Life at Ar Rustamiyah

I’ve been at Rustamiyah for about 4 weeks now. It’s a small Forward Operating Base (FOB) in SE Baghdad. There are about 5000 Army troops here and a small NATO contingent of ~150. We have a small group of 14 USAF & Defense Language Institute personnel. We live w/ the NATO folks on a separate part of the base. We live in what is referred to as the “Chateau,” a nice building that completely makes the pods of Taji seems horrible. Among the NATO countries are England, Slovania, Hungary, Italy, Poland & Nepal. We have our own dining facility (DFAC) which doesn’t nearly have the variety of the US Army DFAC, but it’s OK. NATO has 2 missions here: run the Joint Staff College for senior Iraqi officer training & Iraqi Army cadet training – the equivalent of our West Point. Our AF cadets have gone through 4 months of training with the Army and then are turned over in part to us for their “academic”/AF training. The Iraqi army still runs their PT & dorms. The cadets are very respectful and intelligent. All 150 new cadets were tested for English proficiency upon entering and 52 are now being given intensive English training (all day – everyday) for 6 months in hopes of getting them proficient enough to go to pilot training in 2009. The average age is ~22 and 3 of my 12 English students are engaged to get married after their one year of training here. Most have had 1 or 2 years of college. Every day they are up at 5AM cleaning dorms, doing PT and being inspected. They receive very little water all day and that which they do receive can’t be potable. Today was the hottest day yet – 120. Very dry and when there is a breeze you feel like you’re in a convection oven. August is by far the hottest month! 94 days to go as of today – I’m at a nice time now since we’re busy and the days are clicking by. I’ll have many pictures to post, but here are three…

This is a pic of our 52 English cadets marching back after classes are over – about a 1km march. They march & salute British style from the influence of the British in the early 1900’s.
We have a post exchange (PX) - to buy stuff you need on the US Army side – I like the sign (pictured are Maj Chris Filipitz, Maj Darin Williams, Frank Durbin & myself). Trust me. No - I'm NOT fat and their not maternity fatigues!!!!
This is the rear view of an Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle now used by the US Army as a replacement for the Humvee. I hear we’re selling our old Humvees to the Iraqi’s at $11K each. Lot more to follow...