Christmas in Iraq 2010

Merry Christmas everybody!! This is my little tree in my room that my dear sweet wife mailed to me. It was not a bad Christmas this year. I was able to get on skype and watch my little man open his presents on his 2nd Christmas. His Grandpa & Grandma Hazard got him this really cool fire truck that is big enough for him to ride on, and of course he loved it. But like most children he seemed to really enjoy the wrapping paper the best! Its good to know we have such great family that help and support us when we are apart. It was great to talk to everyone in Texas and talk to most of my brothers and sisters and mom and dad. Like I said its hard to do the things I do without such a strong family base, and to have that on both sides of the family is equally amazing.

So one of the local Iraqi contractors that live here on the base with us likes to cook for us occasionally. Since its Christmas and he is a christian he made a few of us officers, and my medics a traditional Iraqi dinner. Let me tell you its really good food. He has a little garden inside the compound and that's pretty much all the veggies we get around here. I have a deal with a local bakery in town that I give a few tubes of toothpaste, chap stick, lotion or kinda whatever I got lying around to them and they provide me with fresh bread weekly. I like to trade, what can I say.

This is my little piece of the world, my desk in my room. Its a pretty crazy conglomeration of "stuff" but its all there for a reason to keep me happy, and of course my 2 favorite people in the whole world on my computer screen.

This is CPT Childers, one of the Company Commanders. He plays the bag pipes really well. Every morning we wake up to him playing his pipes. Its pretty cool.

So the Iraqi insurgents gave us an early Christmas present on the night before Christmas. This is a picture of the next morning taken from my bedroom window. It defiantly got the blood pumping! Oh yes that is our pool but of course that would make us happy to go swimming so it is of course off limits :-)

Here is everybody waiting in line for our wonderful Christmas dinner

Everybody excited to go eat, and meet the III Corp Commander, LTG Cone.

My Commander and I getting ready to serve the troops. It was actually pretty good. Problem was we usually don't get that much food all the time so our eyes were defiantly bigger than our stomachs! Had to take a "Combat Nap" right after words.


Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!