JamesSpratt.org

Dry News from Southern Iraq

Posted on the May 19th, 2006 under Friends/Family, Political by jamesspratt

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Letter from a mate of mine based out in Iraq:

“Sent: Fri, 19 May 2006 08:16:44 +0000

Hello all,

Its strange to think that 2 years ago I was sitting in the same dump as I am
now, using the same computer to write to you all - I never thought I’d be
doing this again so soon! I’ve been here 40+ days now, and it does not
really feel like I have ever left. The camp we live in is much the same -
although now has loads of sand bags everywhere trying to protect ourselves
from the crap that the locals decide to ’send in our direction’ if we piss
them off. ie. do our job! The other night we had 50+ mortars which was an
experience and a half. There’s not much you can do; you put on your body
armour and helmet etc and then lie down on the floor and hope the next shell
does not rip apart your room. We were very lucky - quite a few people were
out and about, so we only had 3 casualties - all of which will be fine,
although we did have 3 portacabins ripped apart and so now everybody is
double bunked so to speak.

The work we are doing is exactly the same too - I’ve now met up with quite a
few of the locals I knew before. Thats fine, as they give you lots of sweet
coffee etc and want to chat about the rest of the world and catch up as if
you were an old friend etc… The rest of them to be honest are the lazy,
good for ‘othing scum bags that are wasting millions of pounds of our money.
Nothing seems to have improved. All the projects that were started are
really poorly built, as everybody in the world seems to have taken a cut -
and yet they still complain. V.V V annoying.

How is life back in the UK? What I would give for a pint in a beer garden!
There must be something happening - people off traveling etc so let me know
so I can pass the time/day dream. On the plus side I hope to have an awesome
tan by the time I come back. (Nov) Yesterday it reached 65 degrees in our
tanks - nice, and so far we have had 3 catch fire from over heating. Its so
much fun, and even gives the fire crews something to do.

Not much else happening. Keep in touch, take care”