FIRST PERSON PERSPECTIVE: ON THE SOLDIERS LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS

I’d say 90 percent of them are sleeping in buildings. Over 75 percent of them sleep or work in air-conditioned areas. In fact we purchased over 200 more window air-conditioning units just this week for various places around the brigade. We are putting a push on air-conditioning because what the Iraqi’s call The Furnace Weeks are coming. The last two weeks of July through the middle of September temperatures in Baghdad will be in the 130s.

We have had ice for a while now but it is not potable. However we just signed a contract for potable ice in the amount of 5 pounds per soldier per day. That will begin soon.

You’ve heard that bottled water was limited to two 3-liter bottles per day. Very soon that will be going up to four bottles per day.

The soldiers get about one hot meal per day (a heat and serve type meal) and a “class A” meal (from scratch type meal) about once per week. And we have plenty of fresh fruit to eat.

We’ve also just signed contracts for porta-johns. The reason for the delay there was lack of trucks to service the toilets. That is fixed and these will be distributed soon. Similarly trailers resembling small mobile homes arrived in Baghdad just yesterday. On each trailer is 10 separate shower compartments along with a huge water cistern.

And while not every soldier has access to every one of these items mentioned here, I can tell you with certainty that every soldier has access to satellite TV no matter where he or she lives in Iraq.

There is a PX in the 501st FSB area and other smaller PX units are being set up across Baghdad. And we’ve also just signed a contract to provide Gatorade to the troops.

Internet connections from Baghdad have been spotty. We learned that Iraqis were stealing IP addresses from Jordan in order to make connections with the satellites. 1AD has decided to purchase internet provider services that are legitimate. Expect to see improvement their soon.

Plus the division will be buying each company a telephone to provide soldiers free use to call loved ones. Each company will have to decide the usage rate but expect that each soldier will be allotted X number of minutes each week.