07NOV06 dispatch from Army LT Josh Arthur, CC04

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Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 22:05:32 +0300
From: "Joshua Arthur"
Subject: Greetings from Kuwait!

All,

Well, first thing's first: I apologize for not writing sooner! I
still owe many of you more personal responses from your replies to
my last e-mail; announcements of marriage and the like, I think,
warrant more than a mass e-mail in return. I'll do so when I get
up to Baghdad - remind me! Hopefully you all haven't been worrying
about me just yet; Kuwait isn't exactly the most dangerous place in
the world, particularly here in the middle of the desert. But I'm
doing well, and greetings from this oasis that is Camp Buehring,
Kuwait! I kid, but although we are smack in the middle of nowhere,
this place does have just about anything one could want: Burger
King, Taco Bell, Baskin-Robbins, Subway, a 24-hour gym, multiple
internet cafes, multiple AT&T calling centers, a pool room, etc.,
etc. Life, on the whole, is not bad, and there are plenty of
offerings for soldiers to waste their time (and money) while
they're not busy doing other things.

We arrived the night of the 22nd after leaving around noon on the
21st, stopping in Bangor, ME and in Germany on the way. The
reception in Bangor was amazing. There's a group of volunteers
there made up mostly of veterans and their wives who keep track of
military flights passing through, either to or from theater, and
the volunteers form a reception line to greet the soldiers (or
sailors, airmen, or marines) as they come off the plane and wish
them well as they re-board. It was pretty humbling, even though
I'd been told beforehand about the group.

Here at Camp Buehring, we've been principally concerned with final
training, classes, and familiarization before we head up north to
Baghdad. Things were fairly hectic in the first few days after
arrival; we spent lots of time at ranges located, if possible, even
more in the middle of nowhere. In the past week or so things have
calmed down, and at this point, quite frankly, everyone is just
eager to get out of this place, get to Baghdad, and find some place
to call home for the next year. There's lots of sitting around,
playing video games, watching movies, reading books, and going to
use the phones and internet.

Accomodations aren't fantastic here, but they're not spartan. We
live in large tents with dozens of guys per tent. The tents are
semi-permanent, have wooden floors, and have A/C, so don't think of
us under some olive drab canvas things flapping in the wind, blowing
sand everywhere. In that respect, things are just fine. There's a
certain funk that is unavoidable after two and a half weeks with 60
guys living together, but things could certainly be worse. There
are shower trailers with running water (hot water, on occasion) and
sinks, and there port-o-johns as latrines all over the place. You
can get a feel for the landscape from the attached photos.

For the most part, though, it's just waiting at this point.
Everyone's eager to go, get up to Liberty, and get somewhat settled
as we begin the next year. Don't worry; I'll be sure to update
everyone once I get up to Baghdad to let you know how things are at
Liberty; chances are they'll be a good deal better than here in
Kuwait, believe it or not. In the meantime, some of you may be
happy to hear that we were given our mailing address the other day!
Now, a caveat: I'm not sure this address is 100% correct. This is
the latest one we have, but it's already changed once. As long as
the APO doesn't change, though, then mail should find its way at
least to the battalion and then they'll get it where it needs to
be. If you're thinking of sending anything, I might suggest
waiting a few weeks until I make sure the address works with
letters and the like. But, nonetheless, here it is:

1LT Joshua Arthur
HHC 1-5 CAV
FOB Liberty
APO AE 09344

I hope you all are doing well. For the Brooke Pointers on the list,
for fun, one of the attached pictures is of me and Justin Becker at
a machine gun range - small world, huh? He's in military
intelligence in our brigade. The other pictures are of my cot
(with assorted gear), a poster in the gym at Ft. Hood that the
wives made for our platoon that we saw as we prepared to board the
plane, me re-enlisting one of my soldiers, and a random photo of PT
in the morning showing the tents in the background.

Love to all,
Josh