Any idea how many people read these? Here’s a new one for you:

Prisoner abuse. Huge scandal in the media and the international community. I don’t know what goes on in there, and I’ve only seen the detention center a few times. I’m not going to argue that it didn’t happen in the past, but I think the government/military is trying to make sure it doesn’t happen now. I was talking to a corpsman (Navy doctor) the other day who works in the detention center. He said that before any interview, they’re looked over and photographed by a doctor. They do the same thing afterwards to make sure nothing happened. He also said that any prisoner who is “wrongfully detained” and then released gets paid $6 a day for being in there. That may not sound like a lot to us, but I bet it’s a good amount to the Iraqis.

I also talked to some civilian contractors yesterday. These guys are responsible for fixing the X-Ray trucks they keep outside of every gate. They get paid over $200,000 a year while they’re out here. Even the guy that fixes generators, basically a diesel engine mechanic, makes $125,000. If you want to make some money, be a civilian in a combat zone. There’s one downside though, they don’t get to carry weapons. The X-Ray guys were on the recovery teams last year, which means if a truck or something couldn’t make it back to base they would go out with a wrecker and tow it. A soft-sided wrecker, no armor. And they weren’t allowed to carry guns. Screw that. Granted, they did have Marines escort them, but they’re still absolutely nuts.

One of the interesting things around here is the Third Country Nationals (TCNs). We have Ethiopians in the PX, Ugandans doing internal security, and all kinds of translators (I’ve met a Brazilian and a Moroccan). The Ugandans are some funny guys. They speak just enough English to make jokes, and they’re real friendly. The only thing I resent them for is their weapons. They’re carrying around the new M4, while almost all the Marines have the (very) old M16-A2.

Here’s some pictures. I’ll have quite a few more soon.

The first one is the Kuwait USO. The one with 3 people in the middle of nowhere is our remote sensor site. The one of the sun is…a pic of the sun. The one with the tents was our temporary billeting when we first got here. Here’s one of me with my birthday “cake” (power bar).

I’ll have some more in the next couple days to go with the next update.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Thanks to everyone who reads these