How It All Started

Sometime in July 2003, I was going home after work and got a phone call from Vinnell Company by a person by the name of Glenn.` He asked me if I would be willing to go to Iraq. He said the job would consist in building the new Iraqi Army. He advised me that he got my information off MilitaryHire.com (which just a few months before I had put my resume on their web site).

My answer was “how soon do you need me?” His reply was “this weekend”. This was on a Tuesday and he wanted me to fly up to Virginia on Friday for a Saturday introduction. I made it!! We did our introduction, signed contracts and did our paperwork and headed back home on Sunday. I had two weeks to get ready for my first meeting at Ft. Benning. Georgia.

While there we continued our training, which lasted about ten days, then we headed to the Atlanta airport and flew to London, then to Kuwait. We stayed in Kuwait at a fancy hotel for three days while the personnel arranged our flight into Iraq. When it is time to go, we went to the military airstrip in Kuwait. There we boarded a C-130 aircraft with baggage and personnel all packed in the aircraft, and it was very hot!

After a few hours in the air, we started our decent into Anaconda. That place was known as Bald, Iraq. Here we met up with an Army convoy to escort us to Camp Caldwell (sometimes called Kirkush, near the Iran border).