What’s a solider to do on his day off in Iraq?

Sometimes I long for a day off and then when I get it, I just sit around and do nothing all day. What a waste. I should go to the gym but the problem with that is I have to find a Battle Buddy. Good Luck. We have to have a Battle Buddy everywhere we go. Sometimes it’s not bad, but when you want to go someplace where no one else wants to go you’re out of luck. I’m subjected to sneaking to my desired destination in the middle of the night, when it’s dark and no one will notice. For example, if I want to go to the phone center to call home I can’t do it during the day here because it’s the middle of the night there. I either have to go there at night or early in the morning. Then I have to find someone to go with on top of that. Sucks but it looks like I might be sneaking out again tonight to go to the gym. A buddy of mine is going out at 0100 hours and I don’t feel like missing midnight sleep time to go to the gym. I’m sure he’s going by himself too. He just sneaks away later than I do.

There is absolutely nothing to do here on a day off. Well, maybe there is but it’s not like being back home. There’s no fine restaurant, Movie Theater, park, kids, wife, relatives, friends, or recreational driving for that matter. Sure we have a big screen T.V. room, Internet center, makeshift library, and rec center but that stuff gets old real quick. Maybe I should socialize to pass time. That might help. It’s hard doing that too because we’re all in private room trailers. I don’t know if I’ll wake someone up, if their home, or they just don’t feel like doing anything. At least in Kuwait and back at Ft. Lewis we all lived in the same room so we all kept each other entertained. I think it was best at Ft. Lewis though because they didn’t pack too many or too little of us in the barracks. It was just right.

I didn’t even do the things I wanted to do, like clean my .50cal or my room. I’m feeling so lazy and now it’s too late to do any of that stuff. So, here I go now with a few hours left before I have to hit the sack. The race is about to begin to beat the clock. I wonder how much I could get done before it gets too late. Alright gym, clean room, shower, e-mail, read, brush teeth, shave, power my feet, lotion my body, watch a late night DVD and go to sleep. I do have to get some sleep too so I can’t stay up all night. I have to get to bed at least before Midnight.

Here's a photo of my platoon. I'm on the 1st row all the way to the right.