Merry Christmas!

First of all my apologies to everyone for not updating this in a LONG time. This site has been blocked on the military computers, I can only access it when I get to "civilian" internet, which is rare.

Today is Christmas though, so that's pretty rare to, only one time every 365 days.

I am happy to let you all know that there are more pictures online, and a site where I AM able to update regularly.

So without further adieu, I would ask that you all point your browsers to:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattdavis77

If you click there it should work. Thank you all for the emails, packages, and letters. You have all seriously helped boost morale and make our lives more comfortable.

Please leave comments on the photos over on flickr, I like to know what you all think!

Matt

History in the making

The MV-22 Osprey making her first combat flights. That is one impressive bird. I love it, don't want to fly in anything else now, i'm spoiled.

A close second to the Osprey is the amazing MRAP! This one known as the Cougar. These things save lives, no doubt about it. We have one here that has been through an IED hit, besides the holes through the sheetmetal fenders and an impact to the bullet proof glass all it needed was a new tire and it was back on the road with NO INJURIES to the occupants! As much as I love the HMMWV's, they must go, get more MRAPs! They still have that new "Armored Vehicle Smell"!

How to keep in touch?

I realized that not everyone knows how to contact me, so, for starters anyone is more than welcome to leave comments on blogposts here (leave your email address!), I read them all. If you want to send emails you can either send them to my band account Matt@YYRband.com or you can send them my official email address here in Iraq Matthew.Davis@aa.mnf-wiraq.usmc.mil obviously it's easier to get me by using the official address, but please refrain from sending anything that might be viewed as objectionable or obscene. However, feel free to send all the naked woman pics you want to the band email! I must specify that any pics should be of women, never know what CO might send!

If you want to mail me anything, again, you are more than welcome the address is as follows:

GySgt Davis, Matthew J.
3/23 H&S Co. Comm Plt.
Unit 73143
FPO AE 09509-3142

All mail shipments will be checked by customs, so please, no alcohol in the mail if caught in shipment it'll get us both in trouble.

We do have a small store here that provides for most of our essentials ie. hygiene gear, socks, etc. so i'm pretty well set on everything I "need" to get by, but feel free to send whatever you want.

Hope everyone is doing well, looking forward to hearing from you all, take care!

Matt

First Post From Iraq

What a long strange trip it's been. Not sure exactly how long i've been here, nine days I think. We flew out of March Air Force Base in California and stopped in Topeka, KS; Redford, IL; Keflavik, Iceland; Hahn, Germany; and Camp Virginia, Kuwait before flying into Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. Here's a few pics from the trip, I didn't take out my camera until Kuwait, so no pics of Iceland or Germany, not like it matters, we didn't leave the holding area at the airports.

This is one of the guys I work with, Tim (GySgt Blanchard) passed out on one of our stops on the way here. I just thought it was funny with him holding the two M4 Rifles passed out.

This is me, just kind of standing around in Kuwait. Can't really tell from the picture, but the sand in Camp Virginia is about the consistency of baby powder. Every time you step it poofs up around your boots, the sand gets everywhere, nothing you can do about it. To make matters even more fun around 10 am every morning the wind starts blowing, and doesn't stop until late at night, so it's a constant sandstorm that doesn't make for much fun. They do have a nice PX though.

This is the dam. I'll be your dam guide. What you see is when they open the damn dam. No idea how damn tall the dam is, but it's pretty dam high. In the background you can see one side of the dam buildings, that go up eleven floors and each floor is pretty dam tall, so it's pretty dam big. They've opened the dam twice since i've been here, pretty dam nice site. Stinks a little though! This pic was taken from right behind my tech shop.

This is a view from the top of the dam. In the distance you can see a few of the cities we're responsible for. Hard to make them out during the day though, everything here is the same color. The flag you see tells us the heat index, or Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, obviously I took the picture early morning because it doesn't take long for the black flag to come out.

