From: Michael Mabee
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 11:45 AM
Subject: 23 February 2004 FRG Update

167th, 888th, 323rd & 283rd Families:

All four of the units are here with us in Kuwait. First of all,
everybody is doing well. Today it is cooler (was actually quite chilly
this morning) and there is a lot of wind and sand blowing around. It
isn't a full-blown sand storm, but most people are wearing their goggles
when they walk to the chow hall.

This camp is very busy. There are thousands of troops here from many
different countries, so the troops have to wait in line for the PX, chow
hall and other facilities. The phones had been down for a few days, they
are back up now, but there are only 20 phones (15 work) for some 8000+
troops. Please do not expect that all soldiers will be able to call home
or email while they are here in Kuwait. The soldiers are required to
"make an appointment" the day before for Internet access and that does
not always work depending on what we are doing. Expect that phone or
email contact will be infrequent or possible not at all while we are
here in Kuwait. If you are lucky enough to get a call or email, the main
complaints you are likely to hear from your soldiers would be about the
lines and access to phones.

The food here is good. It ain't the Outback Steak House, but they serve
4 meals a day (a late evening meal in addition to the standard meals)
and there is always fresh fruit, salad bar, juices and a variety of
deserts. The menu has been varied, things like meat loaf, chicken,
steaks, pasta, etc. Having been on another wartime deployment, I can
tell you from experience that the food here is better than I had in
Desert Shield/Desert Storm (a lot of MREs - more than I care to
remember!)

We still do not have our APO address yet for our final destination. The
minute I get it, I will forward it back through the FRG. It would be
best not to "guess" or go by rumored APO addresses until we confirm what
the APO address is. Your mail is likely to be delayed substantially or
lost. I am hoping that we will know what the APO is soon, just hang in
there.

What we are doing in Kuwait. The four units arrived at different times,
so they are in various stages of preparation. What we are doing is
receiving our equipment from the ports (for equipment that came by
ship), preparing our equipment for the move north and going through
various mandatory training including weapons training and convoy
training.

The soldiers are all living in tents here in Kuwait. The tents have air
conditioning and heaters. Again, a huge improvement over the last war
when the tents were always either too hot or too cold. These tents all
have floors (plywood mostly) and are quite comfortable. It's hard living
out of our duffel bags and ruck sacks, but this is all just temporary.
Here we have "shower trailers" (like a small mobile home with sinks and
shower stalls built in) and porta-johns. We are not big fans of the
showers - but, at least we do have them and soldiers can take a shower
every day. Sometimes the water is even warm.

The weather here this season is anybody's guess. For the last few days
it has been chilly at night and then up in the 80's during the day, then
today it is overcast, windy and cool. Some of the troops were playing
volley ball for PT (physical training) yesterday, but the wind kept
blowing the ball out of bounds.

The living conditions where we are going (167th, 323rd and 283rd will be
in the same place) are significantly better than we have here in Kuwait.
The soldiers from these three units will be living in buildings (instead
of tents) and access to phones, email, PX, MWR facilities (such as a
gym, satellite TV room, recreational and sports equipment) and mail will
be significantly better when we get to our final destination.

We are with soldiers from many different countries. Today at chow, I was
sitting in between Hungarian and El Salvadoran soldiers. I've seen
Japanese, Hounduran, Phillipino, Italian just to name a few. There are a
lot of countries helping out now.

I'm going to close this now, I will do my best to send updates from time
to time. We have a lot going on, so please be patient with us as far as
updates while we are here in Kuwait. The main thing to remember is that
everybody is well, getting fed and getting the best possible training.

"Granite 7"

Michael Mabee
Command Sergeant Major
167th Corps Support Group
Tikrit, Iraq