Well whenever I go on leave I always manage to get screwed over by the company, always get to fly "Royal" Jordanian Airlines, one time I got on the plane, sat in my seat and the whole thing fell backwards, then when I moved to another seat (very rare for the plane to be full) the seat had been fixed with some duct tape and again the two volume in flight entertainment, wasn’t to bad last time, I managed to convince my boss to fly me BA, I was not in the mood for RJ.

We had a had a real crappy spell on camp, we get BBC World News piped into our office so we see the news, but you never hear how often our camp gets hit, at one time we would be attacked daily, one day we had 22 separate strikes in one day, I am part of the joint response team on base that deals with medical emergencies so every time the camp get hit we all have to make our way to the site hospital to wait for the casualties, it was during this period in Ramadan that I had the worse day of my time out here, a mortar landed just outside the door to one of the Iraqi barracks sending shrapnel inside the building, we did our best for them, but the guy I was working was to badly injured and died whilst I was treating him, when I got back to the office with blood still on my trousers, I wanted to kill my boss, he was one of those Walter Mitty types who always wants to be involved or know everything from a distance, he used to get excited wanting to know the details, I walked in and he bombarded me with questions, I told him that I didn’t want to talk about it as the guy I was treating just died, he went all pissy saying he was only asking, I went outside to use have a cigerett (dont call them fags anymore after an incident in a Hajji shop in Baghdad, I was surrounded by American soldiers and said to my mate "God I am gagging for a fag", ,que all the Americans nearly pissing themselves laughing and I nearly die of embarrassment), when I was sitting outside the office the boss came out and asked "Are you going t cope, are you going to have a nervous breakdown", I really dont know how I kept my temper.

Mortars continued to come in daily and the Jundie are so think they carry on playing football during the attacks. I can honestly say I have never met such an ungrateful bunch of people in my entire life, the US for example have spent so much money in Iraq that you could give each man, woman or child $10,000 EACH. The steal anything they can get their hands on to sell, then come back demanding that whatever was stolen is replaced.

So show what a bunch of dirty gits they are, despite there being huge 5.5 cubic meter skips near all the accommodation, they insist on setting trash piles alight then walk off and leave it, my record so far is 44 fires in one day, when the Iraqi commanders were challenged about the lack of discipline they actually said it was ghosts who set the fires.

After Ramadan the insurgents decided to concentrate on IED (Improvised Explosive Devices), next to our camp is a couple of towns, one day a convoy got hit three times, the insurgents always delay the detonation so that whilst the soldiers are putting the fires out from the first, the second goes off, then the third, one day I was asked by the XO to take the fire crew under military escort to douse a Humvee as there was body parts in it that needed to be recovered, they towed it nearer to the camp, after the perimeter was secured we doused it, the engine block was so hot the vehicle was enveloped in steam and the body parts became steam cooked, I nearly puked my guts up, took about 3 days before I could stop smelling it, whilst we were hosing the vehicle a fire fight started around us. Walter Mitty got all pissy with me again, he wanted to go out with the fire crew, but didn’t think he needed ballistic vest/helmet, got all pissy with me when I said no, XO was impressed and told him to piss off, the boss ignored me for about 2 days, god it was great.

Me being the diplomat that I am have had a few disagreements with little Hitler’s over here, on such occasions, I was given permission from a colonel to go through a particular checkpoint on one of the American Camps, this permission was negotiated by my XO and the Colonel, I get to the check point and little Hitler wont let me through, I explain what the situation is and he replies "I dont care what rank the person is, no one told me, I am in charge here and you are going to wait until I say you can go", I ask for his name and service number so that I can report it to the base commander, few days later he doesn’t speak to me as I cross the checkpoint, he had been "spoken" to.

Next time I was escorting some trucks from one base to another, the normal route from the search area was conned off, so I asked the marines which way I should go, then when I do an old geriatric Sgt gets all pissy, when I try and explain what had happened he just kept repeating the fact that I wasn’t allowed to go the way I did. Me being me, I immediately find his boss and ask them to put their heads together and make a decision, I explain what had happened, the Sgts boss apologised and said that they send him outside because he is such a dick. When the Sgt comes in he says it for a third time that the route I took is wrong, then one of the marines interrupts after asking me how much alcohol is in the UK and what the women are like, tells the Sgt the normal route was blocked off, not wanting to miss a dig I reply "Which is exactly what I was trying to tell you if you had listened, after all we are supposed to be on the same side", the rest of the marines start to snigger and the Sgt stomps off.