Well, what can I say?! I have made a few trips into Iraq in the last few days. The trips have been uneventful as usual. I know everyone at home likes to hear that. The rain has not started yet and I am in fear that when it does show, we are going to be in for a flood. Of course, it doesn’t take much rain to fall to flood things around here.
I had hoped to go diving Wednesday, but my diving buddy, Mickey, Hollywood to others, works for KBR and was not able to get loose from work to go. With him going on R&R soon with his daughter on a diving trip, he is having to train someone to do his job. That person just didn’t feel that he had it all down, so Mickey had to stay in camp. Dive Caroline, the dive shop I dive with usually had a boat on Thursdays and Fridays, but as my luck lately would have it, there are not enough people to go today, so once again, I am stuck on land. It has been about a month since I have been in the water and it is driving me nuts. I bought all my gear about 2 weeks ago and am dieing to try it all out. Other than getting in the pool to test it, it has not seen water yet. ARGH!!!
Yes, I am addicted to diving! I love it!!!
Christmas is just a few days away and I am still not in the Christmas spirit. Before over here I was able to scrape up SOME Christmas cheer, but this year, just can’t seem to do it. We are busy with getting the mail to the troops and I have been running a lot of the Iraq missions instead of the Kuwait camps lately. That is by choice of course. Ya’ll know me, I like to stay busy and I have this adrenaline rush thing I have to try and feed once in a while. I had planed on cooking a big dinner for some of the guys, but that has not worked out yet either. OH well, the turkey is in the freezer and I will get to it one day.
In other news of what is happening with me, I am trying to quit smoking. I have been working on it for 2 weeks now. I have gone from a little over 2 packs a day to ½ a pack a day, to about 5 a day. I tried to go cold turkey, but that drove me nuts as well as those around me. I am hoping that within a week or so, I will be totally smoke free. Why am I doing this you may ask? Well, diving of course!!! Told ya I was addicted to it.
Also, I think I am going to be moving. The apartment building I am in right now has no security. Several times I have had strange men start following me while on my way home form work. Two of them have followed me all the way to the turn for my street. I have heard rumors of women being kidnapped here in Kuwait. So, for my security, I am looking at an apartment building that has some security and that I can park right in front of my door. Not to mention that several of the guys I work with live there. One guy lives there now with a room mate and two others are thinking about moving there. We have all talked about trying to get flats that are side by side, with mine in the middle. I have a lease on this flat and will have to wait till the first of February to move, but until then, they try to help watch out for me when I come home. Please don’t worry, I will be safe.
To my Mom, Sorry about missing your birthday. I loose track of what the date is and the day of the week over here. I hope you had a great birthday.
Till next time, everyone take care, and my love to all!
WOW! The last 36 hours have been something! First let me start with the book. As most know, and have seen the entry, Free Press Publishing sends out a catalog to the book stores so they can order the books they and to put in their store for the next season. Well, night before last, I received 3 copies of the catalog from my editors office. This is sooooo cool! I know I have been working on this book for several months now. Terry and I have been emailing each other almost daily as well write each chapter. Liz and I have emailed about the cover design and what pictures to include. We all have been working very hard on the book. But I have to say, it all didn’t seem real to me. I mean, we all do things in our lives that we think would make a good book or movie topic, but nothing ever happens to it. Then to have several someone’s actually tell you that you should write a book about something you did, that you see as just part of your life and who you are….. WELL, that is totally cool. As each step of this book has been taken, I have become more and more aware of the fact that this is really happening….. it isn’t a dream! But the other day……..well, that really brought it all home for me. When I got those catalogs and opened to the paged marked, and saw the catalog entry with my name on it……….. I was speechless! Now most of ya know, my being speechless is not something that happens very often, but I was, for a few seconds. When the guys in the office saw that I had quite talking in mid-sentence, of course they all wanted to know what it was that I had gotten. I smiled and turned the book around and showed them the page. As much as they have heard about the book and have known that I was doing it, I think they felt as I did about it. Holding this in my hands, made it real for not only me, but for them as well. Some of these guys are new friends and some I have known since I worked for KBR. You would have thought that it was happening to them. I got hugs, hand shakes and a lot of teasing! I was told I have to make sure they ALL get autographed copies! I think I am going to get writers cramp very quick when this thing finally does come out! Anyway, after I made it home, I took the catalog out and really looked at it. There is my name, in print, with a picture of what the cover is going to look like. “WOW! This is so cool! This is really happening!” was my thought. It still blows my mind!
