Sailor Harry goes to Freedom Rest

So the Army has places set around Iraq called Freedom Rest. Long explanation short, it's a place where troops can go a take a 3-day break. No set times or requirements, just 3 full days of do what you want, when you want. The small compound, (and I do mean small), came complete with a pool and 3 jacuzzies, 24-hour kitchen, plenty of computers, pool tables, and plenty of phones to call home. Let me start with the good, before I begin to ramble and rant.

The 24-hour kitchen was by far the best part of my stay. Being able to go into the area and grab a cup of coffee and a snack at 3AM if I wanted to was pretty sweet. The fact that the staff wanted the experience to be al a carte, where you ordered what you wanted instead of going into a chow line, was a brilliant idea as well. The pool was good, but I used the area to work on a tan more tan the pool itself. With the lack of a filter and no heater, surprisingly the water was freezing. Being in Iraq, I had no need of a jacuzzi. Calling home on something besides a sat phone, with constant drop-outs, was a nice change.

Now I have to critique, becuase this place was far from being perfect. To me, you go to places like this to "get away" from it all, and that's what the aim of the place is. Yet, it felt as though we were more confined to the place. Once you check in, you're there for the 3 full days. Guy tried to leave early, they wouldn't let him, even with his unit there to pick him up. With limited activities, it's easy to get bored. Normally, this wouldn't be too much of an issue, but this is the biggest issue I had with the place. While at Speicher, I have my own room, complete with couch, nice size HDTV, Xbox 360, desk, and best of all, more privacy then I would ever had had compared to being back on a ship. How is this place "relaxing" when you expect putting 4 guys into one room, to have no issue with that? Either get more space or take less people. It also doesn't help if one of your roomates has no problem waking up at 0530, moving his crap around, and slowly opening and closing doors, while bright lights shine into all of our eyes.

Another problem with the rooms was the fact that before I came there, I never had the issue that most do with sand fleas. These little, tiny bastards, get at you while you sleep and do what fleas do. It's not that we're unhygenic. It's the fact that we're in the desert and sand and dust gets into everything. The dinky bunk beds they had for us must have had them, because we were all harrassed.

There were other issues and I'm not paid to write reviews, so I'm not going to say much more. What I will add is this. I was hopeing to finally get a decent steak while I was there. After assuarances by the staff, I orderd a couple grilled steaks, and I orderd them all rare. What I got was steaks worst than what I would get at a normal DFAC. Harry was not amused, especially by the Ethiopian waiter smiling and nodding his head as if he understood English.

(I really had nothing to post, and this has been the only thing that has really happend in the last couple weeks. The picture has really nothing to do with this. I just woke up, leave me alone.