I’m definitely back in Balad. All day I was reminded of the little nuances of living here. It seems like every five minutes there’s some type of announcement of an indirect fire attack. Back in Camp Liberty there could be rounds impacting nearby and you’d never hear any announcements. Here in Anaconda you never hear anything except the announcements. It’s no wonder why nobody ever pays attention to them. Well, I mean the AF pays attention to them – they’re always in a state of panicky confusion. Everyone else just ignores the IDF announcements.
Another aspect of living in Balad is the traffic jams. These normally result from the massive convoys that are always coming and going. When one arrives or departs the roads are blocked so the trucks can pull into the staging areas. There may be 100 or more trucks in any given convoy (not including escort vehicles). If you get caught by a convoy you might wait for an hour for the whole thing to get off the road. Normally, I always leave myself an “out” so I can seek a bypass. Sometimes getting caught is unavoidable.
Believe it or not, Anaconda has traffic police. These are hard-core pipe hittin’ AF mother fuckers (I’m being facetious here). They set up speed-traps, pull you over for illegal U-turns, and anything else they can hassle unsuspecting Army personnel with. It’s a good thing they do it too. There’s a war on here. The last thing we need is for people to be speeding at LSA Anaconda – especially us Army pukes. Thank god for the AF ensuring that traffic laws are obeyed.
Balad is kind of like a theme park in the middle of Iraq. I don’t know why there is such a concentrated attempt to make it seem like a normal military base back home. The more they try the more ridiculous it comes across.
Yeah, I’m back in Balad now.
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