Man, the internet here in Kuwait blocks your site for some reason! Anyway, here's the update:

 

 

Hey everybody. I'm in Kuwait now, waiting on our flight into Iraq. The flight over here was incredible. We stopped in Bangor, Maine at 3:30 Saturday morning, and there was a group of about 20 people there to greet us and say good luck. I thought that was really neat because I don't even think I would have gotten up that early to do something like that. Now that I've been on the receiving end though, I definitely would. It's a really amazing feeling just to have someone come up to you and say thanks, and we haven't even gotten to Iraq yet!

 

Another interesting story from the flight happened in Ireland. We had a brief layover there, and now I can say I've had a Guiness in Ireland, which believe it or not was one of my goals in life :) Anyway, while we were standing around the airport drinking, this middle aged Irish couple came up and asked for us to take a picture. We thought they wanted us to take their picture, but it turns out they wanted their picture taken with us! It really is a weird feeling that I can't possibly explain. It makes me proud, but at the same time it's more than that.

 

Kuwait is pretty neat, for a dessert. The locals here are real nice to all of us, granted Uncle Sam is paying them to work here on base, but they are genuinely friendly people. As you can see, we have the internet, and there are a lot of phones around so we aren't exactly roughing it. The other Marines I'm out here with are all great, and we're all doing our best to make it fun for everybody else. So far, it's been a pretty good time. I'm not really homesick or anything like that yet. In fact, the hardest part has been knowing that the beer in Ireland is the last one for a year!