I am now in a posistion to keep much more regular entires and will try to proofread before publishing. We are very close to coming home now and the month of December was, and still is, quite hectic. The big event for the month has been the elections that were held on the fifteenth. I have been told from higher up that in our local province the voter turn out was ninety percent, were are all very proud for having been able to be a part of something like that, I doubt that most news reporting orginizations will make as big a deal over this as they are over what "Cindy Sheehan" has to say about our support. I will put in several entries on what happened over the the election time and some of my interactions with the regular people and soldiers of Iraq, it will probably be three or four entries.

One of the nicest things I saw on the day before the elections was the reaction of the soldiers we have been working with as they pepared to do their part for this monumental day. Soon after we arrived at the Iraqi base myself and the and one of the men that will carry on what we have done so far heard some very upbeat music. As I went to investigate I saw the entire second company dancing in a circle and embracing. One of the men had what appeared to be a flute and was whistling something very catchy in their culture, or at the least quite popular from the mens reaction. I saw them starting to clap hands and other men jumped in the middle of the circle and did what I will call break dancing. It was very obvious that these men were overjoyed at what they were doing, providing their citizens with the chance of a lifetime to vote as they truley saw fit. I am just waiting for some anti-Iraq person too remind us all that the vote existed before our arrival and Sadaam did recieve one hundred percent of the vote.

I have also noticed that the IA (Iraqi Army) seem to be picking up alot of our culture as well. Near where all of the dancing was takining place there is a basketball court that was left over from when Americans shared the post with the IA. I saw several men trying to play basket ball and was a little excited to see them enjoying themselves so much. Of course they did alot of double dribbles and are horrible shots but for probably only seeing what Americans used to do, I'd say they were doing quite well. Not long after arriving the IA officers invited some of the guys to join them in a volley ball game. This was really something to see since a few months before someone had given them a volley ball and they kept using it as a soccer ball. They had set up a volley ball net in the compound on a large slab of concrete and seemed to have the basics down pretty well. One of the officers from Iraq was a real ball hog, according to our gunner who was playing for a time. I took some pictures and video of the game that, according to the officers, was won by them. There was even a crowd of specators.

I mentioned in earlier blogs that they also use alot of our expletives but they also have been saying things like "How ya doing?" and "Good-bye". I got a real strong feeling that they seemed to know we would be leaving soon and I felt a little uncomfortable since I knew when we were leaving, but was not allowed to tell them. The average Iraqi soldier still wants to get his hand on anything American even batteries. One of the soldiers had a small flashlight that required two AA batteries. I happened to have few on hand and gave him two, at which point three other soldiers held their hands out for batteries. When I asked them "Leish?' they said they all needed batteries for their flashlights. I then asked them to prodce flashlights and they couldn't so I told them "Yimkin Baatcher" "Maybe tomorrow". Well, one of the soldiers tried to trick me by borrowing the same flashlight of the soldier in reall need. When I told him I had a better flashlight ready for a gift he said " Oh this not mine, I need new". I then said" Busted" and all the other IA started laughing at his self incrimination. All in all it was a fun day hanging out with the Iraqis I am just really tired of being asked to give them gifts, I wish we could make them understand that gifts are not given on demand.

One new phrase - Layla Jamila "Beautiful night".