News from Kuwait

Daniel has checked in again. He's left several comments so if you want to hear straight from him be sure to check the comments of our last few posts - especially Shhh...It's a secret. I was happy to see he had posted and know he was safe and rested up. Then to my happy surprise he called in the late afternoon today. It was about 4pm my time and 11pm his. He again borrowed the phone he had used before and we got to talk about 20 minutes. He is thinking of buying one of these types of phones but I have no idea what the rates are. The calling card we got him with like 700 minutes doesn't work there. Apparently the phones only accept AT&T cards and we bought an MCI. Oh well. He said communication is difficult because there are so many people that want to email and use the phone that you have to wait in long lines.

He is currently in Kuwait still. I asked him what it was like listening to all the German being spoken in the airport. He said he didn't hear any German because they were herded off the plane and into a tiny room off to the side somewhere. There they waited as a group for their next flight. Good thing the layover was only about an hour and a half. He said that Kuwait just looks like sand. I said but what about their architecture - isn't it beautiful? He said he didn't get to see anything. They landed when it was still dark and then took buses to the base. But the buses had window shades that had to be pulled down for the whole ride. So he didn't get to see out at all. I had been a little jealous that he got to "travel" and see new countries but I guess he really hasn't seen anything other than these countries airports. :(

He is now on base in Kuwait. He said it's a rather large base with approximately 15 thousand troops from all branches of the military. They are currently waiting for the rest of the hospital staff in their unit to arrive so they can ship out to Iraq (I guess they were delayed somehow). He said he could be waiting for another 5 to 7 days. I hope that doesn't delay his homecoming. He said they have some light training on these "waiting" days but it's kinda slow. I think he is anxious to get to the hospital and do what he was deployed to do. He said they are sleeping in a large army tent that holds 40 men. It's just one big tent with 40 cots but they do have airconditioning. He said the day time is very HOT, well over 100 degrees but the nights are nice. He said it gets dark there around 7:15 pm but the sun comes up around 4am. Perhaps they should switch their times and have it stay light until 8 or 9pm and remain dark til 5 or 6 am. But that's probably cuz I am NOT a morning person. He said the food's not bad and there is plenty of it. So I don't have to worry about him being hungry - at least not in Kuwait.

The "east coast city", where he spent the night on Saturday when their initial flight had to turn around, was Boston. If he had only been able to tell us then I would have told him to call Aaron's cell because he and Christine were in Boston that day too. He was sad to hear that and said it would have been fun to see them. He told me one of they guys was able to have dinner with his son who happend to be in town that day.

It was good to hear his voice and hopefully he'll be able to post some pictures and messages soon.