Letter & Picture from LTC Seiji Hayashi
From:seijihayashi28@hotmail.com
Date:1/21/2007 11:50:42 P.M. Pacific Standard Time
Subject: My New Address and Living Conditions in Zafraniyah
January 29, 2007
We finally moved. As you may recall, we moved from Fallujah Area, Al Anbar Province to South Baghdad. We are in a city called Zafraniyah. It is supposed to be ‘the quiet neighborhood’ of Baghdad area but we know it is because U.S. presence has been minimal here. There are deadly IEDs called EFP (Explosively Formed Penetrators) that punches through HMMWVs like hot knife through butter. Things will get heated up once the troop surge fully kicks off. Zafaraniya is very dirty with trash everywhere. With the recent rain, we were driving on sewage, trash and mud. The militia have infiltrated everywhere so we have to be on our highest alert outside and sometimes inside the wire
We are in a better living conditions with city power, generator, hot water and heat. It’s a lot less dusty here than on the OP. There is an American Forward Operating Base next door so we go there for support. We live on an Iraqi base and food is still a ‘fend for yourself’ deal.
I was finally able to get into my connex and open everybox. Thank you very much for all the boxes and support. We have plenty of pens now and I am sure you will be busy more than ever with the increase new troops to support. My team hooked up with a Logistics & Admin team and we combined forces and built up a pretty nice building with Internet, gym and AFN Satellite package. Huge difference from living on an OP
Seiji