Salty Dog 6 here

I have been here 6 days and have to say the time has gone extremely fast. We are heading back from "The Rock" a camp in the southern part of Kuwait about an hour's drive from Camp Airifjan. If I can get this done I can get an extra hour of sleep. For those that know my driving habits, NO, I'm not driving, I can't text or use the phone kuz the phone doesn't work here and no, there are no sunflower seeds.  As usual we are followed by our PSC detail and they have been great this entire stay. It is interesting to hear their perspective on on some of the groups and individuals they have been tasked to provide security for in the past.

The Rock is an Air Force base that the US shares with the Kuwait Air Force that is south of Kuwait City. There is a detachment of Red Bulls soldiers stationed there so that is why we were at an AF base. The base has a road sign like in the Movie "Mash" that states the distance to all the major locations in the US. Since there is a consignment of Minnesota soldiers assigned to The Rock, the sign reads 6740 miles to Minnesota. Of course you guessed it. I had to have my picture taken besides it. I'm sure that every American unit no matter where they were or what war they have fought in had a similar sign somewhere in their company area.

The morning started out with a church service with Chaplin Winn and then a meet and greet after the service for solders to stop by for some coffee and a chance eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee to visit.  All these e's are the results of dozing off in the SUV on the way back. We are on the way back. Sorry about that

The other group that we had an opportunity to speak with was the senior officers of the Air Force that run" the Rock". We are usually not around the other sister services and each base tends to identify certain branches of the service. The Rock, (Air Force), Airifjan, (Army), Virginia (Army)

Most of the soldiers that I speak with are young and you can see the pride that they have when I tell them that they are very special for what they are doing for our country. I know that I am getting old when they all look so young for what they are doing. You cannot help to imanage looking at some of these young men and women that tomorrow they well be sitting behind a 50 cal machine gun in a vehicle on a road somewhere in Iraq providing fire power for their buddies and a convoy. Most people will never know what they are doing or what they have done and they do not think it is a big deal.

I would be a missed if as a formed soldier I did not comment about the food and its quality. The food has been and will always be one of the greatest sources of complaining and on the other side of psychology one of the biggest morale building tools any Army has. General Grant (Civil War) once said that "an army travels on its stomach", disrupt the food source and you disrupt the army... You can work soldiers pretty hard and if they have good food/chow, the complaints concerning everything goes down. There is a direct correlation between the morale of the troops and their food. Go figure. Wrestlers get this.