GREAT First Day...

February 3, 2010 Camp Arifjan (Air-if-john)
Let’s just say we have already seen over 200+ soldiers in only 2 appearances here in Kuwait today. It is amazing to be able to make so many people smile in such a short time; and our time here has just begun!
7:30am – Met in lobby to walk to the D-Fac (dining facility) for breakfast
9:00am – Met with Luitenant Colonel Crumpton for an information session and question & answer session about Camp Arifjan and the ‘Kuwaitee’ life. That information could be pages long so I won’t go into much detail, I am learning A LOT though! Colonel Crumpton was the first to present each of us with a Certificate of Appreciation and a coin (more about the coins later but you will read about us receiving coins)

10:30am – Meet and greet and autographs in Zone 6 (where the soldiers live on base). We did this for about 1.5hours signing the and taking pictures the entire time.
12:15 – Back to the D-Fac for some lunch
2:30pm – Depart for Kuwait Naval Base (KNB). Here we signed and took pictures again for over an hour at Camp Patriot which is the US Naval base within the KNB.

We had a few minutes of down time when we returned and were able to get out of uniform and into jeans and a light jacket. Then we has a special evening that was planned for us… the ‘transportation soldiers’ (the ones who drive HET – Heavy Equipment Transporters) were having a bbq and had invited us as special guests. We were got there and they cooked us steaks to order while everyone else ate hot dogs and hamburgers. There were probably close to 60+ at the bbq. Then we were given the chance to ride in an HET. It was amazing and I almost convinced them to let me drive one. We even hung from a soldiers arms; he flexed and Ashley and I each grabbed on to an arm and literally hung from his arms!

As we were leaving the bbq they actually had a little ceremony to recognize us and give us a visor and t-shirt from their group. I then stepped up and let them all know how honored we were to be invited to be a part of their group and how much we and all other Americans truly appreciate what they are doing. Not gonna lie, I got a little choked up. It’s just crazy what we ‘normal people’ can do for the soldiers simply by being labeled as a Texans Cheerleader and having the opportunity to come over here. One soldier put it to me this way ‘Everyday here is like ground hog day. We wake up and the day looks the same, everything is the exact same and it all just runs together. When you all come out here you create a new day for everyone who crosses your path. Words can not explain what you being here does for the morale of this entire base’. I was told this trip would be rewarding, but to hear a soldier put it that way gave me goose bumps. We have yet to even get to the soldiers who really have to ‘rough it’ it Iraq.

Our departure for Iraq is very detailed and pretty crazy but I’m not able to explain until I am there. Just know I should be in northern Iraq some time tomorrow to continue our extremely full daily schedule and we will be landing combat style, I have referred to it as a ‘dive landing’, just learning the lingo!

Since everything is labeled with an acronym I’m going to start to end each of my entries with a fun fact of the day… FFD!!! (I’m a dork, I know)

FFD: Soldiers where their United States flag patch on their right shoulder but the flag is actually flipped. The stars are in the upper right hand corner instead of upper left hand corner. This is because when they are moving forward they want to be lead by the stars of the flag. Of course we asked, ‘why not put it on the left shoulder then?’ never really got a clear answer, some things are ‘just because’ around here!

God Bless!