Andy in Iraq: My Slice of Paradise

After nearly 6 weeks, I've finally moved into what will be my permanent room for the duration of my deployment. To give you a better idea of exactly where I am and what my living conditions are, I have some pictures from Google Earth and some of my own I'll use to explain my setup. It helps to click on each picture so you can see better detail as I explain them.

First is the regional view. If you look closely, you'll see two red circles. One is in Turkey and the other is in Kyrgyzstan. I spent 15 months in Turkey and 4 months in Kyrgyzstan so when I'm done in Iraq I'll have spent over 2 1/2 years in this part of the world.

Next, I'll zoom in on Baghdad and you'll see the Victory Base Complex circled in yellow. As you can see, we're located on the western side of Baghdad and we're connected to the Airport. If you look at the upper right side of the circle you'll see a greenish colored lake. This is called lost lake and is near where I work.

PICTURE REMOVED FOR SECURITY REASONS

On the next zoom you get a better view of lost lake. Looking to the west of lost lake you can see where the Al Faw Palace is located in relation to our compound. To put it in perspective, the Palace is xxxxxxx from my building. The red line is to show you where the perimeter fence is.

PICTURE REMOVED FOR SECURITY REASONS

Here's a view of our living trailers. This picture is taken looking southeast, so the lake is on the left behind the trailers and our work building is on the right across the road. The closest open door is my room. The great thing about where I'm situated is the proximity to the bathroom and shower trailers.

This is a view out of my room door. The trailer on the left is the shower and the one on the right is the restroom. A nice close walk.

The rooms are very small, but at least they're private - sort of anyway. The walls are so thin you can hear people cough, snore, talk, everything. If someone closes their door too hard it sounds like incoming - not a good thing for us. But all that aside - it's my slice of paradise for the next 10 1/2 months.