There is a lot of new infrastructure and much more normal daily activity. Overall, I am amazed at the night and day difference from this year compared to last year in the Al Anbar province. Of course we still have many more years of assistance to provide in order to establish a more stable environment. I do apologize for the mass e-mail, but we really do not have very much free time. Many of you inquired about our daily routine and we really do work on average of 15 hours a day. Our schedules are far from routine which makes it hit or miss for the chow hall. The food is great, the Marines just tend to work during the hours that they are open. The guys are outside the wire anywhere between 9 and 15 hours and spend another 2 to 4 hours cleaning their weapons and vehicles. We work all hours of the day or night depending on the mission and still manage to get about 7 hours of sleep on average. There are no weekends in Iraq. The enemy doesn't take any time off, so we don't either. While we are in Iraq, we work for 210 days straight with no days off. Some days the guys work 10 hours, other days they will work 20. Overall, the Marines work hard and I am impressed every day at how they are able to keep driving through the deployment while still maintaining great attitudes. The Marines are funny and mischievous and keep life in a great perspective. Receiving the packages from all of you only helps keep their morale higher.