It’s one of the least covered stories in the Iraqi war. Now, the writer of the popular “Cindy in Iraq” blog narrates her harrowing experiences during a year driving trucks as a civilian contractor for Halliburton.
Cindy Morgan was on the front lines of Iraq––not enlisted in the military, but in a job just as dangerous: as a convoy commander leading groups of fifteen to thirty trucks through perilous territory. Having promised her three sons that she would always tell them the truth about what she was experiencing, she started her blog “Cindy in Iraq” as a way to stay in touch with family and friends back home. “Cindy in Iraq” soon became a valuable resource for families of contractors, and those thinking about becoming contractors, as well as a telling story of the disturbing realities facing brave civilian workers.
Here, we see Cindy’s story in full detail—how, after thirteen years’ experience as a truck driver in the U.S., as well as orientation by Halliburton, she still was shocked by what she faced. Unarmed, with virtually no training, one of the only female truck drivers, she became a moving target for insurgents, constantly at risk of being ambushed, shot at, kidnapped, or executed.
Cindy’s journey in Iraq also became a voyage of self-discovery. Having left an abusive husband, she went to Iraq because she was “tired of surviving her life and not living it.” She went to Iraq to find out “who I am and what I am made of here….Honor, integrity, pride and humanity can all be discovered.” As Cindy relays her experiences, both she and the reader are transformed.
Cynthia I. Morgan drove a big rig across the U.S. for thirteen years before venturing into Iraq in 2003, where she was a civilian convoy commander in charge of up to thirty trucks delivering supplies to American bases throughout the war-torn country. After seven months back in the U.S., she returned to Iraq. She lives, usually, in Tennessee.
September 2006 Free Press Biography and Autobiography 6 x 9, 256 pages 8 pages of black-and-white photographs Carton quantity: 20
EAN: 978074328640452500 0-7432-8640-5 $25.00 hardcover $34.50 in Canada
It has been brought to my attention that I may have offended some people with the following statement in this post. “Not to mention we only go north as far as Cedar. That is the boring part of Iraq. Nothing to get excited about.” Let me say this, as most of you know me and have read my post for the last 2 years, you know that I am an adrenaline junkie. But for those that do not know that about me, now you do. The roads from Kuwait to Cedar are boring to me due to the fact that there isn’t much that goes on, on it. It is a long, pretty much straight stretch of road with nothing on it. The only town you go through is right at the border and once through it, the rest is boring. Any driver here will tell you the same. But.. to those that feel that I have offended or demeaned the sacrifice that those that run out of Cedar have given, I wish to give my apologies. I should remember to write my post for those that do not know me. The sacrifices that the soldiers and contractors give are great. And the roads NORTH of Cedar can be very dangerous. For those of us that have run them and now only run SOUTH of Cedar only, the adrenaline rush is just not there. It is a great adjustment for some of us. Actually it is driving me nuts. I like to be in the thick of things. But due to a promise I made my son, Kenny, when I came back this< time, I am limited to Kuwait and southern Iraq. As most of you know, Kenny is a soldier and was in Iraq for 10 months. First in Taji and then in Baghdad. When I told him I was coming back to Kuwait after IAP’s contract ended, he had a fit. He didn’t want me running the roads through Baghdad in a truck any more. “Mom you can’t bull shit me any more about how things are there. I know how it is first hand”, that is what he said to me. So I choose a job that would keep me in a safer zone. Safer, means boring to me right now. As many of you that have had you DH’s come home to stay, after riding the gauntlet through Baghdad several times, they get board easily. I am still here and going through the same thing. The adjustment is not easy and will take time. So please forgive me if I sound a bit flippant about the runs I make now. I DO NOT mean any disrespect.
