bagdad are slower than a year ago. So it is good that it is slower all over and not just here. The success is from a lot of things. The Surge was a factor. Probably more important is that they turned loose the SF guys (Special Forces). They go in on their own missions. They get pretty reliable intell and essentially do their missions behind the scenes. I met a few of them and they are hard core. They think nothing about going outside the wire to do their thing. In fact a lot of them prefer to be outside the wire shooting bad guys, than inside here. I kind of like it inside here, thank you very much.

Regardless of who wins in November, we will be seeing changes. As many of you know, they recently signed an agreement to switch over the control of the Anbar Providence to the Iraqis. So far, nothing has changed out there yet. Eventually, the Army and Marines will down size, but what that means who knows. Medically, I hear they are slower than we are.

It is almost WINTER here. I have been here in theater for 55 days now. The other day was the first day the temp did not hit 3 digits. It was a beautiful day. It was mid 90’s . Just like spring. I never thought that I would ever consider mid 90’s to be spring like, but it sure beats 115’. Also, today was the first day it even rained. It lasted about 3 minutes just enough to get the dirt wet so it was like walking in mud. After an hour, it was all dry again. I am told that about October, it starts raining regularly and everything just turns to mud. That will make it interesting, going from dust to mud. If the temp drops much further, I will have to pull out the long underwear soon.



I haven’t seen any more scorpions, so I guess that is good. I know they are still out there, but if they don’t want to show their faces, that’s ok. There is a new creature now. Not exactly sure what it is. I am not the only one to see it, so I know I am not hallucinating from dehydration. It’s a small furry thing, about the size of a fox or small dog. It has a long tail. I don’t know if they have foxes around here or not. I don’t think it is a werewolf. Someone else who saw it, said it has pointy, triangular ears, like a hyena. I only saw it at night going to the latrine.( I was going to the latrine, not it). So I only saw a glimpse of it as it ran by. I didn’t hear it laugh so I doubt the hyena. I guess I need to Google it find out what creatures they have around here

Tom