My second deployment to Iraq has officially started! Can I tell you how excited I am to be bringing my passion for all things scrappy and my Close To My Heart business to Iraq!?! It should be very interesting to see how all of this is going to develop! Am I going to be able to intertwine and synchronize my full time medical job and my part time passion successfully? Well, I am not sure, but I decided to give it my best effort as always! I will be posting both slices of my journey here on my blog!

It all starts here at weapons draw and getting our temperature taken for any signs and symptoms of the dreaded H1N1. You can’t deploy if you have a temperature above 101.9 and any abnormal upper respiratory signs and symptoms. We were all good!

Next is saying good-bye to our family and friends. (When you are deploying for a year, you begin to ponder why they call it “good-bye”. It is BS if you ask me!).

Next is the bus ride to the deployment center to weigh in with ALL THAT GEAR! They have to make sure the plane is not overweight! Many commanders, including our own, came to wish us off. Since my flight was the torch party and advanced party, or first Soldiers to go from my unit, it was nice to have their support and confidence. I was delighted when members from the community brought us snacks since I was up at 0400 and didn’t eat breakfast! Yummo!

Then once our ID cards were scanned, we piled onto another bus for the hour bus ride to an airport and prepared for the long flight to Germany. It was so cold when we got to Germany! Yikes! Buses were waiting to escort us to a holding area so the plane’s crew could be switched and the plane prepared for the journey to Kuwait.

The best part about this leg of the trip was when the movie came on, it was the newest Harry Potter movie! Yippee! If only I could have stayed awake for the whole movie. Bummer! Once we landed in Kuwait, I was delighted that it was a warn 86 degrees and still pretty early in the day.

Good, because we still had many bus rides ahead of us, and this is by far the worst part of the trip. I can’t say much other than it is just long, hot, and smelly. Everyone tries their hardest to sleep though it, except for the Soldier picked to load their weapon and stand guard at the front of the bus. Glad to be in Kuwait, but wish we were settled in Iraq.

I almost forgot…Happy Birthday, Marines! Semper Fidelis!