Reality...

The reality of this job is starting to set in. We received quite a bit of training before we came out here but nothing can prepare you for everything. I wouldn't say that anything really bothers me yet, but there are some things that make me nervous or a bit uneasy. Showing up at a post blast site, you have the normal things. A smoking hole in the ground and sometimes a lot of blood around if someone got hurt or killed. I saw that stuff, or mock ups at least, during training. However, the things that the training didn't include are the crying kids who just lost their father or brother, or all the bystanders that are all over the street watching you. Security keeps them back, but you just never know who might have a bunch of dynamite strapped up under their shirt. Also, looking around when you're in a neighborhood and seeing all of the windows on the buildings and wondering if someone is watching you for whatever reason. These are some things that go through my mind while I'm on scene. The Iraqi police are usually around and it's 50/50 weather you can trust any of them or the information they are giving you. But, I just concentrate on my work because there is really nothing I can do about any of that stuff. We are only on scene for about 15-20 mins. It's pretty difficult to fully process a scene (get pictures, try and pull fingerprints, find pieces of the bomb and figure out how it was initiated) all in 15 mins, but that's pretty much all the time we have. And it goes by pretty fast.

Even with all that, you still see groups of people along some streets that cheer and wave when we drive by. I even saw a kid with a Minnesota vikings hat on the other day. I had to laugh.

That's about it for now...

G