Blog: Wrapping up Iraq visit

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Editor's note: PGA TOUR veteran Carl Paulson is making his second trip to visit the troops in Iraq this week. He filed four blogs about the trip for PGATOUR.COM.

Paulson blogs: First entry | Second entry | Third entry

We visited FOBs Adl, Taji, Rowand and Victory the last two days. This concludes our visits in Iraq.

Adl is a shopping mall in the heart of Baghdad. It is a very small post. We had a great turnout and got to spend a lot of time with all the soldiers there. Taji is a bigger FOB, and we also had good turnout there. After the clinic at Taji they took us to the range (see picture at left) to fire the M-4 machine guns. What a treat that was.

Thursday we went to Rowand in the morning. We hit balsl off the helipad over the wire and over Route Tampa (the main artery running north and south in Iraq). I like to think of myself as a pretty tough guy, but after our visit to Rowand, I am second-guessing that.

These great soldiers have the bare minimum to exist here. We spent five hours there, and I was worn out. It was 128 degrees, and not one time did we hear a soldier complain. It just makes me appreciate these men and women more for what they do for us.

That afternoon we made our last visit to Victory. The Blackhawks were running behind, so instead of a clinic we hung out at the MWR (recreation area for soldiers). We played Ping-Pong and talked about football, among other things. By the way, most of these guys are awesome at Ping-Pong.

We had a great trip. I want to thank Suzanne Strudwick, Jill McGill and Larry Laoretti for help making the trip great. We really had a good time. If any of the soldiers we saw read this, I hope you had as much fun as we did. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for what you do.

We will be making our way back to Kuwait today to start the long trip home. I will send you some pictures and a summary when I get home.

Until next time,

Carl