25Dec11 Last Iraq Post

25Dec11 Last Iraq Post

I've not posted in a few months now. There's a reason as I've left
Iraq and have moved on to Afghanistan. I really didn't think my
departure from Iraq would be so sudden as the Army made all
indications that there would be a presence after December. The
sticking point was the SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement). Iraq wanted
all US soldiers to fall under the Iraqi judicial system. That wasn't
going to happen so all US soldiers will be out of Iraq (except for
about 200 trainers) by 31 Dec. That directly affected my job.
So...one day in October I got a call saying that I had 5 days to
finish what I was doing and be out of Iraq by 31 Oct. Long story
short, I left and have moved on. It turns out that I probably could
have stayed. In fact there will be about 24,000 civilian contractors
that will continue to work in Iraq for the Department of State (yes,
24 thousand!) So remember that the next time someone tells you that
the US has 'pulled out of Iraq'. Anyway, above are some final pics
of my trip out of Iraq. In case you're interested. I'm now in
Afghanistan (cafghanistan.blogspot.com) So far I'm still trying to
get into a routine there so I've not been posting too much either.
But I'm still a contractor in the middle east.
R/Chris