Posted on by Jake

Howdy From Iraq

Obviously I haven’t posted to this blog for quite some time… well, at least it’s obvious to me. There probably weren’t any readers regular enough to realize it other than the author.

Anyway, I’m in Iraq now (as you can tell by the title). I’m stationed at a prison facility about 10 miles or so west of Baghdad. This facility, Abu Ghraib, has quite a reputation amoung the locals. It’s a place where Sadam tortured and excuted many of his political enemies and such. At least that’s what I hear and what I’ve read on the ‘net. We, being the Americans, reopened this facility as a EPW/Civilian Detainee camp though some of it still operates as an Iraqi prison. I’m sure anybody familiar with this type of operation knows that there’s not a whole lot of details I can give, but there are websites/news articles out there with some acurate information… though there’s also some out there with inaccurate information. Good luck trying to tell between the two :).

I’ve been in this little paradise since the morning of 28-Feb. For the first two weeks or so the entire company stayed in one big room, the MWR room. Once the company that we were relieving left, we were able to move into the cells they had been occupying. That’s right, I currently live in a jail cell. It’s actually fairly spacious… I can only imagine how many people were in here when this was being used as a prison, but right now there’s three of us. We’ve been able to get some wood and nails so I built myself a bed and a desk. Back home it wouldn’t really be much of anything, but here it’s near luxury. Sometime in the near future I want to post some pictures of various things, my bed will be one of them.

Well, I think that’s all I’m going to type for now. My intention is to semi-regularly post information to this site… I guess time will tell how well I do in that department. At this time I have no intention of changing the times I post to be local time here, just be aware that it’s not really 1:30am it’s 9:30am (I’m 8 hrs ahead of Eastern Time).

10 Replies to “Howdy From Iraq”

  2. Andreas,
    Keep in mind that where I work is a prison facility and there are a lot of things I can’t release or take pictures of. Also, I don’t know what language your website is in, but I certainly can’t read it.

    MightyMu,
    The prison itself is fairly safe, but the grounds around it aren’t necessarily. And it’s funny you should mention that fuel convoy attack… I have pictures of the black plume of smoke from that as it happend right outside our facility.

  5. I’m sure everyone is now aware of the “toture chambers re-opened under new management” headlines. Here is an MSNBC article claiming that the Red Cross raised concerns with the United States World Government back in October 2003:

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4944094/

    And a similar CNN article:

    http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/10/red.cross.report/

    Toture is torture (note that the British are investigating a “death in custody”), but at least it’s out in the open now and can be addressed, something that would not have happened under the old management.

    PS. It’s my hope that the new Iraq will be a success, and 130,000+ troops will be able to return to their lives, and Bugzilla. 🙂 Good luck.

  6. Yes, those headlines certainly are out there and it’s really unfortunate. Not unfortunate that the truth comes out, but unfortunate that anything like that happened in the first place. Please do note myself, my company, nor anybody currently stationed at Abu Ghraib had anything to do with this. Everybody I’ve talked to has expressed disgust over the contect of these pictures.

  7. Hey jake it’s your red headed cousin back here in good old Michigan. First of all THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART, for risking your life to defend my and our country’s FREEDOMS. You and all of our troops are in my and millions of others prayers daily..You are doing the right thing, this cause is noble and just. The world and most importantly the united states is safer and more secure because of you and others like you. In 5-10 years all those who oppose it will have to eat there words, and I for one will be one of the cooks serving them all humble pie, even if it must be force fed. Most and I do mean most American are behind you and this war. I and the majority of amercans understand this recent Abuse scandle is not reflective of 99.9999% of those who have risked life and limb to defend our way of life..Please tell anyone you come in contact with that Americans know we owe all of you a debt of gratitude that we can never repay. Again thank you serving our country and may god bless you and all our troops.

  10. Hello Jake,

    Honestly, do you really think that the world is safer if Bush continues his policy of “I am the king of the world” invading a countries all over. stop!

    resorting to war and violence only reveals the uncapability of a president to deal with diplomacy and with other cultures.

    The “WORLD” is much bigger than the United States.

    There are not the good ones or the bad ones, pro-USA or a terrorist, no sorry, there is also the middle, and THIS is the mayority…

    Let Iraq alone, there were no weapons of mass distruction.

    Greetings from Germany,
    Laura

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