(no subject)
Alrighty, now I have some time to update.
I guess I'll start with Paul and Rafael's birthday. We had an awesome time celebrating their b-day...didn't have any missions all day so we were partying hard. We started out by having a breakfast celebration and then Paul and Rafael wanted to play some games so we set up baseball games with some of the Iraqi civilians again. That was so much fun, it was great to be able to play ball with all of those people! They had a good time learning the game, and we played simple versions of baseball so as not to overwhelm them with rules/instructions;-) Some of those Iraqis are actually pretty good at baseball, especially for having never really played much before! Anyway, after the baseball game we got a birthday cake from the "Food Depot" (a U.S. Military-run shopping mart...thing) and finished up with the birthday party. That was during the day. At night we played around with some more of the younger Iraqis and they came over to our building to hang out. It was funny 'cause Chris and I were giving piggy-back rides and that evolved into piggy-back races with the kids on our back. The winner was punished by having to carry an extra kid on his back for the next race...so I was loaded with kids;-) Afterward Paul had a "group storytime" and was telling the kids stories about his non-existent girlfriend (PG version). I was laughing so hard 'cause I would translate everything everyone said so the kids could understand Paul and Paul could understand the kids...well, Paul's story was so far-fetched that it had me cracking up. But it was his birthday so I let him get away with such a thing. "She has icy blue eyes that pierces the souls and melts the hearts of all those who look at her...that's why I fell for her! And her lips taste of something like strawberries..." Paul is funny...he has quite the imagination!
The next day we had a few missions in the morning and got into a couple firefights but nothing too serious. Afterward they said we get the rest of the day off. So we went to the "Troop Entertainment" area (aka TE) which is located just outside of Bagdhad. At the TE area that is where all of the fun stuff is...they have karaoke, a small restaurant (well, not quite...but might as well be considered a restaurant), an entire rock band setup (a couple electric guitars, bass guitar, drumset, microphones, amps, all that good stuff) and some foosball tables (and I think maybe 1 pool table). When we arrived we became the life of the party 'cause we took the stage and performed karaoke. I think there were a total of just over 2,000 men at the TE area. At first we just sang for the fun of it, just to pump people up. Then we formed teams and competed against some guys from the 3rd I.D. Our team kicked their butts, but they put up a good fight. All of the songs were random (you pick a genre and then the computer spits out a random song from that genre) but fortunatly we knew all of the songs we had to sing. It was a blast, Jerry and I were the main competitors...most of my men were just willing to sit back and listen. After that me, Jerry, Paul, Andy and Greg D formed a band and played along to famous rock songs. I got to show off and play "Stairway To Heaven" in front of those thousands of people:-) And the crowd was pumped too...they were cheering us on like crazy and we had them laughing so hard when we said our band's name was "Camo Pantz" (and then we wore fake jewlelry and sagged our fatigues to look a lil' more ghetto). It was all good fun and we had a blast! That was it for our playtime...
I guess I'll start with Paul and Rafael's birthday. We had an awesome time celebrating their b-day...didn't have any missions all day so we were partying hard. We started out by having a breakfast celebration and then Paul and Rafael wanted to play some games so we set up baseball games with some of the Iraqi civilians again. That was so much fun, it was great to be able to play ball with all of those people! They had a good time learning the game, and we played simple versions of baseball so as not to overwhelm them with rules/instructions;-) Some of those Iraqis are actually pretty good at baseball, especially for having never really played much before! Anyway, after the baseball game we got a birthday cake from the "Food Depot" (a U.S. Military-run shopping mart...thing) and finished up with the birthday party. That was during the day. At night we played around with some more of the younger Iraqis and they came over to our building to hang out. It was funny 'cause Chris and I were giving piggy-back rides and that evolved into piggy-back races with the kids on our back. The winner was punished by having to carry an extra kid on his back for the next race...so I was loaded with kids;-) Afterward Paul had a "group storytime" and was telling the kids stories about his non-existent girlfriend (PG version). I was laughing so hard 'cause I would translate everything everyone said so the kids could understand Paul and Paul could understand the kids...well, Paul's story was so far-fetched that it had me cracking up. But it was his birthday so I let him get away with such a thing. "She has icy blue eyes that pierces the souls and melts the hearts of all those who look at her...that's why I fell for her! And her lips taste of something like strawberries..." Paul is funny...he has quite the imagination!
The next day we had a few missions in the morning and got into a couple firefights but nothing too serious. Afterward they said we get the rest of the day off. So we went to the "Troop Entertainment" area (aka TE) which is located just outside of Bagdhad. At the TE area that is where all of the fun stuff is...they have karaoke, a small restaurant (well, not quite...but might as well be considered a restaurant), an entire rock band setup (a couple electric guitars, bass guitar, drumset, microphones, amps, all that good stuff) and some foosball tables (and I think maybe 1 pool table). When we arrived we became the life of the party 'cause we took the stage and performed karaoke. I think there were a total of just over 2,000 men at the TE area. At first we just sang for the fun of it, just to pump people up. Then we formed teams and competed against some guys from the 3rd I.D. Our team kicked their butts, but they put up a good fight. All of the songs were random (you pick a genre and then the computer spits out a random song from that genre) but fortunatly we knew all of the songs we had to sing. It was a blast, Jerry and I were the main competitors...most of my men were just willing to sit back and listen. After that me, Jerry, Paul, Andy and Greg D formed a band and played along to famous rock songs. I got to show off and play "Stairway To Heaven" in front of those thousands of people:-) And the crowd was pumped too...they were cheering us on like crazy and we had them laughing so hard when we said our band's name was "Camo Pantz" (and then we wore fake jewlelry and sagged our fatigues to look a lil' more ghetto). It was all good fun and we had a blast! That was it for our playtime...