We've added another letter writer.....yes another Dan

8-31-07

Hello Mr. Cianciola,

I spoke with you once before and decided to compose an email for you, and maybe the listeners.As you know I am a Racine native, and have been in the active Army for 2 years. i serve in the active army, so this is my life everyday. i never left the state of Wisconsin, except to Great America, before leaving for basic training I leave for Iraq, for my second tour, on Sept. 26. I was reading the letters from Dan Lyon, and decided to tell you a little about what i went through over there. I am a wheeled vehicle mechanic, i work on the Humvee's, which is actually HMMWV, it stands for highly mobile, multi wheeled vehicle, i don't know if many listeners would know that. i work on the HEMTT's, which stand for heavy expanded mobilty tactical truck, and PLS's, paletized load system, and the LHS's, load handling systems. and it gives me a great sense of pride, because all of the heavy equipment, minus the hmmwv's are made in Oshkosh, WI. there is only one other guy in my company from wisconsin, so we have to hold our own. he is from Lomira, WI by the way. we had many missions in which we had to recover burned down, blown up, or simply broken equipment. sometimes all that was left was a frame and chassis., but had to still be recovered. i will send some photos of the trucks.all of the soldiers made it out of the vehicles and were not harmed. we had no food service, we had MRE's, meal ready to eat, and UGR's not sure what it stands for, but its a platoon sized ration, tastes just as bad as the mre's.i told my dad when i was about to come back the last time, the only thing i was looking forward to was a gallon of fresh, cold Wisconsin milk.i've had milk in kuwait, and it comes in a shelf stable carton over there in iraq, and none was even close to deserving the right to be called milk.my dad was shocked at my request.he thought of all the things i could have when i got back, and all i wanted was milk.all our water was purified at a different base, then brought in by truck, and distributed in water tanks to be heated and pumped into the shower trailers we built.of course we had port-a-johns, or as we called then blue canoes. which had to be pulled out, and burned. many have saw the movie Jarhead, and that's what really happens. you mess up, you will pay, with a crummy job. i am getting ready for a 15 month tour, and can only imagine what i'm going to encounter. we have been briefed on it, but i can't go into detail about it. we will be south of baghdad. last time we were north of baghdad, and in early august it hit 146 degrees, and we have pictures of the thermostat. so i can imagine, it is gonna be hotter than my last deployment.

i will continue to write, and let you know the hardships i encounter along the way.

Best wishes to all,

SPC)specialist Dan DeHahn

101st ABN DIV (AA) airborne division (air assault)