Through a stroke of good timing, good luck, and my recent promotion, I’m now in a Containerized Housing Unit (CHU, pronounced “chew”). Actually, with the living space as tight as it is in Basra, even colonels share quarters. CPT Murray is bunking with me, but he’s on leave this month, and may be starting a new job next month, so we’ll see how it shakes out. This is living space Version 9.0 for me, and I’ve been warned that I’ll move again within Basra.
In the mean time, I’m getting used to sleeping with more than 18” of overhead clearance compared to
the Stonehenges I’ve been in since arrival. My first Stonehenge was
even more sparse.Lest you think there’s not much going on here except me constantly packing up and moving my stuff, it has been extremely busy lately. We’re building new facilities all over the base, and
getting a huge volume of convoys.
With the handover of the base from UK forces to US control, we’re adding additional dining space (and deep fryers), more fuel capacity (for our great big SUVs and tactical vehichles), a larger PX (for spending all our money), new finance and postal buildings, new air passenger terminal facilities, more parking, and just about anything else you could think of! The maintenance team has doubled, and is about to get a lot bigger as US forces roll in.
