The Mosque

We are located inside a Kuwaiti naval base. Right in the middle of that naval base is a mosque. We have been given strict instruction to not go near it. It is actually located in the center of a large traffic circle. We are allowed to walk on the sidewalk on the outside of the traffic circle, but no on the sidewalk on the inside. So along with a mosque comes the call to prayer that is broadcast over loudspeakers from the top of the miranet. I haven’t kept track but I understand it’s five times a day. The first one is at five in the morning. Before coming here people I was told it would always be waking you up. Before I started my 4am schedule I didn’t notice it. Maybe they turned the volume down. It is 5pm and it just stated again. I don’t know if it goes based on sun up and sun down, or set times. Like I said it hasn’t been so loud that it’s a main aspect of the day. There was a lot of discussion as to whether it is a recording or an actual person. Some have said they heard coughing over the speakers so it must be a person, but I heard the coughing today as well, and I think it may be happening on Fridays when they do their main prayers. Instead of Sunday worship, they do Friday prayers, and when I heard the coughing he was speaking as opposed to ‘singing’. I think the normal call to prayer is a recording.

Christmas Day

All things considered it’s been a nice Christmas. Last night I attended a Christmas Eve service here on base. It was nice and small. Just reading the Christmas story and singing carols. Then a bunch of us watched Chevy Chases’ “Christmas Vacation” in the wardroom. On Monday and Wednesday night the junior officers (JO) have to pick a movie for watching. It was somewhat funny because the first one to pick was a Coast Guard Lieutenant and he picked “The Guardian”. A bunch of us watched it and were making jokes about how it compared to “Officer and a Gentleman” or “Top Gun”. So Wednesday night rolls around and the next JO (a Navy Ensign) picked “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, which is not exactly a joyous feel good movie for Christmas Eve. Our Deputy (2nd in command) stepped in and said it had to be a Christmas movie, which is how we ended up with “A Christmas Vacation”.
So today being Christmas it is more relaxed schedule. We still stand all the watches, but just don’t schedule any meetings. Which for an officer is the biggest drain on my time, meetings. I was going to catch up on a lot of admin, till the sickness hit. So I’ve taken lot’s of naps, drank lots of water and ate breakfast and lunch. Dinner is in about another hour. I’m trying to go near the end so I’m not sitting near someone and potentially getting them sick.

Working Out

I’ve gotten into a pretty good schedule. The first week I was here I seemed to be waking at 4am every morning. After laying in bed a couple of days I decided to just start getting up and working out. They have a very well equipped gym. All the exercise gear you could want: free weights, nautilus equipment, treadmills etc. The best thing is that that have personal trainers on staff. The guy on at 4am is from India. We’ll call him Sugeet. He has a masters in physical education. We have some good conversations. He says he makes very good money here doing this. He wants to save enough money so he can open up his own weightlifting/body building gym in India. Though it’s not hugely popular, it has a small following due to a recent Mr. Universe competitor from India.
I haven’t had the time to workout every day like I do here. I spend about 10 hours a day working, 2 hours working out, and the rest eating, sleeping and relaxing. I’m using the personal trainer to guide me through a weightlifting routine. I haven’t lifted weights since the Academy, so this is a good opportunity.

If you want to know what to mail out. Send microwave popcorn, and M&Ms (plain or peanut).

Arrived in Theatre

Hello all,
I haven’t written much because of the pace of training. With Navy deployments the training leading up to the deployment is always much more rigorous than the actual deployment itself. Since I last posted, the main body of 300+ sailors arrived. Prior to that it was just our advance party of leadership working to put together all the items needed to support the training of those sailors. Before the Navy will let us head overseas we have to complete a Final Evaluation Problem (FEP), which is essentially a wargame where we are presented with various scenarios and our responses are evaluated. We set our equipment, work areas and manning to match exactly that in theatre and then inspectors (wearing red hats to identify themselves as such) will provide inputs to simulate those scenarios. Those same inspectors then grade our response. What is even more rigorous is that these inspectors are graded as well. So we not only have to prove that we can perform the mission, but we must prove that we can continually train ourselves to improve our performance.
Now we have arrived in theatre and so we have more time so I’ll get more posts up.
The biggest thing to tell you all is that whatever you have heard about the firm Kellog-Bear and Root (KBR), they run an outstanding dining facility. This morning I had scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns and cantaloupe. The other options were omlets maid to order (with or without egg yolks), sausage, hard boiled eggs, waffles, applesauce, cereals, juice (orange, apple, strawberry kiwi which is my favorite, lemonade) sweet tea, unsweetened tea, strawberry poptarts, blueberry poptarts, apples, bananas, kiwi, honeydew mellon, and much more. And it all tastes very, very good.
Brian