Iraq pics - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

**lilwings** · 01-06-2005, 05:16 PM

a look at Iraq from the air and the gound

These are just a handful of pictures from our time spent in Purgatory. It gives you a good idea of what the environment is like... how it can be open desert, high plains desert, and palm groves all in the same area. The water shots that you see are primarily of Lake Dokan (in Kurdistan... which you deployment vets know as LDPP) and the Hamrin Resevoir. As I get more, I'll drop them into the album.

Enjoy.

**voyd** · 01-06-2005, 06:56 PM

Damn girl, you rugged. Nice pics - and damn you know it's bad when a Humvee gets bogged!

**The Monsignor** · 01-07-2005, 08:51 AM

nothing like a lil mud to make you respect the power of the rotor, huh? B)

**ScarlotteDorian** · 01-07-2005, 11:29 PM

awesome pictures lilwings! so you fly aircrafts i'm guessing? that is pretty sweet! i especially liked this photo. mad props girl!

**pinion** · 01-07-2005, 11:41 PM

Great pictures!

**peenkfloeed** · 01-08-2005, 01:48 PM

Hey there, So are you back yet? I was over in Balad and just got back late last month. I was a Door Gunner on Blackhawk's. Fun stuff. OH-58's seem like they are fun to fly.

**lilwings** · 01-08-2005, 02:11 PM

Hey Peenk.
No, I am still in this cr@p-hole. As a matter of fact (if you were in Balad- lovely place, great chow halls), you might have flown over where I live. Imagine this, if you will...

You're headed to Speicher, or maybe Danger, and you're flying north-ish for a LOGPAC flight. You're a little ways to the north-ish, past the river, not very far north-ish, but north-ish enough to be in the higher plains desert. You see a little FOB, eight large hangers at either end of the bombed- out runway, very shitty looking, and 16 little Kiowa's happily squatting in the desert sunshine. Nothing else... some tanks, some Brads, some Kiowa's, no KBR, no great chow halls. Yeah- that's us. The shitty base. Join the CAV! Perhaps this might sound familiar...

"Attention MacKenzie traffic, Eagle 5 is inbound from the test fire area to the FARP, MacKenzie traffic."

What unit are you with? Welcome back by the way... must be nice to take a shower without flip-flops.

**glorious_day** · 01-10-2005, 07:33 AM

nice pics! i'm so jealous of chicks who can pull off short hair so prettily.

**worldwidemike** · 01-10-2005, 09:19 AM

Great photos...especially liked the one of the helicopter and sunset (sunrise?)...

Do you ever get the urge, when you're flying overhead, to start going, "Get some! Get some!....Get Some! Get Some!"

worldwidemike

**peenkfloeed** · 01-10-2005, 03:48 PM

So you were at Mackenzie? I went there all the time. I was attached to A/1-106th from Illinois. I love those guys, they are cool as shit. And yeah, Balad was a pretty cool place. I can't complain. Too many stupid rules though. We were in combat for christ's sake! WTF? Anyway, And yeah, i've also been to Danger and Speicher many a time. Fun stuff, anyway, you stay safe and come home in one whole piece? How much longer have ya got anyway?

**beergal** · 01-10-2005, 04:06 PM

i especially love the tan marks shame they cant make your uniforms tan through like the swimwear you can get lol

from one girl to another you look a babe!

**lilwings** · 01-10-2005, 04:45 PM

Most bizarro day on Balad:

I am down there to drop off some camo netting and poles to the junk- yard- o- crap- that'll- never- be- used- again (DRMO), when I got pulled over by Military Police. I was pulled over for going seven to ten over on the ring road around the base in a HUMVEE. I was pulled over! In Iraq! For speeding! In war! Right next to the fenceline and berm! So, as I sat there, waiting for my ticket to take back to my chain of command (who were going to laugh at me for getting PULLED OVER FOR SPEEDING IN IRAQ), I made one final comment, smiling... "Do ya wanna check my backseat for beer too, officer?" He did not think this was funny... in fact... this was not funny at all to him. He added that to my ticket... "smart attitude."

Yeah- I got laughed at by my whole chain of command when I got back to MacKenzie that night.

I am here until (::in big booming God voice:

THE END OF DAYS... or mid- March... whichever comes first. I am not a big fan of Danger (where 'the very important people' live)... the whole place has a very 'frontal- lobotomy' feel to it. People go into the TOC all happy and talkative, and they come out all drool-ie and brain dead. It scares me.

OK- horrible gross Iraq story for people who have never been there... this'll be quick, I promise.

Have you ever been in a hostile where the shower stalls have something funky going on with the curtain and the floor of the shower? Everyone has. You know what it is. You're just too bashful to say. IT'S SOMEONE'S HAPPY DREAM LEFT OVERS.
"It's ok," you tell yourself, "I just won't take off my shower shoes or brush against the shower curtain (which can get a girl pregnant, if she's not careful)."
Well, just that happened to an associate of mine (not the pregnancy part... a run- in with a shower curtain). We will call him Squishy ('cause, if you knew him, you would agree that Squishy would suit him for a nick name). Squishy was in the shower one afternoon when we had a rocket attack. BOOM! BOOOM! BOOOOM! Next thing you know, everyone is moving to the concrete hangers in an orderly fashion when Squishy comes rocketing out of the shower trailer... falls down the stairs in front of it... and can't seem to get out of the plastic sheeting that's cemeted to him... IT'S THE SHOWER CURTAIN. He's struggling with the curtain, he's lost a flip flop, and he's covered in soap, screaming at the top of his lungs "GET TO THE HANGER. WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"

I have never wished for a camera so bad in my life. Moral of the story: sometimes the shower curtain can get ya! Oh, and always carry a camera.

**TheJake** · 01-10-2005, 04:55 PM

this one time at band camp....

**ChasinJason1313** · 01-10-2005, 11:33 PM

Quote:

You're headed to Speicher, or maybe Danger, and you're flying north-ish for a LOGPAC flight. You're a little ways to the north-ish, past the river, not very far north-ish, but north-ish enough to be in the higher plains desert.

You rock lilwings, and I hope you know that from other times I've posted but I just had to throw this one out there cuz I thought it was funny.

It's a good thing you're a pilot cuz your navigating could use a little work...north-ish?

**Canadian Dude** · 01-11-2005, 08:27 AM

lilwing,

Welcome to the Family, we are glad to have ya!

We have a few brotha's and sista's that are over seas in the armed forces, so you should feel at home. I think there might have even been a Irag Travelpunk meet up, but I really have no confirmation of that.

Look forward to ur stories, and watch ur ass.

CD