For the last three days, I've been inside the wire and time still goes by fairly quickly. One of the days I got up at about 5:30 a.m. and did some exercise then reported for duty at 7:30 a.m. Because my three roommates were tasked out, all three went outside the wire. I had the duty of cleaning the hallway and bathroom. This means scrubbing and washing two toilets and showers, the tile floor and so on. We are actually pretty lucky because 90 percent of the people on LSA Anaconda don't have indoor plumbing. Most have portable johns and shower/wash trailers a few hundred yards away, so you want to take care of your bathroom business fairly early.

I got the chance to go to the main entry point to pick up and escort a potential interpreter. While there, it was really something to see the hundreds of Iraqi men waiting to come on the base and work. It sure doesn't seem the insurgents are intimidating any of the people in the Balad area. As a matter of fact, there was also three tribal leaders there that wanted to start an Iraqi Army battalion. They told us they had hundreds of men ready to sign up and fight the insurgents, I kid you not! For some reason, they thought the Americans were responsible for the recruitment of Iraqi soldiers, we're not. We directed the chief to the local IA base and told them with that many soldiers they would have to talk to the Iraqi Defense Ministry. I should also say that I was surprised to see so many American women guarding and escorting Iraqi work parties, I'm either old-fashioned or a little sexist, but it just seemed odd to me.

I also noticed something a little odd on the way back to our building. I saw an American soldier sitting down with all his combat gear on with three Iraqi workers, between two storage conex's sharing lunch. It looked like they all enjoyed the moment and were really at ease with each other.

After lunch the other day, I got a bit of a scare. While talking to two other soldiers, we heard a loud explosion. We looked to where it came from and saw a large mushroom cloud and soon another explosion, this one much closer followed by another. I was about to run for the bomb shelter, when one of the guys quickly figured it was our guys doing a controlled detonation. The rounds were just to well placed to be enemy rounds.

We've also been told that my element may have to leave Anaconda and go to a FOB to be closer to the IA and action. Well, what can we do? We had our time at Shamaconda, time to join the real soldiers. The bad thing is there is really no practical reason to do so, but there usually isn't. If this happens, my entries will not be as frequent because where they want to send us, internet access is a bit more difficult.

Well that's all for now from Balad, Iraq, and the Holy Land.

Todays Arabia is -- Don't be afraid, La ta haff