I just thought I would let everyone know that I got the papers yesterday through FedEx for the book deal. I signed them and will be sending them back through FedEx today. There will be a press release coming out as soon as they are received back in the states and everyone has their copies. I will send ya’ll a copy of the press release when it comes out. Terry Golway is my co-writer and we are hard at work on it. I have done lots of writing over the last two weeks. Sometimes it is very hard to do. The first chapter is going to be about why I came to Iraq and my thoughts on the flight over. The next chapter or two will be a history of my life from childhood till the day I stepped on the plane and flew to Houston. That is what we are working on now. At times, that can be very emotionally draining. As with all of us, not all of our past holds the best of memories. For the first time I had to sit and write out what happened the day my now, ex-husband nearly killed me 2 1/2 years ago. Whereas, that has been most difficult, it has also been a bit healing. I have cried and I have laughed in all that I have written so far. I will keep ya’ll posted on the books progress.
This is cindy’s mom, Linda. Cindy has wanted to go back to Kuwait/Iraq for some time now. She has a son in the National Guard that is stationed over there . She will be in Kuwait by the weekend. She got a chance to go and she took it. As my 83 year old mother says we will worry but we will leave her safety in Gods hands. All we have ever wanted for our kids is for them to be happy and I saw that in her when we took her to the airport to catch her plane.
God bless you all, Stay safe.
Linda
Hi this is her dad, she called me a little while ago, and she will be flying out of SC tonight sometime going to Kuwait, she said that she will send an email when she is able to get to a computer, we hope to get hers back form the shop in a few days and I will ship it to her at that time, so she will have it in a couple weeks we hope then she will be able to send email to keep us updated on things, thanks for all the support you have given her, and keep her and her son, Kenny, in your prays.
Yesterday there was a terrible accident in the convoy that I was riding back north on. We hit a dust cloud and several trucks piled up and one caught fire. I have put some pictures here on the siteof the accident. I want you all to know that no one was killed. Oneguy has a broke foot and a few busted ribs. Two other drivers havesome bumps and bruises. All are doing ok today. We were very luckyyesterday that we didn't loose anyone. When you see the pictures youwill see why. Thanks for the prayers that ya'll have made thatprotect us all while we are over here. Keep them up, they areworking.
OK, I know ya’ll have been sitting there wondering, “What happened?” So I am going to fill ya’ll in on it all now. I want everyone to remember, I have said many times that I would not lie or cover up any thing that I go through. So, I don’t want any one freaking out over this all and telling me to come home. I am not coming home. I am staying here and doing my job. What I am going to relate to you happens every day here. I have just been very lucky that my convoys have only had rocks thrown at them, till yesterday. Having said that, I will tell ya’ll all that has happened, starting from leaving TQ last week.
TQ is near Fallujah. I chose the mission. I had not been there and wanted to go. As you all know, I am a tourist, that happens to drive a truck in a war zone for fun. (I hope ya’ll are laughing at that.) Our trip from Anaconda to TQ was uneventful for the most part. I had a few problems with he CC of the flatbed convoy that we were running with, but from what I hear, everyone does. Anyway, we got to TQ and dropped our trailers. The flatbed convoy left the morning after we got there and I couldn’t leave till later, so that left me trying to find escorts back to Anaconda. I talked to the Marines and they said that they could escort us out that night. I let them know that we had to stop at Camp Fallujah to drop off some ice there. The escorts didn’t have a problem with that. We met them that evening and got started around dark. About 10k outside the wire, the escorts stopped and killed their lights. they told us to do the same. Then we saw and heard the choppers do their thing. They lit up this “field” (for lack of a better word) bigger then shit. Pardon my language. But it was awesome. I bet they put 8 to 12 rounds into that area. Blew the hell out of what ever was out there. Then, we started rolling again. We pulled into Camp Fallujah around midnight and went to bed.
