Nick in Kuwait

I spoke with Nick this morning (6AM my time, 2PM his time). He has arrived at the Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Kuwait. He said that he arrived in early morning and the sun was just rising - the air was dry and the perfect temp. Then the afternoon came and it was much hotter, but he said its still not too bad - sort of like at the beach, but no water. On the drive to the base, all you could see was sand in all directions, then an area with bright lights appeared - this was their destination.

Nick said the base has some of the best chow he's had, plus they have all types of restaurants there; Taco Bell, Baskin Robins, even a Panda Express type restaurant. And to top it off, the PX (Post Exchange, like a Military WalMart) had Monster Drinks -- YEA!! It sounds like he would rather be stationed in Kuwait than in Alaska ;)

After they got off the plane, they all loaded on to a nice big bus and headed through the desert to the base. They made a stop along the way for everyone to get out and stretch their legs, and get some water / Gatoraide. Nick stepped off the bus and looked around - sand everywhere - and got back on the bus to continue playing is PSP (Personal Sony PlayStation) game. The bus driver, a Kuwaiti, came up to him with a water bottle and made hand-gestures asking if he could cut the top of the bottle with a knife to make a glass. Nick pulls out his knife and waits for the bus driver to hand him the bottle. The driver wants to take the knife and do it himself. Nick said they stood there for a moment and he thought, "Oh, HELL no". So he took the bottle from the guy and cut the top off, then gave it back to the driver. Nick said, "We were the only two on the boss, don't know who the Hell this is, I'm not going to hand him my knife!".

They will be in Kuwait for 3-4 weeks doing additional training, so we will probably here from him again. He is using a calling card to call us ($0.21/min) and he can get on a computer with internet access for $5/hr. If anyone is interested in purchasing pre-paid calling cards for Nick, the cheapest I found for calling from Kuwait / Iraq is the AT&T AAFES card (https://thor.aafes.com/scs/default.aspx).