And I'm still at BIAP (which is Baghdad International Airport for those of you who don't pay attention to previous posts where I explain the terminology, and then accuse me of using opaque vocabulary. You know who you are.)

My tale of woe? Myself and the other guys from ANTB (An Numaniyah Training Base, again for the attention span-challenged among you) who had left to go on leave caught a bird (flying device) out of LZ (Landing Zone - where a helicopter lands) Washington to go to BIAP and hopefully catch a plane to Kuwait.

When I arrived at the terminal, I showed them my leave form and told them my leave starts on the 12^th. "When do I fly?" I asked the person behind the counter. And the person there politely informed me to be back at the terminal the morning of the 12^th, which is when I will fly.

The 12^th?? But my leave starts on the 12^th! I'm supposed to already be at home on the 12^th! Well, a few phone calls later and it turns out the beginning date on your leave request is the day you fly out of BIAP (see above if you've forgotten what it means already). However, your actual chargeable leave does not start until you arrive in the United States. With all the travel delays and processing bureaucracy crap you have to go through to get back to the States, God knows when that may be. 16 days later, your leave is over and you start working on getting back to Iraq.

So what does this all mean? Well, for one, I have six days of sitting around Baghdad with nothing to do. So myself and the other guys here with me decided to head over to Camp Victory and chill out for a while until our flight dates arrive. And to be honest, it's not really that bad. It's essentially six free days off with no one supervising me. Read, go running, hop on the internet. Whatever.

Secondly, it means I probably won't be home until the 14^th or so. So if you were making plans, adjust accordingly. The flip side is that I will be staying beyond the 26^th, which is cool.

My prediction? By the time I get done with all the travel time and paperwork and in/out processing, I will have been away from my job here for at least a month. Don't you love the efficiency? It takes a month (at least) to send a person home on 2 weeks vacation.

Stuff like this is why I love being in the Army. Seriously. Once you learn the system, oh baby! You can work it for all it's worth.

I'm here at the LZ by the U.S. Embassy, LZ Washington. Gonna catch a helicopter to BIAP, and who knows what happens from there. I think I have to check in there and see when they can get me on a plan to Kuwait. It would be nice if I could get a flight soon and just kill time in Kuwait, but I have a feeling I'm going to sit around BIAP for several days waiting for a plane.

I got to do a little sight seeing around the Green Zone. There are a number of us from An Numaniyah who are all going on leave or pass at the same time, which means we all caught the same bird out of ANTB to come to Baghdad.

After dinner, we went over to the parade grounds where evidently Saddam used to hold his parades (appropriately enough). I had been there before but we had never gotten up close. We had always just seen it from a distance. Since the last time I had been here six months ago the area has become a little more touristy. I got to climb up inside one of the hands holding the gigantic swords over the parade route.

We also got to go up onto the Iraqi Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. If you haven't seen pictures, the thing is huge. It's not a little tomb like the memorial we have in Washington. It's a huge stadium sized structure. I think I have some pics posted over on Yahoo Photos. I took a bunch of pics but since I'm in Baghdad I don't have access to the internet to post them.

Fun day all in all!

I took the first leg of my trip home for mid-tour leave today. I was able to catch a helicopter from An Numaniyah to Baghdad, which is where I'm currently at. I'm not entirely sure of the whole process, but at some point in need to get to BIAP (Baghdad International Airport) and from there catch a plan to Kuwait. Once in Kuwait, I catch the plane to the States. I should be in Rochester some time on the 11^th.

So soon enough, I should be sitting in my living watching my TV, as well as doing other things *BWAHAHAHAHA*

See you all soon!

So, for those of you who haven't caught on yet, the bit about going to Afghanistan was an April Fools story. I haven't heard anything about going anywhere but Iraq between now and the end of my deployment.

Hope you all had a nice April Fools day!

Well, we got some interesting news today out of Baghdad last night. With all the recruiting and training that has been going on over the past several months since the 98th Division arrived in Iraq, it seems the powers that be are satisfied that the Iraqi army is able to stand as it is. Not that all the American forces are going to leave, but they feel like the Iraqi army is sufficiently recruited and trained. With the support of American combat forces to back them up the leadership in Baghdad feels that there is no more need to further train new troops. The result? The 98th Division (of whom I'm a part) is leaving Iraq probably some time in late May or early June.

However, since the mission to train up the Iraqi army went so much better than was planned, they are drawing up orders to send us to Afghanistan. I guess the reasoning is that since the Iraq mission is pretty well in hand but we still have time left on our deployment, may as well take advantage of all these people they have called up and train up the Afghani army. It costs a lot of money to deploy a division so they want to make maximum use of the 98th while they're over in the middle east.

More news to come as I get word, but it looks to me like I'm going to get at least one of the recruiting promises - I'm going to see the world! Bagram, here I come.