Getting Adjusted (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: FOUO

Dear Family-
Well, each day I continue to get more adjusted to my new environment. I
am not sure that I will ever grow to say I love this place, but each day
gets a little easier. Believe it or not, one of the hardest things to
get used to is walking around on all the rock! The entire camp is
covered in several inches of river rock. The best way I can explain
this is to say it is like walking across the beach in flip flops. You
kind of sink your feet kind of twist and you kind of lose traction. It
is really weird and can be really tricky in the middle of the night.

I think that I am going to like this job and think that this is where I
will be for the remainder of my time here in the Middle East. Here is
kind of an overview of what I will be doing. The company I am working
for won the contract to provide IT support for the Tactical environment
in Wonderland. It turns out that there are two environments in the
theatre: Tactical and Strategic. My old buddies, International Thieves
and Thugs have the contract for the Strategic environment. The basic
difference between the two is that Tactical focuses more on the NATO
Training Mission in Wonderland and the immediate war fighting needs at
the forward operating bases. The majority of the people we support are
working towards the goal of developing an effective military and police
force for Wonderland. So in a nutshell, we do whatever it takes to get
the job done. Everyone here is expected to pitch in to help complete
the mission whether that means pulling cable, building servers or
answering the phone.

The only real problem that I see is that we are dependent upon resources
controlled by International Thieves and Thugs. They are still working
out the ground rules for playing nicely together so I hope that it gets
resolved in the near future. One could hope that my old buddies get
bounced out on their ear. Just a thought...

Love you!