That's where I work, down there at the bottom! You can see some of the Marines going about their business. and the 7 Ton truck parked in front of the shop. Towards the right of the pic you can see the ramp behind the building we use to walk up to the top, it's quicker than the stairs, but let me tell you, my legs are going to be huge when I get home. My desk is at the back of that "building" so I sit right next to the river.

For now i'll leave you with this picture of Chuck Norris and myself in our chow hall inside the dam. That stupid grin on my face? I asked Chuck if he wanted to wrestle and they snapped the picture while I was still laughing.

Just remember these two things.

1) There is no chin under Chuck Norris' beard, just another fist.

2) There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live.

As promised, the usual gear set...

Twentynine Palms actually does have some nice sunsets. One of the few things here, other than some damn good training, that is worthwhile. Anyhow, what you see me wearing here is the normal gear set minus my patrol pack which was in the HMMWV. I'll list most of what the gearset is here.

MTV (New body armor) - 34 lbs

M4 Carbine rifle w/ 210 NATO 5.56 Ball rounds - 21.5 lbs

Beretta 9mm Handgun w/ 45 rounds - approx 10 lbs with holster and accesories

PAQ-2 Infrared spotting system (on rifle) - weight unknown

Surefire tactical flashligt (on rifle) - 1 lb

ACOG scope (on rifle) - weight unknown

Camelback with 1/2 gallon of water - 4.3 lbs

Kevlar (helmet) - 3.1 lbs

Then of course all of the other Personal Protective Equipment - (gloves, ballistic glasses and goggles, etc.)

Total weight - approx 75 lbs.

Yes, it was 107 degrees out when this picture was taken. Ahhh, the glamorous life of a United States Marine.

Doing really good out here in the Stumps. Training is going well, ready to roll so I can get back home to you all! Need some stage time too!

So it finally begins....

Twentynine Palms..... I can't believe i'm back in this place. Quite honestly i'd rather be in Iraq, it's cooler there right now. Besides the fact that the sooner I get over there the sooner I get home. Plus i'd get to see water.

Anyhow, what you're seeing here is the view from outside the fence of the Comm shop, we have to have the fence since we have Crypto equipment and what not in use. The base of the mountains is all training area, ranges and what not, so it can get loud here at times.


It's gotten over 110 a few times since we've been here, but for the most part it's been cooler than normal, if you can consider anything over 100 degrees cool that is.





This is the entrance to the comm shop, Sgt. Vernazza, one of my techs, is crouched down having a smoke. You can see some of the cables running out to our antennas, we have seven VHF antennas, about 20 feet high, takes four Marines to put up, 5 SatCom antennas, and some vehicle mounted antenna that we mounted to 2x4's and zip tied them to the top of the fence poles to get better line of sight for the transmissions.









This is what it looks like inside the Comm Shop. Normally there would be a lot more gear in here, but it was almost all checked out at the time. This is where I have been spending my days on the rare times I can get out of the sun and relax. The only thing that sucks about getting out of the sun is that it's hotter inside!

Me and one of my techs spent a day making AC ducting since we were supposed to get an AC for the shop. We made those ducts out of trash bags, cardboard, and duct tape. Nothing you can't make with plenty of duct tape and a little Marine ingenuity. They gave us an AC that is only supposed to cool 500 Cubic feet though, so it doesn't do anything.

Anyhow, I just bought a new camera to take with me, so I will be posting more photos as I get them. I wish I had bought it before the AAV's and the Tanks had rolled through, that's ok, we've got a Fire Support excercise coming up, hopefully I can get out to our re-trans site and get some pics of the guns going off.

I'm going to try and get some pics of some of the new gear we've been issued, the new Flak jacket and the M4 Carbine in particular. If I can i'll put on our normal patrol load so you all can get an idea of what it's like to go on a dismounted patrol.

I'll be updating this every few days, it's just a lot easier to put all this here and give the address to those interested than it is to try and type twenty different emails. Feel free to keep sending me emails, I will post my new email address here and the new mailing address for Iraq as well. So keep checking back, feel free to leave comments and shoot me a message anytime.

Matt - Matt@yyrband.com or mathew.davis@usmc.mil