The next morning, we got up and started trying to find some equipment to get the ice trans loaded onto the storage trailer there. It was that afternoon before we were able to get started on it. The temp was up around 118, and I am so glad that I work in reefers and not flatbeds. At least we could stay cool while we moved the ice. It took us about an hour to get it all transferred. When we were through, I told Tracy, one of my drivers, to leave his unit running and go park back in the staging area. I then went and told our escorts that the unit was on and they could crawl up in there and grab themselves a good nap before we had to pull out that evening. The word must have gotten around, because, I think at one time that afternoon there were about 30 troops in that trailer, either sleeping, reading or just trying to stay cool. I guess that is one benefit to pulling a reefer. You get the chance to make a few troops day a little bit easier and not have to really work at it. All 4 of us were glad that we could offer that to the escorts. It really made me feel good and I know that they enjoyed it.
The rest of the trip was uneventful. We left that night and went to BIAP and sat there for a day and had to get new escorts. We then went on to Anaconda. As soon as I hit Anaconda, I had to put another convoy together and make a run to Taji. We were out and back in 1 day again. I got rocked on that trip on our way back into Anaconda. No biggie on that one, I am getting used to it. When I got back to Anaconda, I was told that we should not have dropped the trailers at TQ and were going to have to go back to get them. When I left out I had asked if we were dropping them of trans loading the ice. My supervisor, didn’t know and said that we may end up bob tailing back. Once I got back, he didn’t remember saying that. Oh well. I really didn’t mind coming back out here. This camp sits next to a lake and I missed out on getting to swim last time because I didn’t have my swimming gear with me. I was planning on getting wet while here this time. But again I miss out. The lake is now off limits for a while. Several of the troops have gotten sick and until they rule out the lake, we can’t go in the water.
Back to the story. I grabbed 2 guys to come out here with me and went to work on making sure that we were going to get escorts. Reefers sometimes gets forgotten, so ya have to make sure the right people know the you are going out so they can get you the escorts and shooters. I got to sit in Anaconda the next day. That didn’t hurt my feeling any at all. I kind of have a new boyfriend and we were able to spend some time together. He is a CC as well and with both of us being CC’s we are never on the same convoy. So we keep in touch and try to meet up when even we can. Again we ran with the military flatbeds and some KBR flats. It was a mess from he start. The military had an air problem that delayed us, then MCT wouldn’t let us leave. They made us wait for about half an hour. When we finally did get rolling, we got caught in a traffic jam around what we call the meat market area. That area is a dangerous area. I again, for the second day in a row, got rocked. At least this time the person throwing the rocks didn’t have a good aim. They missed my windshield and just hit the truck. Then we got on down to the Baghdad area. Now here is when the real fun starts.
We were told the night before that we would be going a new route. Policy is that there be at least 1 person in the convoy that knows that route and has run it. The Lieutenant said that the second truck knew the route. Come to find out, no one knew the route and we got lost in Baghdad. We made several u-turns and I was so confused that I didn’t even know where we were or how to get back the way we came. I didn’t even realized for sure that we were on a road that I have traveled many times till I saw the Mosk. After several u-turns, the escorts decide that we are going to go to BIAP and either cut through there or get directions or something. I really didn’t catch what was said about that. I was like all the other KBR drivers and just wanted to get some place safe and sort it all out there. We were doing to many u-turns and all for us to stay safe for very long.
