Merry Christmas from Iraq

Merry Christmas from Iraq!
As you all know I am deployed to Iraq this year. I wanted to give you all an update on myself since I am so terrible at updating my blog. For those who have not seen it, check it out: whitneydeployed.blogspot.com
Even that I am not at home life goes on there. This last year has been interesting both here and back there. Jenn has really taken charge and is doing excellent as the head of household. We had Ava in June, Carson turned 4 in August and Erin turned 6 in September. And sadly I urned 30 in April, April 28th and if those that don't know that is also Saddam Hussein's birthday. That has got to be the weirdest birthday I have ever had. One for being my 30th and mostly for being in Iraq on the day that "used to" be the most celebrated day here. The insurgents celebrated my birthday with some fireworks, they started and we "ended" it! :) Most of my time has been taking care of business here. For the last couple months I have been our Company Motor Sgt. What that means is, I take care of everything they break, or at least have one of my handy dandy high-speed mechanics fix it. I shouldn't really call them mechanics; we have become really good friends. It will be sad to say good bye when it is time to go our own ways. But the best thing is that we have fun doing our jobs. And about 4 months ago we started making a short movie. It was more of a stress reliever than anything. We had fun making it in our time off and during our many smoke breaks. Our goal was to get it done in time to show it at our unit's Christmas Party. We ran into so many problems in editing I didn't think we were going to be able to do it, but luckily we did and it was worth it. I think our fellow soldiers in the company liked it. There are a bunch of inside jokes that they caught so that was great. We had the last week to fine tune it and build a menu for the DVD that we have it on. I have even
had time to put a website for it, check it out: www.afbmthemovie.com
On the site you should be able to at least watch the trailer and some special features Klinge and Meadows have put together. It is a bit rough right now until I build it up, but you should be able to get the idea and make sure you check it out weekly. The site is also a way that we can release our other projects and stay in touch with each other as with all of you. While I was on leave they started recording an album of cover songs. They call themselves "The Unoriginals". Klinge and Meadows are the musicians in the group but they have Barrett and our adopted mechanic/finance clerk Boll
singing. Wow what a team!!! Meadows has original material that he writes which is awesome. Before we started making the movie he started recording an album on his laptop. I have asked him to post some of his work on the website when he is ready so look for that. Well I think I have said enough for now. I hope you all have the best holiday season and a great New Year.

Mike Whitney
Camp Taji, Iraq

Back from R&R, Part 1

I was blessed with the chance to enjoy 3 weeks away from Taji and spend 15 days with the family back in Kansas. I was feeling frazzled the last couple weeks and did not think I could make it another 4 months in country. I was one of the last in our unit to go and I have to say I was lucky that I left when I did. I left right when the assault on Fallujah was starting so I wasn't sure if they would cancel leave. They didn't, thank God, but with the build up of troops around Fallujah the insurgents relocated. I guess since Taji is about an hour away some picked it. There was an increase of rocket and mortar attacks in the days I was leaving and the day I left country I think there was 6 or 7 just during daylight hours. A couple landed right across the street where I was waiting to leave for the Flightline. Yeah Close!!! It was time to go!!!! It was also during Ramadan, that probably had something to do with it. Ramadan is Rockets And Mortars All Day and Night :)
Once home I had a great time, with everyone. My kids were awesome to come home to. Especially Ava, I was over here when she was born so we met and got to know each other pretty good. Well I have to cut this one short because I have a meeting to go to. I will finish up Part 2 in a day or two.

Pretty Cool Deal

I want everyone to check this out I have done the research and saw a spot on Tech TV about this. It is hard to believe that they are giving away free iPods but once you see that you have to do a little work for it you will believe it. Tell you some things I have found and it will make it easier on you:
-Say no to all the single offers during the survey, when you see a group of like 10+, ie. Blockbuster Online, BMG Music, My Daily Dose, choose one of those.
-About all you have to do is pay shipping on one of the offers that they offer you, I personally thought the 7 day vitamins were the easiest to complete. It was the cheapest thing I could find and it took the least amount of time for them to credit your freeiPod deal. The catch is in order
to get the offer you have to sign up for a monthly dose of vitamins, it says you must cancel the subscription in 14 days not to be charged for a monthly
subscription. I am waiting until I get the credit in my Free iPod account, which they said it should be 1-2 days.
-On TechTV they said that half of them had received the iPod and they other had not. They called up the CEO and he spoke with them and he said they are getting slammed hard with all the people completing the offer and they are just behind with sending out all the iPods. It should take 4-6 weeks to get the iPod. If you all ready have an iPod they have a iTunes $250 gift
certificate to shop for music. I don't normally forward stuff like this out but I think it is a pretty cool thing if you can get 5 other people to try it themselves. Make sure you use the like so I can get credit for my Ipod.
Thanks for reading
Mike
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Hey-
Check out this great site that is giving away totally free iPods! I've joined and I think you should as well. It's a completely legitimate offer, and this company has already given away $4 million in free stuff!
All you have to do is join, complete an online offer, and refer friends to do the same. That's it!
Here is my referral link. To help me get my iPod, click this exact link to join, or copy and paste it into a browser:
http://www.freeiPods.com/?r=12136390

