Finally made it to Baghdad!

After a horrendous night of travel (courtesy of the Air Force), I finally made it on the ground at Baghdad International Airport just before 6:00am. Very tired. We were met at the airfield by the Marine Corps officer that I am relieving. After lugging our 4 heavy sea bags each to the pickup, we were off for a quick tour of the base. First impressions: huge, lots of dirt, rocks, horrible roads, bad construction, temporary structures, etc. But then, after transiting around the airfield, you get to Camp Victory itself and while it still has all of the above, it gets "jazzed up" a little with palaces, lakes, and some date palms. The largest palace is Al Faw, headquarters for Multi-National Force - Iraq...I am sure I will post more on that one later. My branch of that staff is in another building, which is, in fact, the second largest palace (pictured). Pretty ornate inside and our office bay is very nice. It will definitely be interesting working here and all-in-all quite cushy for us compared to the real warriors out on the less-developed FOBs (Forward Operating Bases).

After a quick drive around tour, I took a little "freshening up" nap in my quarters (more on those later too), then joined everyone for our first lunch at a Dining Facility (DFAC) in Iraq. I was definitely impressed. There were tons of choices, the food was very good, and the servers were enthusiastic. I am going to have to be careful not to get fat here...