July 24, 2008

Graham Gill, a former Navy All-American and midfielder for the MLL's Los Angeles Riptide, corresponds with LMO's Corey McLaughlin from a naval base in Iraq. Keep tabs on Gill's travels with weekly updates every Thursday.

For more on the series or to send comments to Gill, contact Corey McLaughlin at corey.mclaughlin@gmail.com.

So I just read the write-up from the LA vs. Chicago game, and needless to say, it's a little disappointing.

Every game is important throughout our season, and in the Western Conference it seems like they are all rivalry games. You feel every hit a little more, each check takes its toll, and every play is a huge one. After walking off the field following a game against a conference team, it takes just a little more time to recover, especially after a loss. Every time each one of us takes the field, we truly believe that we are going to win. We wouldn't be out here if we didn't. That makes every loss hard to take.

Not being with the team makes reading about a loss especially hard, because I always wonder if I could have helped the team play better. It seems like Chicago played a really tough game, especially coming back the way they did. Reading about them is a little bit scary. They are extremely young and incredibly talented with some great leadership on the field as well. It will be awesome to play against them again, hopefully next year.

Things out here are going pretty well. This week, being the junior guy on my crew is paying off. My crew, combat aircrew 8 (commonly referred to as America's Crew), has duty, which means it's our turn to help out with the admin work around the squadron. Being so new, the squadron sees it fit for me to get more experience in the plane, therefore I am getting to fly all week instead of doing the work on the ground. Not saying that the work they are doing isn't important, but it's almost like going to practice and running ground ball drills all day instead of just scrimmaging or running odd-man breaks.

So I saw my first camel spider this week, and it was awesome. These things apparently get to be the size of your hand or bigger. The one that I saw was only a baby, but he was quick. I'm saying this dude must have been the Kyle Harrison of spiders. I was trying to take a picture of thing, and before I could get him in the frame, it was almost climbing up my shoe. I jumped back and ran to a safe distance. Let me remind you, this one was a baby; the body was maybe a little bigger than the size of a silver dollar. Here is a link to a site if you are interested: http://www.camelspiders.net. These spiders are ridiculous!

After last week's blog, I have been the recipient of a lot of sarcastic comments and jokes from my fellow Golden Eagles of VP-9. They are waiting for more ammunition to fire at me for my exploits as an Internet blogger. Hopefully this week's edition is more enjoyable for everyone, AND STUFF.

July 15, 2008 - Graham Gill Blogs from Iraq