Constructionman Michael Lippman is stationed in Djibouti with NMCB-74. He'll be checking in from time to time with his observations from Africa. (Mike's e-mail is cadetkeeper@aol.com)

14April2008

(via the phone): We have 4 war dogs here on the base.  It’s been very hot here so the dogs haven’t been out much. The dogs live in a kennel. There’s an exercise area behind the kennel with a chain link fence. The dogs were jumping up on the fence and getting cut up, so we were asked to build a block wall 6 courses high. Now the dogs jump up on the wall instead of the fence. Today we put up more concertina wire to keep the camels off the runway. They get in through breaks in the fence around the base. The wire keeps the camels out but still lets people in.

 

12April2008

Update: BUCN Lippman is healthy and back in Djibouti. Unfortunately, Microsoft automatically installed a faulty Vista update which froze his laptop. Microsoft technicians are not able to fix it so Mike won't be able to blog from his computer for a while.

 

22March2008

So go figure. I go to Africa and get hurt. I got hit really hard in the head by a 4x4 wood post while stacking wood. I got sent all over the place to get fixed. First I stayed in our EMF (medical facility) for 2 days. Then I flew to Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait. I stayed there for a few hours then hopped on an MH-60 Blackhawk and got flown to Camp Arifjan in southern Kuwait to get a CT scan of my head. From there I took a bus back to Ali Al Salem, slept a few hours, got put on a litter and got carried to a C-17 Globemaster. We went to Balad, Iraq to pick more people up, then we flew to Ramstein AB in Germany. Then I took a bus to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the huge hospital everyone goes to that gets injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. My injury caused me not to be able to stand up straight and walk in a straight line. Something happened to throw my balance off and that’s why the doctor I saw put me in the hospital for 4 days and drugged me out of my mind haha! After that, I got sent here to the MTD (Medical Transient Detachment) where people live that are healing up a bit more to get sent home or back down range. I’ve been here for about a week and I might have to stay till about the 1st or 2nd of April because I keep getting kicked off flight manifests, and there’s not enough flights to go back to Africa. Although this place is boring there is plenty to do if you look for it. Today I went on a trip to Trier, Germany's oldest city, and saw some Roman Empire stuff. The city was made by Constantine when he rolled up in here haha. There’s this Cathedral that claims to have the robe of Christ. There are pictures of it but they don’t let anyone see the real thing anymore for some reason. So now I’m just sitting here in Germany waiting for my liaison to tell me when I can go back... long story short, sometimes getting hurt isn’t such a bad thing HAHA!

 

 

20Feb2008

It gets hotter here by the day. Today (20FEB) was a red flag day, meaning anyone that has less than 12 weeks of hot weather training can't PT outside, and NMCB74, coming from the cold, couldn't pt during the day.  It rains at night ONLY and it never stays wet for long.  The galley is pretty much open 22 hours a day, and when it's closed for those 2 hours it's being cleaned. They have a regular line and a sandwich bar which is open all day and night except for 2-4 am to be cleaned.  They serve everything you can imagine at the galley. They serve steak nearly 3 times a week and it feels like it's almost every night. Tonight they had king crab legs.  In the refrigerators is water, milk, juices, yogurt, red bull, and gatorade, and yea its all free.

We finally moved into our CLUs (container living units). I'll have pictures up soon of the interior. It's pretty nice, better than the tents. The only thing wrong would be that the internet is terrible! It's about a mile walk to our COC (combat operations center, our office) which is 2 tents with a/c.  Currently I'm working on my SCW (Seabee Combat Warfare) qualification.  Its hard to explain, but it represents all of the combat and field training we do and shows that we know what to do in certain situations, and in combat.  More to come from Djibouti. See ya

 

 

8Feb2008  PHOTOS

Greetings from Djibouti. Just in case you are wondering, this base is just like a base that's in Iraq: its pretty big and full of contractors and officers. It's also full of lava rocks and dirt and wind. The camp is right on the Red Sea and has an airport next to it. We haven't done anything yet because we are still turning over with NMCB-40 (MNCB-74 is replacing NMCB-40), but sometime next week we will start things, hopefully. Right now we are living in tents with air conditioning and a few power outlets for us to use, There's a 3 tier Hesco barrier surrounding the base, with barbed wire and concertina wire on top. There's an 8 hour time difference so whenever I call home I wake people up (ha-ha). Hmm... anything else you want to know just ask and I'll figure out the answer. Bye-bye.