Tobiasly’s Blog

Just figured I’d send another email to everyone to let you know what’s up. I’ve been kinda bad about getting back to people lately, but hopefully I’ll have some time tonight to send out some more replies.

A fire swept through the camp where we live today (see story — none of my company’s tents were among them, thankfully). I guess an electrical fire started in one tent and quickly spread to the others. 21 tents in all were destroyed. These are large, 50-person tents that they rent from the Kuwaitis, and I guess they’re sprayed with some sort of waterproofing chemical that is pretty flammible. It’s a good thing it happened during the day, or there might have been lots of people trapped in them while they slept. No one was hurt this time.

Still no word on when we’ll be coming home. The worst-case scenario is still November, which won’t change, but we’re still hoping that it will be sooner than that. I’ll be taking a week of leave to Frankfurt, Germany at the end of August, and Elizabeth will fly over to meet me. So we will be able to spend our anniversary together after all, although not quite what we were planning!

All in all, things are still pretty much the same over here. We will likely be in the same place, doing the same mission until we come home. We have gotten official confirmation that we have been awarded the Combat Infantry Badge for our time in Iraq during the war, which is a highly-revered award throughout the army, so we’re pretty happy about that.

Since it looks like we’ll indeed be here for a while longer, I won’t complain if people want to start sending packages again. :) The usual goodies are still the best — snack foods, cookies, drink mixes, stuff like that. I (and my buddies) all really like the Crystal Light mixes because fake sugar takes up a lot less room than the real stuff! Raspberry Ice still seems to be the favorite. We’re doing fine on toiletries, hand sanitizer, etc. now that we’re back in semi-civilization (the PX here stays pretty well-stocked), but if anyone wants to send some that’s fine too!

Well, there’s really not any more news from this end, but keep in touch and I’ll try to do better about getting back to everyone!