Our First Month In Kuwait
OK, I have had a number of people send me emails with some of the same four questions so I will try to answer them on my blog as best as I can. These are the top four questions:
Where are you?
What’s it like there?
What can we send you or do for you?
What are you doing every day?
I'll try to answer the first two questions here- the third and fourth I'll save for a later posting:
Where are you? What's it like there?
We are still in Kuwait waiting to move into Iraq. Kuwait is considered part of the combat zone but I have to say, life here is pretty good! The army is really treating us very well all things considered. The most common complaints here are that there are no Starbucks and that the air conditioning is too cold…not exactly roughing it by army standards!
I arrived in Kuwait at the end of October, which was good timing. As long as you report into a combat zone by the last day of the month- the entire month’s pay is tax free which is a nice bonus... if you’re going to be here you might as well optimize your earnings! Better to arrive on the last day of the month than the first day. Also, if you leave on the first day of the month the entire rest of the month is free. Best to arrive on the last day and leave on the first day!
After arriving we were moved to a base in the desert. We unpacked our gear and settled into our tents after a 36 hour trip from New York, through Germany and into Kuwait. Getting acclimated was not immediate- it was very hot and relatively uncomfortable, but not unbearable. The summer months must be unbearable! Many of the guys, especially the older guys, had trouble getting adjusted to the heat and the desert. I am 38 years old. In the full time active army, 38 is pretty old. But I am assigned to a National Guard unit….and for a National Guard unit, I am not old at all…there are many guys here in their 50’s!
We were housed in giant tents in the desert- 40 men to a tent. The women have their own separate tent and similar quarters. I would estimate that our unit has around 520 guys and 30 women. The tents have wooden floors and air conditioning, which helped tremendously, but frankly couldn’t keep the desert heat out completely. It’s nice but it is no Taj Mahal. The reason we are in Kuwait is to receive our equipment and vehicles from the Port and get ourselves and our equipment ready to move north into Iraq.
I was not at this base for long, as my commander requested that I move to another giant army base where many of our others soldiers were stationed. I packed up all my gear and went as I was told…sweating profusely as I carried all of my army gear, all desert camouflaged and very heavy gear to the vehicles that would take me to this new base. In the end, I was glad I made the move. I moved to an even better base!
At this new base we are housed in a giant hanger- hundreds of us in a cement floored hanger. Here though, instead of cots, we have bunk beds: old grey steel bunk beds. The hanger is air conditioned and pretty comfortable. In fact (and this is not a complaint) if anything it is too cold!
The base is a pretty good one- and the mess hall is an enormous hanger with ceilings at least forty feet high. Of course it is tan colored. Everything is tan colored. There is no color here. None. Just tan. It reminds me of Henry Ford’s statement regarding the model T…. “you can have any color you want- as long as it is black.” Here you can have any color you want- as long as it’s tan.
The US military is a giant logistical machine. It is incredible. After landing we had become part of this huge logistical machine. We had sent our vehicles in ships a month prior to us leaving the US. They were arriving in Kuwait and being unloaded and readied to move north. Thousands of vehicles of every kind…of course…all tan. Our soldiers would unload them, drive them to other bases, and begin working on them.
Kuwait is bustling with the US military. There are units that are permanently stationed in Kuwait, logistical type people who process the army units into and out of Iraq. There are units arriving, the “cherries” like myself and my unit- getting ready to go into Iraq. And there are the “veterans”- the units completing their tour in Iraq and getting ready to go home to the states coming out through Kuwait.
They say if you give soldiers a good place to eat, sleep, shower and take care of bodily functions….that you’ll get a lot out of them. I completely agree with that. If you can make people comfortable in those four areas, the discomfort for the rest of the day is tolerable. The soldiers here are relatively comfortable except when working outdoors during the daytime.
My days are nice right now. My day consists of three meals at the mess hall, which is decent- sleeping in this giant hanger in relative comfort, and I can shower any time in relatively comfortable shower tents with unlimited hot water. We shower in a tent that has been built by KBR/Halliburton. It has plumbing and stalls and hot water. I can’t complain about it.
I do not however, like having a little Pakistani man clean up after me…while I am still shaving. They have a guy who's only responsibility is cleaning this shower tent. And he really wants to keep it clean. He sits there all day alone. When someone comes in he'll just sit there and watch you shave for instance. But he comes up and starts cleaning well before you're done. So you have a tent with twenty sinks in it, empty, except for yourself and this little Pakistanit guy who is literally mopping around you and motioning for you to pick up your feet. Every day he does this. He appears to be a nice fellow but if somehow his whole life could be running five minutes behind what is right now I would prefer it… It is a comical situation though…it’s annoying but he just wants to do a good job and send money home.
All of the workers on the base and all the bases around here come from the Philippines, Pakistan and other third world countries. They receive contracts to work for these global companies and leave their homes for two years to work in places like Kuwait and Iraq. They then return home two years later with savings that they could never save in their home countries. They all seem like nice people. I have yet to meet one of the workers who “admit” to speaking English…though I always suspect they speak more than they let on….it is similar to traveling to France…
After the first week I learned that there really is no “complaint department” for any areas with these foreigners. I started off by saying things like “you might not want to sneeze into that mashed potatoe tray and then serve it to soldiers...” only to then get myself in a ten minute conversation with three foreign workers who couldn't understand what I was trying to tell them..…only to be served “extra” servings of the very food I was saying was probably contaminated....
Is there anything we can send you?
The Army is providing us with virtually everything we need. My unit however, is starting a collection to help provide the soldiers with some additional luxury items to make their stay in Iraq more comfortable. I’ll be publishing a separate blog in the next couple of days with information on that effort if you are interested.
