Laundry

21 April 2006

Hello from Fallujah,

LAUNDRY

I think laundry is often an overlooked, rote chore that most would take for granted.  There are no washing machines per se here in Iraq.  One must decide upon two choices for having their laundry done.  Gone are the days of a scrub brush in the deep sink, as laundry was once accomplished in the field.  We are much more high tech now.

The first choice is to take your mesh bag of weekly soiled clothes to the Army’s Laundering facility.  In true military fashion, your dirty skivvies are sorted, inventoried, separated, and then summarily dumped back into the mesh bag, where they are unceremoniously dumped with ten or more other mesh bags into one giant washing machine.  When done with the wash, the bags are transferred to the dryer.  From there they are sent to alphabetized bins awaiting their retrieval by their owners the next day.  This process is accomplished by no less than 15 or 20 Army soldiers.  Not that I am ungrateful or denigrating, but I would be personally disappointed to realize that my contribution to the Global War on Terrorism and Operation Iraqi Freedom was the laundry detail for a year.  I feel for those soldiers.  And I question the cleanliness of my laundry using this method. I can’t imagine how clean they can get when the clothes are bunched together in a mesh bag.  This facility was my first choice upon arrival because it was near where I live.  The clothes I got back looked smaller, like they were shrunk, but I think it was the process that simply bunched it all together giving each piece of clothing accordion wrinkles.

The second choice is the much preferred by those veterans that have been here awhile.  Kellogg-Brown & Root (KBR) is one of the main contractors for the military in Iraq and Kuwait. They provide much of the material facilities and services for us.  My understanding is that their laundry service actually washes each individual’s clothes separately and then folds them for you.  I can’t attest to this yet, having only been here a few days, but KBR will be my next choice when it is time for some clean skivvies.

So, when you next do a load of laundry, think of the poor soldiers that are trained to fight, and then sent to Iraq to wash and dry thousands of bags a month. Ah well, I appreciate them anyway, even if it isn’t glorious.

Until next time,

Rog