2 posts tagged “iraq”
I just finished uploading all the pictures I took during my tour of Iraq in 2003 and 2004
to my Flickr account. Actually, it's not technically ALL of them; there
were quite a few I had to refrain from posting due to Geneva
Conventions laws and operational security. I've dealt enough with the
guys in Army Public Affairs (hi, sirs!) to be careful what I post.
There's a lot of crap pictures, but there's also a ton of really good photos of Saddam's palace in Tikrit, a gigantic mushroom cloud after engineers blew up over 600 mortar rounds at once, two Iraqis showing off their donkey, and more.
I never considered myself much of a smoker, but I developed a pack-a-day habit while I was deployed to Iraq in late 2003 and early 2004 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I didn't really enjoy smoking, but I found that it took the edge off after mortar attacks or IED incidents in a way that nothing else could. It was also a great way to pass the time in a place where the days drone on and on as if they will never end. I think I also took up smoking as a result of all the pressures that were being put on me by my chain of command as it related to my blogging from the combat zone. Yes, milbloggers are rampant today and it seems like every soldier has a blog, but I was the first one to do it back then, and thus faced a lot of problems with commanders and officers who didn't really understand what I was doing and simply wanted to force me to quit. It wasn't until my interview on CBS Evening News that anyone really got the concept that what I was doing was actually a good thing.
I was able to kick the smoking habit immediately upon coming home from Iraq. I never liked it in the first place and thus was able to stop without even trying.
Smokeless tobacco, however, has been a lot tougher. I think I was able to quit smoking because I had started dipping, and therefore was getting my nicotine fix in a much less disgusting manner. Or, so I thought at the time.
It's been two years since I started dipping, and I'm ready to quit. I've been able to quit for short periods of time before, but I always turn back to it. I'm sick and tired of the taste, I'm tired of the burning and pain in my lips, and I'm ready to be done with it. I went to the store tonight with every intention of buying another roll of Grizzly, but walked out without it. I'm done. I'm gonna kick this thing, no matter what.
Sunflower seeds are a great placebo for tobacco products, by the way.