Then I hear on the radio that we are taking fire from the left. Then one of the flatbed drivers says that he is loosing power and his truck has been hit. I and my 2 drivers were at the back of the convoy behind the flatbeds bobtail. The is usually where we ride when we ride with them. The flatbed’s bobtail stopped to pick up their driver and I led the rest of the convoy on around them. I heard the shots, but none hit me or my drivers or our trucks. The bobtail and the last gun truck caught back up with us and let us know that the driver he picked up was OK and unharmed. Then the escorts missed the turn for BIAP. We had to make yet another u-turn. But this time, everyone was gassing on it and me and everyone behind me got left behind a bit. I could have caught up to them before the front part of the convoy got out of site, but I couldn’t leave my guys back there.
I tried to stay where I could see the truck that was in front of me and my guys behind me. That wasn’t easy. I had to plow my way thought and intersection and tell the guys to do the same. Luckily we all made it thought without hitting anything. I had to radio to the CC of the flatbeds that I had lost site of them and was going to need help. I was so turned around I did know where I was or what exit they were taking. They did slow down and give us a chance to get caught up. We made our turn for BIAP and finally pulled through the main gate. The Lieutenant didn’t know that we had taken fire or that we left a truck and that it was on fire. She had taken fire and in my opinion, was to busy reporting it to make sure that the rest of the convoy made it through the fire zone OK. I have all this on video and will send it to some of you if you want to see and hear what went on. It was wild and got me all fired up. I really can’t say that I got scared when I heard that the convoy was taking fire. All I could think about was getting my guys through it and hope that nobody else would get hit. Then I was pissed.
When we rolled through the gates of BIAP, I was steaming. I called my supervisor and told him that I was going to pull my guys off the convoy and we would find other escorts out to TQ. He told me to go calm down for a minuet and call him back and let him know what we were going to do. But “don’t do anything crazy” he said. The convoy went to the staging area and we all got together and had a little talk. I told the Lieutenant that if there was not someone on this convoy that knew that way FOR SURE, that I was going to pull my guys and we would find other escorts. he just looked at me and didn’t say a word. This was my second time out to TQ and I didn’t know the way. The CC for the flatbeds said that he knew that way. He promised me that he could get us there. He said that he has run this many times and we would not be getting lost again. By that time, I was even more pissed off. I had it in my mind to pull the guys. I called Rick, my supervisor and told him that I was going to pull them. He said that he had talked to the foreman of the flatbeds and assured me that Shawn, the flatbed CC, knew the way and he wanted me to go ahead and roll with them. I wasn’t sure about it, but we rolled with them. The rest of the trip was a calm ride for the most part. The military had 3 flats on the same truck and we had to sit on the road while they changed them. Several of the drivers wanted to leave the trailer the second time we stopped so the they could change the 2 flat tires they had on it. But that was not what we did. They changed the flats and we rolled. What should have been at most a 6 hour trip, became a 11 hour trip. It was a long day yesterday. But at least everyone is all in one piece and OK.
I did not leave this morning with them going back to Anaconda. That wasn’t all my decision. The camp manager wanted to email a few people about the trailers and see if he could get approval to keep them. So I told him he could have the time to do that and that I would get the Marines to escort us out tonight or tomorrow. I didn’t really want to run back with them, so this works out just fine for me and my guys. Right now it doesn’t look like we are going to get out of here tonight. I am hoping that we will tomorrow or tomorrow night. I have to go back in and check with MCT to see what the Marines have come up with. As a matter of fact, I need to get that done now. So, I am going to end this here for now. I know that I have told ya’ll enough for now and that I am going to get several emails about what happened and all. That is OK. I know that ya’ll are going to be excited about it all and some may ask me to come home. As I said in the beginning of this email, I am not coming home. I am staying here and doing my job just like the other 100′s of driver that have been shot at. If we all left just because our convoy was hit, there wouldn’t be any drivers over here to help the military. We all have to do our part. Many may come over here for the money in the beginning, but after a while, it is a sense of duty. I know ya’ll may not understand it, and that is fine. Just know, I am doing what I want to do and what makes me happy. I believe in this and will continue to do my small part to try and make the world a better place for all our children to live in.
