Joe made it to Iraq

Per my girl, Christy (after getting Joe's okay to publish-- routes are quite variable, apparently):

On Sunday June 8 he left on a flight out of Providence on an evening flight and arrived in Norfolk, VA. He spent a week there trying to amuse himself since they didn't know what to do with a Marine who was already trained for a war zone.

Then on Saturday June 14 he flew out of Norfolk and to Ft. Benning in GA. Again, he spent several days sitting around while the rest of the people with him got all of their shots, etc. He got small pox and anthrax, but everything else had been done in Newport before he left. He said by Wednesday and Thursday he was able to go to the rifle range and shoot and get some other things done so he wasn't as bored.

Then Friday June 20 he left Ft. Benning around 6pm. While in route he couldn't tell me where he was, but he flew through Bangor, Maine to Germany and then on to Kuwait. He was able to call me at each stop, but I had to guess where he was and couldn't confirm or deny!

He arrived in Kuwait about 6pm on Saturday (which is about 11am Saturday east coast time). He had heard that people get to Kuwait and can sit from 2 days to 2 weeks before they get them into Kuwait. Luckily after only 14 hours on the ground in Kuwait he got a flight into Baghdad and called to let me know he was safely there.

He's extremely exhausted after about 48 hours of travel and no sleep and he's not in her permanent "residence" (i.e. trailer) yet. He said he's in a dirty transient tent with bad a/c and it was about 110 degrees. (This was about 7:30 am east cost time so 2:30 pm there.) He said he was going to dinner with the guy he's replacing in order to start getting oriented.