It was three months ago today that I kissed my family goodbye and headed out to Fort Benning and from thence on to Al Asad Airbase in western Iraq for a six-month deployment as a doctor in the Troop Medical Clinic here. After consulting my personal mathematician, I have been informed that this means my deployment is halfway over.

Here is what we have learned during the past three months:

1. Barack Obama is still going to be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, and Hillary is still not happy about that.
2. The 2008 American Idol is not a Mormon, after all.
3. It is hot in Iraq.
4. It is dusty in Iraq.
5. I am reasonably safe here in Al Asad.
6. The LDS Church is the same here as it is in the states. Except quieter (no babies), shorter, and with a more heavily-armed congregation. (Strike that last one if you live in Georgia.)
7. Your faithful blogger is capable of approximately five entries per week, with an average of about two funny ones, two boringly-descriptive ones, and one sad one.

A few things you may not know:

1. I have lost 8 pounds since arriving here (172 baseline, down to 164). Although this is a not a bad thing, and my tummy has flattened out (ha HA, Peyton Manning!), I don’t want to lose any more—would rather convert some flubber into muscle.
2. The montly death rate in Iraq has quite clearly dropped over the past year. From icasualities.org, here are the monthly death rates from January through September 2007: Jan 83, Feb 81, Mar 81, Apr 104, May 126, Jun 101, Jul 79, Aug 84, Sep 65. Now look at the numbers since October, and you’ll notice a very obvious trend: Oct 38, Nov 37, Dec 23, Jan 40, Feb 29, Mar 39, Apr 52. In May of 2008, there were a total of 21 deaths of Multi-National-Forces soldiers, the lowest total in any months since the war started in March 2003. You may not hear that from the mainstream media, and there are politicians on both sides of the aisle who will suggest that the Petreaus surge is not working, but the numbers are fairly clear, at least to me. You can read more here.
3. I have received and accepted a new calling in church, though I still need to be interviewed, sustained, and set apart. Nothing huge, of course (our congregation is probably less than thirty members in total), but it will be nice to be more involved. I’ll give more details as things become official.
4. Lorri completed work on her book and will be submitting to an already-interested publisher this week. Cross your fingers!
5. I am considering heading to Qatar after all, possibly in July, my family permitting. Why the change of heart? Al Asad now has a direct flight from here to there, which takes a good deal of the hazard out of the trip. Still mulling it over, but if Lorri says okay, I may just do it.

Finally, a new running feature for the blog; I figured I would start this when I got closer to the halfway point. My “Erik Goes Home” clock on the side of my laptop currently looks like this:

Now, that takes into account the end-of-deployment date on my orders (31 August 2008), but the reality is that most of us end up being here a bit after that date, and there are about three days of travel time to get home (stops in Kuwait and Leipzig, Germany). But I’ll stick with 31 August until I hear otherwise. There is also a chance that the Army will extend my deployment, but we aren’t even gonna let that thought enter our minds at this point in time.