Roughing it, Part 1 ...

As I sit in the "Pentagon" (a corner room in our house with five walls all made of windows) in the mornings and drink my coffee, I often turn on the TV and watch some morning news.  It seems there is a lot of stuff on these days relating to the Middle East.  Also, when they show the peoples' houses, I often think back to those I saw in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Their style of architecture is so much different from ours, or , for that matter, from most everywhere in the rest of the world.  They use lots of tiles and marble, lots of real dark woods for accent pieces, and other little differences, like not having wood framing around doors or windows.  I recall seeing lots of places where they take the wall tiles right up to the windows or doors. Not that that is bad, just different.

Anyway, I also can't help but think back to the times I stayed in some of the "Guest Houses" at Sadam's Palace.  In my first tour, I stayed there for one night (then got moved to a tent).  It was pretty badly beat up.  It seems a few rounds found their way there and most of it was pretty well blown up.  However, that didn't last long.  The US Forces decided that was where they were going to house their 4-star commander and his staff, and it would also serve as temporary housing for other General Officers.  Needless to say, it got restored quickly.

These pictures show it after the restorations (2005).  A couple of my guys and I were here for a couple of weeks before "heading out" to the base camps.  One of the guys was an E-6 at the time, and had never seen anything like this before.  Most people have never seen anything like this before.  And now he was staying here -- the Hunting Lodge of Sadam.  Needless to say, he was like a kid at Christmas, looking all around the place, into every room and at all the very nice things in each of the rooms.  He said he was particularly impressed with being able to sleep in this bed.

As I would sit up some at night, reviewing materials for the next day, I would sometimes just sit back and wonder who slept here during Sadam's time.  Who met in these rooms, ate breakfast here, who sat around the fireplace and just chatted with him.  I know he was a bad guy and so were most of the people who might have been in this building, but it's interesting to just wonder about them...and how they went so wrong.

A man that values his privileges above his principles soon loses both. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

Hooah