Camp Warrior, Kirkuk Iraq

Hey everyone,

I guess my blog is dead for now because I can upload any images from Camp Warrior, the only Internet access if from the Internet Cafe.

This place is much different than Camp Anaconda. We are staying in a transit tent, about 20 beds, no bathroom or shower, its all down the road. The one good thing is that its not full. Only about 5 people in it an 3 are from my company so thats not to bad. But its definitely roughin it. We finally got to work today after about a week in country so hopefully we can bang this survey out and get the hell out of here. Hope everyone is doing good. Ill try to write again soon.

Pat

More from Anaconda part 2

Those are the guard towers, these 2 are right outside our camp. They are located about 1000 ft. apart all around the perimeter. I think I saw an M-60 Machine gun mounted in one of them so you know they carry some heavy firepower.

This is a Saddam Era bunker. The reason why the US developed those huge bunker buster missiles. These are located all over the camp. Im not sure if we are using them or not.

Now this is the coolest thing Ive seen yet. That big white bubble is a radar tower, That thing that looks like a bar sticking out of the front of it is a Machine Gun. These are defense system located all over the camp to stop incoming mortars, the radar pics them up from up to a mile away and machine gun blows them out of the sky. I havent seen it in action but I think thats for the best.

This is an MRAP (Mine Resistant Armor Proctection) it is the new form of ground transportation for most soldiers. They are everywhere around here. The military plans to replace all Humvees with these baby and if you take one look at there record you can see why. MRAPs have taken more than 300 blasts for IED's without the lose of a single life. Thats amazing.


Here is a random shot of the Post Office. They say the most important things to a solider are food, weapon, and mail.

After week of down time here at Anaconda I think we may actually get out of here tonight. Hopefully, but who knows. I will update again when we get to Warrior.

More from Anaconda

Thats my room.... nothing special

There are some of the cool stacked trailer rooms.....

Here is the bunker outside my room... just in case we get shelled.

I just thought this ash tray was cool....





Here is one of our building helmets.... thats what the soliders call them lol.



Heres a humvee convey that almost ran us off the road.




and finally just some random shots of the outer perimeter.

Stop 3 - Camp Anaconda, Balad Iraq

So like I mentioned yesterday we left Camp Victory at 11:45 on Saturday on a C-130 Military Transport (see below) . This was the flight from hell... The pilot flew this thing like it was a fighter jet and Im sure you can tell by the pic that it was not a fighter jet. He was tossing us all over the place and everyone pretty much knows how I am with motion sickness but thanks to Auntie Erins Bonine I was able to barely... and I mean barely keep my lunch down.

The next pic is of me all geared up in my vest and helmet before the flight took off... notice I have color in my cause when I landed I was pale as a ghost. You should have seen the guy across from me he was so nervous I was gonna barf all over him and honestly so was I because I didnt think I was gonna make it to ground but they opened the rear hatch just in time and I got some fresh and calmed down a little.

We arrived at our destination, Camp Anaconda around 5:30 after a couple of stop along the way. Im taking a rough guess but the tac mark in the pic below is where I believe we are on the base. The place is huge. There are 70,000 people stationed here, mostly army and navy and almost 10,000 third country nationals. It is like a city, they have 2 Pizza Huts, 2 Mcdonalds, 2 Subways, a movie theater, a church, a fire station, an olymipc size swimming pool, you name it they got it. (See Below , the scale kind sucks but you can tell by the airstrip just how big of a Camp we are talking about here)

It is dark now so I cant really get any good shots of Camp but I will upload some more of those tomorrow. Till then.....

Stop 2- Camp Victory, Bagdad

Here are some pics of what I got to see of Bagdad. We landed at 10 P.M. Friday the 3rd and left at 11:45 A.M. Saturday so there isnt much. Just the trailer that was my room and some shots of the contractors camp. Check it out!

First Stop - Kuwait

Here are some shitty picutre of our first stop.

The Crown Plaza Hotel in Kuwait City, Kuwait.

I guess Kuwaity's dont like having there picture taken so I was told to keep my camera out of sight so that is why there are so few pictures but here was I got so far with many more to come.

I promise Ill try to be a better photographer .

Enjoy!!!

Tomororw I will upload some pics from Bagdad.