A Soldier's Journey: Michael Mundell

Dear loved ones, family and friends,
This will be short, as time is short on here. A short guide to what is going on for me:

I get up at 5 or so and we usually have some sort of combat op with the IA ... almost every day, sometimes twice a day. For those of you who heard me say that it would be fun to be in combat, well, I lied. I am getting rather tired of it. I have constant planning and briefing sessions with the IA, plus getting woken with alerts throughout the night from "Celtic'" (the Marines near us) and "Alamo" (my brigade). All in all folks, I am tired physically and frankly tired mentally—I am getting shot at daily (yesterday was one mortar round, landed way short—a cause for celebration) and the fun has worn off. Intell says Sheik Abdullah somebody is planning to hit one of our three bases, so we are prepping the walls. Sorry I am not being too funny today—there is relatively little to be funny about.
Mike 

Still Tired
8/27/06  9:25 AM

Dear Everyone
This will be short, as time is very short, as usual.

The happenings of late: we continue to get mortared, with an occasional RPG shot at us thrown in for fun. The last one was funny, as not only did they miss the gun tower, they missed the whole base.

A little girl was killed yesterday in a cross fire between our Iraqis, the Marines and the bad guys. Sad.

Folks, I am very tired. We seem to be doing little, the city is mostly trash, rubble ... and frankly I am tired of being a walking bullseye for anyone with an AK and nothing better to do, which includes most of the populace, apparently. We have found three IEDs before they could explode under our trucks. Sorry this isn't funny or upbeat—there is nothing very funny or upbeat to talk about right now. People are dying like flies here and I am sick of it.
Mike