I didn't even realize what day it was. My birthday came and went. We were on a nasty little convoy to Bilad to pick up and drop off. Pretty tense, since it was a very late and very long convoy. The convoy ahead of us got shot up pretty bad, and apparently the head of of wagon train got hit right as we were leaving the gate, so the pucker factor was pretty high there for about 4 hours. Anyways, to pass the time, and keep our mind of of the fact that we were driving around in a 4 wheel coffin (SUV) we were just keeping watch and making light conversation when I we started talking about birthdays. So the guys sang happy birthday for me, kinda badly, but fun none the less.

You never really appreciate the whole male bonding experience until you have a moment like that. Three guys, just trying to stay alive, trying to keep it all together, dragging 100 foreign soldiers with us in the middle of a war zone, but singing happy birthday just to make each other feel better..

No cake though.....

Strangely enough, the days have been pretty quiet. Not a lot of new activity. Damn its been hot though. We have been pretty busy the past few days, since the change over. Convoys here and there, stuff like that. We have taken to the Iraqi habit of hanging out on the rooftop as the day goes by, people watching, talking and generally trying to escape from the heat. Its kind of funny, if you think about it. The Iraqi's do it, we do it, yet we are trying to tell each other how different we are...

There is a particularly offensive smell comming from the sewers. The base utility people switched to a new plumbing system, and I the old one wasn't designed to handle it, so now there is raw sewage floating all over the place. Wonderful country..