Greetings from Kuwait

Hey Everybody!!
Finally got access to a computer and wanted to let you all know how I'm doing, and where in the world I am. Since Sunday around 3:30pm local time (which is 8 hours ahead of Eastern) I've been in Kuwait. Before we left the States, I got put on baggage detail, which means I got to load everybodies gear into the belly of the plane. The nice part about that, was that I got a seat in business class which made the flights a whole lot better. We flew out of Savannah, GA at around 4:30pm EST to Liepzig, Germany, which was right around 8 hours of flying time. I've flown a lot, and its been a long time since a landing made me nervous! We kinda came down on one wheel, bounced, and then came down like we were supposed to. I'm counting that as two landings! My buddy Andy (another medic in my unit) said that was the first time he's landed in a plane in almost 4 years; he was in the airborne, so he always left the plane before they landed. In Germany I took an Ambien...great drug!!! I was out before we even moved, and the next thing I know we're descending into Kuwait City!
We drove for about 2 hours to Camp Buehring, which is where I am now. Kuwait is much like you would expect a desert to be, flat, brown and devoid of any features. There's nothing out here! We literaly drove by nothing for 2 hours. The camp is big, as its the main entry point into Iraq for all military members. They actually have more restaurants than we did back on Ft. Stewart! My first meal in Kuwait...Chinese food. Go figure.
We've been doing a lot of good training here; classes on intel gathering, cultural awareness, to IED recognition classes Today we did some medical labs, and roll-over drills (in the event our driver decides to roll a Humvee). Dates are still up in the air as far as when we actually head north, but we should be here at least another 5 days or so.
Its actually been chilly here; I've been wearing my Gortex jacket every morning. At night its actually cold, especially with the constant wind. Its probably in the 30's at night, maybe low 40's when we wake up. Yesterday it rained all day, from before dawn to well after dusk. The whole camp has been turned into a quagmire, but things are slowly starting to dry out; however, there is still standing water in many places. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that we went to the firing "range" yesterday, in the rain, the cold, and the muck. I put range in quotes as it was just a couple of targets stuck into the ground, not a whole lot of planning went into this. No backdrop, no berm to fire into...but since there's nothing there for as far as the I can see, we didn't have to worry much. I got my M-4 zero'd well; most of the infantry guys thought I wouldn't be able to shoot well at all, and I ended up out-shooting most of them. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have 20 years of experience, either. I spent last night cleaning my weapons, since they ended up with sand/muck all over them. I've been given an M-4, which looks like a shorter M-16; it works well for me since I'll be getting in and out of vehicles a lot.
Everyone's spirits are pretty high, especially since we're living in relative luxery for our time here. Trying to "live it up" before we have to move North where we won't have anything like this. From what we've been told, we're moving into a rather spartan base. We won't even have port-o-pottys; like in the movie "Jarhead" we'll be burning everything instead. I'm lucky, though; medics aren't allowed to perform care for 48 hours afterwards, which basically exempts us entirely from that joyful little job. I'm not complaining.
I'm living in a giant tent with half of the infantry company I'm attached to, so I'm getting to know some of the guys. The sergeant in charge of our platoon has done a great job taking me under his wing and letting me know how things run. He's happy he got me as a medic, and I'm happy he's my platoon sergeant, so things are going to work out just fine. The guys are great; crazy, just like most infantrymen, but they're a great group of guys.
I don't have an APO address yet, but should get it before we move North. I'll make sure to get that out to you.
Gotta go...time for chow.

Love you guys!
Troy