Today is Friday, November 28th, 2003; Karen's Korner #185

I had something else in mind for today's Karen's Korner, but late last night I received a note from Jason Hults' family. Jason, a good friend and classmate of our daughter Jamie, is a regular guy: 1989 CGHS graduate, teacher and football coach for Villisca High School, is married with a couple of kids, joined the National Guard, is in an activated unit, and is now stationed in Iraq. He will be home for a two-week leave at Christmas and will return for additional duty in Iraq following.

 

Jason wrote his parents and they passed it on to several others yesterday. I read what Jason's dad, Ray, had written: something about some president being in Baghdad and I thought, "President of what?" That was until I turned on the news and learned that President Bush had made a surprise visit and had flown to Iraq to be with the troops on Thanksgiving Day.

 

Whether pro or con war, pro or con Bush, pro or con Republicans or Democrats, I hope that you will enjoy Jason's note to his family and a few of his "friends" who he would have had no idea are reading this!

 

Dear Gina, Family, and Friends;

Happy Thanksgiving from Baghdad, Iraq!!!

I am in Baghdad as I am typing this. We drove up here with 25 trucks
yesterday to load up some vehicles to take back to Kuwait. 2 trucks, myself included,
brought up big 500KV generators. We got here to the BIAP and found out that
all military operations would be shut down for Thanksgiving. So the rest of our
convoy is just sitting around today over at the BIAP (Baghdad International
AirPort).

But, 10 of us brought the 2 trucks with generators, a gun truck (for
security) and a contact truck (maintenance support) to the JTF6 (Joint Task Force 6)
Headquarters which is located downtown Baghdad in the Presidential Palace
compound which you could probably find on a map of the city, or have seen on
the news. We are staying here tonight and will offload tomorrow before joining
up with our convoy to go load.

That's the background. The exciting part is that we ate our Thanksgiving
dinner in the Presidential Palace of the Republican Guards. The dining hall, which
is extravagent with a 20 foot chandelier and marble ceiling to floor and wall
to wall, was awesome. The food was very good as well, with all the traditional
Thanksgiving eats. Afterward, we walked around and took a lot of pictures.
Yes Beem, I took some for you as well!

Another really cool part was when we were waiting in line (Which took about
45 minutes as they were expecting to serve 2500+) was when L. Paul Bremer
stopped and talked to us for a few minutes and wished us a Happy Thanksgiving.

For those not following what is happening over here, he is the US Govt's top
civilian in Iraq, basically the guy running the interim Iraqi Govt. We
thought that was pretty cool. Saw a 2 star General and a 1 star, as well as more
Full Bird Colonels than we could count.

Not exactly the kind of place where an old buck Sergeant wants to be hanging out,

but we had a good time for a few hours anyway. Also had our pictures taken by a

bunch of civilian workers I guess. Talked with people from Australia, Britian,

and had a few American Civilian employees tell us it was good to see a few

soldiers actually taking a break and relaxing for a change.

My codriver, Ben McCurley actually said to me, "Did you ever imagine 3 years
ago that someday you would be eating Thanksgiving dinner in Saddam Hussein's
palace in Bagdad?" I had to say no. It has definetly been an experience.

I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving. Yes, I wish I was there.

Gina, I love you and miss you. Give the kids hugs and kisses for me and
have them give you the same from me!

Love,

Jason


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