Dan
Where are you?
What’s it like there?
What can we send you or do for you?
What are you doing every day?
I'll try to answer the first two questions here- the third and fourth I'll save for a later posting:
Where are you? What's it like there?
We are still in Kuwait waiting to move into Iraq. Kuwait is considered part of the combat zone but I have to say, life here is pretty good! The army is really treating us very well all things considered. The most common complaints here are that there are no Starbucks and that the air conditioning is too cold…not exactly roughing it by army standards!
I arrived in Kuwait at the end of October, which was good timing. As long as you report into a combat zone by the last day of the month- the entire month’s pay is tax free which is a nice bonus... if you’re going to be here you might as well optimize your earnings! Better to arrive on the last day of the month than the first day. Also, if you leave on the first day of the month the entire rest of the month is free. Best to arrive on the last day and leave on the first day!
After arriving we were moved to a base in the desert. We unpacked our gear and settled into our tents after a 36 hour trip from New York, through Germany and into Kuwait. Getting acclimated was not immediate- it was very hot and relatively uncomfortable, but not unbearable. The summer months must be unbearable! Many of the guys, especially the older guys, had trouble getting adjusted to the heat and the desert. I am 38 years old. In the full time active army, 38 is pretty old. But I am assigned to a National Guard unit….and for a National Guard unit, I am not old at all…there are many guys here in their 50’s!
We were housed in giant tents in the desert- 40 men to a tent. The women have their own separate tent and similar quarters. I would estimate that our unit has around 520 guys and 30 women. The tents have wooden floors and air conditioning, which helped tremendously, but frankly couldn’t keep the desert heat out completely. It’s nice but it is no Taj Mahal. The reason we are in Kuwait is to receive our equipment and vehicles from the Port and get ourselves and our equipment ready to move north into Iraq.
I was not at this base for long, as my commander requested that I move to another giant army base where many of our others soldiers were stationed. I packed up all my gear and went as I was told…sweating profusely as I carried all of my army gear, all desert camouflaged and very heavy gear to the vehicles that would take me to this new base. In the end, I was glad I made the move. I moved to an even better base!
At this new base we are housed in a giant hanger- hundreds of us in a cement floored hanger. Here though, instead of cots, we have bunk beds: old grey steel bunk beds. The hanger is air conditioned and pretty comfortable. In fact (and this is not a complaint) if anything it is too cold!
The base is a pretty good one- and the mess hall is an enormous hanger with ceilings at least forty feet high. Of course it is tan colored. Everything is tan colored. There is no color here. None. Just tan. It reminds me of Henry Ford’s statement regarding the model T…. “you can have any color you want- as long as it is black.” Here you can have any color you want- as long as it’s tan.
The US military is a giant logistical machine. It is incredible. After landing we had become part of this huge logistical machine. We had sent our vehicles in ships a month prior to us leaving the US. They were arriving in Kuwait and being unloaded and readied to move north. Thousands of vehicles of every kind…of course…all tan. Our soldiers would unload them, drive them to other bases, and begin working on them.
Kuwait is bustling with the US military. There are units that are permanently stationed in Kuwait, logistical type people who process the army units into and out of Iraq. There are units arriving, the “cherries” like myself and my unit- getting ready to go into Iraq. And there are the “veterans”- the units completing their tour in Iraq and getting ready to go home to the states coming out through Kuwait.
They say if you give soldiers a good place to eat, sleep, shower and take care of bodily functions….that you’ll get a lot out of them. I completely agree with that. If you can make people comfortable in those four areas, the discomfort for the rest of the day is tolerable. The soldiers here are relatively comfortable except when working outdoors during the daytime.
My days are nice right now. My day consists of three meals at the mess hall, which is decent- sleeping in this giant hanger in relative comfort, and I can shower any time in relatively comfortable shower tents with unlimited hot water. We shower in a tent that has been built by KBR/Halliburton. It has plumbing and stalls and hot water. I can’t complain about it.
I do not however, like having a little Pakistani man clean up after me…while I am still shaving. They have a guy who's only responsibility is cleaning this shower tent. And he really wants to keep it clean. He sits there all day alone. When someone comes in he'll just sit there and watch you shave for instance. But he comes up and starts cleaning well before you're done. So you have a tent with twenty sinks in it, empty, except for yourself and this little Pakistanit guy who is literally mopping around you and motioning for you to pick up your feet. Every day he does this. He appears to be a nice fellow but if somehow his whole life could be running five minutes behind what is right now I would prefer it… It is a comical situation though…it’s annoying but he just wants to do a good job and send money home.
All of the workers on the base and all the bases around here come from the Philippines, Pakistan and other third world countries. They receive contracts to work for these global companies and leave their homes for two years to work in places like Kuwait and Iraq. They then return home two years later with savings that they could never save in their home countries. They all seem like nice people. I have yet to meet one of the workers who “admit” to speaking English…though I always suspect they speak more than they let on….it is similar to traveling to France…
After the first week I learned that there really is no “complaint department” for any areas with these foreigners. I started off by saying things like “you might not want to sneeze into that mashed potatoe tray and then serve it to soldiers...” only to then get myself in a ten minute conversation with three foreign workers who couldn't understand what I was trying to tell them..…only to be served “extra” servings of the very food I was saying was probably contaminated....
Is there anything we can send you?
The Army is providing us with virtually everything we need. My unit however, is starting a collection to help provide the soldiers with some additional luxury items to make their stay in Iraq more comfortable. I’ll be publishing a separate blog in the next couple of days with information on that effort if you are interested.
Dan
posted by Dan at 11:26 AM
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