on msn messenger

I have internet access and MSN running most of the time. Be sure to look me up @ whitneydeployed@hotmail.com
And more good news!!! The Army decided to finally pay me for the extra duty as an NCO :) Yes they made me a SGT! That was one of my goals when I first enlisted, so I guess I can cross that off my list.
When I first thought I had regular access I told people I would write more, so I hope updating my blog more often helps with that. I will be uploading pictures to it soon, so stay tuned. For the people who are receiving this in email, check out what you are missing
---> http://whitneydeployed.blogspot.com

As of now only 3 or 4 months to go!!!

Hola Again!

Yeah, I know, finally a post right! Yes I have been slacking, but just on posting. We have been so busy the last 3 months. First it started because "Higher HQ" decided to take 9 of our soldiers and station them somewhere else. Mistake!!! Now Postal Operations is slammed with incoming and outgoing mail, mostly outgoing. So we are taking up the slack by taking charge of the Haji guard at the Post Office. When it first started Klinge and I were taking turns doing it. Now when I say doing Haji guard we start by going out to the gate around 7:30 in the morning to pick up the Local Nationals (Hajis). After waiting an hour in line to get them checked in we take them to the post office to work. They are putting in tile, painting and installing AC units there. Suppose to take 2 weeks, yeah we are on Day 22! They are good people and hard workers, finishing up around 5:00. Then back to the gate to sign them out, thank Allah, God or whoever Wiccans worship, that it only takes 15 mins to sign them out.
Just to update you on everything:
~The unit's barracks are now trailers, so now most everyone is in a two man room. That is got to be one of the best things that has happened to us since we got here.
~The motorpool had it's first soldier go on R & R, congrats to Spec Ricky Barrett for going home to see his wife and new baby. Spec Meadows and Spec Buchanan are also on leave but not before we filmed a short movie
~The motorpool filmed a short movie, oh I guess I already said that. Nothing special, just a movie that makes fun of us and how serious we take our jobs here.
~We have a tentative date to return to the states, "Drumroll, please" End of February
~I am working on my next video to send out to who ever wants it, It is my 3 video. I know that you all are saying, "Hey wait, I never got #2". That is because the postal system lost the spindle of DVD+R discs, imagine that!.

Well in closing I promise to update update update. Today I realized that it's not just family and friends reading this, a freelance writer from Wired.com wrote me today and said he has been reading my blog. So that was cool to know that my life is interesting even to normal people in the world. Oops, ok everyone that made the face, you all are normal too. Wait except for my sister Kelli, she is living in Florida just waiting for a Hurricane to take her away.
Adios

selfish @ssholes

I just waited an hour to use the phone and about the only thing that happened was one guy used the phone for over 40 minutes. The limit on phone use is 20 minutes and this guy calls home every other day. I call home once a week, sometimes twice but I never go over my time. I talk to Jenn and my 2 kids within that 20 minutes. I guess he is the type of person that has to vent his whole day over the phone. I suppose I should feel sorry for the person he is talking to on the other end. Yawn Yawn! But still if I am going to vent my whole day, I would do it in an email not a "20 minute" call.

Meals on Wheels

Some people will probably never understand this, hell I don't even understand it... One morning at breakfast I grabbed a plate for a guy that stayed back in the motor pool. It just had a couple breakfast burritos and nothing else. Riding back to the MP I decided that one of these mornings I was going to just chuck one of these burritos at someone we pass by. Well it didn't take but 5 seconds to find the first victim. Spec Fletcher and Spec McNeese pulled up next to us to give us something another soldier had left in the truck they were in. I knew right there they were the first to get it. I told the guys in the truck what I was going to do and they just looked at me bewildered. The Target followed close just being annoying so it was an easy shot. I side-armed the burrito from the front seat out the back of our Humvee. SPLAT! It had hit the window in the middle of the support and was laying on their hood. McNeese grabbed it off the hood and tried to throw it back but it was low and to the outside. It was a great start to my already half-over day. I didn't hear it but I guess Fletcher let out a short high pitch scream when she saw it coming. And I heard that McNeese couldn't understand why I would waste a perfectly good burrito. All in the name fun McNeese!