Dennis,
Great to hear from you, and hope all is well with you and your loved ones.
I am still in Iraq, going on 17 months now. We are doing good things over here. Destroying tons of munitions captured by coalition forces.
The political situation is very hot at the moment and the day to day operations are dangerous and extremely nerve racking.
We are "locked down" in our camps due to the terrorist threat and of course can not do any type of sight seeing other than our convoy/work areas. We are working long days sometimes 7 days a week, but mostly 6 out of 7.
I am in Arlington camp just north of Tikrit.
If you know anyone who would like to send items to the camp for the benefit of all here, military and US contractors you/they may use the address below.
We all miss our families and friends back home and we love hearing from them and from anyone who supports our efforts in helping to rid this area of terrorist related tools.
The amount of ordnance items here is beyond belief. I'm not going to get into a lot of the quantities, but we are destroying 100s of tons of it per day.
The danger is very real and personal. We have been attacked numerous times, but our casualties have been light. Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are an every day occurrence in the area, and the suicidal Vehicle Bombs are here as well.
Things that are greatly appreciated here are #1, letters of heart felt appreciation, simple words of encouragement and wishes of well being. The other things that are greatly appreciated are old DVD movies that can be played on a computer or DVD player. We do have movie night here and we are continually looking for new material... from Godzilla to new runs if possible. I'm not asking anyone to go out of their way, or spend a lot of money on anything, but if they have a few items they don't need it is a great boost to moral.
Other items that are appreciated: Bars of soap, shampoo, handy wipes (water is not always available for bathing), toothpaste and brushes, dental floss, boot/shoe sole inserts, general grooming items, books, computer games.
I'm uncertain as to your own feelings towards us for being here, but having been here and living and working closely with the Iraqi people I can honestly, truthfully tell you that we need to be here and the majority of the people in this country want our help.
I also encourage people to email me at this email address.
Thanks for everything.
Bill Boyce
wboyce2409@aol.com
USA Environmental
FOB Summerall
APO AE 09392-0000
