Letter From Iraq #01

It’s almost two o’clock in the afternoon and it’s pushing 115°F outside, but instead I’m crammed into a C-130 aircraft with about 75 other people and the temperature in here is a lot warmer.  It doesn’t help that we all have to wear our flack vest and Kevlar helmet during landing to make sure that we are all safe as we approach the base runway.  The guy next to me looks like he might be sick during the landing.  Come to think of it I might be a little sick since this is the roughest landing I have ever had to endure.  But we land without incident and everyone is safe.  As soon as they open the back door of the aircraft we get out as soon as we can because even with the temperature as high as it is outside, it’s still cooler than inside the plane.

My name is SSgt John Ferderer and most of you know me from when I lived in New Salem with my parents, Dennis and Dina.  For those of you that I have not had the pleasure of making an acquaintance with since I have joined the Air Force, you may know my family from the death of my brother Specialist Dennis Ferderer Jr. who was killed while serving here in Iraq.  I am now serving on my first tour here in Iraq and thought that I would let the people of New Salem know what goes on here.

Before I left for this deployment I talked to a lot of people who asked me to keep in touch with them so that I could let them know that I was doing OK and that if I needed anything.  Well I figured that it would take me a really long time to email everybody and since I’m not the fastest at writing letters, putting a little article here in the New Salem Journal would be the easiest way to keep in touch with people.  Over the next six months I am going to try and send in an article to the Journal whenever I can.  Sometimes our communications go down and so it isn’t possible to get things out through email.

I have been here at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Diamondback in Mosul, Iraq for almost a week now.  The temperature is usually around 110°F during the day and it gets all the way down to a frigid 85°F at night.  You can see a layer of dirt, sand, and dust on everything.  This definitely isn’t a place for people who like things to be really clean.  On the other hand the rooms that military provides come equipped with air conditioning that keeps our sleeping quarters cool so we can’t complain.

There are many things that I would like to share with you all about life out here in the desert as a member of the military.  There are a lot of services available to us that many people don’t know about and it often leads to the opinion that the military doesn’t take care of their people.  During the next several months I plan on telling you all about those services and the daily of life of a military person.

For those of you who are interested in sending care packages please know that they are greatly appreciated.  Also, know that I won’t keep all of it for myself, but instead I will be passing it along to the other people that are here serving with me.  Some of the things that we really enjoy receiving are beef jerky, candy (that isn’t chocolate, because it will melt and make a huge mess), other snacks, and calling cards.  One of the things that we need the most that everyone can send without even going to the post office is your prayers.  We would like to thank you all for your support in advance since it is impossible for us to thank each one of you individually.  Care packages can be mailed to:

SSgt  Ferderer, John B.

F Co. 5-158 AVN

FOB Diamondback

APO, AE 09334

ATTN: Air Force Weather

Thanks again and have a Great Air Force Day.