Hello from Phoenix Academy, Iraq, Team Jedi salutes you...

Hello all and thanks for checking in.

Not much going on here at Camp Phoenix, unless you consider "death by PowerPoint" a happening thing. Much of what goes on here is classified, if I told you I would have to kill you. Just kidding. Many of us have a hard time staying awake, but notably its not any of us NCO's...

Anyway, I wanted to share something interesting I learned today. Anything I post, by the way, is disputable, and I welcome any corrections to what I post. Many Arabic people consider having lots of children a sign of wealth, much as we Americans might consider our daughters precious. Having said that, many Arabs names reflect their lineage. For example, my name would be Gregory Bernard Samuel Murrell, reflecting my first name, father and grandfather. Sadaam wanted to be different so he cut off the last name, keeping it short.

I lost my notebook today, so my notes may not be accurate. I know where it is, (not so lost huh) and will edit my post with my notes later...

Iraqis like nicknames apparently. My nickname would be "Abu Spencer," indicating I am the "father of Spencer." I found out later that I can use my oldest child for my nickname, even though it is preffered for a son, if there is a large enough age gap. So I decided that 3 1/2 years is a large enough gap and changed my nickname to "Abu Shelby." After reading this paragraph, I realized that I might need to elaborate more. Shelby is my daughter, who is older than my son. Typical of some Arab countries, sons are desired over daughters.

I invite those of you who are willing to do some homework for me, since I know the premise of the subject... The subject is United Nations Security Council Resolution, December 31, 2008. UNSCR, as it is called here, indicates the end of our right here to detain people. After that there is a need for a warrant and evidence when we detain people here in Iraq. Part of that involves the people that we already have detained... from the estimates I've heard, around 16 to 19 thousand people. This spills over to the amnesty issue of letting people free if they were involved in a non-deadly incident.

There will be more on that subject.

Ok, I'm gonna close this with a fun statistic. For you ford fans, we saw a photo today showing the number of deadlined non tactical pickups in a storage lot (deadlined means that it is basically broke down). The picture showed many pickups, there were 58 Ford Super Duties, and 3, yes 3, Chevrolet's deadlined.